Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Episode 400 - Katarina Szulc - Cartels Infiltrating Canada and The Wide Open Northern Border

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

Katarina Szulc is an investigative journalist and the host of Borderland: Dispatches, a show delivering raw, on-the-ground reporting from the front lines of Mexico's cartel war. With a sharp lens on organized crime, corruption, and cross-border conflict, she brings listeners real-time snapshots of a rapidly evolving crisis that's reshaping both Mexico and the United States. Reporting from across North America—Mexico, the U.S., and Canada—she's known for her fearless fieldwork, unflinching interviews, and a relentless drive to uncover the stories that others won't touch.   Today's Sponsors:  Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com LMNT: https://www.drinklmnt.com/clearedhot  

Okay, got to red smoke. Oh, where's the smoke? Okay, Kathy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. If I got cooked yesterday, there would be people who'd be very happy about that. I've heard that you should never read the comments. What are your thoughts on that? I fully agree, and I don't, but I have people, friends, send me comments, which sucks,

and I'm always like, don't do it. But I've also gotten some really positive comments, which is nice. Are your comments generally more negative than positive? No. They're more positive than negatives, but the negative ones are like really deep. Like they hit they're not, it's not like, ha ha, ugly, dumb bitch. It's like, ha ha, I hope the cartel chops her head off and we can watch it live on Twitter. Today's episode is brought to you by Montana Knife Company.

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And check them out for yourself. or just click the link in the show notes. Back to the show. Okay. I mean, that is definitely a level of commitment to a negative comment that is beyond most people.

Yeah. Why do you think they say those things? Because I'm a woman reporting on something that's typically male-dominated and I'm critical about these topics. And I sometimes say controversial things or I talk about topics that are polarized and something that I started doing

that I didn't typically do before was I do kind of give my opinion on certain things. Which is fair. given that you are immersed in the stuff? I believe so too. And I still, my reporting is still like really, it's thorough. And for the most part, it's unbiased.

It's just a matter of when I'm talking about certain ways cartels run operations and government responses. Yeah, I'm going to have an opinion because I'm really well informed on a lot of it. So I can tell you this never worked historically. It's probably not going to work this time, which is opinion based, right? It's like, so.

But I think, yeah, there's a lot of reasons as to why I, yeah, I didn't thought about the ratio of men to women involved with the cartel. There's kind of be some women. Yeah, there's some. But also right now I have like a lot of visibility. Yeah. And I just think and I see a lot of the comments, the hate ones are like rooted in misogyny. And my dad has even said it.

He's like, fuck these people. They just don't like that you're. And especially because after Sean Ryan, I said my age. And people are like, what the hell does this 24 year old? girl know about this and she's definitely not actually going into those scenarios she's just saying that to sound cool and it's like bro if i was trying to say i like trying to sound cool i would probably tell everyone that i drive the exact white Lamborghini that they used in miami vice that's cool that would be dope exactly even though you would want to upgrade that to a more modern lambingney still white would be

cool but i want that one was it a Lamborghini was it a Ferrari was it a Ferrari no i think it was a Lamborghini. Can we search that? These are the things that Michael sits in the room for. First off, let's test Michael. Do you even know what Miami Vice is? I mean, I've heard of it. Sunny Crockett. Oh, he's not going to know that.

Really? I was just about to ask him where he thinks it takes place, but I feel like... That's a horrible question. I didn't ask it, though, because I stopped myself. I got a little bit ahead. Lamborghini... Cundit? It was?

Okay. I thought it was a Ferrari for some of it. No, because I also know that Jordan Bellford got a white Lamborghini. in honor. Yeah. Okay. Okay, I can connect those. What do the women do in the cartel?

I'm going to guess they're probably not the low-level muscle. Are they? You'd actually be surprised. Really? So, yeah. So obviously the majority are men, duh. But there are like women who play roles for the most part, like the significant women in the cartels are family members of the higher-level guys. and they're typically running operations for like money laundering.

Yeah, they kind of run like the financial side of it. So like a lot of the women in El Meno's family, the leader of the Halisco New Generation Cartel, were sanctioned or arrested or some of them even, not even on the radar, but for running the financial operations. But then I actually met a woman in Tijuana who had been there for years and years and was working as a posolera, which is someone who chops up bodies or like we'll chop off the finger, whatever,

to send for extortion and stuff like that. They have an actual person dedicated to do that? 100% because it has to be someone who can do that. Hmm. I wonder what the application process is like for that. So what I've heard is you go on LinkedIn and you basically just... Stop it right now. Stop it.

I mean, seriously, how do you even think that that maybe, you know what? maybe what I want to do with my life is carve people up. I don't think people grow up saying that that's what they want to do. I think that they just end up in a situation where that's what's making the money and they have the capacity to do it. And I can also, what I think sometimes is that especially for women in organized crime, you do achieve a level of power. I think a lot of them, once who are not family members of major cartels, were once victims

and felt a sense of power once they became the victimizer. And so it's kind of like the tables have turned, and you, as a woman, could lose a sense of humanity, become very jaded to an extent where you can do something that maybe your male counterpart wouldn't even be able to do the same way you are. This is a thing with female pimps too, or like madams, right?

And a lot of the sex trafficking in Mexico actually has female madame. So they're the ones working the girls, like running their living quarters, et cetera. And most of these women started off as human traffic, like sex workers too in the beginning. So yeah, I know to like the regular person, especially because we're not in that,

it's hard to fully grasp how someone could do it like on a moral, even like physical level. But it's very nuanced. so it's easy to understand if you look into it. Do you think a cartel could ever have a woman as the head of it? Would they ever allow that? Like if it was the wife or she was involved in running the financial side and for whatever reason the male member got arrested or killed,

would she ever be able to assume that role? I honestly don't think so. And it's because we haven't really seen it historically. I mean, like the one example where we see a woman as like portrayed as the head honcho was Griselda Blanco. But really Griselda Blanco wasn't even. running operations to the same extent that you see like el chapo, El Chappo, Mayo, El Meno, really like anyone from history,

Caro Quintero. So I just, no, I don't know. And I would like to dive deeper into that at some point in my reporting of just like, why can't or why hasn't a woman fully taken on the kingpin role in organized crime? and I'm sure that there's like a lot of actual psychological factors and also just like in terms of the hierarchy of how who gets to the top works but I don't know 100% for sure why or why not I feel like the cartels have some work to do reflexively or reflectively about diversity for diversity inclusion really I mean I don't think they're doing a good job we don't have enough female representation in the cartels clearly not I don't know you know some cartel members I don't think

I know any someone to need you to bring that up to them. You know, we're going to talk about this. And do you know what people are going to say? They're going to see, well, you know what? She is working for the cartels. People tell me this all the time that I'm on their payroll. Because you're allowed to essentially interface and report. Yeah.

To be honest, from an outsider, it does seem, it is a question as to why would the cartels, if they know who you are. And again, cartel, like, what are we talking? We're talking thousands of people, right? Yeah. Okay. So maybe cartels isn't the, People in organized crime.

People in organized crime or people involved these cartels. They know you are. You have a public persona. You report on these things. They do, in fact, it seems like, allow you to directly interface at a time. Why do you think they let you do that? Well, first of all, it's important to mention that a lot of the sources in organized crime that I locked down, it took a lot of time.

And it happened before I got the visibility that I'm getting now. I wasn't really public about it. For me, at first, this was something like, I'm very interested in this. I have always been interested in how organized crime groups operate and function. And then I want to get involved in it to see, like I want to get involved in the reporting of it to tell these stories and see where that can take me.

And obviously, well, it's led me here. But at the beginning, there wasn't this fear from them of like, oh my god we're literally talking to someone who goes on fox news first of all second of all i got a lot of nose like this is just a little pretext so i got a lot of people turned me down and i always say this but like if i get no like i will just go ask someone else like because someone will tell you yes right so i was like attacking like i'm like okay who the fuck is going to talk to me and then i when i first started actually reporting on what these guys were telling me, I really made sure to maintain their anonymity.

And it worked. And to this day, touch would, I have never had a source been revealed, whether that's in organized crime, in law enforcement, anywhere in between. Because that to me, that is life or death. Like people ask, they're like, are you scared, like, that they're going to kill you, whatever?

I'm like, the anonymity aspect is the life or death component. So if I don't maintain that and literally make that my top priority, then we're all fucked, everyone who spoke. So that, I do that. And I think that a lot of these people, they want to show or talk about what they're doing. Because typically, especially if operations are going good, these guys have to be extremely low key and run under the radar. But if they get the opportunity to talk about it in a way where they're not, who they are is not going to be revealed, it is flattering. It's a bit of an ego boost.

How do you think the people upstream of that feel, though? They get permission. So whoever I'm talking to is getting permission from that boss and this. So someone is telling them yes. But why would the cartel agree to that? Wouldn't they want to kind of operate in the shadows? Why would the cartel, why would El Chapo allow Kate El Casteo and Sean Penn to come to his literal house to talk to him about doing a documentary? I feel like he was a fan of Sean Penn.

I think he was a fan of Kate. Oh, were you being facetious? No, I, you know. He didn't give a fuck about Sean Penn. He was a huge fan of Kate because she played La Rina del Sur. She was in that talent. Listen, everything you just said,

I don't have a clue what it was. I'm sorry. She's a Mexican actress who, so in the show that she is in, I don't know if it's still running. She was basically the female queen pin that we talked about. And he was enamored by that character.

So he loved that. But again, you know, the head of the car, there's still people, right? And who's to say the head, you know, El Chapo, not be starstruck by Sean Penn. I don't know. Yeah, but like he was starstruck by Kate. That's what I'm saying. So it was definitely her, but even him, right, he's running a multi, who even knows how many zero is associated with his illicit business. And it's still starstruck

by an actress. And so it's like, hey, come on into the house and we'll have a little chat. Yeah. And I'll bring your buddy Sean Petty. He's kind of a dork, but whatever. And a lot of these guys, in order to get to these high levels of positions that they're in, they have big egos. Like, they're very confident in themselves. And I'm actually not saying that is a bad thing because I think like really believing in yourself to that extent is important and I think a lot of people lack it. In that world where a lot of the currency is violence, that ego, that machismo is going to actually help you a little bit. You can take it too far. Yes, which is what ends up happening. How these guys get caught, honeypot, you name it. But I think that

that ego component is also what pushes them to have this curiosity to speak with people like me to kind of be like, look what I'm doing and I'm not getting caught. Catch me if you can. I'm on the FBI's most wanted list and I'm free and I'm worth more money than most people will ever see

in their entire lifetime. So I think that's a part of it. And also, I talked about this on Sean Ryan, but I'm unalarming because I'm a young woman. I'm not Mexican. And I'm typically speaking with people in organized crime that are with the cartels

so they are Mexican. And I've obviously spoken with people in Canadian organized crime that are not. That's literally very diverse. So they keep it diverse. I don't know if you've heard this from the official Canadian authorities, but there is no organized crime. We may or may not have talked about this recently with the ironclad stuff. Yeah. Oh, my goodness.

There is no fentanyl here north of the border. Less than 1% right. It's a crazy. I think they said 10 pounds. I think actually I think the official statement was we seized 10 pounds of fentanyl. I didn't see that. When was that? It was probably just a few days ago.

It was actually, I think it might have been in the campaign or no, it was when Trump was going to tariff Canada. Oh, yeah. And he was talking about the flow of fentanyl. And I believe Trudeau said last year we seized 10 pounds. He didn't say that that was the total throughput. They seized 10 pounds. And that was just kind of the entire statement, which leaves a little bit of room for how much did you not seize. What was the total amount trafficking through?

But, I mean, I've mentioned this to you before. on some of the shows we've done, the narrative is deeply, this is not occurring up here, this is not a problem up here. The cartels don't have a presence up here. It's wild. They almost make it seem like

there's no organized crime presence up there is the problem. And I've been wanting to talk about this because also a lot of people like question, well, you know, if the Canadian government is saying it, then why would they say this? Or like, why would they say something that's untrue?

Yeah, I know. Let's just, let's ask this rhetorical question to people. Do politicians always tell the truth? No. Okay, let's start there. Do they often lie for their own benefit or for partisan lines or what? Never. Yeah, it's like nobody should be shocked by a politician not telling the entire truth.

Particularly when it's coming from a federal government that doesn't have the resources to allocate to solving the problem. Do you think that's the biggest issue? They just don't know how to solve it? Yeah. And that's what I've been told by guys in law enforcement who operate in organized crime investigations in Canada across the country, too. Are they trying to tool it up? Is there any indication that they're trying to build capability to fight it? No.

I mean, okay, here's the thing. There are these sort of bilateral investigations or operations that go down with, like, DEA and this unit that I speak with in Canada to tackle organized crime stuff. But typically what's happening is these are operations that are set out by the DEA and then like Canadian enforcement is helping them achieve whatever the goal is. Sounds like a good job for JTF2. But I got some buddies who can do some work. They have a charter. It's one of the few. I mean, we couldn't do that here.

We could not unleash JSOC to work inside of the contiguous borders of the United States. Yeah. Canadian JTF2, a little bit of a different charter. Go get some. And these guys aren't, even though they're doing that, they're not setting out like massive operations to take on organized crime stuff that's happening in Canada. And it's important to keep in mind,

and I've been dying to talk about this, is that this isn't something new. Like I, yeah, I've just started talking about it and talking about fentanyl, but I think the reason my push to do that is because fentanyl is so deadly. And when I first started working as a journalist, well, my whole life,

but when I really locked in, my focus was on drugs in Vancouver because we have this huge problem. I've been to Skid Row there. East Hastings. Holy. I'm trying to, it was years ago. It's worse now. It got worse after COVID. Oh, I bet.

But I'm pretty sure it's one of those things. I didn't really pay attention to why we ended up there. And I think my buddy was taking me there specifically to show me. Mm-hmm. But, I mean, hard to describe. What would be a good Google search that Michael could pull this up? Because I'm sure there's a picture like down the road. You could literally just search up East Hastings.

Vancouver. East Hastings, Vancouver. I watched people openly shooting up smoking. I watched a guy inject a needle into his arm. Mm-hmm. Stand up with the needle still dangling. Walk across the street, which, by the way, was directly, by two police officers. Yeah, they won't do anything.

Go to the other side and then just finish shooting. I don't know why that person did that, but I'm just standing there in shock and awe as somebody just, he wasn't even holding the needle. He just his normal swing of the arms with a needle just dangling out of his vein, finished shooting up on the other side, tense every version of,

and I'm not an expert in any of this, but like psychosis, schizophrenia, watching people, first responders, narcanning people, and I was there for like 20 minutes and saw all of that in like 20 minutes.

Yeah, it's really harrowing place. And you're saying it's gotten worse from what I saw because it was definitely pre-COVID. So what happened was basically the BC government decriminalized public use of drugs and like having a certain amount of drugs on you. I don't remember the exact number. Oh boy.

Yeah, I see here you could. Even that first photo is great. The Vancouver's miles. That is about how many people were there. Yeah, it's packed. And I Not all of them are using But I

Totally anecdotally I would say 80% And completely consumer public facing Yeah so let's get into the Social construct of exactly What's going on there And then I'll kind of tell you Okay What

Go to the next one to over Literally the title is Vancouver is awesome That's the name of the publication Yeah Wow Can you click on that Michael make it bigger Yeah I have to go to the website

So, well, then go to the website. And do you know that like those apartment buildings that like a lot of people are using in front of like up top? You know, there's still like $2,500 a month for a one bedroom apartment. Stop it. I swear. So that Balmoral hotel is actually shut down. That was an SRO.

Wow. Yeah. I mean, slightly off topic, but how do you recover once that is your life? That is what, that's my first thought goes to. How do you turn your life around and get. out of that side. I mean, those people are deep in the trenches of addiction. So this is the thing, actually,

a lot of people that are there have fetal alcohol syndrome and also have CTE. That's what the, when you- Yeah, the brain, yeah. Because when I spoke to, there's this woman, I don't remember her name, but I spoke to her a few years ago and she's literally an expert on, this area is called the downtown East Side.

She's an expert on the downtown east side. She's an expert on tent cities, the hierarchy of them, drug use, whatever. And she said that most of the people here that are in the throes of addiction were born to addicted parents. So a lot of this is actually generational. So when you say, like, how do you get out of this? You fucking don't. Yeah, it sounds like you pass it on. I want to say a year ago or maybe two years ago, they put porta-potties up in this area.

And they found a fetus that was just like birthed into the porta potty. You've got to be kidding. It's really dark what goes on there. There's a lot of rape. There's a lot of kidnapping and torture. A lot of indigenous women go disappearing from here. Canada has a major problem of missing and murdered indigenous women. United States is no different.

We're actually surrounded by quite a few tribes here in Montana. And so this and a lot of the population here, There are a lot of indigenous people who are on these tastings that are like in addiction, homeless. So there's a lot that's going on. This is not just people waking up and doing drugs or like people who got peer pressure into trying crack. It goes very deep, right?

And so I have a lot of compassion for these people because it is no way to live. And unfortunately for some people who were, they call themselves weak in war. They were like using heroin when they would party or smoking meth every now and then. Just recreationally using meth. I know it sounds crazy, but I've heard it so many times that I know. I know anytime I tell someone for the first time, they're like, what the fuck? But there are a lot of people who considered themselves or did consider themselves at one point in time to be a weekend warrior. When fentanyl hit the streets like hard in 2018, I want to say around that time, all those weekend warriors became full-fledged addicts who

couldn't in any way maintain any sense of normalcy in their lives. So this whole situation on East Hastings just got worse. And then the BC government again allowed for like the open consumption. What was their reasoning behind that? I think it was like to prevent

unnecessary. Can we search it up because I don't actually know exactly. So Portland tried this to my... We had like the same model. with like the same safe consumption size and stuff like that. It was decriminalization. Yeah. And I'm not an expert in this.

I believe it was, there was a couple things. One, less law enforcement activity around nonviolent crimes. Two, they were going to attempt to maybe by decriminalizing, it would destigmatize it a bit and people would be willing to come to, same thing, like a needle swap, whatever it may be. But it made it worse. Well, Portland has switched. Yeah, so did we. So did D.C. It switched.

This is their reasoning. It was to address criminalization. Yeah, exactly. But they had to switch back, but no one who's actually doing it switched back. Like you can go walk down East Hastings right now. I mean, I was just there and everyone's using openly. This also became a problem because then like safe consumption sites where people can go and like legally use or inject whatever, we're getting put up by like kids playgrounds and

schools and then there would be needles and stuff. But then you have a lot of advocates saying like, well, they need to. go somewhere and be integrated into society. And it's like, yeah, but like at the cost of like a vulnerable young person's safety. So a lot of this policy is just like deeply flawed because it's also so new. Now, in terms of tackling organized crime, that shit. People ask me all the time. Why don't you talk about how decriminalization will work?

That's never going to work. Because let's talk about how this all started and this ties in the northern border. This whole scenario with trafficking from Canada to the U.S. and the Canadian OCG ties with cartels started before marijuana was legalized because we have this very notorious thing called BC Budd, some of the best marijuana in the world apparently coming from British Columbia. And so one of the gangs that is operating in Canada, the United Nations gang, don't get to confuse the actual United Nations. Not a bad name. Do they wear blue hats? I don't know if they wear blue hats, but it's because the guy who's

started the gang. He's this white guy. grew up around a lot of Asian people. We have a large Asian population in BC. And I guess like when they were at a meeting to kind of talk about, you know, operations, someone walked in and was like, this looks like the fucking United Nations. And so they stuck with. Yeah. So anyways, the United Nations started working with the Cinaloa cartel to traffic BC bud into the U.S. because. So they were the delivery mechanism the cartel was? Yeah. So I guess. I guess this is from what I know, this is how it was working, was obviously the United Nations were producing the BC bud.

And we saw, like, during this time, just, like, so many grow-ups everywhere. And then Cinelloa was receiving it or, like, buying it in the States and then distributing it through their networks across the United States. And this marijuana is very notorious. But then obviously, marijuana becomes legalized. So, yeah, we legalize it. But then you move on to something else. else. Like it's so when people talk to me about that, I'm like, okay, well, it doesn't matter. You

could make everything illegal. It doesn't cease to, or sorry, legal. It doesn't cease to stop a black market need for something else. Because then what are you going to do? You're going to make, I don't know, how far do you push the gauntlet? And the next thing, you know, like Oregon harvesting is like legalized. And then I just don't understand. It is interesting to watch. I mean, California in the U.S. was probably early on in this with the most states in the U.S. will go medicinal first and then recreational. It seems to be the way that they go. They'll open with California was a little bit of an early adopter and then the illegal grows there exploded. And I've talked to, you know, I've had a game wardens on and talking about the ridiculous

illegal grows, diverting waterways, chemicals that are so incredibly dangerous. that are just being sprayed all over, destroying the environment, all these things in a state where it was legal anyway. And then they lateral. Like it was interesting to watch and research a little bit on how the cartels have shifted or just the drug traffic, you know, the opioid crisis. That fueled black tar heroin coming across the border because that was, they were selling it for less than, you know, these pill mills started getting shut down. And they would just pull up into the parking lot of these prescription pill mills. Hey, you can't get your, your oxy or codone or cotton, which. whatever it is, like, here's some black tar hair.

And so they lateral to that, to meth, to fentanyl. I mean, they're not stupid. No, I always give credit where credit is due. And they run it like a Fortune 500 and they're very smart. They are responding to the market demand. 100%. Quickly. Yeah.

And then when we talk about that, a lot of people say, well, you need to cut off the demand. If you have people that have... Good luck with that. Yeah. And I mean, it's not that simple. It's not like the just say no type of thing. because if you're born to someone who was using drugs during their pregnancy, you have fetal alcohol syndrome, and then you grow up in a violent situation, you're, you know, getting hits to the head,

and now you have CTE. You are a living, walking, talking recipe for disaster. I mean, addiction hits those people harder than anyone else. And I'm addicted to smoking, cigarettes, okay, and I don't have CETA, I don't have fetal alcohol. I'm, what are we doing about this addiction? Typical person. Continue to smoke is the solution. No, no, I said, what are we doing about this addiction?

What do you mean? You've determined that you have an addiction. What are we going to deploy against this addiction? Absolutely nothing because I love it. What do you love about smoking? It's delish, okay? But listen, imagine those people. It tastes like sucking on a garbage can.

How is that deluge? To you. Okay, that's fair. One man's trash is another woman's treasure. I don't know if that's accurate, but I understand where you're going with it. And where I'm going with this is imagine me, someone who's neurotypical and has had a seemingly easy experience, like experiences over the course of my life, bad shit, but nothing compared to a lot of these people. And you're saying that like just make sure that they don't want it anymore. What is also designed to be addictive as well?

Exactly. And when my first ever interview that I did with someone who was in the throes of addiction and living on East Hastings Street, I was 12. I was in seventh grade and we had to do a report on like drugs. And I got assigned, I think it was meth. And everyone like did their slides. And I was like, you know what? What's the best way to deter people from using drugs? Go to talk to someone whose life was absolutely destroyed by it, right?

So I made my dad take me to downtown east side and walked down an alley. And there was this woman and no, we'll never forget her. And I was like, can we chat? And she's like, yeah, sure. And she was just about to shoot up. And I'm like, do you use meth? And she's like, yes. I'm like, look, I'm doing a school project on it.

I just want to talk about it. And it was supposed to be just like a, what was your first time using meth? Like, what has, how has this change your life type of thing? But it ended up turning into this really impactful conversation of just how much she had lost in her life that led her to use and how much more she lost. and I would love to know like what where she ended up what happened I'm assuming dead unfortunately yeah odds are not in her favor not at all um but at that point you realize like okay you make this stuff legal and accessible it's not gonna like what is that going to do and also then when they were handing out safe supplies so like they were giving people drugs that obviously wasn't going to cause you

to have like an overdose the dosage wasn't high enough people were still supplementing their safe with illicit drugs. And that takes us back to the marijuana thing. Yeah. Well, you can still illegally go and buy weed. Yeah. So it's just, it's just a lot of systematic failures in terms of trying to identify and deal with the crisis.

And it creates this shitstorm that allows these organized crime groups to absolutely thrive and make bank with very little repercussions, honestly. So the first time you heard about organized crime or you started digging into it was BC Budd being distributed. How has it grown since you've started to take a look at it? Because I am fascinated by the Canadian governments, just stalwart, this is not a problem, answer to this. Yeah, but I mean, they've been like that

because if they really wanted to address this head on, the fentanyl epidemic would have been declared a national crisis, I would say three years before it was declared one. there would have been way heavier crackdown on labs and organized crime activity that's going on and the people involved in it, but we're just not seeing that, okay? And when we do see some sort of seizure of fentanyl or some lab is cracked down on, the people responsible typically aren't spending much time at all in jail. I mean, I talk about this all the time that the Canadian legal system does not equal Canadian justice system

because I believe that there's a very profound lack of justice in Canada. And aside from that, you have this huge open border that everybody knows about, and that's been being used as this pathway since the whole B.C. Bud illegal B.C. bud trafficking. Nothing was done about that. Now, I think a really good point of reference to understand how far the cartel's infiltration of Canada has come is to talk about how I was sent these WhatsApp screenshots from a Canadian individual who was being recruited by the cartel to take out hits on local gangsters for the cartel for $55,000. With explicit instructions on to get the Glock, get this amount of magazines, no children around.

If you go to their house, make sure there's no family there. and then when I receive this in order to verify, I start going back into these sort of big cases, these gangland cases that have happened in this region where this individual was supposed to be operating and look at, I looked at these public murders of known gangsters in Canada. And you connect the dots.

And these hits were by the cartel to like, put on by the cartel or by a gang that is very openly operating with the cartels. Yeah, a proxy of the cartel. Yes. And so, but- Who are they targeting? Like, what kind of people are they targeting? They're adversaries, like other gang members.

Competition essentially. Yeah, competition. It's fighting for the territory, right? Or someone does someone dirty. A deal goes bad. And so when I first talked about this, people were like, why the fuck would they be hiring like these guys to take out the hits? wouldn't they just send their Mexican cartel people in there? No, of course not, because they want them

to be under the radar. But also, a shift that we've seen in the landscape of Canadian organized crime is actually trying to hire like these ex-boxers, ex-military, X something of like something that brings up the standard a little bit because the young bottom of the barrel guys that they were hiring to take out the kids, fucking sucked. There is a video. No, literally. When I was doing my first journalism internship and this was like my first murder

that I covered, there was two guys. I'm sorry for laughing because I do think someone died in this. I already think I know what this is going, just banging it out in the street and hitting nothing. No, no, it's worse. They show up to the restaurant. They fucking shoot up the restaurant.

I don't even think they killed the guy, to be honest. I think he got hit, but that was the extent of that. When Buddy runs back to the getaway car, the doors are locked and the driver is trying to like, and he's like trying to get into the car. Does this video exist on the internet? It's got to. I just, it's- Michael, I don't even know what kind of search magic. It's going to be Burnaby Cactus Club shooting, getaway car driver, like something like that.

Try to get those keywords, but Cactus Club, Burnaby shooting. It would have been in 2021 or 22 or 20. I mean, that's day one stuff. You got to leave, probably, maybe even leave the door open. Or like even the trunk, just hop right in, right? I don't, I mean. Anything, but as long as you get in the car and get out. Yeah, leave the door open to the car, leave the car running.

I mean, please tell me you found something. I'm trying. It might be a little difficult. And I think CBC wouldn't have put it, but maybe global or someone has it. But that was like kind of a turning point. because also Canada goes through these stints where you have like a lot of these gangland hits going on. And it's also like...

Does Canada, the Canadian government, acknowledge that? Or how do they describe what's going on? It's more acknowledged provincially and municipally than it is federally. Yeah, because also considering the fact that like a lot of the gangs change per province, I'd say the ones that have like the national outreach are obviously like Hell's Angels, the United Nations,

and there's one I'm missing, but I can't think of it right now, and I don't want to say the wrong one. And so for those guys, yeah, but for the most part, it'll be like the municipal police and government that are like addressing it, which also just makes it harder to tackle because you have like the smallest level of government taking this huge thing on that is at this point transnational. And so like Canada goes through, especially like in Vancouver, in Toronto, in Montreal, in Montreal, in Montreal. Montreal, these are major cities, you'll have these stints where it goes through like, you know that there's a gang war going on because hits are being taken out left, right and center. And one thing that actually does mirror that of like cartel hits is a lot of these hits that in the past few years that have been taken out in Vancouver are in broad daylight. We had one at the international airport. We had one at a really nice hotel in Whistler, which is like a mountain area in Vancouver. at fancy restaurants all the time.

People are getting gun down. Yes. Yeah. And that's wild to hear because, I mean, don't get me wrong, we have our fair share of gun violence in case you haven't paid attention here in the U.S. It's kind of hard to miss. You know, Canada has some different gun laws. Completely different. And yet there's still access.

Which is not the narrative that you hear. Because nobody talks about how much of an issue straw buying is from the states into Canada. Yeah. There are so many illegal guns. And every time someone is gunned down like that, it's always like, oh, yeah, this weapon was recovered and the serial numbers have been scrubbed off. And it's an American manufactured gun. And so Canada's done nothing to try to, like, inhibit that access. Mexico, on the other hand, actually did.

Mexico sued American gun manufacturers. Recently. Yeah. It didn't go their way, but recently. Zero. Yeah. It completely failed. But I think it still sets a bit of like a standard and it brings attention to this issue of like

Americans are bringing guns into arm the cartels. And now American border states actually have laws that try to prevent this. I think it's people who live in border states cannot. There's a certain amount of guns you can buy in a certain amount of time to make sure that you're not straw buying. I don't remember the exact number. I want to say it's like, if you buy X amount of guns

with an X amount of time frame, like it's illegal because it looks like you're straw buying. But it also doesn't take a very intelligent person to work your way around that system. Obviously. Yeah, recruit a couple buddies. You know, especially if there's a monetary reward. That's high too.

Yeah. I would hope that the designation of the cartels as a terrorist organization. One of the things that I am hoping that we see, everybody's like, hell, we're going to send J-Soc across the border. Yeah, everyone keeps asking me about that too. I don't see that being the case. I don't think there's a boots on the ground, full-time presence. I don't know if there would be drunk.

Maybe it would be all of those things. But there's also a lot of stuff they can do north of the border. And one of them, aiding and abetting a terrorist organization, those people caught doing those straw buys, hammer the living dog shit out of them. And that's what's happening. Yeah, to the point where. Nobody ever wants to do that again. Yeah. That doesn't solve, you know, one of the main issues here where we live.

Awesome that you get to see Montana for the first time, by the way. I'm loving it. Super rural. Crime is an issue everywhere in the world. It still, to this day, blows my mind. Firearm owners who don't treat it like what it is, a tool that is designed to take life. The old Montana holster, where they just put it in the cup holder. The cup holder, yeah.

And go into a store and shockling enough they come out and a window is broken and your pistol's gone. We talked about this. Yeah. It's like what did you think was going to happen? And also where do you think that's going? So there's the straw by issue and then there's the petty crime issue and I talk to my law enforcement buddies. People who are addicted will do anything they can to get their next fix. 100%.

They will take that gun and trade it upstream for drugs, whatever. it may be. And then that that enters into the, what are they called, the Iron Road or the Iron River, one of those two. The Iron River, I think. Yeah. And so there's the Straba issue, but there's also the theft issue. Both of those are solvable. I don't know, maybe maintain positive control of your firearm. Yeah. And you know, that would piss me off too, like thinking about that, where it's like, these are probably some of the very same people being like, we need to crack down on the cartels and fucking get up. But it's like, bro, you know, maybe you're inadvertently the hypocrisy is real for sure. It can be. I think it's a lack of like, yeah, intelligent.

The straw buy thing, I'm actually, I watched, I was here at a store locally. It was the Cabela's. And I watched a guy decline a sale because he thought that the person buying it was. You're joking. It's the only time I've ever seen it. Yep. So how did it go? What was the interaction?

It was a man. I was casually window shopping. So I didn't intently pay attention until I heard him say, I'm not going to sell you this today because you appear to me to be buying this for somebody else. And then I was like, hello, good sir. Locked it. Yeah, I'm like, hello, good sir. The person attempting to buy immediately walked out.

That was the end of the conversation. He didn't say anything back. No. Interesting. Well, there's no reason for them to because you're not going to talk them into changing their mind. And here's the reality. There's plenty of other gun stores. Yeah, he could literally just go somewhere else.

Yeah. So he did not make that sale. And that's the only time I've ever seen it. You know what's crazy, though, is that that happens, but that the person doesn't like get flagged across the board. Yeah. That's because like. I don't know what they would necessary.

I mean, they would flag for being suspicious. I don't even know. Possible straw buyer. Yeah, I don't even know how far long they were in the process. I didn't hear the conversation leading up to it, but I certainly started paying attention after.

Because the guy was, I am not going to sell this firearm to you today because you are, you are giving me signs as if this is going to be a straw buy purchase. How often do you think sales like that get declined? Not very. Yeah. Not very.

Gun stores are in the business of selling guns. Yeah. So what would it lead to someone declining that sale? Like it must have had to been really overt. You know, my suspicion would be that this individual is probably not trying to buy for a cartel member. But for like a friend. A friend or a family member. And I bet what happened because they were doing some real,

Jason Bourne stuff is that they both kind of walked up to the counter before the person came up to help and somebody probably pointed and then walked off and pretended like they weren't, you know, like some pretty low-level non-James Bond stuff likely occurred would be my guess. Well, maybe we'll call it some hillbilly stuff. Might have happened. And then they, I think they like legally have to decline you at that point, right? Probably. Because they do that with lottery tickets.

I'll never forget. I was in Vegas with my dad. This is like a different. First off, never buy lottery tickets. Well, it's, I don't know, maybe it's like an Eastern European thing. My dad and my Bupja absolutely are obsessed. And we walked- Have they ever won?

Like amounts, but not like the big one. Are they in the red or the black? I don't know. I don't bother. But we walk into a gas station in Vegas. My dad was like, whatever on this pump. And then I was like, oh, you wanted lottery tickets, right? Like, can we get that one and that one?

And she's like, no. I can't sell this to you because you're asking for it. I'm like, oh, sorry, like it's for him. Yeah. And then he asks her and she goes, no, no, no. She already asked, so you're done. It might have been something along those lines. Yeah, because then once I already said it, now if my dad, like, it's done.

So I wonder if that's how that works too. I think the answer is the punishment for straw buying and arming and foreign terrorist organization is so startling and life shattering that nobody would want to do it. And then again, you still have to solve the secured access to, and just firearm owners treating them like what they are. But yeah, that crackdown, we're seeing it happen in real time because that woman was just arrested. And I think along with two other men in El Paso a few weeks ago. And she was the first person to be charged with material for support to a terrorist organization. Yeah. That's going to be a way heftier penalty than whatever it was before that declaration. Yeah, because it would have just been what was it called, not actually trafficking the step before that, like intent to traffic.

Yeah. So it was intent to traffic and then it was also straw buying. And but now because of the designation she got hit as the first person. Yeah. To be charged with that. You would think that gun stores would have the hair up on the back of their neck too, especially in those states. Because I think that there is, if there is a connection or the ability for a law enforcement organization, if they reasonably think, because there's another aspect of this too. Not all gunstores are owned by people who follow the law. You know, if I was a cartel thinking, you know what, let's play the long game, let's find some citizens who don't mind being backed.

And there's a lot of them. Yeah. And we'll fund this gun store. And, you know, on Thursdays, Billy Bob comes in and buys whatever he wants and he fills out all the paperwork appropriately and nobody asks questions. 100%. Yeah, so they're doing it behind the scenes. If they could, you know, cracking down on the gun stores themselves, I think will help as well.

Right. And that's certainly already happening. because even that family from Utah that just got charged with the FTO stuff for buying stolen crude oil from the cartels from CJ&G. What? In Utah? But, well, they were taking it into Brownsville. So they have an independent oil refinery in Brownsville. And they were buying stolen crude oil from Mexico from the CJ&G holding it. I have actually, I did it for an episode.

I went to the actual place where it was shut down. Really? Yeah. And I showed where they were storing it, how it was getting in, and it was obviously like a ghostland when I got there. It was really funny too because, see, I get into these sort of nefarious locations. And when I went there, it's in the middle of fucking nowhere, first of all, obviously. And the map doesn't give you like an exact location when you're putting this in.

So we're driving up, and I made a friend of mine from Brownsville take me. And he goes, okay, this is where it's supposed to be. But we pull up to this place and operations are going on. And it looks like an agriculture refinery, like sources for farmers. And so I'm like, I'm just going to go ask. Like I walk into the office and I'm like, hey, I'm Canadian and I love visiting industrial plants. you tell can you give me a tour and the guy's like what the fuck sure so as we walk outside so I go so what do you guys refine here what do he's like well mostly you know sort like stuff for farmers

seeds but I'm like no crude oil he looks at me he goes mm you're one block away from it he goes I know what you're looking for it yeah you can head over to a rio it's right down there like thank you so much he burst out laughing he was super kind about it because he obviously he probably know is bullshitting from the get because who the fuck has a hyper fixation on industrial plants? Nobody. I mean, there might be some. A good opener for sure. You got what you wanted, so it worked.

And so I headed on over there and yeah, their operations were completely shut down. But this family is a man, I'm pretty sure his two sons are one son and the wife. They're from Utah, full citizens, American as fuck, were buying stolen crude oil disguised as waste oil. They were just trucking it up there. Yeah. Uh-huh. Wow. And...

What an inefficient system. Why? It's very lucrative. I guess it's lucrative, but... It's after human smuggling... It's a lot of steps. No, after human smuggling and drug trafficking, it's their most lucrative. Yeah.

Oil? Yep. Crude oil. They make over $3 billion a year in it. I stand corrected. Yeah. How does one get involved in this? I'm always looking for entrepreneurial adventures. Shut off.

This was like one time on a podcast. Someone was like, how do you make fentanyl? I'm like, all right, here are the ingredients, and this is how you can order it. Yeah. And then he was like, I'm going to have to cut that whole section out because we got demonetized. We can't talk about this. The algorithm is going to grab that for sure. They're not going to like that.

But it's fairly simple. And it's one of the most lucrative operations with the cartels. And it's in order for it to be lucrative, there has to be American citizen involvement in it that are independent oil refineries, smaller oil refineries that are buying this crude oil that's being discussed. as waste oil, they are very obviously knowingly buying. I was going to ask, what are the odds that they didn't understand what they were buying? Fucking 0.1%. I mean, especially if this is your industry, right? Like if someone came and tried to sell me crude oil, what the fuck would I know?

Well, actually at this point, probably a lot. But if someone's going to someone who owns and runs an oil refinery and is like, buddy, I got this great price from you and it's coming straight up from Mexico, you're just going to have to accept that it says it's waste oil. It's not waste oil. We don't worry about that part. Yeah. And another thing, too, is a lot, at one point in time, like a lot was getting across.

I think this is actually what happened to this family. I hope I'm not incorrect. But so typically what they'll do is they will put a layer of waste oil in this crude oil or like sut or whatever. Okay. And so the viscosity of these liquids, like one is heavier than the other. So it will sit. So the shit oil is at the bottom. right? And the good raw oil is at the top.

So usually when these port authorities or customs are checking, they unscrew it and then the shit will come out. But then it was one authority who said, I'm going to do a stick test, went on top of the vessel and did this. And it came out raw crude oil. And they were like, this is full of fucking crude oil. And so, yeah, you need Americans who are looking for that payday in order for most of these cartel operations to even be as lucrative as they are.

And you know how that American-backed business would hide in plain sight? They would be the most vocal person talking about how the cartels need to be cracked down. 100%. Yes. I'm a huge proponent of this. I think so many people who are like, send in the special forces, fuck them up. You know, they're like in their pockets. I don't know. There's far too many of those people. No, but a lot of the ones who are. That's how you would hide in plain sight. It's interesting. Interesting. I mean, I honestly had no idea about the crude. But if you want to underestimate the cartel, think, just think they only do drugs in human trafficking. They are, I've done enough episodes now with people about the cartels that they are infiltrated into every level of business in Mexico. Call centers, timeshare scams. Agriculture. Agriculture. It's just controlling avocado area or taxing the stuff on the way. Their fingers are everything. Yeah.

Everything. The banks. So, and, you know, people ask me all the time as if I'm going to have an answer, you know, how do you get rid of the cartels? Oh my God, people always ask me that too and it's fucking annoying. But the answer is, I don't think you can. You can't. They're so, the roots of that tree are so intermingled between legitimate business and illegitimate business. I don't think you could actually extract it. I think there's ways that you can weaken certain operations, but to completely get rid of it.

It's just not possible. if it was possible, someone would be doing that. Yeah. And what we do see is just the implementation of the same thing since Felipe Calderon, one of the Mexican president is just kingpin strategy. And CIA jointly with U.S. is like, all right, let's tackle this cartel. But then boom, you have like a bigger batter. You know, it's a hydra.

Why would you want that? Why do you want the devil you don't know versus the one that? you do versus this controlled shadow government that because they don't have to fight for territory because they're not fighting amongst themselves, innocent lives are spared. But I also know that for Americans and I get these comments a lot, it's like, well, we don't care what's happening down there. We just need to end these cartels. And if there's some collateral, so be it. I don't have that way of thinking. That is a gross

misunderstanding of how the cartels exist in that country. And I think a lot of people who do have that mindset have not seen it firsthand. Well, maybe on Instagram

or X, but yes, they haven't traveled. In real life. Oh, no. I mean, you're one of probably this is what you do for a living outside of the people who do what you do.

Almost nobody has. Yeah. Especially in the United States. Mexico, different story, because you might live in among, around it. Oh, they see it all the time. Yeah. To people, my old job was very weird. And I was exposed to violence directly and indirectly that almost nobody on earth will ever see, which is a fantastic thing.

Yeah. But how do you describe that to somebody who has never, you know, I think the stats are, Michael, look, look up this. I think the stats are about 10% of Americans actually have passports. I know. Cinnamon just got her passport. She's never left Calispell Montana. Yes. Is an Uber driver as we were discussing.

That is a heavily stripper-oriented name. She's not. She was so nice to. She does not seem like her name. Sorry, this is so stupid. About 5% of people who have passports actually use them though. So the number of people who actually travel abroad is incredibly low. How do you explain to somebody who grew up in a, like we'll use Calis Bell

we're at where violence is possible, but not the level of violence that occurs. You don't have headless bodies hanging from the overpass here, man. So how could you convince them that that is real? And that to me, not that it is an excuse or a justification for their comment of like, we'll just send in the special forces, they just don't understand. It's just ignorance. And also, when you're seeing stuff on social media or on the TV, it is nothing like seeing it in real life. Oh, for sure. At all. What did you find on the passports, Michael? It's actually like four. 35% of people that have passports. Okay.

What percentage of people who have passports use them? Yeah, that's what I'm trying to look up right now. Michael's used his passport one time. Are you serious? No, twice. Wow. He went to, he is younger than you. He's 23.

Not true. He has gone to, where did you, you went to Ireland? Ireland, UK, Italy, Greece. Talk to zero women. That's also not true. Exactly. That is exactly. exactly what I asked. Wait, how old are you and how many women have you spoken to in your life?

Because Annie's making it seem like you're a young insult. You're welcome. Yeah, thanks. Answer these questions directly. Don't try to beat around the motion. I will. I'm 25. I've spoken to numerous women. Oh, he's a dog, people. Dog, D-A-W-G. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

It's good. It's bad. Yeah, I'm trying to help him. I can help myself. He went to Rome and took pictures of, orphan dogs. And I like, did you go and talk to any young. He was a cool dog.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Did you talk to any young woman? He goes, nah. Have you ever seen a murdered dead body? No. So. First off, Michael's very fragile.

Okay. What is with you? Emotionally, physically. This is just how he is. Don't be alarmed. I did this on Julian Dory's podcast and people were like, this bitch is a bully. But you're going to get away with it.

I can't even get on camera to defend himself. I know. No, he has a camera pointed out of him. Okay, good. Yeah, they can see me. Okay, good. Yeah, unfortunately. You guys want to see a fight?

Let's start taking bets right now. He does, you just got destroyed. He doesn't go as well, actually. He tried to tackle me and take me down. I just shoved his head into the mat. He said, good night. He's fragile. You know, he's fragile on the inside and outside.

I have big beef with fragile men. A dead body? I feel like he would lay down and just die next to it. Send him into psychosis. He would just lay down and just die. He would give up. Well, you know what? You know what? It's interesting because I think that also upbringing plays a role in this because people ask me all the time about how do I see the murdered stuff and I'm exposed to a lot of extreme violence. That's not normal. And it does affect me. Like I have the craziest nightmares. Like very extreme. Actually, after Sean Ryan, because there was such an influx of attention, I started getting. I started getting.

getting some crazy messages and sometimes it's hard to decipher what is a credible threat and what is not. And I had a dream that someone was, I was in Mexico and someone was trying to take my phone from me and I said no, so instead they took me and they chopped off my breasts and I was bleeding out and I woke up like, I couldn't breathe. Yeah, that's how bad it gets, right? And you're, because I'm seeing violence like that. And constantly.

And so I'm seeing that IRL, like in, I'm seeing that in real life, but also I'm constantly being sent content that shows this completely unfiltered. And because I've seen it to an extent in real life, then it changes the way you see stuff online because you know it is real and you can literally like see it as if it is real. It's not anymore like watching a movie because I'm no longer far removed from this type of content. But I have to say, I think that the way you are brought up and experiences that you see in

your life also kind of shape the way you interpret and process these types of things because my girlfriends tell me all the time they're like how the fuck do you do this job and how do you see this stuff but you're normal and it's like because I compartmentalize because actually someone asked me like what was the first dead body that you see and I'm like my mom like I watched my mom die and I saw her dead body and I was very I was four years old so you see that something changes Right? I don't know. I'm not an expert in how the brain works on this stuff.

At least in a personal way and from a lot of people that I've talked to who have firsthand seen this extreme violence, you start to compartmentalize death and then as a result within itself, violence a little bit differently. And so in Mexico, people are exposed to extreme violence on a daily basis. people are driving to school, their kids to school, and there are headless bodies with their pants pulled down hanging from bridges. There's dead bodies scattered across the side of the highways, and not only is it just like a murdered body,

like a hit was taken out. It's like their head is left in a pizza box to send a message to a faction of the cartel. There is a note, a big banner, that has a handwritten message on it, threatening someone else. And so it's so deliberate and it's so theatrical and so violent that for a lot of people, it actually like is rewiring their brains, especially if you're seeing this from a young age onwards.

It becomes normalized, you become desensitized. And even though these are not textbook, like the people seeing this, are not dying from this violence, in a way I still refer to them as collateral victims because they're not, are going, they are facing psychological consequences of being exposed to so much violence. That's fair. And it's really sad. And I'm seeing all the time when there's these broad daylight shootouts, particularly in Sinaloa right now because of the infighting, kids getting out of school and running for

their lives and like some random stranger opening their door for them to their house, me like, just get in and hide. That's not normal. And the reason why those people are facing that is because. there is no centralized shadow government in that region right now. And so you speak to some people in Sinaloa who will say, fuck, I wish they just

never grabbed the kingpin. Like, we were fine. The drugs will continue to exist. The human trafficking will continue to happen. The only thing that this changes is who's in charge and the whole, this long-ass violent process that it takes for the new guy to be put in charge.

Yeah. How often do you have nice? nightmares. Like every time I go to sleep, even during naps, even when I'm not in REM, believe it or not. Does that concern you? Yeah, I was actually told that I have like pre, like the pre symptoms of PTSD. But I always thought that I'm too strong for that. This is so weird. I never talk about this publicly. These are like conversations at home. But I've always been a proponent that. it's like about the story because like I'm not the victim here. I chose to be here and see these things and tell these stories.

So I don't want people to feel bad for me because this is like I'm in control of this. I'd rather people feel bad for like the women who are searching for their missing children and finding all of these skeletal remains at extermination camps across Mexico and they have absolutely no one on their side helping them find justice. That's way worse. I would take a nightmare over that. It is way worse, but you can't go into a pig pan usually without getting mud on you. Right.

So there are, you know, you're not necessarily getting tackled by a bore and driven into the mud, but the stuff that sticks to you still sticks. Yeah, for sure. But that's the nature of this job. And I... I know a lot of men from my old job who took that same tact and ended up with a gun in their mouth. What does the nature of the job have to do with anything? Right. that was a crazy statement Andy it's true story the last count yeah it gave me goosebumps

a job is a job do you think about yourself in terms of your job or do you find yourself define yourself outside of what you do for a living I define myself outside of what I do for a living but to me this doesn't feel like a job I'm so passionate about it that even if it made me zero dollars I would still do it

sounds like a lot of the guys I used to work with Kate, I'm not going to kill myself. That's what they said too. You know what's interesting? Sorry, me laughing is not making light of this. It's how people deal with dark stuff. I get it. No, I don't take it negatively at all.

I have a singular example of the guy who's probably the most influential in my career in the military. He was, if I was to have to write out, if somebody said, you have a writing assignment and you have to describe the characteristics, the capabilities, the persona, the attitude of the perfect seal, I would have pointed to this person. And I would have, it would have been very easy because his name was Dave. I would have sat there and been like, okay, let me just write about what Dave is like. He was the standard by every stretch of the imagination. I never thought in a million years he would kill himself. And he did.

the guy who I thought was the consummate ultimate professional, the person who would never need to ask for help. Right. Because he was so fucking good at his job. It's the high achieving people too, typically. And it was like jarring when you said that too because my grandfather shot himself and also like high achieving person who's very strong. Oftentimes, high achievers are the most unlikely to ask for help. 100%. I rarely ever do because I'm like, I can figure that shit out.

But because of that, I have a very different perception on suicide, which is what my grandmother would always tell me. This is also very Eastern European shit to say. She'd be like, why kill yourself? You're going to die anyways. Not worth it. She'd be like, my husband, stupid. I think I actually saw that on a fortune cookie one time.

you know you did not fucking turn up to a chinese restaurant you don't know that you have no proof that that didn't happen don't kill yourself it could have come with some general south chicken you know don't why kill yourself you're going to die anyway that's a fortune cookie you report that's crazy but it's actually really deep right here's how here's how dark my mind is yeah i'm already thinking would it be possible to make a batch of fortune cookies that said things like that and then somehow get them into the supply of a chinese food restaurant without them knowing and then somehow sit there and film the reaction of somebody who's just finishing a killer meal. They crack that open and just watching like, what?

What the fuck? To me, that's great content. Yeah. I don't know what that says about me, but that's where my mind goes. Probably a little bit. Yeah. But it's okay. We all are.

So here's what I tell people about war. If you touch war, it touches you back. Yes. It leaves your fingerprint. What you're seeing and what you're exposed to, and I'm not a therapist by any stretch. So stop acting like one. I'm not acting like one. I'm a few laps around the sun ahead of you.

And unfortunately, I have legitimately lost count of how many of my friends have killed themselves. And there are some compounding factors with that. One very serious one that isn't talked about that often is substance abuse. A lot of these men had issues with alcohol, like full stop. There's ways that you could try to flirt around that. And they had substance abuse. I'm like, they were an alcoholic. Like, let's just cut to the brass tacks here for a second.

So there's that. repeated exposure. There was also a lot of head trauma, TBIs, whether it's concussive blast or shooting rockets, whatever it may be. All that stuff ties into itself. But if you're in and around that stuff, it will leave a fingerprint on you.

I don't think it's bad that you're having nightmares. Every once in a while, I have really weird dreams as well. What I have tried to do is I don't grab onto the dream. Yeah. I just try to let it work its way through. me and I again, I'm not an expert on what works, you know, what's going on between the years. But earlier in my life, I think I would try to grab onto it a little bit in deep, like, why am I having this dream? What is going on? What is this trying to tell me? And I don't do that.

I, well, then you're already a step ahead of me on that. But I had a therapist tell me that I should be doing that. And I was like, fuck no. So I ghosted her. Yeah. I mean, all occupations are filled with human beings. So there is a bell curve to human beings. Yeah, unfortunately. I think it's, if you're not grabbing onto it and letting it go, I think that's a great thing. All I'm trying to say is just keep an eye on it. For sure. Keep an eye on it.

And I do. What you are exposed to is abnormal. Yes, but this, the matter and the nature of this is so important. And I just want to make sure that. Is it worth your life? Yeah. Is it worth you finding yourself at a place where you may take your own life? I think it's worth my life.

I honestly think that there's nothing else that I would rather do. And I want to give people who feel like they're voiceless a voice. And I try to reflect that in my reporting because even though as of late too, I've been reporting a lot on the sort of geopolitical and logistic stuff and whatever. It's not as humanized. I still always try to incorporate that aspect. because it is the most important thing. And real reporting and human stories is what got me into this in the first place.

And it will always be what matters most because I think that when people lack, in order to fully understand a story and the news, you have to understand and have some level of compassion for the people most affected by that news story. Because that's what makes the story a news story, right? There's like six different news determinants which it's like proximity, prominence, et cetera.

Like it goes on. What makes news news? To me, the most important one is the human toll, which is why we are covering fentanyl. It's not because, oh, it's just this bad chemical. It's because it has taken and destroyed hundreds of thousands, if not almost in the millions, of lives, right? I think we're into the millions at this point. Yeah, 100%. And so and even if it's not fully taking their lives, it is taking their livelihoods from them.

And in the same breath, it's ruining the livelihoods of the people living in Mexico, living in the areas that the very people supplying this are running. And in order for us to be like, okay, this is why there are these border crackdowns, or this is why we need to have this crackdown, or how do we combat the cartels? why what is the root of that fucking story it's because people are dying and people's lives are being ruined and so if that means hey katerina you might die getting that out there okay well people are already fucking dying anyways that's just part of it i'm definitely not trying to tell you to live your life that's not who i am so don't take it like that i'm just trying to give yeah i'm trying to give you a word of caution and the last thing I'll say on it is this. In watching some of my friends, the escalation in the impact is not linear. Meaning people will tell them myself, well, okay, I've had a little

bit of exposure and it gave me a little bit of this. So as long as I do it in incremental chunks and they're small, the increase in the impact on me will also be small. That hasn't been my experience. it's nobody knows where that point is where your cup spills over. Yeah, you don't know your breaking point. You don't. And then when it gets to that point, it can get wild. It's too far. Just take care of yourself, is all I'm saying.

Yeah. If the reporting is that important, the worst thing that could happen would be for you not to be able to do that reporting anymore. Exactly. And that's... So take care of yourself. Yes. Thank you. I will.

Good. Otherwise, I'll send fragile boy after you to make sure that you're taking care of yourself. If he sees you dead, he'll lie down and die with you. You won't be alone at least. Great. I'll have a fragile man by my side who apparently has never spoken to a woman a date in his life. Not true.

I have actually seen him talk to a woman. Today's episode is brought to you by Element. Scene LMNT, Lima Mike November Tango. Feel free to just say, Element. You can interchange them back and forth depending on how much time you have. I have a jiu-jitsu trip coming up. I actually leave tomorrow morning.

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I saw a woman ask him for a picture one time because she knew he was on the podcast. Actually, I take that back. I actually, because it embarrasses him. I think I asked her if she wanted a picture with him. You would do that. 100%. He knows for a fact.

I've done it. Did you hate that? Oh, he does. Yeah, I don't like it. And as soon as I recognize that he did hate it, I tried to do it many times. I shouldn't have exposed that weakness to Andy. Yeah.

And he was like telling me a lot of your deep and dark secrets as we were walking in here and was like, you should take a picture with him. I will, yeah. Thanks. I'll take the picture for you guys. He's great. That way you don't have the selfie arm in the photo. Yeah.

We could do like a prom pick. Yeah, the really awkward. It's a rough. It's a dark world that you're seeing. And again, I don't. But it's just a dark world anyways. Some people just choose not to see a lot of what's going. on. It's so hard to explain to people the level of depravity and violence that you've seen

firsthand when they've never seen it. I have struggled with that. And people don't believe me. I know. And that sometimes it actually pisses me off. I try to let. I see it all the time. Oh, you should go. We should just go over there and, you know, take them out or this, that, or just people in general who talk about violence casually, who have no experience or exposure to it. Do you even know what you're asking for? They don't. No. They live. Literally do not. And you try to tell him that. And they're like, no, man, I know, I know what it is.

Have a great day. I'm out of here. Or don't. Or don't. I am out of here. Yeah, it's rough. Man, how do we get that in the deep dark rabbit hole? But I think it's good to get into those deep dark rabbit holes.

You have to. I have watched. God, I wish I could go back and turn back time. The craziest thing is with a lot of those guys, I don't know if turning back time would change anything. because they were so, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. They weren't fine. First off, we should clarify as a baseline template. Men are idiots. So that fact- No shit. Thank you. I've been saying this. Well, I think everybody should say it. We're not all like huge idiots. Get me wrong. I don't,

I'm not a man-hater. Okay. I'm not like this like. This is objectively talking about the species of men. Homo sapiens on the male side. Our brain is not even fully formed until 20-7. Ever. I think science says 27. It could be argued much later in life. Yeah, I think there's a little bit of, I think whoever conducted that research was probably a man. Yeah. And I'm not a man hater, okay, because I was raised and loved and love, two of the most important men of my life, my father and my brother.

Love, okay, best people. But are you guys a little behind? Yeah. Like a lot. Yeah. Yeah. There's a reason why the life expecting sea for women is higher than men. I mean, we make bad choices.

Mm-hmm. We make real bad choices. Really bad choices. Yeah. That sometimes impact us. Oh, for sure. Yeah. It's not as fun if it's only just impacts an individual.

Shut the hell out. This topic gets me heated. Yeah, I get a lot of all these people ask me, Karenna, how could you be single? And you just like have this crazy job. I'm like, yeah, this is why. Yeah, I was going to say your job is not as far. If I were to rack and stack the 10 most,

likely jobs to be directly associated with a super, in air quotes, normal relationship. What you do, the traveling, I'm assuming you're gone quite. It's going to be tough. Yeah. No, yeah. There's no home base. Actually, he was just asking me, so where do you live? I'm homeless.

Yeah, well, probably wherever the story takes you. It's literally wherever the story takes me. I'm always on assignment, always on the road, which is why it would happen last night, happened because no one ever knows where I am. For clarity last night, she evaded the cartels. They had a death squad that was chasing her through the airport. Don't even put that out there. Well, I was going to make a joke about it at the end.

None of that happened. I did wake up to a fantastic series of text. Katerina may have been abducted. I went to bed. I was exhausted yesterday for whatever reason. I went to bed a little bit early. Nothing crazy, although my wife likes to sleep shame me. It was early.

I went to bed at like nine. Nine. Yeah, I'm almost 50, all right? Oh, okay. Like old age is right around the corner. 50 is not old. I know. I just say that it is to justify an early bedtime.

I like sleep. But I wake up to this series of texts. And it was so, I was telling you on the walkover, it was so awesome in the morning to read it at my own pace. Oh, sorry for the late text. Give me a call. Canterita might have gotten abducted. They thought I was cooked.

Cooked, yes. Everyone thought I was cooked. Then a 90-second voice message that sounded like he, recorded it in the closet whispering in the middle of the night to not wake up any family members. And essentially through this and then a screenshot of an email from a news producer. And then basically a text, oh yeah, she's going to be okay. She landed last night. But just, yeah, for listener context.

So I got to read all that at once as opposed to these coming in at a random interval. Where everyone was making everyone panicked. I was on a flight for listener context. And in the span of when I got on my connection to when I landed in the two hours that it took, everyone in our industry thought I was fucking dead and gone. Yeah. Even though I am on assignment for these very people, like they knew I was coming here. Yeah.

I feel like there are ways. I just feel like there were steps in between. That should have been taken. She's not answering her phone, which is common when you're flying to her head's cut off somewhere. And it feels like it was a hop, skipping a jump from. She's not answering her phone. to her heads cut off.

But yeah. But I must say. Checking my phone this morning. I'm like, okay. I was flattered by the level of concern. I'm not going to lie. There was some red star clusters going up. People were looking for you.

People, like, that's a good thing. They were ready to send in like special operators to get me, which felt really good. Yeah. Even though it was a false alarm. Oh, it was definitely a five bell false alarm. It was not. What are you going to do? Let's not even email, Ketter.

Let's not even reach out to someone. Oh yeah. Did they try that something that you could have gotten on the flight? No, but also because it was only two hours. I didn't buy internet because I knew I was just going to sleep because I was getting in late. Sometimes those gaps where you can just turn your phone off are the best. That's, I need, I do that. So anytime I can, I enjoy and I fully turn off the phone.

I fucking hate the phone. I am like an anomaly in my age group because basically I live for the phone, right? For the socials, for the emails, the work stuff. You need the phone. But it's not a form of pleasure for me at all. Yeah, it's not the dopamine hit that most people are getting from it. I'm not getting any dopamine from it. It's like, all right, work, holy fuck, lock in.

When I can not be on the phone, it's gone. How did you get on this path to doing what you do? An interest in working or reporting on the cartel is one thing. I bet quite a few people have an interest in that. But actually, I mean, I've seen videos of you where you're just walking up to people at the border and having conversations with like, who the hell knows who this person is. Yeah. And you're in, I mean, we should probably provide some clarity in context, too.

You are interfacing with people who are involved with these organizations. And again, like you mentioned, you do really good job of anonymity and not revealing your sources, which I think does provide you a level of security for sure. But, I mean, a lot of people may want to do that. How did you actually end up doing it? Okay. Like, first of all, I'm very fascinated and impressed by people. I love speaking to everyone.

And I don't judge anyone, like, at all. What about like Jeffrey Dahmer? Do you judge him at all? Well, it's bad, yeah. Do you know he ate some people too? Yes, yes. It's not good. I have a little bit of judgment.

But here's a thing, too. Yeah, of course, you will. And especially when it's an inherently bad person or they're committing inherently bad actions, okay? and I can judge people's actions, but judging a person is very complicated because people are very multifaceted, dynamic people. You never fully get to know someone.

And typically if you really try to get to know someone, sometimes you can kind of justify their worst mistake. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Here's a tougher question. Do you think you ever really know yourself? I don't know. I'm pretty self-aware, bitch, if you ask me.

Do you ever surprise yourself, though, with some of the thoughts you have? Like, whoa. Do you? Oh, yeah. Like what? I mean, give me an example. Man, I don't know if I can give a concrete one. First of all the time.

Oh, so do I? Yeah. I go on walks and I don't bring, because I don't bring the phone, right? So I go on walks and I'm like fully out loud to talking to myself. And this sounds fucking crazy. I'll talk to the plants too. And sometimes when they move, it looks like they're listening to me. Maybe they are.

That sounds insane. People are going to think that I am mentally ill. I don't think so. It's just like it just grounds you though. You log out and you are your own best friend. I can process things better when I hear them as opposed to just inside. Hearing in your head. Yeah.

It's just the way that I process stuff. So what have you thought that surprised yourself? I mean, I was thinking the other day if my dog would like to wear a tuxedo. That's so random. Why did that surprise you thinking about that? Because he was looking, he goes out in the sun and he looks really awesome. and I was wondering whether or not I could bring him to a black tie event. But having that thought surprised you about yourself?

Well, I just don't know where thoughts come from. So I didn't think I was going to have that thought. Also, it's a miniature dachshund. So they don't make tuxedos in that side. I did see a super cute dog. And I don't even like dogs like that. He's amazing. He is the coolest dog ever.

But I mean, where do thoughts come from? Do we have control of our thoughts? Do we have control of our dreams? I have had the most crazy dreams, whether it's like I'm a truck driver, one day, a firefighter the next day. Those are such boy dreams. Yeah, but where do they come from?

And if those aren't things that you actually want to do, do you actually, do you really know yourself? Do we really know everything about ourselves? You know, it's not my thoughts that have ever surprised me, but I think I have been surprised by the way I've reacted to certain situations or like whether my reaction was like physical or emotional. That has surprised me for sure. That's what I'm saying.

I don't even know if it's possible to 100%. know yourself. So the expectation that you could know. Know someone else is crazy. Exactly. That's what I'm getting at. No, yeah. But. But also fuck Jeffrey Dahmer. Yeah, and like child predators. Those are my least favorite people. Same. Yeah. I wish there was a slight legal carve out that would allow me to interface and participate with the punishment of those individuals. Yeah, and rapists. Yep, we could put those in the bucket too. Yeah, there's some people I certainly judge. But okay, yeah, like textbook bad. But, um, I was always interested in just talking to people.

And I, my grandma would make me read the newspaper out loud, basically like every day before school since I was in like, when I started learning how to read, like, kind of grade one, something like that. Yeah, five or six maybe. Yeah. And so I was always really fascinated by current affairs, current events. And I'll literally never forget when Gaddafi was captured and killed. And I remember I was in fourth grade, I think. And I showed up to school and they're like, oh my God. I was like, oh my God, Godfie is gone.

And everyone was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, they're just eating paste and coloring with crayons. It was not, like, it was not something that people that age were really, like, invested in. But I had been following the coverage of Libya. And then also I followed, like, the Arab Spring in Syria. Like, I was so interested in this. And then Anthony Bourdain got his CNN original series, parts unknown. I was fucking obsessed, okay?

Such a good show. Amazing. And Lisa Ling, this is Life with Lisa Ling too. So those CNN original series, they don't make them like they used to. I know that they've got some good ones now, but it's not the same. Bourdain was like going into regions that were talked about, but never fully fleshed out. And he would choose individuals to speak to who could speak about. the culture, subcultures, current affairs, and polarizing topics.

And he never let off that he judged them, ever. And I saw that and I was like, okay, like, I think I could, I want to do something like this. He was curious. He was just curious. He wanted to know and he didn't go in, just like what I do know, you don't go in with preconceived notions or an agenda or any expectation at all. And I try to always live like that.

Like I don't expect anything and I'll just appreciate whatever I get. And he always did that. And so I was like number one, like I was always consuming that show. And I really wanted to do that. But one thing I felt that was really important was if I'm going to do something like this when I grew up, because I was like, I think 10 years old when I started watching that, I want to be able to speak the language of the people I'm engaging with because I feel like so much gets lost in translation. And so I started learning Spanish and then all these other languages.

And then when I got to a point where I'm working in journalism, but this isn't the journalism that I wanted. Like I'm working in a newsroom, don't get me wrong. Like I really did appreciate all those previous work experience I had and I learned a lot. But I did, it wasn't fulfilling me the way that I had anticipated because I wasn't doing that type of journalism. I wasn't doing that human subculture gritty stuff where there were no bounds. You just see it, show it, talk about it, fucking publish it. That's what I wanted.

I wanted people to see raw truth. And so then I was like, you know what? Of my languages, Spanish is really strong. Mexico, as opposed to like Libya is close to home if I need to go back to Canada. and I've been watching a lot of the border coverage for years and I've been following the cartel stuff for years and I had been doing that too with other FTOs. It was just a matter of this kind of works out.

Let me hit the ground running and go. And a lot of people don't believe me in that so a lot of people think I'm CIA because they're like nobody just goes and does it. Well actually you'd be surprised that there are some people who have big dreams and they just drop everything and go and pursue them. Yeah.

Okay, freaks. So I go to Mexico. and I really immerse myself in this. And that's kind of how it went. But I just nerd out about this stuff. And I don't only just nerd out about the content, but also like what my job entails is like telling stories and talking to these people.

And I have no, my fear threshold is like very fucked up because it's like what you said. I see someone that looks interesting, may or may not talk. I'm going to just go and start talking. And I go in with no judgment. So 95% of the time the people will talk to me, which is great. And I love that that happens. But yeah.

When did you start paying more attention to north of the border than south? A year ago. I do want to unpack how complicated it. I mean, how deeply intertwined and sophisticated are the cartel networks north of the border now? Okay, so a little over a year ago. Okay, so pretext, I knew about the BC bud stuff. I had been following that forever and that like BC marijuana prices were on par with that of cocaine. Really?

Yes. During that whole boom in the illegal BC bud. And so I thought that was really shocking. And obviously that creates this sort of like pit of success for these people who are operating. Anyways, last year, I get in touch with a operator associate of the Sinaloa cartel living and working in Canada. And this person starts to tell me about just how deep their operations run within the landscape of Canadian organized crime. And it just so happened.

I mean, it wasn't a coincidence because I was digging for it. but I got in contact with multiple people who are working in organized crime in Canada who were saying the same stuff. So everyone, and these people don't know each other and they're even working in different gangs. But you're hearing the same narrative. I'm hearing the same narrative over and over again.

And I'm like, okay, well, fuck, how deep does this go? So I do my due diligence, which is reach out to law enforcement, reach out to officials to find out, okay, what information can you guys offer me on this? How much fentanyl do you think is being produced in traffic by Mexican cartels in Canada or OCGs in Canada that have some sort of financial ties with Mexican cartels, particularly Sinaloa? What's an OCG? Organized crime group.

Gotcha. So that's what I was reaching out for. I just really wanted to know, like, logistics, do you guys have numbers? and what do you already know? And I was getting shut down. But I've always had bad luck with Canadian law enforcement. I used to get shut down. Even when I worked at a local radio station,

I reached out to the police being like, hey, there was a stabbing with these gardening shears. Like, what are we going to do? And they would just tell me to go fuck myself. Like they didn't like me, which is fine. At least I know how to do my job. But sorry about that. That was bad.

I'm being physiques. It's just a personal opinion. Yeah. So. I don't know if you guys have the First Amendment up there, though. But here's this. Today you're using your First Amendment rights where you're borrowing some First Amendment rights. Thank you.

That feels so free. So I wasn't getting like any type of response. And essentially what I was getting was, Katerina, if cartels were operating directly or indirectly in Canada, we would know about it. and there's no data or like active or like court cases to show that we have cartel infiltration here. But my job was covering the courts as a reporter for the CBC. So I knew how to access a lot of court stuff that would be typically tedious to go through or to access. But I knew that I had to do this in order to do that due diligence, which was let me see if I can connect some,

dots. I have these active criminals telling me what's going on, giving me names. If I go to court, like these court cases and I'm reading through these documents and I'm talking to lawyers, hmm, something very nefarious is going on here. And everything started to add up really quick. And then I get invited, invited. I get this beautiful golden ticket to go and see a fentanyl lab that's being run by associates of the cartel in Canada, in British Columbia. And that was like set in stone. So I reached out to police right before that to be like, any last words?

Are you sure you don't want to tell me anything? And they're like basically get wrecked. It's like, all right, you're telling me this doesn't exist. I'm going there tomorrow and I'm going to see it with my own eyes, which is crazy. And then you have, yeah. How sophisticated was the operation you saw? Here's the thing with these fentanyl labs,

it don't need to be that sophisticated. It's not like you're not walking in. It looks like we could pull up pictures and I have some of my substack. It is just like kind of rudimentary lab. Like what you would have seen back in the day with like the meth houses and stuff like that. It follows that same.

So it doesn't need a very large footprint. No. And especially depending on the amount that they're making. Yeah, no, it doesn't. We should describe for people to get an idea how it happens or works in Mexico so we can overlay that to what you're seeing in Canada. So correct me if I'm wrong, because this is what I've heard talking with other people about the cartels. Source chemicals, largely coming from China, if not all of. Now India.

Really? They ladder a little bit. Interesting. But point being, the chemicals themselves not illegal. So they get a variety of chemicals, whatever the hell is required to make fentanyl. It shows up. And interestingly enough, maybe it's now on Indian vessels. The people I've talked to largely vessels under a Chinese flag and offloaded by military age males of apparently Chinese origin.

It hands itself off to very high-level scientists, people who are working in basically clean rooms and having this stuff. And this, none of this is happening via cloak and dagger, by the way. No, it's chemical companies that typically have CCP ties. Smashing them together. So they're taking the chemicals that are innocent, and air quotes for those of you who are just audio only. And even though I guess, yeah, I mean, in exclusion, I don't know. Maybe they have another purpose.

But they're slammed together, fentanyl, and then it goes into the hands of their cartels and it starts making its way north. Yeah. It's a choreographed, very developed infrastructure south of the border. Are you saying that? That's same exact thing in Canada. Yes. To that level?

Yes. And why? Because there is a huge Chinese population in Canada, particularly in BC, where we have the port of Vancouver. We're less than 1% of anything coming into the port is being checked by the port authority. Are they doing the same thing as well? Well, these aren't illegal chemicals. These are just, you know, this is what we're bringing in. It's used for this, that, or the other.

And then they're, I just don't understand. I just don't think it's being close. locked in the first place. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's possible too. And then I think people at Mexican ports are certainly paid off. So that's what made that so, you know, streamlined. And then in Canada, there was just no oversight. So get it all in.

And then you already have the preexisting gangs and people on organized crime payroll that have contacts with the CCP. I mean, it goes as deep as this, okay? One of the previous mayors of Vancouver was dating a woman from China whose mother was sentenced to life in prison for like laundering money with these contractors. And it is a whole thing. So you have so much. And we have CIS reports. CIS is our version of the CIA in Canada. CIS reports that explicitly outline CCP intervention in Canadian politics.

and how they play a major role in what's going on in our country. And yet we're not checking the ports. We're not cracking down on the border. We're not cracking down on organized criminals. And then in Mexico, you have these guys that are flourishing with such high levels of impunity and corruption. And this is what I talk about all the time. Over there, you have politicians that are blatantly on the narco payroll

and no one's just doing anything about it. And then the U.S. goes in, makes this list that they have this watch list of so-called narco politicians who are part of the same party that the president of Mexico is, the Morena Party. And this is what I have actually gotten death threats from, is talking about this topic. As the leader of a country who's trying to say that you want to ensure quality of life for the people in your country, why aren't you cracking down on the people who are destroying that and allowing and defending people who are part of your party to continue to operate with no implications

when they are literally having their visas revoked by the U.S., sanctioned by the U.S. for concrete evidence of working or profiting off of cartel activity? What do you think would happen to her if she did try to regulate that. Oh man. Probably worst case scenario type stuff. I was going to say her term may come to a very tragic and violent end.

Yeah, and I don't wish that for anyone. And so then it's, you know, I can only fathom sitting in that seat. What do you do? I don't have a good answer to that. You know what I would do if I was in her position? And I'm not saying like this is the right thing to do. but you kind of, oh, people might hate this, but this is also like fully hypothetical, obviously.

You kind of have to really ensure that there isn't any U.S. intervention so that those shadow governments can maintain themselves, the shadow governments as in cartels, so that there's no conflict in your country. And then you slowly kind of get rid of the politicians that are on that payroll. so you have to kind of clean up government without actively targeting like the criminals. And there needs to be like this whole overhaul. Now she would never do something of this nature.

And it's also very important to keep in mind. And when people, you know, when I said this on Sean Ryan that I, that she has narcoties. Holy fuck that went viral in Mexico. Hot and hard and people were coming for me. Now, why was this the most violent election in Mexican history? Why did I end up getting so many calls and messages and emails on election day in Mexico? Because I covered the Mexican election on that day. But fast forward to, after I talked about that on Sean Ryan, both of those days, numerous calls, messages, DMs from people in Mexico being like, hey,

I work for the ine, which is like the electoral body, or I was working at a polling station, etc. Like they had some involvement with the election. And let me tell you about just how bad it was and how blatant the violent intervention was during that election. And then you guys, people are calling me a fucking liar that I'm stupid for saying that this president has narcot ties. Why the fuck would it be a violent election if she didn't? Like, what was the agenda there? Why were candidates being murdered? A mayor was in Chilpancinco, Chilpancingo Mexico,

was murdered less than 24 hours after he became the mayor of that town. And he was said to meet with adversaries of some cartel to try to, like, make peace. His head was chopped off and left on top of his car. I mean, that sends a statement. Yes, but then you still have people being like, show the proof, show the proof. The proof is in the fucking pudding. Yeah, in the world that we live in, even when you show proof, sometimes it's not enough. And that's why I don't, because I could burn myself or other people.

I could literally say, you know what, fuck it. If this is going to be my last day on earth, you know, if that's, if we talked about suicide, if I wanted to kill myself, it wouldn't be a gunshot. It'd be, look at this. but I don't do that because I value my life in self-preservation and those that speak with me but you could show someone cold hard proof and they will find a way to try and discredit it

and not believe it and then what it was worth absolutely nothing can you lateral your investigative abilities and start digging into this non-release of the Epstein list in the U.S. for a little bit I would end up dead. Let's be so for real. I actually someone, I did a live on my substack the other day,

someone was like, why do you never report on human trafficking? And I was like, I kind of by proxy you are by talking about the cartels. Yeah, but I don't actually dive into human trafficking operations. I talk about drugs.

I talk about violence. Epstein. Galane, watch out. She's in prison for apparently... Selling minors to nobody. Selling minors to nobody. people to nobody. So technically, her conviction was selling them or trafficking them to Epstein. So the narrative that we are supposed to believe, even though there is a record of people who

supposedly have seen evidence that there were a thousand victims, that it was only Epstein abusing those thousand victims. Let's ignore the fact that Prince Andrew, by the way, settled for what I consider to be a very large sum of money. Also, how weird is it for your entire life the word prince is in front of your name. That's awkward as hell. I hate that guy. I know very little about him, but I have, I do not like what I have heard. Did you watch his interview where he like, they made a movie about his interview? No, I don't think I did watch that. Oh, you need, it's like the notorious interview where buddy just says every single wrong possible thing he could. Well, here's my issue with the Epstein thing. There is no justice for the people who are abused. Yeah, that's my,

I think that's everyone's issue too. And we're just supposed to sit. here and believe that he killed himself in prison because there was no evidence of him. Like, what's going on here? And that he had, that he himself abused a thousand people and that there, that there wasn't this network that we were, like, I get it. There's probably not a black book with Bob and a line drawn to somebody's name where you could go, oh, we know this person. No, but there's names because he, he kept insurance. For sure. Yeah. And I, it's getting to the point where there's only really one hypothesis that makes sense about why neither party will release the information. Yeah, there's like very high up powerful people that are in every aspect.

There's going to be people who you would never fucking think are on that list. Yeah. And that is a global tragedy. Well, the list, you know, and it's interesting because there's two aspects. I've been around enough social circles. There are people whose names, I bet, appear in the overall large amount of evidence that only had, it was a peripheral social interaction, which might be uncomfortable to explain. Like, why were you at the same party as this dude, right? Yes, but then when you're in those upper circles and it happens.

So there is that. It's nuanced. Correct. And so those people may not enjoy their association, but it's explainable. Then there's the other, hopefully, way smaller. circle and that is of the abusers. But we need to, like, we need to get this information out if you want us to have any faith and belief in our institutions of law enforcement.

And it's just. I don't think we're ever going to get that. And also look at the results of the ditty case. Oh my God. The best meme I ever saw yesterday. It was Trump, but it was the, what was the most interesting man alive? Which beer commercial was it? Dosakis, right?

And it was, I'm going to pull it up. I'm going to find this thing. It was, even when I released. the Epstein list, I don't, or something. That's so real. Oh, it's so good. I have to find it. It's, uh, can you please start reporting on that just deeply?

No. Yes, you can. Where is it? I don't think there's anything that I could even go off of for that. Maybe you could. I mean, I don't like to do human trafficking stuff. And I, I think, like, anything that has to do. I don't always really accept scene files, but when I do, I don't. That's dead ass.

I love the internet. I feel like it is just a really shitty story generally because it's just so many young women who... It's horrible. And I feel like that the people who are in charge or in power literally view the rest of the population as idiots. And they're saying, yeah, just tell them no. Like there's nothing there. What are they going to do about it? They're too dumb.

And there really isn't much you can do. I agree, and that sucks. Unless there's some sort of whistleblower, but if everyone's killing themselves in this case, that's quotes, right? Yeah, sometimes they shoot themselves in the back of the head. You know, it's tough. Twice. Well, that's even tougher. But I hate these types of stories where, like, especially it's like young women are the victims,

because I went to an all-girls high school, and the number of us that had experienced some type of sexual violence by someone in a position of a authority was so remarkable. And actually, a year after I graduated, the AP math teacher was charged in a sting operation for meeting up with underage girls knowingly to have sex with them. So it's literally the people you know. It's typically like a lot of the time. Stranger danger is one of the biggest. Lies.

BS. Yeah. Stranger danger can be real. But it's not as deep as the people you know. Correct. It's going to be your uncle. at a barbecue. It's going to be a thing.

Yeah. And in a place where everyone is around and so you feel like you can't say anything because why would this person do something like this to me if it was wrong, right? And that's why too, like I have a big issue with when women come forward years later and people try to, people try to completely brush them off because they say, well, you're doing it for the money in this. If you have ever been a sexual, a victim of sexual violence, especially at a young age, especially by someone who has more authority than you, or just makes you feel powerless,

it will probably take you time to not feel shame and to feel like you can just stand your ground and talk about it. And if it just so happens that that person who did it ends up becoming famous or powerful. Or has a platform? That would fucking suck. Like it actually makes me nauseous to think about that. Yeah. That would just be like screaming into the ocean.

Yeah. And then you're getting backlash as a victim. Yeah. Fucking talk about stepping on someone when they're down. Yeah. And so this whole case and even when I see things like when the extermination camp story came out of Halisco, like where the CG and G cartel was allegedly like bringing recruits or kidnapping people and killing. and torturing them or training them to be part of the cartel.

In some of those pictures that were released of personal belongings that were found there, there were like little girls items. So there was a fucking duffel bag. I've talked about this on podcast before, but there was this duffel bag and it has all the Disney princesses on it. And it's the same, like the way the Disney princesses looked in the early 2000s. Like when I was a kid and I liked the Disney princesses. And when I saw those pictures, I was like,

Why the fuck were their girls there? And like what was happening? And then that, that's where I draw the line and stop myself because I could fucking spiral about that all day, every day, and it will do no good. It will just do me harm. I can't do the job properly because that, that depresses me. That was the start of, yeah, I, like, you can't touch that stuff.

The human trafficking or the extreme violence or abuse against, young girls, that's a very vulnerable population, especially young girls who are coming from a very low socioeconomic background where they have no support and lower education levels. These are not girls who are going to initially speak out. They're not going to know how to defend themselves and they don't have a support network. Me reporting on that is not going to fucking change that. And people know that this is inherently bad. So I'm not bringing light to something that, look, this is bad because we know it is. It's just tragic.

Yeah. That's a polite word for it. Yeah. It's really, yeah. I don't even know how to talk about it. I just hate victims not having a sense of justice. I agree. That's what bugs me about the Epstein thing.

Yeah. And I operate in a country where that is the common result. No justice for victims? Yeah. Is that just a flaw of the system? as you see it? No, it's, sorry, I'm talking about Mexico. It's corruption and impunity.

And a lot of the times I find people, if they don't see a perfect victim, they don't give a fuck, which is so flawed. Oh, you mean if the victim isn't of importance to them or of a certain status to them? Or if the victim has done something wrong. Like when I talked about that girl,

that girl, she was like my age, who was murdered on TikTok live in Mexico. She was murdered on TikTok? Yeah, Valeria Marquez was, she was on TikTok live, she was murdered, and it was her ex-boyfriend who was on operator of the CG and G. Michael, I hear you typing over there. We don't need to watch this video. No, I'm not looking for a good idea.

I'm just looking through the story. It's honestly, it's not super gruesome. She gets shot three times and just hunches over. Like it was, it wasn't like a boom, boom, boom type of thing. But anyways, a lot of people were like, well, this is what she gets for like having a guy like, that. And it's like, shut the hell up. No. Like, you know what? People make mistakes. Young people, especially people who don't have. She came from a very humble background. Okay. And sometimes we've seen it. We see it as people who join gangs, whatever it is. They get involved with the wrong people.

They take the wrong path. And hopefully they get support that they need. They learn their lesson. They get out. They're back on track. That is not always the case. It doesn't mean that the people whose lives are ended because of that isn't someone that you should not feel sorry for. Like that was double negative. But I think that there still should be a level of compassion, empathy. It's tough to see the world through somebody else's shoes. It's one of the things I think. People don't do it.

It's one of the things I think is missing in just the velocity of information we have access to with social media. It's just emotional reactions. It's tough to take a breath and just try to view the world. just take a step to the side. Yes. You know, why would somebody make that choice? Why would somebody be in that position? And it doesn't mean you have to, I try to do that.

I'm not perfect at doing it. But I at least try to understand because it. You have to. Well, understanding doesn't equate to acceptance. And that's a hurdle, I think, for some people. If they feel like if they attempt to understand in some way, they'll be viewed either aligning with that or accepting whatever it is they're trying to understand, and it doesn't have to be the case.

Not at all. Yeah. Easier said than does. And people ask me all the time, why do people join cartels? And I will give them some reasons. And they say, I just don't understand it. You don't have to understand it because they do. Especially if they didn't grow up in that environment.

Exactly. And people's environments shape them and shape their life choices. And just because you didn't make those life choices doesn't mean that the other person is wrong for doing it. Sometimes, you know, and desperation leads to a lot of things. If one of the heads of the cartels reached out and wanted to talk, would you go talk with them? 100%. What would you ask him? First off, we would talk about inclusivity, of course. Shut the fuck up. Will you hire me?

Can we get an Excel spreadsheet? I'd really like this broken down men versus women because we have work to do. Yeah. What would you ask them? Well, it wouldn't be like a yes or no question. I mean, if they gave you an hour, what would you want to talk to him about? How did you grow up? What did childhood look like? Tell me about your parents. Like, I would really want to know, okay, what shape you? this person. Who was your teenage girlfriend?

Tell me about the first love. What is your biggest regret? Like, why? I would be curious to hear what the biggest regret would be from a cartel boss. Yeah, me too. And I think that when we talk about these people a lot or when you watch the shows, like the narcos or whatever, they always are showing that glamorized side of like the operations. But I would want to know this person.

because what led to you having a $10 million boundie on your head by the FBI? And I'm not here to judge. I'm genuinely just curious. Do they, from your understanding the heads of these cartels, are they living in obscurity or are they out there enjoying their money? Obscurity, but there's, it's kind of, it's twofold. Yeah, because in order to live in obscurity, they have to have the large amount of money that they have.

For sure. And they're obviously investing into their quality of life to make sure that it's, it's bougie. I mean, of course. But, you know, boogey is interesting. But let's talk about. You could have a prison with Louis Vuitton curtains. You're still in prison. Yeah, but that's not what that's not their point being though, maybe they want to go to the south

of France. That's a little bit. They can go. Could they? I would figure. Buddy, if they can take, if they can produce traffic, produce traffic and sell and prop it off of fentanyl that's killing hundreds of thousands of people, you don't think that they could somehow charter a private plane and divert law enforcement and get to these areas that they want to enjoy with the insane amount of liquid cash

that they have access to. Sorry, not to call you buddy, that was... I didn't catch that in too set. I think they could, but it's still risky. It is risky, but these people's lives have been built on taking risks. And I think, of course, their risks are measured, especially at the, like,

depending who we're talking about and what level they're at. There's a difference between gambling and risking. You know, gambling, throwing caution to the wind and just saying, let's go and let, you know, risk that taking a look at the travel and trying to do all those things, diverting, whether they're going to have a charter two jets, right? Under, you know what I mean? And make law enforcement work for their, for their money, for lack of a better term. One's a calculated risk.

The other one's just thrown caution to the wind. Yeah, but it also goes with the easy. ego thing. They have big egos. So they, they're, what they're willing to do in order to enjoy or flex their muscles to themselves or their, the people they're around. It's very different than how you and I would perceive it. I mean, like, even great historical example is Pablo Escobar taking that infamous photo in front of the White House. Right? That's a perfect way to describe this. That is a good point. How did he meet his end again? He was murdered.

I think he might have been shot by special forces. Yeah, I think there's pretty good ties. The guy in the U.S. or not in the U.S. but from the U.S. might have been, they're supposed to be by with and through, training, equipping, and advising. I'm pretty sure a U.S. guy might have pulled the trigger on that one. Yeah, this is like a really deep rabbit hole that any time I talk about this topic people try to get into. It's like, okay, so, oh my God, Julian Dory asked me, which of the cartel leaders are CIA.

And it's like, brother. Was that a serious question? I mean, how would you? I don't know. We're homies, so we joke around a lot too. Yeah. But oh my goodness. I mean, there's a world where I could see that.

That's a little bit more, that's a little bit more of a movie plot. Yeah. Where I could see it being realistic is that they are adversaries often. But when things align, for mutual benefit, they work together. That I could say. Period. Yes. Yeah.

And in the name of intelligence gathering and the quote unquote greater good or whatever. The greater good for the moment. Yes. Yeah. It's like when cats and dogs become friend because they have to fight a rat or whatever it is. And then as soon as the rat's gone,

they go back and did you just spill over yourself? That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, I'm so sorry, guys. I don't care. Wet T-shirt competition. Easy. Now, easy. Yeah.

Sorry. So what's the path forward for Canada? How long do you think? And I asked you this on the Ironclad show. You know, I feel like we're so used to hearing about violence south of the U.S. border. Yeah. It's less common hearing about it, even though you have described more of these gangland-style hits going on than I have actually heard about. And maybe that's not because I'm not paying attention.

But I feel like the move for their cartel is to stay under the radar as long as possible to move to the border. Yeah. stay in Canada because there isn't a crackdown on the northern border. So fucking milk it as long as... It's amazing. So I flew a helicopter to Calgary last weekend. And we could tell when we were going over the border because it looked like a lawnmower had done a swath east and west.

And actually helicopters are a main way that they're transporting the stuff. No, it's so highly regulated. What are you talking about? You could have made some extra money that day. My wife was shocked at how we clear... Customs. Well, and so there, you know, there's a lot of paperwork involved. One of the reasons I wanted to do it is I hadn't filled out all that paperwork and gone through the process with the helicopter, but we cleared customs via phone call. Yeah. I had pre-filed a manifest with

Canpass, called him up, told him when we were going to be there, what airport we landed at an FBO, which is a fixed-based operation, which were people who have never gone inside of one of those. We're talking marble and traventine countertops and your coffee and water is over there. And, like, Do you want a bandana for the stampede? And I'm like... Oh, did you go for a stampede? No, we went... Her brother-in-law is a drummer and a band

who happened to be playing in Calgary. No way. Yeah. Love Alberta. I live there for a year. Albert is cool. Yeah. I learned some new terms of there, like, keener.

So it's not that big of deal. I'm basically Canadian. Did you... Do you guys don't say keener here? Nobody says keener here. You know what's another one you guys never say here? Took. Oh, yeah, because you guys say what, beanie?

Yeah. because that's what it is. It's a toque. Yeah, because took sounds real great. It's cuter. Okay. Do you know what pinner is? No.

A really skinny person or mostly a guy. Have you ever heard that? No, these all sound like slurs to me. No, no, no. It's not. So if you were to look at Michael and say he's a pinner. Or like, I was talking to someone the other day and they're like, oh yeah, like, no, he's super skinny.

I'm like, yeah, pinner as fuck. And they're, what? Do you know what a keener is, Michael? No, I've never heard that one. It's like basically like a wannabe. Yeah, no, it's someone who's like super keen and wants to fucking like, they're always there. Like pumped and fired up for the vibe.

Yeah, and it's like relaxed keener. Okay. These are Canadian terms. Connor teaches me. Yeah, I'm learning now. The manager of the coffee shop is from Alberta, so she teaches me. No way. Yeah.

One of the best things about Canada is the chips you guys have, all dressed up. All dressed. It's all the flavors together. Up top. Old Dutch, not a big deal. Yeah, but the ruffles one are better. Yeah.

You know there used to be another bag up there. I don't want to name names. about who ate him. That's why he's not Pinner anymore. He's still. He's murdering the tips. He's Pinner A.F. Why would you leave them there if I didn't want me to eat them?

Plus, they're already open so it wouldn't be suspicious. Have you tried those? The coffee crisp chocolate bars? No. Oh my gosh. I'll send you some. Okay. Yeah.

Have you tried Poutine? No. I'm not even saying that right. Potein is like fries and gravy, right? With cheese curds. I have watched people eat poutine and I'll be honest with you. It was not the most visually appetizing. It's good, though.

It is. If putting dog puke on French fries is good. What the hell? You just don't like gravy? I'm just describing in my eyes when I first looked at it, that was the first thought that went through my head. Okay. Well, Canada isn't the country with an obesity problem, so.

That's not true. I saw a bunch of what we'll call wax people at the areas around the stampede. Yeah, no, it's, yeah. Yeah, no, it's trust me, that's a north and south of the border problem that. But actually, I think Mexico is. is like higher than all of them. Really? Yeah.

And like... I think the stats are right now about 60% of Americans are obese. That's so bad. What's crazy is they keep moving the bar to a higher body fat percentage. Yeah, because of body positivity, which is the largest scam ever.

If they had left it... I'm going to get canceled for this. If they had left it, what they considered to be obese in about the 60s... It'd be like 80%. Correct. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, they keep moving the bar. Because people just don't understand how much food... Yeah. I should not be talking about... this. This is not my level of expertise. This is not my area of expertise. Those are the best conversations. And I know that I would get hands. Deeply believe in things that you don't have a lot

of background. It's totally fine. It's never got anyone in trouble. Yeah, that's really where we're going right now. Well, what's the path forward for Canada? I mean, yeah, we were talking about the border. That's what it was. That it was so, but sorry, I do that. I jump around. No, so, yeah, so I call Can Pass and the guy said, any modifications to the man? I was like, nope, just me and my wife. And he goes, awesome, write this number down. I did, he's like, have a great day. That was it.

I could have had a duffel bag full of handguns. Yeah. It's so funny because when I filmed my dispatch episode at the border, like the open area, where you literally, I'm standing on the Canadian side, but you could just like a little hop over and that you're in the States. I was like, I should have brought fentanyl and walked it across and showed you guys. and showed you guys how easy it is to traffic fentanyl or vice versa guns from the other side because it's that simple it just happened though actually where I was at there was a CPP vehicle and so there is some level and it's heightened from your guys's side but on the Canadian side

there isn't anything and if I were to speak from the point of view of my Canadian law enforcement sources. They'd say we need cohesive data gathering between RCMP, which is our national police force and CIS, which is our CIA and the federal government. So everyone needs to share the same data and gather the same data as much as they can and then implement a roadmap on how to allocate resources that will tackle this whole issue. None of that will ever fucking happen. Well, it also starts with acknowledging that there is a problem. Yeah.

And they're not doing that because they just, no, out of sight, out of mind. And keep in mind, we implemented a fentanyl czar following suit of the United States, which first of all was a slap in the face to me because why didn't we implement a fentanyl czar when more people were dying of fentanyl overdose deaths than COVID during the pandemic? And second of all, we haven't heard from the guy. Nothing. Zero. I've been talking about it more than buddy up there. It's a good job title, though. I would like to be a...

I want to be the fentanyl czar. I don't want to be the fentanyl czar. I would like another thing to be a czar of. It would be pretty awesome on a business card, right? I would be like to be a different type of czar. I don't know what type, but I'm open if people have suggestions. And I think a female czar, it's a czarina, right? So I would be Zarina, Katarina.

So over my skis knowledge-wise. Can you check that? A female czar is a zara. Katerina? Zarina. No, it would be Zarina-Katerina. That's so cool. That is cool.

Yeah, Zarina. Yeah, it's a czarina. What would you be the czar of? Honestly, same like you, whatever. I would want it to be something cool. Fentanyl Zar, kind of sucks. Me too. You know what? Guns-Zar-Katarina.

Of guns? Straw-buying. What would you be? What do you mean something cool? What's cool? Because you don't need a czar for like... Hot dogs or something. You don't need a fucking czar for hot dogs.

That's why it would be cool. My job responsibilities would be relatively low. No. And then the whole coolness of the meaning of czar goes away as soon as you have a czar of hot dogs. Well, you got to teach people. Michael eats them with no hands. Like hot dogs like, oh, the actual hot dogs or your dog? Because don't you have a hot dog dog?

No, that's a weiner dog. Oops, sorry. Kind of the same thing. People do call them hot. It's a pretty classic Halloween costume. for miniature doxins is a bun on each side. Yeah, I've seen that. It's really embarrassing.

I would never be caught dead doing something like that. He's pretty cute. No, I have seen. So, yeah, I would like to be Zarina. Katerina, I think that'd be really cool. And I was always obsessed, actually, with Russian history, like the Romanov family. And I wanted to do coverage in Russia,

but I'm on a no-fly list to Russia because of covering the Ukraine-Russia war. Really? Yeah. How quickly did you get yourself on the wrong side of Russia with that? It had nothing to do with. with my, the nature of my, or like bias or anything, because I wasn't. Yeah. It's just the fact that I was covering it.

Yeah. And so like a lot of journalists ended up on like this blacklist to Russia. Because unless you were showing Russia positively, you were showing it negatively. Like if you didn't push the narrative, then you weren't pushing their narrative goodbye. You are anti-Soviet. I spent 10 days in Moscow. And it was like the best thing of your life, right? It was cool.

I walked around. I walked through Red Square. You can see the lines where like, this is a line where the tank rides in the parade. Yeah. This is the missile line. What they don't show often in the red square is that there's a shopping mall right on the other side. Like super high-end shopping mall, which I walked through. No, it was cool.

I mean, I had never been. I was there years ago. I had a bunch of time off while I was there. And it was cool just to like cruise around and walk around. I've always wanted to go. The Kremlin area. the churches with the intricate. I'm like, man, it was pretty cool.

And I love the brutalist architecture. We have that in Poland too because it's ex-Soviet Union. Yeah. That's a good word for it, actually. What? Brutalist. That's what it's called. I know.

It's a good word for it. Yeah, it matches, right? Yeah. And it's like, it's just so fascinating to see that point in time and everything that came along with it. But even prior to that, yeah, like Romanov family, Russian royalty and stuff. How long do you think you can report on the cartel? Not much longer.

I was going to say before they get to the place where... They want me to shut the hell up. You're already getting that vibe? Yeah. And so I'm trying to expand coverage. I think we're going to do MENA, Eastern Europe. After Epsine stuff. Shut up.

I'm just, I'm tossing you softballs. You could crush it over the... You could crush it over the center field wall. This is a layup. This is a failure of everything. It really is. You are right. It's ridiculous. But I'm going to just keep covering organized crime and FTOs.

Okay. So what was the one you just mentioned, MENA? Middle East, North Africa. Middle East, North Africa. Okay. Yeah, I've always wanted to do that. That was always part of the plan. So I want to expand, even, you know, if it's, we're talking about border coverage over there,

especially with what's happening right now. Like, I'd love to go and show the Iran-Turkey border crossing and people trying to leave. and a few other places, but I don't want to like mention, you know. Yeah. What are your, how do you feel about traveling to those areas? I'm fascinated by it. I've, I've always wanted to go to those areas. I mean more from a risk perspective.

Well, it's definitely dangerous, but I've been in these. It can be. It doesn't have to be. Yeah, it doesn't. But I've, it's like Mexico. It can be dangerous. But there you are. So, I mean.

How much of a thought process in planning do you put into? Let's say you were going to head over there. How much do you plan in terms of your security as to where you would want to go, how you want to do it? Or do you get over there and you figure it out on the ground? No, I don't talk about this publicly. Okay. Because I get paranoid if I ever talk about this publicly. I'm not saying to describe your steps.

I'm just curious if you put that kind of thought into it or do you go, because I've talked with both types. People go like, I'm going to get over there and figure it out when I get there. And then others that put a pretty robust planning cycle. I don't. It depends on the assignment, what's necessary. And then I go from there. Yeah. I don't want you to talk about specifics.

Because if I say like, yeah, no, yeah. Fair enough. How does your family feel about you traveling to places like this? Well, my dad and my brother love when I'm home. Yeah. But they also know that there's nothing else that I would do. And they've known that I've wanted to do this. my whole entire life so they would never stop me and they never discourage me um they don't

understand why people listen to me talk they're like why does this have so many views you're annoying yeah um as they're viewing you as their sisters and daughter respectively as opposed to and they're at home they're like shut up you know dad he's like yeah you know you can shut up yeah But they it's none of this like a lot of people are like how could her parents let her do this or she should tell her parents that she's doing this as if like they don't know. Yeah. But my dad and my brother have always known that this is, I had been talking about this and they would never stop me. Like it's even when there are threats or shit comes to a head, I'm very open with them. They typically know everything that's going on. They're like, okay, how are you going to navigate? it. Okay, what are the next steps? Like, we're very, like, sterile about it. And none of us try to get the emotions of, okay, I'm the sister and the daughter in the way. It's very much like, okay, like, let's look at this from a business perspective and a safety thing. Going forward,

how are we going to deal with this? Cool. Okay, do we feel good now? So they, yeah, if I, if I told my dad tomorrow, like, um, I'm going to Afghanistan. He'd be like, okay, cool, like have fun, be safe. That was the same thing that happened with Mexico. And we've had the conversation, and my brother absolutely hates this, but I've spoken with them of like, if something ever happens to me, like if I get murdered or kidnapped or I've been raped or whatever, like worse comes to worse, you guys cannot feel guilty about it

because this was my choice to be doing this. and we know the risk that runs along with this work. Easier said than done on that. Obviously, which is why my brother hates it. And my brother's like, you're fucking stupid. Why would you even say that? It's very brotherly advice. It was very brotherly invite.

And your forehead is huge. Yeah, I'm also very brotherly feedback. My daughter, I have a son who's turning 20 and a daughter just turned 17. So yeah, close in age. The feedback. I'll use a word. that is not even remotely accurate to how they talk to each other.

The feedback that they give each other is startling. Well, okay, it's also because they're close in age, but they're also young. So, like, my brother and I am 24, he's 23 soon. We're best friends. Like, he's my number one. We support each other, and we don't talk shit to each other.

These two are not best friends. Because of the age, though. My brother and I used to be like that, too. I mean, when we were teenagers, There's my brother, you know, teenage boys love to play video games. I took a glass of salt water, threw it on his TV and his PlayStation. It corroded it. He took a baseball bat to my knee, okay?

That's really an escalation. Oh, yeah. That's a real escalation beyond a physical thing to trying to kneecap your system. And it's funny because now when I bring it up, like we don't fight it all. We're best friends now, honestly. Okay, but you weren't always that. All love and respect. No, we weren't always that.

way. And my dad, who's a single child, is like, he would, he'd be like, why are you guys acting like this? Like, you guys are brother and sister. But now when I bring it up, he'd be like, it's, I'm like, you used to treat me like shit. And he's like, you were a bitch back then. So he justifies it. Okay. But it's all love. So I think your kid's situation will change. I'm going to tell you a story that perfectly describes my middle son and daughter, both of which Michael knows. So when my daughter was born, she was the third of three children that I have with my ex-wife, we brought her home.

And shortly after her brother's behavior, it's just he was, it's not like he was upset that she was there, but she could tell he wasn't pumped because he went from being the youngest to the middle. And one morning I walked out shortly after we brought her home from the hospital. and he's underneath the kitchen table, just taking a shit on the floor. Oh, that's really bad. Yeah. How old was he?

Four. Okay. Well, potty trained. He was in an overhead squat holding onto the bottom of the table. Mind you, my man knew how to use and just a huge steaming pile of shit on the kitchen floor under the table. How did you guys react?

Shock. Pure, utter shock. Did he have anything to say for himself? No. No, shit. That was on purpose. That was, you brought this thing back to the house. This is what I think about that.

And basically, that's how it's been ever since. No shit. Oh my God. Did I ever tell you that story, Michael? Huge. No, that's so funny. No. I'm going to bring that up next time I should.

You should. That was his rebellion. Like, wow. Wow. They're like oil and water. How do your kids feel that you talk about them, like about this on the podcast? Don't care. Oh, that's, you don't care. Nope.

I had to, with my own hands, pick that up. So I get. No. Okay, good. Paper towels and chlorox wipes involved and all of that. But since I had to suffer through that, I get to talk about it whenever I want to. Right. Yeah.

I mean, you brought them into this world. Yeah, but I never asked them to shit underprivile. kitchen table. He was making, as I came around, he's looking at me. Dead in the eyes like, this is what you get. I don't know why his hands were pushing up on the top. It's like a table this high. Excellent, beautiful squat, vertical torso, spinal alignment, knees tracking over toes and just and just staring at me. And I just, what do you say? There's no, first off, there's no book for parenting. And if there was, I don't think that's in any of the chapters. No, they actually do say like kids who like shit like that or smear.

It's like a sign of abuse. Yeah, he was abusing us. I would like to report this abuse because I was the recipient of it. And man, they have been oil and water ever since. They will have moments. And then all it takes is a comment. And then stop acting like a little bitch. You're a little bitch.

And it just escalates from there. And my wife and I just sit back and I'm trying not to laugh because a portion of me, like I can't stop it. I've asked them not to do. No, you can't. I've used every single word that I know in the known English language to ask them to stop doing this and it doesn't. And I just sit there with my wife and we just start laughing. We try not to laugh right away.

Because what the hell is going on? But I hope they grow out of it. I mean, for their sake, because like my. brother and I have a beautiful relationship now. And he's my best friend. And I think they will because it's an age thing. Also, she's 17, right? Yes. Which sucks. I was a bitch at 17. But like here's an example of some feedback. Because again,

I have to live through this so I get to share when I want to. Michael, you might appreciate this. You might have heard this story. He was providing constructive feedback on her boyfriend, a previous boyfriend. And she was saying something to him and he just looks at her and goes, your boyfriend doesn't even have a taint. Deadpaned serious. Of course. How do you not burst out laughing?

I did instantly. And my wife is just palm on the head. And her response was, you don't even have a taint. And I'm just, I'm like, this is what happens. That is the type of conversational feedback.

We have. And yeah, I don't even know how we got on this. that's my life. I remember you told me you're like, yeah, I believe that children come here to sharpen their teeth on the bones of their parents. Yes. It's what it is.

And I was like, oh my God. Just wait until you have kids. I am waiting. Not a bad call. Pros and cons. I had kids in my 20s and I'm still at a place where I get to do a bunch of really cool stuff. Like my oldest turns 22 this year.

No, it's great. Yeah. That's like my dad too had me at 27. Yeah. There's a sweet spot. Lots of, and lots of energy. Like, it's good. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But there's something to be said for having a little bit more life experience, a little bit more patience. It's an interesting journey. You'll recognize the viciousness of yourself. Yeah. And you'll think a lot more. You're like, ooh.

You know what I haven't said that to my dad way back in the day. Because it was a lot for them, right? It was more than you could have possibly realized at the time. It might have been a flippant comment or something you didn't think about. and like your dad's crying in the shower. So you can't tell that he's crying. You know, it's funny because my brother and I were just talking about this the other day. My dad was like in the context of kind of young dad.

And after my mom died, he raised us by himself. And so we were kind of his best friends, but we were very young. So let's say, for example, a movie would come out, Black Hawk down, Eden Lake Both known to be kids movies Probably not movies That a four year old and a three year old Yeah that is not the target audience

My brother literally brought it up the other day He goes do you remember How our dad was so fucking excited To show it he was like yeah guys Like sick new war movie Let's all get in the basin and watch it together Let's get some popcorns and beverages Let's do this

Yes I was like Why the fuck did he do that? My brother's like We were his own only fucking friends. And I'm like, oh, that's so true. But I couldn't sleep for weeks after watching Black Hawk down. Maybe that's why I wanted to touch war as an adult.

Maybe. What do you think you'd be doing right now if, say, for whatever reason, you just, it got so risky you couldn't do this type of reporting. What do you think you would do? Is there anything else that excites you the way that this type of stuff does? Well, no. Like, it would probably just be something in the same field, produced documentary. But I want to be out.

You would be reporting in some way, shape, or form. Yeah, I love telling stories. I love getting into the nitty gritty. I mean, everyone always told me that I should get a law degree, but I didn't want to be sitting in an office. And every lawyer, well, a lot of lawyers I met are kind of crazy. Almost every lawyer I know says that the reason there's still a lawyer is to pay off their student loan debt. Oh, I don't want that. And that they would probably pick a different path. It's not like you see on T. It's not law and order.

It's not suits. No, that I know. But I am deeply intrigued by like the call. content of law. Like I took a law class and I loved it and I got really good grades. But I don't know, maybe, maybe humanitarian work. I, fuck, I don't, but I'd still be going to these places. I don't know. And I, and I don't, like, I think sometimes humanitarian work borders like, it's more self-serving than it is for, yeah, and I don't, I don't fuck with that. I really don't know. Which I think is okay.

Because we don't need to know because I'm doing this. Yeah. Maybe I'd be a podiatrist. That's definitely a shift in a career. I used to love my great grandma died when she was 105. I was 16, so I would cut her thick-ass toenails for her and I never got grossed out. This is a really weird story. I know.

But maybe a podiatrist because I don't get grossed out by things that typically gross people out. So I could like be in the medical field. And you're like kind of helping people and feed our foothouse. is incredibly important. And a lot of people can't do it on their own. So maybe that. And I find it a little satisfying. Let's start looking into it.

I'll burn off your planter warts and cut your diabetic toenails. Listen, people are into what they're into. Okay, I'm not into. Don't put, no, no, you're setting me up for failure with something like that. You know how many creeps there are on the internet? I'm not saying you're not going to get pictures of people's feet. No, it's going to be weird stuff. It's going to be people asking for.

For my feet. Oh, yeah. Didn't we go on a show Michael and we looked up FeetFinder.com or something? Oh, for something, yeah. Oh, my God. We went to an actual foot website. Yeah, I know.

I know people who do that. They make bank. There were about 20 categories. Shoes. So barefoot, big foot, tiny feet, dirty feet, socks, running shoes, like stiletto high heels, every imaginable and also every unimaginable kink. One of them was smelly feet,

which I still don't understand how I picture, like what goes, is it like clearly in dog shit? Like, I hate how the internet has allowed, like this portal for open perversion and people to just like sexualize everything. And shamelessly be perverted.

Like I absolutely hate that. And I also don't know how we're going to get a hold of that. Well, you can't. You've opened Pandora's box and it's absolutely fucked and I think so many people struggle with porn addiction and like it's, I hate it and I face, I see, I'm a victim of open perversion on a daily fucking basis because my, you know, no matter the content that I'm talking about, I could literally be talking about people getting their heads chopped off and I'm talking about some geopolitical analysis and people are sending me just like the most outrageous things and it's so gross it's so heinous and I hate seeing it like if any of these freaks that are watching

that send me this like please refrain well the problem is you hate seeing it they get off on me being disgusted that it has on you I know I and you know for me me it's like, okay, fucking weird incels, whatever, get away from me. But I think about like, you know, if that was like my daughter, I don't have one, but future, if I had a daughter and she was receiving things like that, it would bother me to my core. Like it would, it would bother me more than me getting that type of stuff. Well, there's another layer to that. Even if a daughter, this hypothetical daughter of say social media still exists at the age where you would want allow them to interface. Any person predatory in nature with any desire to be nefarious has access

to at least reaching out and trying to communicate. Yeah, it's gnarly. It's so fucked. And yeah, I think the internet, like social media and a lot of what we're exposed to now has allowed for people to be, to openly be perverts. And, you know, on Instagram, there's a, uh, uh, feature that allows you to see what people like, right? Like what they're double tapping on. Oh, really? Yeah, like if you go on reels, it'll show you like certain people that you follow.

You can click on it. You can see what they like and other people. And I have seen people I know personally like stuff that they should not even be fucking looking at. And it's nasty. And then this comes right after I say, I don't judge people. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I can judge people's actions, like I said too. And the perversion stuff, where you're kind of normalizing something that can put a lot of people in a really uncomfortable or even dangerous situation, not good. I've never talked about this on a podcast before. Just like how I never talked about, like, obesity on a podcast. This is so weird. Why? What is your topic? I never have one. I love it. No, I'm just interested in what makes you tick. That's the coolest thing about having a show. I mean, I knew broadly what I wanted to talk with you about because we have done a few shows together through Ironclad. So I have an understanding of your background. But why have a topic? No, it's so much better. Yeah. I love this type of free flowing conversation, especially since I, it's like going a million miles a minute.

Yeah. So we can jump around. What would you ask a cartel leader if you came face to face with them? I would ask them legitimately how they feel about what they do. Huh. See, but that question kind of comes from judgment. No. Do you know how do they view their role in the greater world?

Okay. Are they simply satisfying a demand that is insatiable? Do they view that what they're doing is shouldn't even be considered illegal? I mean, I wouldn't be surprised of some of these people. I know almost nothing about them for clarity. So anything else comes out of my mouth is a total guess. But I bet some of these people have talked themselves into a place. where they feel like they might be doing good

because of the money that they spend in certain areas or where they try to help on all. It's funny what you can talk yourself into into a corner. But like legitimately, like, well, what do you feel like about what you do? You know what the world thinks about it, generally. What are your thoughts? You know, you're pretty on par because when I spoke to some people in organized crime

operating in a border region in Mexico, they said, well, we're just supplying what there's already a demand for. And if it's not us, who's it going to be? We're not terrorists. I mean, the demand thing, the demand thing is real. Yeah. You know, the war on drugs were, who, Michael, when was the war on drugs declared? I just want to know how long we've been losing it.

Are we at 50 years of losing this particular war on drugs? Yeah. We haven't spent much on it yet, so we're going to really need to increase our spending. 71. Yeah, 1971. Yeah, that's very hot. So, yeah, that's 30. Yeah, we're 57, 55 years at this point.

Do you have a rough estimate on cost, Michael? Google that. It's got to be hundreds of billions of dollars. Should we bet on our guesses? It's got to be 500 plus billion. Oh. Roughly that has cost roughly a trillion dollars. Yeah, I figured.

I would have won that bet. Basically the same number that I said, but basically. A trillion dollars in the demand, I don't think, has gone down. It probably, I wonder if the ratio would have gone down. Population is drastically increased since the 70s, but has the ratio... This graph gives a pretty good idea. Male incarceration rate, sentence person is. Yeah, that's an incarceration rate.

Yeah, I mean, how do you get rid of the demand? I don't have an answer for that. No, me neither. There will always be an insatiable demand, appetite for drugs. Yeah. And it would be interesting, you know, for a cartel leader, even though they have been designated as a terrorist organization. would I want the cartel supplying the drugs and the money going to them versus al-Qaeda? I'm going to land on cartel.

I mean, obviously both of those choices are not good, which is the reality of most choices in life. Everybody likes to present it as if there's a glowing white and good choice and a dark, deep, you know, bad choice. That hasn't been my experience in life. It's like, here's a kind of shitty choice and here's another one that's not that great either. So you get to pick between the two. It's not this beautiful, linear, or binary world that people want to make it out. No, it's not.

And that's what makes this so complicated. And, like, the reason for why people do drugs, it's not like, you drink water because you're thirsty, so we need to have water, right? People do drugs because some of them want to escape reality. Some of them have gotten addicted to it because they were given it after a medical procedure. Some of them just want to use it recreationally

to have a good time. Some of them want to experience a awakening, whatever, like hallucinogenic. Or even just curiosity. Or even curiosity. So the reasons that lead people to use, try, or regularly use drugs is different for everyone. So how do you tackle a demand that is not just coming from one place? I do not know. Right?

It's very complicated. And we throw in a trillion dollars at it over, what was it, 57 years, 55 years, and I don't think we're any closer to the solution. Not even a dent. No. And if anyone's winning, it's the cartels. Yeah. I mean, that's tough, that's tough to argue against. There's more of them now, it seems like.

There's more of them. They're more expansionist and powerful than ever before. Organized. They have incredible reach. They're richer than ever before. You guys are spending money on it. They're earning. Yeah.

What's the favorite story you've ever reported on? You have one that sticks out? Like a beautiful story? No, just something that you're one that is like the top of the heap. It doesn't have to be like your absolute favorite, but just one that has stuck with you over time. Well, I have, so because I mostly report on negative things, when people ask me like, what's your favorite story you've reported on?

I'm not like, oh, you know the time I, like, rode this pony and it turned into a unicorn because I'm not covering that type of stuff. but the most impactful story I ever reported on was of the murder of a little girl, an eight-year-old girl in Alberta. She was murdered by her stepmom and her body was disposed of by the stepmom's sugar dad because she was staying with the stepmom while her father was in jail and she was really, really cute

and actually has the same name of my child's, best friend. And so when I, the way that I got into this story was this little girl was missing. But the police didn't put out that she was missing. It was her grandmother. And her grandmother said, I think the grandmother lived on the reservation. And then the little girl lived in the city with the stepmom. And she goes, we haven't seen her for a while. If anyone has any information about a few weeks later, it comes out that like, okay, everything is like scrub from the internet. something is wrong. So it turns out that this little girl was being very badly abused by her stepmom and the stepmom smashed the little girl's head into the wall so hard that the whole led into the other

room and then the neighbor who the stepmom used to do drugs with heard the commotion ran over saw the little girl all bloodied on the ground and told her that she needs to like revive her because she's going to murder her and so she got a bike pump and shoved it down her throat and tried to like do that and then called her sugar dead to come pick her pick up the body wrapped it in a hockey bag and dumped it in the back of a truck on a reservation and then they held like some fucking vigil for her but I was like and I was talking to the family

that I went to court to try to we have a publication ban thing so because it's a minor to protect the identity of the siblings whatever you can't report on the name which I thought was bullshit because it just seemed like this little girl who had no one that cared about her and then she was murdered in such a brazen and awful way and when I went to the

location of her murder, the apartment building. Well, I wasn't going to be let in until the groundskeeper turned out to be this Polish guy. So I'm like in Polish, like, let me in. And he's like, I'm just going to walk in and you can follow me. Just I'm not going to turn around. I'm just going to, the door is going to open. And I remember when I stood outside the door and the, you know, the fingerprinting dust was all over. And I wanted to talk to some neighbors.

And one of the neighbors was like, I heard that little girl screaming all the time. And I wanted to fucking lose it. and something switched in that moment where I was like, I don't know, I just deeply have cared for this little girl. And I talked about her once before. And someone said that, well, you know, you're keeping her alive, which is the goal here because I really wish the story didn't end like that. And then I was going to court to cover, you know, the case of the stepmom

who's probably going to get no time in jail. Are you serious? Yeah, I don't know what the status of it is right now. It should take so fucking long in Canadian courts. But, and she was just like, when I saw that mom in court, like, I don't know. That was an evil person. That was a bad person. They exist.

And I've come face to face with people who have murdered people before and, you know, done bad things. There's a difference between people who have killed and people who are evil. Yeah. And that was the first time I read. realize that. Yeah. Yeah, I've encountered a few people that are legitimately evil and you're like, whoa, you and I are not the same thing. No. Yeah. Yeah. You can see it. You can feel it. You can almost taste it and touch it. Like, okay. Yeah. We are not cut from the same fucking cloth. For sure. And I just felt so bad for this kid. I don't know how to explain it. It was weird. It was like a- I get it. I get it. a weird process for me during this time too because I was covering it like all day long and then I would walk home from work I lived in downtown so it was just you know from the newsroom to my apartment and then I would get home and like watch a show like make my dinner whatever have a glass of wine and

go to bed by the time I would like lay down in bed I would realize that I didn't I was on autopilot not processing the whole walk from home to at home like doing all this going to the gym of blah I was out I was not even conscious of anything and I was like oh my god because I was thinking about her the whole fucking time and then I'm talking to family members who are trying to raise money but like they're not it's like tell me about this little girl so when I report on her I can like tell me about her like tell me about her legacy how do you want people to remember her oh you know she's just a fun sweet girl and it's like fucking give me something like did you even love her and i feel bad because obviously the family probably

went through trom of course they is very traumatic and if they ever listen to my stuff they're probably gonna think i'm this big bitch and who do i think i am but it was just so i don't know i was really frustrating. I was really pissed off. I felt really bad for the kid. And I cried a lot for her. It was like it was my first really big child murder that I could already foresee was not going to get any justice. And when I went, it seemed like everyone was against her or it seemed like everyone was against proper justice. Because the family lied to me about what the dad was in jail for. And then like, what the fuck? What do you lie to me? I'm not a cop. and he's already in jail.

And then when I went to try to get rid of the publication ban, and it was my first time I remember doing that where I had to stand up in front of the judge and be like, these are my reasons. Let's cut this out. The Crown Prosecutor corners me in the elevator and is like, I don't know who you think you are, but you're just a bitch like at the, like just some, you know,

whose dick is bigger type of thing? And I'm like, can we not understand that a little girl was violently murdered, we should all have a common goal here, which is get cold, hard, justice. Not, I don't know, whatever the hell that was. It was horrible. It was so bad. And I, yeah, it was just really bad. That was the worst story. But that was the most, that was the most memorable one. At least you were a voice for somebody who didn't have one. Yeah, but she's dead. It's just not the same. And, you know, that's what I would think about all the time was the way she was killed, fucked me up. Because I would literally like, it's called something the therapist told me when you

put yourself in their shoes so you can like feel like this level of anxiety that that, some shit like that. I don't know how much I believe it, but I would think about of what it felt like for her to just be getting pummeled by this large woman who looks like fucking Ursula and knowing that you're screaming for help and no one is coming. Your dad's in jail. Your extended family lives far away. You've been screaming and your neighbors aren't coming. Like, what?

She was eight years old, man. Well, you know what they say? You die twice once when you finally die. And then the second time was when the last time somebody says your name. So you're helping keep it in alive in that respect. Oh, yeah, I will never stop with that. That shit was horrible. Yeah.

What do you want to close out with? We've been out like two and a half hours. All right. I want you to see some more of Montana. I want to see Montana too. I mean, a horrendous murder of a child story. I think we could maybe, what's your favorite color? I mean, let's think.

Pink, I'm a girl. What do you want to close out with? Did we not cover anything that you wanted to cover? I don't know. I've been talking so much lately. Okay, fair enough. Well, we can always do it again if we forgot something. Yeah, of course we can.

I want to come back to Montana so bad. You should. It's pretty dope. Because this will only have been a day and a half that I'm here. That is not enough time. No, it's so nice and everyone's so friendly. Wintertime, too, if you're into snow sports. Love.

Then, yeah, definitely come back in the winter too. Well, I'll give you the final words. What do you want people to know? Where can people find your work? That's often the best. Often the best ending. Well, we've got two major platforms. is my substack where I like I it's a lot of one-on-one interaction so if you become a paid subscriber it's great if you're like really enthralled in this subject matter and you want to ask questions and engage in discourse with everyone and then my borderland dispatches episodes which is podcast with ironclad yeah those are the two main spots if you want to get all this content then Instagram and Twitter of course are you going to go see the ironclad people after this yeah have a little chat with them about calming down

Just take it easy. They're at a 10. I need a minute at 2. Oh, they freak the fuck out for me. I've never experienced this before where people are so concerned for my well-being and thinking- You know who they haven't showed any concern for? You? Yes.

Okay, but can we look at the different demographic here? I feel left out. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. I am going to start showing up to calls 15 minutes late and not answering my text that I probably won't even get from them because they forgot. Fragile men here. He's right there. It's rubbing off. Come on, this is your perfect opportunity to give it back.

He tries. I'm trying to teach him how. I want to sharpen him into a weapon that the world isn't ready for. What the fuck? I like to like stab people, but I want him to be able to navigate life. I want to sharpen. That's what we're working on here. This is really funny.

He's like a bowling ball. We have to shape into a spearhead. little chisel at a time. You like working here? You know the correct answer. I'm obligated to say yes. Yeah, I can see. You can answer, honestly.

Actually, we have a fantastic relationship. It actually is probably the best. It's a healthy banter, I think. Well, we see each other all the time. Like, we literally right before this, we're fighting each other on the jiu-suits mats. I need to get into that. I would highly recommend it.

So my wife is one of the coaches at the gym. She is very competitive background. She teaches a lot of the women's self-defense or just an intro to it. Yeah. The data, I mean, they've gone and talked to predators and they will tell you, what are they looking for? They're looking for somebody who doesn't look like they're confident in themselves, who is more shrunken down as opposed to standing up a show. They're looking for softer victims.

And lack of eye contact. Yes. Yeah. You know, eyes moving around as if you're lost. I mean, you see it in nature as well, too. And then the predator is just locked in. Yeah. There is, it can have such an impact on your life.

It's not magic by any stretch. But there is some theory behind this. There's some great theory behind it. And honestly, at a certain level of training, you should be able to hold somebody off until a higher level of care gets there. Protect yourself. Break away if you need to.

Hurt somebody if you need to. It's not magic. It takes years to get to that point. Ideally, I would like to get to the point where if a predator or perver, whatever approaches me, that I could just end them with my bare hands. Well, Stephen Seagall fighting isn't real, which is what you're talking about. But I know.

There is a tool that helps with that, which is not really legal where you live. Well, where I'm from. Sure. Yeah. If you come south of where you're from. We're going to stay strapped. It is a tool that levels the playing field like nothing. I've ever seen. I literally retweeted something the other day. It's like, why do you as a woman not own a gun?

And it's so true. I mean, like, we could talk about this all day long. The amount of horrible, scary experiences that you as a woman just, it just happens. Don't confuse owning a gun with knowing how to use a gun. For sure. Yep. Yeah. Many people do. They think that the possession of a firearm is enough. And there is the physical manipulation, how to line. line up the sites, knowing how to pull the trigger, how to hold it. And then there's the emotional component of being able to look at another human being and be prepared to do that. Those are both things that have to be thought through, practice, thought about, and trained as much as possible. So, yeah, I'll keep that in line.

Guns. Yeah, don't carry one north of the border. I think you'll get to trouble. Yeah, probably. But either way, jiu-jitsu is awesome. Yeah, I'm going to, actually, because we're going to go see the ironclad people. I'm going to go see the Ironclad people. So that's part of the game plan.

None of them do Jiu-Jitsu. No, okay. None of them. Zero. Hey, Ironclad Andy hates you guys. No, they don't care about me. Why don't they care about you? I don't know.

Probably because I'm an asshole. You're looking into this too much. They've never texted me asking where I am. They've never tracked me on a flight and said, are you okay? I would loki prefer that. It was like a little much. Like I said, I was glad that I woke up to these text messages and was able to look through them between absolute panic to essentially the lax text was,

yeah, it's all good. I know. Like literally people telling you, hey, she's dead. Totally. Actually disregard. And I got them all at once. And then it just took a sip of coffee. Like, cool.

Maybe calm down next time. Like. Take it slow. Yeah. All right. Well, cool. Let's, uh, so tomorrow you're going up to the mountain. Yeah.

With cinnamon. With cinnamon. It was not a stripper. He's not. Take your phone. Or you have other cameras here too. Do you have silk? cameras? I have like four cameras on me. The view up there is spectacular. On a clear day,

you'll be able to see into glacier, not with like an incredible amount of detail, but you'll be able to see the mountains as you're looking off to the east. Great view of the valley. It should be clear tomorrow as well. So yeah, don't skimp on taking a camera. Okay. You can hike it or you can take the chairlift. I recommend. That's what she told me and I'm not hiking it. Smart woman. I am not a hiker lady. Yeah. If you were going to hike it, hike up and ride the chairlift down. Downhill hiking is worse than up. Horrible for your knees too. It hurts.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It has no benefits. I would agree with that. I hate that. Especially when like if a guy asks you on a day,

he's like a hike, I'm like, fuck. No. You do not know me. And you know what? I do not want to know you. Sounds like a real keener.

On that note, awesome. Thank you. Thank you.