Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Inside Cartel Conflict and the Reality At The Border | Oscar Hagelsieb | Ep. 435

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

Oscar Hagelsieb is a Mexican-American law enforcement professional known for his lengthy career in U.S. federal service focused on border security, organized crime and cartel infiltration. He grew up in a tough neighborhood on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas, the son of undocumented immigrant parents. His upbringing gave him firsthand insight into both sides of the border and influenced his decision to pursue a career in federal law enforcement. Hagelsieb began his federal service as a U.S. Border Patrol Agent, where he worked in frontline enforcement along the U.S.–Mexico border. In that role he encountered families and migrants crossing for economic opportunity as well as experienced cartel-linked smuggling activity.  Building on his effectiveness and his deep understanding of local culture and language, Hagelsieb transitioned into undercover work, infiltrating narcotics and human smuggling networks tied to major Mexican drug cartels. His appearance and background were strategic assets in these operations, allowing him to navigate criminal subcultures and gather actionable intelligence that led to prosecutions.  Over time, he rose through the ranks to become the Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) of the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) office in El Paso. In this senior leadership position, he oversaw complex investigations into transnational organized crime, cartel logistics, and cross-border smuggling operations, and managed both domestic and international law enforcement efforts.  His work and perspective were featured in the documentary Kingdom of Shadows, which examines the human realities of the drug war and cartel influence along the border, providing rare insight into the lived experience of agents operating within these conflicts.    Today's Sponsors:  Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Brunt:  https://www.bruntworkwear.com For a limited time, our listeners get $10 off at BRUNT when you use code "Clearedhot" at checkout. 

Okay, got to red smoke. Oh, west of the smoke. Okay, Kathy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Come on, wait a minute. You made it, Oscar. I made it. You made it.

Shall we do it? You asking me? I'm ready. I'm ready. How, I don't think Jesse would mind if we said that he was the one who connected us. I think he'd be okay with it. How do you know Jesse James? You know what I know Jesse from the car scene, first of all?

Okay. That actually makes sense. Yeah, and, you know, but I wasn't really, like, I wasn't anybody that he would kind of recognize or whatever. It wasn't until they did a documentary in my life. Yeah. Which I watched last night, by the way. Oh, okay. Okay.

Okay. Did you like it? It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. it's a lot to digest. Right.

When they were shown the pictures of the barrels with the large holes placed in them, and they talked about how five gallons of diesel can disappear, a human being from planet Earth. Right. And they stuff them in headfirst. Right. And the guy with the neoprene mask on was saying he couldn't eat chicken for a month afterwards. It's like, okay.

It's a lot, man. It is a lot. And a lot of people don't realize, like, for example, yourself with, you know, experience in the Middle East, I imagine, and all that. You see that over there, right? I never saw that. Well, I'll be honest, that type of, you saw violence and you saw indiscriminate violence and you saw a culture that valued life very differently.

I mean, there was 30 of those barrels sitting around in one of these. What did they call them a cartel kitchen? Right. Yeah, they weren't cooking state. Well, I mean, I guess to, depending on what you're like to eat. But, I mean, they were cooking people and disappearing them off. Yeah, that's, I'd never. saw that.

They call them the posoleros, you know, the people that... Posoles, a traditional Mexican stew. So that's what they say. They're making posole. Which I have a funny story about that. We can get that into later. But I have a million, million stories that I can claim. Yeah, but Jesse saw the film, like that, you know.

My sister lives in Austin, so every time I go out there, I'll, you know, swing by and talk to him and shoot the shit. Look at all the cool stuff he has. God, I met him. Just when he did that first show with that. with him with ironclad. I had not met him before. Um, had watched a lot of the TV stuff that he had done years before, you know, just all of the motorcycle stuff, without a deep appreciation work because I wasn't really riding at the time. And he could have been cooler. I didn't, you know,

sometimes you don't know what to expect. You see somebody who's kind of in that orbit, like they'll be, are they going to be cool, kind of cool? Are they living in left field? They'd have no reality attachment. And yeah, he walked me through the whole thing. Down to earth guy. Down to earth guy, but also what a craftsman. I couldn't. If you, if you, gave me the rest of my life. I could not produce something like that. I just don't have that gene. Yeah, you either have it or you don't. It's like being like an artist, like a pain, like you either have it or you don't. But yeah, I mean, uh, excellent guy. It was funny. Last time I was there was for Thanksgiving. I spent Thanksgiving with him up there. And, uh, the first time that,

that I had gone to the shop, the new shop in Austin, he was a workaholic. I mean, he would get up at four in the morning, work till midnight. And I started talking to some Mexican guys that, because they were there, right, for the Thanksgiving thing. And they were like, yeah, ever, ever since he married his wife, he says, man, it's good because like by four or five o'clock he's telling us to shut it down. He says he became a much cooler dude. So he was working his people to death. Yeah, he was. And they were like, well, he was paying us, but still, he's just like, one of them said he actually left and came back when he heard that he had mellowed out.

And he mellowed out. So, yeah. That's a good thing for him. Yeah. And he connected us, which is. Yeah, which is awesome. Today's episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. Spring doesn't negotiate.

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So yesterday, I mean, what do you think? You're in El Paso. Right. You're at the airport. They cancel for, what did they call it, a special security reason? Right. So I hop on line to 10-day cancellation, which I have never seen anything like that, closing the airspace.

And then they started reporting cartel. you not UAP because that's unidentified aerial phenomenon uh drones essentially what do you think it actually well you know what like like drones is not like it's nothing new right it's nothing like all of a sudden you know the cartels are using drones uh it's been happening right for for years uh and and i think a CBP border patrol has a pretty good understanding and grass what was going on um the the official word was that you know the drones were shot shut down by uh by border border border Patrol. They set the military at first, but actually it was equipment, from what I understand, from what my source told me, it was equipment that was loaned to Border Patrol from the Department

of Defense. Interesting. And it was, there was some soldiers there, whether it's National Guard or I don't know what they are, but there was some people there. It's either one or two things. We're discussing it. It was either a cartel drone or a UAP, right, which we're hearing that a lot. And just the fact that they shut it down and they shut it down so quick was eye-opening. Man said 10 days to initially begin with. Not even after September 11th, they would experience that. You know, it was just, it was eye-opening. I mean, a source that gave me a little bit of information said that his feeling was that

it was just a couple of young Border Patrol agents and a couple of soldiers that thought it was funny to use this laser thing to shoot down balloons and the FAAs. somehow. And I mean, you don't know. You don't know. But it was, it was, everybody was scared. Everybody was scared. Like I sent you a picture. I locked and loaded. I was like, you had to be ready to go, man. I was like, hey, you know, let's do it. But it opened up. And speaking of being locks and loaded, how much concern do you have, if any, about retribution from people like the cartel, given the proximity you still live in that area and the job that you used to have? To be honest, I don't matter anymore. You know what I'm saying? It's not like I'm out there investigating.

Do they feel that way, though? Do they hold a grudge? No, they hold a grudge. And, you know, it's apparent from, you know, you'll see it from this podcast. Whenever I do a podcast or do an interview, you'll see the knuckleheads that, that, you know, will comment, you know, we're going to get you and all this stuff. But it's just, you know, you know that those, they're aligned with the cartels. And I think that for me, I have explained it before because, you know, people have this misconception

about cartels, what they see in the movies, right? that if you're doing undercover, you're doing a UC deal or if they found out your federal agent they're going to come after you and kill you, right? And that's not necessarily true, right? Like, countless of times I was dealing with these knuckleheads and they might have

got an inkling that I was a federal agent, they just won't talk to you anymore, right? They're just back away. Yeah, they're like, they don't want to go to jail. They're like hoping like, oh, shit, I hope this guy doesn't have, you know, enough evidence to put me in jail. So for the most part, they won't,

and I'm talking about state side, right? You go to Mexico, you go to Colombia, other places. That might be a different story. But even then, like they understand that going after a U.S. federal agent, even a retired U.S. federal agent, you know, is going to bring in some heat that I don't think they want. And so it kind of, like, believe it on it kind of protects me to be in podcasts, to be on, you know, on CNN or whatever I'm doing.

Because, like, I don't want a knucklehead that wasn't like a high-ranking member of a deal that I did. Maybe he was just protection or something. And that guy gets thrown into jail. And, you know, he's thinking like, how the fuck, you know, did we get arrested? And then they look at me and say, oh, that's the guy. That's the truck driver. And they want to, you know, come after me for retribution at that point. So I would rather them know who I am.

Yeah, I can see that. Having a little bit of a public-facing persona could actually be protection in that way, for sure. Yeah, I think it would draw, I hadn't thought about it from that perspective. Yeah, if you kill an active federal agent, you are going to have just about every microscule. scope thrown in your direction. That's, would they even, and obviously we'll go deep into the cartels because I'm fascinated about your experience. Would a low level person or a foot sur holder for the cartel even have the authority to make

that call? Or would they need to go up the chain for that knowing that that much scrutiny would come back at them? Most definitely, they would need, they would need authorization from, from at least a plaza boss. Yeah. The area boss and they would be the first ones to say, are you stupid? You know, like, no. That's a lot of heat.

It is a lot of heat. It is. I mean, I've had several instances in, especially working in Mexico, in Monterrey and Juarez, where it was actually the plaza bosses that protected U.S. federal agency from other plaza bosses because they didn't want heat. Okay. I hadn't considered that either. Yeah. So, yeah, like, it was a weird situation in Monterrey where Monterey and San Pedro Garza-Garcia, which is kind of like, like the real rich area in Mexico, San Pedro Garza-Garcia, separated by a huge mountain and a tunnel in the middle, right?

At that time, San Pedro Garza-Garcia was, belonged to the Beltran Levas, right? Monterey belonged to the Zetas. So we had done a couple of operations with DEA and ATF in Monterey. We were hitting these guys pretty much, you know, hitting them, you know, hit after hit after hit. Well, the Cetas got tired and work went out. that they wanted to get one of the U.S. federal agents on the San Pedro Garzaa. So they called as a courtesy, hey, we're going to go kill one of these guys because they've been hitting us or whatever, thinking that the other Cartel guy would be like, yeah, go ahead.

And he was like, no, fuck, no, you're not going to come in my plaza and heat it up. Yeah. So he actually had dispatched his men to watch our residences and watch our, you know, places that we ate. And I remember that time it was real weird because you could, I mean, you could tell. You're doing counter surveillance. They're following me, but, you know, like, we kind of figured out who was who. And it wasn't until about a year after I had left that we found out that, yeah, it was, it was, it was him, Hector Labura, that was kind of protecting you guys. And he was your outer perimeter of security.

Yeah, exactly. He was actually, because he had gotten arrested and he was actually saying like, hey, am I going to get credit for saving your agent's life? And he named specific locations, specific situations. And I was like, oh, yeah, I remember that, you know. You know, I remember being on a date with a young lady from Monterrey there. And I remember there was a weird situation because there was once, you could see vehicles parked, right? And several men and it was like two different, you know, it was like on two different sides of the parking lot. I remember walking in, I said, nah, we walked right out.

And that was one of the situations that was mentioned. Like, yeah, I remember. Like they even, he even remembered what colored dress or girl was wearing. So as I knew, I was like, wow. Man, I was reading an article about the documentary, and it said that when you were approached with the idea that you didn't feel like you were a good fit for it. You're like, my life is totally normal. What experiences do I have to share?

And it wasn't until you were in the process of making the documentary that you realized you had some or have had some very abnormal life experiences in comparison to most people. You know what, Andy, like even to this day, I don't feel like whenever I get, get called like like with you know when jesse told me you were going to call me you know said yeah of course but i don't feel because okay let me let me explain why because there are agents right now right that have been working undercover for years you're talking about decades personal friends of mine that i think their story is way more compelling than than than my story right and and and unfortunately they can't tell the story because i mean they're working covertly right they can't they can't you know they can't come out

They don't have the platform that I do, right? I was lucky enough that when the producer had asked headquarters for a subject matter expert on cartels, I was already kind of like a senior level guy or second level supervisor. So I was trained to talk to the media, right, for news, like, hey, we had a seizure or whatever. When they approached me, I said, well, I mean, I don't think that my story is that interesting. But you can ask headquarters. And if headquarters says, yeah, then me thinking, there's no way headquarters is going to say, yeah,

we're authorized this guy to speak, you know, freely to my surprise. They were like, yep, they gave the producer full access. And, you know, they followed me for a while. And like, you know, like the conversation, and you're in your line of work, right? Like when you're speaking to a colleague, you're talking about situations that you guys have been through that just seems normal to you guys.

But to the general public, they're like, are you kidding me? You know what I'm saying? I've had that experience, yes. You've seen it, right? So, so, you know, it's like, you know, I was talking to a colleague of mine that we were in Monterey together. And his wife was there and my wife were there.

You know, years later, I got married. And me and him were just reconnecting on our time in Monterey. And he was telling me, oh, yeah, yeah, I remember this guy? Yeah, what happened? Oh, yeah, he got killed. And we're like, okay. And then, oh, yeah, I remember this guy? yeah, you know, he got killed.

You know, so a bunch of the colleagues that we knew were gone, right? But then we turned and looked at our wives and they were looking at us like, do you like, do you realize what you guys are talking about? And to us, it was like, it was normal. We're just talking about, you know. Just having a shrimp cocktail. Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah, my, I'm remarried now and my wife didn't know me during my time in the military. And so I'll reconnect with guys that I haven't seen in years. and I'll catch the look on her face sometimes when we're at dinner. Same thing, we're just having a casual conversation or talking about something that we found to be hilarious at the moment that you realize might be considered socially unacceptable. So we're dying, laughing, and my wife is just looking at me like I'm an animal in the zoo.

And I know the look. I know, I've seen it. You know what I'm saying? I've seen a look. And so, I mean, it might not be like, I don't feel like my life has been that much. Because there's, like I tell you, there's agents right now that are still working.

that have worked, you know, a lot more covertly than I did. Yeah. But they, unfortunately, they can't tell their story. They may never be able to because it might give away the means and methods that they're able to do their job. That's exactly right. And that's something that I'm very conscientious about, not giving, you know, trade craft secrets on that.

So I'm very careful on exactly what I say because, I mean, there was a couple of, and am I going to mention any names, there was a couple of books that came out about undercover agents, working specifically like motorcycle gangs. Yeah, you can know what you're talking about. And they give up a lot of trade secrets, right? Like I was reading the book and I was like, whoa, you know what I mean? Like especially like with your backstopping, right? Like with a history that is made.

Now being a private investigator, like if I would have read that book and I would have given me, you know, without even having ever been a special agent, a private investigator by itself, it's like a go-to guy on how to discover covert agents. Yeah. And so, I mean, yeah, they made their money. They made, you know, they made, you know, a lot of stuff, you know, a lot of movies and stuff like that. But at what cost, you know? And you can tell those stories without giving away those trade secrets, too.

There are ways that you can talk around stuff where it becomes obscure. You don't have to, like, create. Because I know exactly what you're talking about. I mean, yeah, if you can figure out your way through somebody's origin story or what they present themselves. But I also can't even imagine in the modern digital era what it would take to, truly create for somebody like a fully backstop story. That has got to be damn near impossible. They're good at what they do.

I bet they are, but I mean, that's probably a full-time J-O-B of itself. There's a, there's a unit. I don't know, and I'm speaking from my experience in undercover ops. There was a unit that was dedicated just for that,

backstopping, running your name on, on your actual name on Google or something way before it, and they would actually identify stuff that might compromise you and take it out. Yeah, I feel like undercover work was easier in the 60s.

Oh, well. Most definitely. When you had a paper identification card. Yeah, and they tape the wire tier. Yeah. I feel like that would have been uncomfortable to wear physical wires like that. Who. That was, it wasn't the most, the most, uh,

I feel like it's tough to explain. Like, oops, I accidentally put this wire on myself. Put this wire, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. There's, there's, there's, I think those days are long gone, right? How could they not be given what we carry around in our pockets.

It used to be like whenever we would do an undercover meet at anywhere, like at a bar in El Paso or at a strip club or whatever, because that's what the knuckle heads would be like, hey, let's go and, you know, red-blooded American. Yeah, we'll meet there, no problem. But then the girls would come and they would hug you, you know, like, you know, and you could tell what, and I knew what they were doing because I would do the same thing. I would be like, hey, when this guy shows up, go see if he now.

Yeah, totally. So, yeah, it was, it's when those things were. went away, it was a, it was a good feeling. Yeah. What if, so if it was, let's assume in El Paso, it was cartel drones. Right. What would they have been using them for? Just scouting to see where Border Patrol may be so they could run something by there, or they just, is that something that they use just to kind of keep a pulse on what's going on on the northern side of the border? Yeah, they want to know, you know, how many vehicles, you know, are up. And from what I understand, it was close to shift change. So they want to know, like, because shift changes, they change. They

wanted to know, you know, just Intel, but a lot of the times they actually do drop packages of, you know, of coke and meth and, you know, with a heavy drones. That makes sense. Michael, could you give me a favor? I want to get your thoughts on this tweet from the White House. Please find for me the White House tweet that says there have been zero, precisely zero illegal crossings in the last eight months. this is the White House put this out. I'm just curious your thoughts, given your background. Zero?

I think that's impossible. I just wrote, hey, cool story. Have you been to any northern states recently? But literally, from the White House, zero confirmed illegal crossings in eight months. I don't understand how that ever hits the publish button. There's a lot of things that I understand how it hits the publication. Friday, Michael? Recently.

the White House Instagram? You can probably look on mine. Go back. It's not on Instagram. It was on Twitter or X, whatever you're supposed to call it. Whatever it's called now. Yeah, but I think that's impossible. I mean, it's very, it's very, very hard to maintain 100% security of the border, right?

Because there's so many areas, you know, there's from San Diego. There's so many areas that are porous. There we go. Zero illegal border crossings are the last eight months. If you were a betting man. We don't have to say whether or not it's true or false. But if you are a betting man, which you go on there probably has been more than zero or zero is the correct.

I would bet that there's probably been more. Who uses numbers like zero? It's impossible. Yeah, you never corner yourself. Like that's something that like I'm going to say, I'm a registered Republican, right? I'm a conservative. I'm not going to hide that.

But I always, you know, try to stay in the middle to say this is right, this is wrong. I think that a lot of the messaging this comes. coming out from like important people, from DHS secretary, from, you know, from the White House. It's like they're not thinking about the repercussions of just putting something out and then then they have to come back and retract it. You know what I mean? Which nobody pays attention to the retraction.

They pay attention to the headline. Right. It begs a deeper question. Are they even capable of thinking about the long-term consequences of what they're saying? Because I know exactly what you're talking about. I firmly believe in calling balls and strikers. I don't care what political party you're in. Like, I leaned towards the right on a lot of issues as well, too.

But some of the, like social issues, I'm probably more a little bit on the left, depending on what it is. Like, live your life. Like, don't prey upon children and I'll leave, you know what I mean? Right. Pedophiles should be burned at the stake. And other than that, like, you can live your life. I don't understand how people have become so ideologically blinded that their team is more important than the reality. Yeah.

Like immigration policy as an example. I think we should enforce our immigration laws. A lot of this stuff, I see coming out of Minneapolis, the tactic is not helping anybody, nor is it making our country safer. It's actually probably driving people in the middle towards the left from a voting perspective. So the policy, yeah, I support the execution of the policy. I feel like we have some clowns in charge. And I don't understand what's going on. Yeah, it was horrible optics, to say the least, right? Yes. I think that you're right, that immigration laws, any federal law,

should be, you know, adhered to and should be enforced, right? And almost nobody would argue against that. Nobody should, right? Nobody should argue against you taking a pedophile that, you know, rape, you know, children away from your neighborhood. I just think that the way that it was presented and the way that it was, that they were enforcing the, the,

and specifically the people that they put in charge operationally on the ground, right? Because I keep, like, I keep saying this name over and over because, I mean, he put himself in the forefront, Mr. Bovino, right? Like he's he was the head of or is the head of border patrol still? Well, he's a head of border patrol in San Diego sector, right? But but but at the time that that the enforcement action started like in Chicago and Minnesota and stuff I got, first of all, there's been a quota put in whether I don't care what the administration wants to call it if they want to call it, you know, operational objectives or whatever. It's a headcount. Yeah, 3,000 people arrested no matter what, right?

No matter what, 3,000 people per day. I mean, that's a lot. That's a lot. And the people that were in charge of those operations, the ICE supervisors, were getting a lot of pressure to come up with those numbers. And when it wasn't happening, that's when they said, okay, we need somebody that is going to be more aggressive, that is going to really, you know, that is going to really, you know, make a dent in this. And that's why they put Mr. Bovino. But you've got to understand, he's a Border Patrol agent, right? He's a Border Patrol agent.

It's in their name. they're not trained. And even though they keep saying like, oh, yeah, we were trained at the academy and how to deal with protests and all that and how to do interior enforcement. I literally read that this morning. Border Patrol has more training than ICE does.

And they were basically saying that ICE has little to none when it comes to that, that type of training. Right. And the reason that, but it's different because the reason that Border Patrol goes through that, because I've been a Border Patrol agent, so I know. The reason that they go through the protests and all that

is like there's been a lot of, a lot of incidents along the border where the ports of entry are completely shut by protesters, right? So border patrol, you know, had the responsibility to, you know, kind of push back, make sure people don't, like, just rush into the United States. And so that's the kind of training that they're talking about, right? Like, it's, it's one thing to patrol, you know, Apaso de Bridge and Opaso, then to, you know, do that type of stuff in Minnesota, right? And I think just the optics, of the way that they were operating, even, even, and I go as far as saying, even like the, the, the wardrobe that was being used, right? That long trench coat, like that, that, that he was wearing,

that that left a lot of people with their eyes open, right? And that thing hasn't been authorized that I know of since I was in a border patrol. We were not authorized to carry that. So, I mean, they took that, that. It was very bizarre, like the red background imagery, the low camera angle. Like, what actually are you going for here? right cut yeah there you go and like look Michael third row down on the left he's a he's a tactical commander he's a I'm sure you you know about Boretech right the border he's a Bortec Boretack Boretack person guys yeah and those guys are alpha male you know you know you know kick down doors type type of people I mean that that in itself that is I mean

that is terrible optics right and and you were him and you were talking to a photographer how would you describe this look you know it's like like, hey, here's the picture I'm going for. Crazy red lighting. Yeah. You know, I wanted to look relatively similar to some stuff in the 1940s, but also not like the 1940s. It's like, what the hell? Jesus, Michael, what are you looking up now?

What? What? I mean, it was just like I said, Andy. It looks very similar. Okay. Take it easy. It went to 10. I need you at a 3 right now.

It was terrible optics, right? And not only that, like, like, when I started, first started taking issue with this was when they got ordered by the federal courts in Chicago to go answer, I don't remember exactly what it was, why they were going door to door, whatever, right? And he came out of the courthouse and he got on top of his vehicle and he did the charge, you know, thing. And you're thinking, like, man, you're in Chicago, right? You're not going to war, right? You're not in, you're not in, like, just the verbiage that they're using, like, theater. of our agents have been in theater for for a year or two like theater like really like you're you're talking about doing enforcement in the united states right you're not talking about doing enforcement in

or going to war in iraq and where you're really in theater right yeah like that's how terrible just like it to me like like i was stating before like a lot of the senior management it's like they haven't taken because i remember taking courses on how to deal with the media right like hey you don't corner yourself. There's an officer involved shooting. You don't right off the bat say, hey, this guy's a domestic terrorist. You know, he chose, you know what? Because you don't look within hours of the person.

Like no chance to do an investigation. Yeah. You don't say that, right? And like I said, that's like public relations 101. What you say is like it's a, you know, another thing that they said it was like, I think that they were asking, just in the congressional hearing just recently, the last Capote is, I don't remember who they asked. I think it was the board, the CBP commissioner that asked,

do you feel bad that, that, that, you know, Mr. I forget his name, Prattie. Mr. Prattie was killed. You know, I can't answer that. I mean, that's terrible optics. You can say anybody losing their life is horrible. Anybody under any circumstances. Unfortunately, the investigation is still going on.

We, you know, we need to find out what's going on before I can comment on that. I'm, you know, I'm not authorized to comment on because the investigation. But you can say, you can humanize it and say, say like, hey, anybody losing their life, whether it's an agent, whether it's a protester, whether it's an agitator, whatever you want to call. Any person losing their life sensely, because that was a senseless situation, I think. Really, you can't say that? And I think that's what's leading to a lot of the American people kind of distrusting Homeland Security.

Because they're pushing people away from where they want them to. And I don't mean physically. I mean ideologically, I think they are pushing people away from support of those organizations. and we need those organizations to survive as a nation. Yeah, most definitely. I mean, like, I was in Homeland Security from its creation, 2003, and we were the new kids on the block, right? It took a lot for us to compete against DEA and FBI

because nobody knew us, right? Like, we would go somewhere and badge somebody, like, we're ice, and I'd be like, what hell is ice? You know, I remember doing an undercover deal in Chicago and I had my brand-new ice badge, and I was like, okay, and I got pulled over. And I showed my badge, and they were like, this is fake, what is that?

You know, like, so from 2003 to 2025, we built a HSI did at least, the special agents built an excellent reputation. I mean, we went after Chapo. We went after like these high level people. Mayo was an HSI arrest, all this high-ranking guys. So we did a lot within the last 10 months, we've taken a beating because like you can tell people just for people that I know, like people, relatives and people. business owners or no pass. They call me and they're like, they're telling me like, hey, what are you guys doing? Like, this is a third time they've come and check my people and they're illegal and they're hurting my work.

And it's just like the whole optics of that was horrible for it. And it's like you guys don't like you're not teaching public relations anymore. And in public relations, I mean, they should be able to say like, hey, you might not want to say that. Right. Because I remember even with a documentary, I had a person sitting right there like you can't say, you know, because it's it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's. The proper thing to do. It's for your protection and the agency's protection as well. And the agencies, right?

But you don't corner yourself right away. Hey, he's a domestic terrorist because the retraction was horrible. But now you guys are covering it up. Now, you know what I'm saying? So do you think they're being told to talk and behave in that way? Or they have just selected people where that's maybe their default way of acting and speaking? I think that a lot of them are acting the way that they think President Trump would act, right? To carry favor?

Carry favor and say, hey. hey, you know what, you know, the president has my back. I can, you know, I can say this. And a lot of it is like, like, I knew Bovino from way back, right? I don't, you know, it's not just now that I know about him. He was never like that, you know what I'm saying? So why now, why, you know, maybe I didn't see him in the media that much because he really wasn't. But, like, just seeing him the way that he was acting was like, like, wow, that's pretty, pretty weird.

And just the whole optics of it were horrible. just what, you know, North Carolina, what they were doing. And I get a lot of heat. I get a lot of heat from Border Patrol agents. They're like, hey, you're a lefty now or whatever, no. I'm telling it like it is. Like, like, you saw the optics in North Carolina that are documented cases where it's just Hispanics that are working, legitimately working, that are United States citizens that you would see border patrol just reach out to them and be like, hey, are you, you know, are you, you have papers, are you United States citizen?

Well, I mean, like, you can't, you shouldn't be able to racially. profile, right? That's that's engraved, ingrained in your, in your training, you know, like, you can't socially, uh, racially profile, but now apparently the, the Supreme Court says that you can. So I'm wondering like, okay, so because I'm Hispanic or like an example, my, my mom's a United States citizen. She's, you know, she's a, uh, uh, she wasn't born here. She naturalized, but she supports any president that, that's her president, no matter who it is, you know, that's her president and she's all about law abiding and all this. And, and, and, and, and, And she's now like, Micho, I need my passport.

I need my passport because I don't speak English. She doesn't speak English. She's the United States City doesn't speak English. She's afraid of going to the store and getting, getting, you know, not picked up, right? But, you know, getting hassled. Yeah. Right. So she had me rush for a passport because she's that scared.

Now, my mom is scared. You know what I'm like? And she's a law buying citizens. And she has, you know, I imagine just people that are out and are brown like me and, you know, that I'm going to get racially profiled because of that, that's horrible, it's horrible optics. Yeah, I think the Supreme Court essentially said is if those federal agencies are acting in an immigration enforcement role, they are allowed to approach somebody and ask that based off of how they look, which is, who, right, and I see how that would, I see how they would be

interpret that. Like, if I'm hitting a house, right, I'm doing an arrest on a known gang member or whatever. And I go in and there's, you know, there's people there, residual people, like people that are collateral people, right, that are there. And they, they look like, you know, they look Hispanic and you're going after a Hispanic gang member, right? I could say how you could say, hey, like, you know, what relation is it to you? But it's, that's in, in conjunction. That's a targeted assault and an area that you've derived intelligence about and you've planned. That's exactly. You know what I mean? Like, Those are people who are very close to the ecosystem with somebody that you're targeting for a crime. That's exactly right. And the way that it was being interpreted and the way that it was obviously from the incident,

is that we can just talk to you because, you know, we think you're Hispanic and you might not have papers or we think that you're, you know, from Nigeria or we think that you're, you know what I'm saying? And that's, that's profiling. And I think that like I said, I'm getting a lot of heat from Border Patrol agents. Not so much from HSI and ICE agents, right? but because of the fact they're saying like, oh, like you should be backing, you know, backing the batch no matter what. And I do. Like, I'm a, you know, I'll back federal agencies 100% except when I see something wrong. And it's my duty to call it out.

That's the best way that you can show actually support for a person or an agency is to call the balls and strikes. Right. The fastest way to erode integrity in these agencies is to do the exact opposite and claim that they, it's impossible for them to hold a fault or do anything wrong. Right. Like you're done. But I, like, I am a deep, deep supporter of law enforcement. The role that they have is so difficult. It's harder than the role I had because I at least went overseas.

Right. To do my job. And I would be gone for, you know, months at a time. And I would, like, I'd take people, it's like you go to your job and you clock in and then, but you can clock out. The people who are working law enforcement or first responder, they're community, like, they're driving every day. Like, yeah, there was a fatal car wreck right there. I had to pick a kid up off. You know, they don't get to escape where it is.

And all of the guys. and gals that I know if something happens and it's on their day off and they're there, they're still getting involved in it. Right. It's so difficult. What do we got here, Michael? A ruling that in a roundabout way kind of says that racially profiling is okay. Well, I mean, I don't know where this came from, right?

The AIC, right there, this endorses ICE and Border Patrol targeting any Latinos they observe in Los Angeles. speaking Spanish or working low-income jobs. And they meant, I mean, that's cool. That's kind of, that's racist if you think, like, like only Hispanics work low-income jobs. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I mean, you basically, yeah, you're. There was recently an individual that got arrested.

It was a super, I don't know if you saw it. It was somewhere in, I don't say Chicago or Iowa. He was a superintendent of a school district, like a huge school district, making hundreds of thousands of dollars. Oh, I do remember seeing this, yeah. He was an illegal, you know, illegal. I think he was Somali. Yeah.

undocumented. So, I mean, how are you going to determine, right? How are you going to determine who you're going to reach? And I think, like I've said, and I've said it up, I'll say it again to I turn blue, is that there should never be a quota on law enforcement ever, ever, right? No matter what it is, no matter if it's parking tickets, no matter if it's, you know, whatever you, because then what you're forcing the officer to do is you're losing that discretion, right? You're losing that, that, because like, like, if I'm an ice agent now and I go into a house and, you know, I see, you know, 10 people and four of them are elderly. Like, normally I would be like, hey, you know, the elderly, here's a notice to appear. You need to appear with the immigration judge, but now they're just picking everybody up. And it's like they lost their common sense. Like that kid in Minneapolis, right? I mean, he was a young, like, and apparently they knew who that was because they were doing surveillance on him. Like, common sense would tell you you don't arrest somebody in front of their kids.

First of all, it's horrible for the kid, right? Like, that kid's going to be traumatized. But, you know, nonetheless, like, it's dangerous. What if there's a shooter, what if the dad gets scared and takes off on the car? Right? What do you do then? And it's just, I mean, me as a supervisor, on the line, you know, if that situation was like, no, absolutely.

Now, we know where he lives, you know, let's wait until he's by himself and arrest him. Yeah, put the tactical advantage in your favor. I feel like a quota drastically misalines the incentives. It breaks the person from, like you said, the discretion. And if they have this numbers guillotine over their head, they're going to start making decisions based off of that as opposed to what either doctrine says or what is right. Right.

And that's exactly right. You were seeing a lot. I mean, now, Tom Holman is in Minneapolis now. Just announced in the next week, he's going to end the enforcement action there. Right. And I mean, maybe that's the administration's, of saying like hey you know what we need we we were wrong in that we were wrong in the

tactics that we were using and like like i said that before uh i did an interview with cnn and i remember but i i i specifically and i'm not saying that they did it because of me but i'm saying it's common sense that like especially like the the the mayor in minneapolis and and the governor like if they really wanted ice to stop these operations then cooperate which is apparently what they're doing now allow us in your in your in your prison system, you know, we'll have agents there. We used to have a very robust ACAP program, right, where we had agents in jails, county jails. And anytime somebody came up that was not born in the United States because they've already been identified by the cops. You know, they have to punch in,

you know, yeah, he was born in Mexico or Canada or whatever. Well, those people were put on a detainer, right? And so now you're dealing with. That makes total sense. You've already caught them one time. Right. It makes true. It makes a lot of. It makes a lot of. It makes. makes total sense and that way you can deport them or put them in through to immigration proceedings from the jail. You're not out in the public, you know, putting the public at risk, putting the agents at risk. But unfortunately, the sanctuary cities, that's another thing about sanctuary cities, Andy, is that a lot of people say, well, it's a sanctuary city and, you know, it's a kumbaya, it's all. But it happened with the Cubans, right? We don't have relations with

the Cubans, with the Cuban government officially. So whenever a, a, Cuban is arrested for a serious crime, right? And he's ordered deported. We can't deport him because we have no mechanism to do so. Right. So then you go through a process, kind of like a parole process, where you get the Cubans and you ask him, hey, are you going to commit a crime, whatever? No, of course. Well, a lot of these, and I'm not just talking about Cubans, but I'm just saying, I saw it firsthand, is that a lot of these guys that were criminals were being released and they weren't staying in El Paso. They were going up to Albuquerque, because Albuquerque was in the sanctuary city. because if you're a criminal alien, right?

If you're an alien that is committing crimes, you're a knucklehead, you're a gang member, you're whatever, right? Where would you want to be in Dallas or in Opaso, where if you get encountered by the cops for whatever reason, they're going to call ICE, or are you going to go to Albuquerque, where the cops, by policy, are not allowed to call immigration authorities. Of course.

Albuquerque. So inadvertently, these sanctuary cities and these people that are advocating for sanctuary cities, you're attracting the criminal element. Yeah, you're attracting the majority of the people that are there to work and to contribute to society, even though they're illegal. But you're actually because you're attracting that criminal element.

And that's why, you know, it's a good thing that they were trying to enforce the immigration law, but the way that they went about it was horrible. What is the argument against the ACAP system? Because to me, that seems like efficient law enforcement, a bridge between local, whatever reason they're caught up in the net. Right.

They get identified, probably put into a system. And it's like, hey, immigration being a federal issue. Like, boom, we already, now you're onboarded to the federal system. Like, why? What's the argument against that? I don't know how it happened, Andy. I don't remember the except policy because I stopped working immigration a while back when, you know, when I started doing other stuff.

I think it had a lot to do with, with the administrations at that time, that there were, you know, a lot of, a lot of people were, were saying like, hey, he only had a DUI. He only, you know, so there was a lot of, it had to do a lot with, with, with, the, the, the changes in administration. I'm not going to name any names, but that's, that's probably what happened. But I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's perfect sense. Yeah, they didn't like it because the other team's jersey was currently in the Oval Office

essentially. I heard a lot about that, too. I've had some people in federal systems reach out because I've talked about what's happened in Minneapolis a little bit, only at a surface level, because honestly, a lot of the information that comes out seems to be BS or it's too fast and you can't listen to things. What I definitely don't pay a lot of attention to is the first hour or two when things are reported because it's almost always completely incorrect. But I have had a good amount of people reach out and say, yeah, one of the biggest differences is that in the previous administrations,

when it was somebody from the Democratic Party who was in the Oval Office, these cities were participating in the immigration enforcement. Come on in. Here's our system. Here's the names. Here's the addresses. Now the other team is in office, and it's the exact opposite. Right. And I'm not one to sit here and try to place blame, but come on. And that's what worries me more than anything is this ideological shift in people where they can't see past their team color.

And they forget that at least in theory, both the blue and the red team should be playing for the red white and blue. Right. You know, that should be. They should. You would think so. Oh man, I think we're, to use a term Michael would like, edging towards losing our ability to have that realization. And I don't know what happens if we get to that place where it's only, you know, one team or the other.

I'm like, you know, people calling for civil war. I'm like, are you telling me you're going to bang it out in your cul-de-sac with your neighbor because they have a different campaign sign in their yard? That's ridiculous. But I mean, just think about Andy, like a few years ago, if you would talk about that, it would be like, are you? like, what are you smoking? You know what I mean? Yeah. And now it's, it's, it's, not that it's becoming a reality, but, but it, I mean,

more and more people are talking about that, you know, and, and like, like I said, what, what, what happens from here, I'm, I'm curious to see what happens now with, with, with, with, uh, with Minnesota, right? Now, now that, kind of like, not, now I'm not saying that the governor conceded or, or the mayor, because I don't want to put words in, you know, I don't want any backlash, but like, it looks like they're cooperating. Well, let's see. Like, really, now let's see.

You know, is it really going to work? Are you really going to cooperate and we're going to go after the worst of the words? Or are you going to see what happened, you know, what happened here, repeat itself somewhere else? Well, I think, and this is something I try to tell people, too. Like, I'm not an expert in criminal behavior. But I guess, and this is my theory. You let me know if I'm wrong on this. Well, Hank, we'll use the cartels, something you're an expert in.

I don't think they all come to a clubhouse and put a pin in the wall on a map where they're going to be hanging out. There's hard to find. So I want to believe that we have federal agencies that are absolutely doing their best to find the worst of the worst. But those people are probably more savvy electronically, a little bit of feel, right? You know what I mean? So it takes some time. So two things can be true once. They can be executing, in my opinion, horribly, tactically executing a larger enforcement action where they're still looking for the worst of the worst.

They're just harder to find, you know? So it's, I mean, I just, I hope we don't lose the force for the trees in this. be real curious. The Minnesota one I think is kind of done and that's just going to be a stamp like, okay, that's how that was. I'll be real curious to see what the next one looks like. Where it's going to be. Yeah, where it's going to be, you know, where it's going to be and how it's going to be conducted. And I have a feeling that the next, like if they want to do an operation, like the when they call it, it's going to be in a city that's favorable to, you know, to, to, you know, that is favorable against, for working, you know, alongside the local authorities because I think they,

they took a public relation hits with that and I think they they need to reverse that. Problem with that would be they'll have less impactful results because as you described, if you give people an opportunity, where are they going to go, where they're likely to find more scrutiny or less, they're going to matriculate over to the less scrutiny. So it's like, it's a catch 22. It's like shit, we're not getting the results that we're looking for. Do you have any idea, obviously other than like the level of the people who are in charge? And I'm sure it's a mix of both.

but like you're just your frontline border patrol or ICE agent. How are they feeling about this? Because I suspect they're probably not able to vocalize for themselves, at least publicly, how they may feel about the execution of the policies. And you know what? Like, I'm glad you asked a question, Andy, because like since this whole shooting stuff and going on in Minnesota,

I've been, you know, speaking out, people have asked me. And I think there's a, there's a, just from friends, from people that I consider friends. that are in Border Patrol and friends that are in ICE and HSI. You're right. They can't speak, right? Because they're not authorized to speak. They can't, you know, they can't even put a post because they put a post that's not, you know,

aligned to, you know, they're going to get called into the officer. But there's, when I started posting about, you know, how I wasn't agreeing with the tactics that we've been employed, overwhelmingly border patrol agents that were friends, were like, there were the ones that called me out. Like, hey, why are you saying that? Like, you're not backing us? Like, you know, like, are you a lefty now? you know, all this stuff, right?

ICE agents were kind of neutral. Somewhere like, yeah, we need to do more enforcement. Others were like, we need to do, you know, more tactical intelligence. HSI agents were a little more upset and they kind of voiced it with me just because they were being pulled from important cases, right? They were being pulled from investigating, you know, cartels, human trafficking, any child pornography, all that stuff that were being pulled to kind of augment. these teams in the city.

So obviously their investigation were hurting, and that's not what they're trained to do, right? That's not why they signed up to be a special agent. And, you know, people say, like, well, they have immigration authority. They can, you know, they can enforce immigration law. Well, yeah, they do. But I've always said it's the equivalent of a local police department,

you know, that is pulling homicide detectives, you know, away from those investigations so they could go do an operation against jaywalking. Or, you know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, they can, they're author. to do it. But is that a good use of the funds that you're being entrusted by the taxpayer? And what's sliding through the fingers bite because you don't have the manpower to pay attention

to on the other side of that? Right, right? There's downstream consequences of those choices. Because headcount is headcount, right? You can apply it however, I guess you want to, but the outcome is not going to necessarily be the same. Right? Most definitely.

I mean, like, in the way that the administration, and I know I said something, I don't remember where, but it was posted and they answered back. saying we're still conducting these investigations. We're still targeting, you know, high level. You know, our mission is still the same. HSI is. And yeah, but I mean, common sense tells you that if you're pulling a special agent at five in the morning to go do these raids and you're working until, you know,

five in the afternoon trying to get these numbers, right? By the time it's five o'clock, very few agents are going to be like, yeah, I have the energy to go do surveillance on my case, you know, somewhere else, right? So it's obvious that if you're not paying attention to what your primary do, is and you're being pulled away from it, your investigations are going to suffer. Yeah. Yeah, you only have, we all have 24 hours in our day. Even though I saw a really weird video one time of this guy saying, he's like, my first day

is eight hours. And then I do another, you know what I'm talking about? He's like, I've done three days by the time you get up for lunch. I'm like, that's what I said too. I was like, okay, dude, internet is a very weird place. It is. It's the best worst thing. That's the way I heard it described.

It's the best worst thing ever. That's true. You know, I couldn't be more supportive. of Border Patrol and their mission. But if you step on your dick tactically, and I don't call a ball or a strike on that, then I'm actually not supportive of you. I'm ideologically blinded.

And any of these agencies, they're a group of individuals. And individuals make mistakes. And that's okay. But if you want to maintain the integrity and trust of the people that you're supposed to be serving, then you better be honest about when you do a good job and a bad job. Right.

And you know what? I think, like I was telling you that a lot of Border Patrol agents were calling me out, they don't understand that I was actually trying to defend them because it's not fair for them to be put in that situation. Yeah, they're being asked to do something that's not trained and quit to do. And to them, to most of them, I can see, you know, sometimes it's a boring job in the border, right? Yeah. You look, you're staring at a camera or you're staring at the border waiting for somebody to cross. So it's a boring for them to be pulled away and now they're doing, you know, they're getting per diem, they're getting overtime.

they're in the city, you know, away from the border, you know, they're, you know, they're, you know, they're, you know, they're, you know, uh, so it, I can see how it was, it's fun for them, right? But, but being put in a situation like that is unfair to them. And that's what I was trying to convey. Like, you know, because even, even in that, that whole petri, uh, shooting, like, like, you've been O-C'd before, right? Yeah. And, and, and, I mean, part of our training is O-C, well, they made sure that you're, you stand at least five feet, you know, you don't want to, You don't want to shoot somebody directly in the face because I went through that in training where it damaged my corneas. To this day I have problems with my eyes.

But like it's something like why would you shoot somebody in the face? Just you know what I'm not trying to just because I wasn't there. I can't put myself in that situation. I don't know why they feared for their life that they had, you know, to shoot. But, you know, just, and that wasn't the only instance. I've seen, you know, that pepper spray was being used, you know, by the commander by Bovino, you know, shooting pepper spray. doing the gas. Any time I see a commander, and this is including my time in the military, if I ever see the boss on a weapon system of any kind, we have a problem. You run.

Yes, that is, let me just assure you, the least current human being on whatever they are holding in their hands in the moment. Well, yeah. That's not their, that's not their, that's not their job. That's not their job. That's not what they're trained to do. And I mean, like I see, Border Patrol was like, yeah, that's our leader. That's, that's our leader. That's, who were going to follow. And I think that once they started, you know, going back home and realizing that, you know, that's not, it's not what their main job is. Like I said, it's in their name.

It's Border Patrol. They, you know, they stick to the border. A lot of it also stems from when Homeland Security was created. They used to have Border Patrol. They used to have special agents within Border Patrol. They were playing close guys. You know, they did a lot of good work, a lot of investigative work. So they had investigative authority, you know, inside the United States also.

And when Homeland Security was created, the lines were defined, right? The roles were defined. Border Patrol is going to stick to securing the border. Ice enforcement and removal is going to stick to doing interior enforcement, tactical interior enforcement. And HSI was going to be the investigators. But ever since then, border patrols had an issue with that because, you know, it took away their power and kind of relegated them to the border.

And since that time, you know, and I know that from experience working in the field with my agents, it was always a mission creep. They were always around. and, you know, they lost her special agents, but then they started intelligence units. Oh, their intelligence, plane, close unit, which they were out there investigating. A lot of times they ran into investigations

that we were conducting. You know what I'm? And it's just, I think that when this situation happened, it was just Border Patrol's way of saying, like, hey, maybe we can regain those authorities back and get more leverage in what we do. What are your thoughts on, I hear this one a lot too,

how the agents, and it's hard to tell specifically what organization they work for, but basically the way that they are able to protect their identity. Some people say they're out there. And I look at the pictures. If you're looking, you can clearly see they're identifying themselves as law enforcement. Is it always the same identification or the same level? No, but them protecting with wearing masks. What are your thoughts on this? I don't have any problem with that. And I don't because just of the job that we did, right? Like 99% of the time where we did a search warrant in Opaso in the borders, we were masked up because you don't want this knucklehead remembering you. And, you know, like I said, you're not going to remember everybody that you encounter, but they're going to remember you because you're the guy that caused him to go to jail or hang.

So they're going to remember you. So, yeah, there's a lot of instances where agents were identified at the grocery store. And, you know, they had to walk out. You know, you tell your family like, hey, if you see me walk out, you walk the other way here. and I'll meet you, you know. And so I don't have any problem with that because, I mean, it is, we're dealing with high-risk people. It's not like a local police department that's doing a traffic stop.

And if they were masked up, then, yeah, you would be like, why are you, you know, for issuing a citation? But in this particular case, they're going after gangbangers are going after people that have criminal records and, you know, people that might have a cartel nexus. So, yeah, I mean, I don't have any issue with them trying to protect their face. Yes. Because it's not like they're going to be able to hide it.

If you're arrested, like the officers, the agent's name is going to be in the report. You know, you can do a FOIA and find out who was in that operation. So it's just, but I don't have no issue with that because you're just trying to protect themselves and their family. Yeah, if we didn't live in a world where it was so easy to dock somebody, I think we could have a conversation about how it wasn't necessary. Right. But the world that we live in and the risk that it could put not only the agent but their families into. Right. I have a hard time arguing against their ability to protect their identities.

as well. It's a very difficult job. And like you said, although people would like you to believe that the only people being rounded up in any of these enforcement actions or grandmothers or people who are totally innocent, that isn't the case. So yeah, it's, God, the doxing thing is insane. People, it's like their lifelong mission or it's their new occupation to do that. And if there's going to people out there doing that and we still want people to enforce our laws, we're going to have to find a balance here. Yeah, you're going to have to find a, and we're not reaching that balance right now. No, no, we definitely are. How did you find your way into this world?

It was one of the things in the documentary, you kind of said yourself, like, I didn't know if my dad was going to be too stoked with this decision. Yeah. So just a history, I'm a first generation American. My parents immigrated from Mexico, my mom from Sinaloa, my dad from Sonora. But my dad used to cross illegally back in the 40s and 50s, which was a much different time, right? It was really no terrorist threat against the United States. We hadn't, you know, it was more, it was more of a time where, yeah, it was kind of like people in America wanted those people to come over and work and kind of help them with businesses in the United States.

So it was different. But with that being said, like there was times where this is way before I even thought about being a Border Patrol agent where my dad would be talking with his brothers and they would be talking about, you know, the time that they got beat up by. by border patrol and, you know, they would remember the bat stuff about it. Oh, of course. Because that's what sticks in your head. But along with that, they remember, you know, some good, it was equal. But it was a different time, right? Like I tell you, it was a time where border patrol agents were wearing that trench coat

down the D.C., right? So the majority of border patrol agents at that time were federal agents were Anglo, right? I'm not saying that, saying it was, they couldn't understand the plight of the immigrant coming up to try to make a better life of themselves. So yeah, I mean, like I really wanted to do something because I grew up in the border and I grew up in Opaso where in Socorro, actually, where at the time that I was growing up in high school and stuff like that, it was like the Juarez cartel was like the biggest cartel. Right across the border was Amado Carriou-Fuentes, which was the biggest drug lord.

Like, to this day, even bigger than Pablo. Really? Oh, yeah, bigger than Chapo. Yeah, by. by a lot. It's just that there was in social media back then. So, you know.

So, but yeah, he was the biggest, it was right across the border, right? So a lot of, a lot of individuals that I knew that I grew up with, they either got involved in, in that, that, or they got killed or they went to jail.

But that little town, the majority, now it's bigger, right? At that time, it was real small. Like, there was a, every other house almost was a stash house or was a lookout point or was something, right? So, first of all,

I learned the lingo. I know how they would operate because I mean, I grew up in that. It's like, you know, that's what, you know, you knew that that's what was happening. And then I wanted to do something for the community. So I rehearsed it over and over and overka. I wanted, you know, I thought my dad was going to be, I mean, his macho Mexican was, you know, rest in peace. But I thought he was going to be like, are you fucking stupid? Like, why would you want to? But so when I told him to him to me, he looked back and he was like, you know what? I think that would be good for you to do it. because any people, border patronese people like you that are going to be able to humanize, you know, the experience is going to be able to kind of relate, kind of explain, you know, the, how to do it, you know, immigrate legally. And, but he did tell me, like, he said, like, the drug cartels go after them 100%. Like, go to because those people, they have, you know, they're in truth to be alive is what he told me. He was totally against drugs, totally against the cartels.

And, you know, he just told me, hey, you know what? Remember, you know, teach everybody, I mean, treat everybody with dignity and respect. like treat them like you they would like you know like you would want them to treat me so i just kind of fell into it it wasn't really you know something that the undercover work aspect of it it was just me being a knucklehead right because i was a rookie agent trainee agent and in in i hadn't even finished my my probationary period i love this part of the documentary where you just started answering the phones yeah it was uh there was a lot of like like like the walkie-talkies of the and you know You're just working at a border patrol checkpoint at that time?

No, it was actually patrolling. It was out in the escrow, in Fabin's, Texas, which is about an hour away from Opasso. Okay. It was a wild west out there, man. It was like if we had three agents on duty, we were fully staffed, and it was 45 miles of river and 100 miles up north. Three agents. So, yeah, I mean, we were, it was, most of it was narcotics work and, and drug work. So you got to realize the people that, the people that they hire or drive over those cars or, you know,

the mules is what they call them. They're not high-ranking members of the cartels, right? It's just somebody that they say, hey, drive this car, you know, we'll give you 200 bucks. So I knew that I would be able to get away with kind of like, because they don't really know that person, right? So I would hear them on the radio, like, hey, where are you at? And I would, you know, ask me back in Spanish, like, yeah, I got scared.

Border Patrol is right behind me. But where are you guys at? Oh, we're at, you know, we're at Walmart or we're here, we're there, right? So I would, they call it a Border Patrol. a tuxedo because I would take out, I would actually remove my Border Patrol shirt with a badge and just be with a white t-shirt and kind of see who was answering the phone and then work that load, right? And so I was just being an, because I figured like, man, I don't want to just catch this dude. This dude doesn't do anything. He's not going to give me any intel, nothing. So like I mentioned

before, that at that time, Border Patrol had a specialized unit. It was anti-smuggling unit. It was special agents within Border Patrol. And the supervisor kind of started noticing like, man, this This kid is, you know, he's doing a bunch of stuff. He's got balls, you know what I was it? And they kind of pulled me over to work with the special agents. And I started working undercover from there. Well, balls is one thing. Your understanding of the people that you were dealing with is another thing, too.

I don't know if you can actually teach that. No, and that's exactly right because there's a lot of people that have the misconception or this understanding that just because I have tattoos and, you know, I grow a goate or I grow my hair, I can work undercover, but you know, better than that, like, you know, some of those guys would get so narrow, you know, their karate or artery would start. And so a lot of, a lot of people that are, were disillusioned because there was, you know, we had a specialized training where we would kind of, kind of, not, you can't teach undercover, but you kind of gauge how a person would react in certain situations. And, you know, you would look at a guy and be like, man, that,

that guy looks like a freaking outlaw motorcycle gang guy. I mean, you know, he'll be good. But then you put him in a stressful situation. And they know that it's training. It's not even real life, and they would lose it. They just lock up. They would lap up and, you know. And so, I mean, it's just like you said, it's just something that you, some people have it, some don't. Yeah, you were saying that in the documentary, that essentially the key to undercover work is just your brain. You're figuring stuff out on the fly.

Right. There's no like checklist for, okay, if this happens, I'll do this. Like, look, Andy, like, for example, like I was saying a lot of people have this, have this, how long, with conception of undercover work, right? That, you know, that they find out you're a federal agent. We're going to kill you. We're going to kidnap him. We're going to, whatever, right?

But the actual danger in undercover work and where the majority of undercover operatives get hurt is when you sell that persona so well that that crook has, he's convinced 100% that you're not an agent and he wants to rip you off, right? So you're going to deliver, like, you know, a lot of. stuff was transportation. I was going to deliver a load to Ohio or wherever, right? And the guy wants to keep the money and keep the drugs. And that guy's not

going to tell you like, hey, you know what? Like in the movies, you know, let me see your hands or whatever. He's going to wait until you turn a little and he's going to shoot you right in the head. There's no backup team. I don't care how close they are. There's going to be able to beat that bullet, right? So that's the whole danger in doing UC work. And so

like I said, there's guys have been doing it for decades. Guys that I know personally, I don't know how they do it because it's so, so stressful and it's you know it's uh i mean it's just something that that that you like like you said you either have it or you don't how does somebody come back and i don't mean to like the agency i mean back to normal life after doing 20 years 10 years of deep undercover work you know it's hard and because for example uh your your mind has placed tricks on you because we would example, I did a deal once where I was at a strip club and I had to meet a guy, right?

And we're talking about moving cocaine to Chicago, I think, or somewhere, right? So we were talking and you're talking to the guy and you're trying to convince him like, you're a badass, right? And he's, he is a badass. You know, he's not a badass in the sense that, you know, you know that he's killed people in Juarez and all that. So he's telling you like, hey, this is how he's going to go down, right? And you're saying like, no, no, no, this is how it's going to go.

I don't want anybody to follow me. I don't want any tails. I'm going to deliver your shit, but this is how much you're going to pay me. And you're going back and forth now. You're negotiating, you know, sometimes million-dollar deals, right? You're negotiating, I'm going to get this much money. And you're spending money, you know, in a situation where you're trying to portray that you, you know, that you're part of the cartel.

So you're spending money and you feel this high. You're like, I'm a badass. And you're at alpha male, first of all, if you want to do undercover work. You're an alpha male. You want to show that you're the badass. So you're way. way up here, right? You know, and you're negotiating your yes, yes, whatever. And then the deal ends, and then you go home and your significant other is pissed off because you left the socks. You know what I'm

saying? You didn't put him in the hamper. And your mind is like, are you fucking kidding me? Do you know who I am, right? And so there was- I do million-dollar deals over breakfast. Right, exactly, right? And you're mad at me because the socks, so it was real hard in relationship. There was a, there was a study that was done, and I learned this going through an undercover not the operative school the supervisor school where you supervise

where they entrust you to supervise other agents and it was Bob Delaney who was an NBA referee I don't know if you know who that is Bob Delaney was a famous NBA referee who actually

worked undercover against the mafia It was at the same time that Donnie Brascoe was working the mafia so matter of fact they cut paper on each other they both didn't know that right but what happened with Bob Delaney is that he got so involved in that, that, you know, that he kind of, when the

operation finished, like, cops didn't trust him, right? Because he learned that language. He learned how to speak like an Italian. He, you know, and he said, like, I went broke because when I was working undercover, I was spending the government's money. So I was nothing for me to go and buy, you know, a meal. So all this time where I were, where, you know, that I lost away from my buddies. and then I went back to being a cop while I was trying to buy their trust, right? So I would tell me, hey, let's go, you know, let's go have beers on me or whatever. And he went broke because he could never regain that trust back. So he actually went through a real hard time, which is coincidentally, that's how he became an NBA referee.

Because he was so messed up in the head, this is his words, he was so messed up in the head that he had to find something to do. So he started coaching, he started refereeing, you know, amateurs until he made it to the NBA. well, he gave a course on undercover work, right? Like he would go to the federal law enforcement training center and kind of tell you his experience. But he told me he wants something to resonate in me. He said like in America, right? In America, and this was like over 20 years ago.

But he said, in America, it's a 50-50 divorce rate, right? So you're flipping a coin. You get married, you flip the coin, whether you're married is going to last or not, right? In law enforcement, it goes up to about 70%. 70% of law enforcement, you know, goes through, you know, in undercover work where the majority of work is working undercover, it's almost 90%. You're almost guaranteed that you're going to get divorced because of the fact that I'm saying, how are you going to go home and you have lipstick on a collar? And you're telling your wife like, hey, that was work.

Like, yeah, I'm not fucking. That was work. But that being said, I think that a lot of us, me in particular, used to use it as an excuse to, like, hey, I got to, it's my job. I gotta go to a strip club, hey, you know. Because you could have said... Not that I want to, I have to. Right. And you could have said, like,

I wanted to meet you at a strip club. You could have met him at a bar. Yeah, you could have said, like, no, it's too loud, man. Let's go over here and then we'll go to the right. But you're like, hey, I'm doing my... So a lot of it, you know, leads you to be like, okay, I'm going to do it

where you didn't really have to. I mean, it was fun. I'm not going to lie. It was fun, but it's not conducive to a relationship. I feel like if you do that much undercover work, you should be issued a private island somewhere and you can just go get your head straight for a few years. Or you'd have to do a job like the basketball referee.

You'd have to find something that is so different in every way from what it is you used to do. I can't fathom living that level of, I guess it's a lie, a charade, whatever you would call it, that is required to be, especially like we're talking decades. My God. The bad thing about that is this is where your mind really fucks with you. I'm sorry.

We're on the Internet. whatever you want. There's where it really fucks with you is that in order, okay, you need to be somebody that you trust in order for them to deceive you. You know what I'm saying? Like so, so when you're doing a UC job and you're dealing with these guys for months, right, you develop a relationship with them whether you like it or not, right? There was individuals that I dealt with that I broke bread with them and their families, right?

And had these guys not been cartel, I was thinking like, I could actually hang out with this dude because this dude is like he's a family man as far as that's concerned, right? There was an individual that I knew that was a family man, went to church every Sunday, was, you know, was loyal to his wife.

Like everything that you're thinking like, this is a good dude, but Marvel was even bad people have good traits, right? Yeah. And so when you betray that trust that that guy has on you, that look that they give you, like when they realized like, oh fuck, it was you?

Right? That look, and then what are your parents? at least my parents always taught me don't don't be a tattle till don't don't uh don't uh don't uh don't do don't do anything as your friends i always say the truth don't backstab them right but you're actually doing that and i don't care you i would hide it as like fuck that guy you know what i'm saying he's doing this but like at night i would be like damn i kind of wish that guy would have said like you know i don't want to do it like now you know i'm going to go straight you know so yeah it's it's it's a mental tug of war yeah it fucks with your head i imagine that it did or it does

It was. Okay, so you started Border Patrol. HSI was stood up in, would you say, 2003? Did they just pull from other federal agencies to source HSI originally, how you'd you end up working? It just merged the old immigration and naturalization service and custom service. They kind of merged.

Okay. So that's how Homeland Security was created. Was it optional for you or did you? No, it was, you know, I mean, in law enforcement, I mean, I don't care what anybody says. You want to be a special agent, right? Because that's a fun spot. That's the special sounds fun.

Yeah. And, you know, you get a take home ride. You know, you're out, you know, doing, playing clothes. You don't have to worry about shaving and stuff like that. Yeah. So I was already trying to get promoted to that, that, that, when it merged, right? So I just merged and I kind of just fell right into it. And then, again, like you were describing, what does the Border Patrol zone on paper, like

50 miles from the border? essentially 100 miles, something like that? Well, it's 100 miles, I believe, from the border. But then it goes to HSI, right, for the interior. Well, no, HSI has authority in the borders, too. Oh, okay. Yeah, so has authority. And so does Border Patrol, right?

Border, in essence, they have immigration authority. They're just trying to break up the workload that way, I guess. Well, yeah, I mean, the duty was like they handled the border, the 25 miles of the border. And I think it increased now, but I'm not sure. Yeah. But that's what they were going to handle. But no investigative work, no, no, you know, you're not going to be doing, you know, like I was doing, like McHead, you know, going, you know,

if I was doing that after DHS was, I would probably would have been fired. Really? Oh, yeah, because, I mean, that's like. Outside of your purview? Yeah, and it's outside of policy. I mean, no undercover. I mean, no backup, right?

It's just you and your gun and, you know, you're going over there, you're catching the knucklehead. Sometimes I had like three or four people on the ground with one gun and I'm calling my supervisor, hey, can you come help me? And they're like, well, I thought you were processing the load. I'm like, no, I came over here and, you know what I'm saying? Yeah.

It was a different time, right? But like now, it would probably, like I said, I'd probably be fired. So how did your job change when you went from Border Patrol to HSI? It was more high-level, high-level investigations, right? It was more... All-cartel-based, essentially? For the most part, yeah, for the most part. Because at that time, is when the cartel started getting involved in human trafficking and human spuggling, before it wasn't.

What was the flip? Why did that switch flip? Because it was essentially narcotics before, right? Yeah. Exclusively. Right. What year, can you point at a, like if you were ahead to look at a calendar, could you say kind of what year they made that switch?

Around 07 or 08. Really? And the reason being is that at that time, the Sinaloa cartel, which was Chapo, right? Chapo, Wuzman. First of all, he tried to go and take territory from the Gulf Cartel and the Cetas, right? And he tried to do it kind of like with an invasion force, for lack of better terms. He said people, men, to go into Nuevo Laredo, which was a stronghold of the Cetas, and try to wrestle that plaza away with force.

With force, right? With force. And that's when the bloodshed started, right? Because, like, they started losing a lot of men. Chapo started losing a lot of men. And so if you're always involved in warring against a different cartel, you're not concentrating on making money smuggling dope. So a lot of those operations suffer.

Now, this is the how they, evolved to where, like for example, if I want to smuggle cocaine into the United States, right, if I want to get involved in that game, the game, right? I can't just go and say, hey, front me 30 keys of coke, I'll pay you later. No, you have to come up with some collateral or at least half of it, and then you're responsible for the transportation of those keys, right? So let's say I want to get involved. They give me the 30 keys. I give collateral. And then I hire somebody to take him through the checkpoint, right? If at the checkpoint, a canine alerts and, and, and that, that, uh, that contraband is seized, you lost it. Now the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, they're going to, they're going to demand paper. They're going to demand something saying, like, hey, on this such and such a day, so you can show, but they're not like, okay, it's cool. They're like, no, you need to pay that, so now you, you know, or arouse your life, you're in danger, right? Now, think about it, the flip site with aliens, with human, human cargo, and I hate to put it the way, but that's what they are. So they treat them too. With human cargo, they come with the money, right?

So the actual cargo itself is saying, here's $30,000 smuggle me. I don't have to come up with those $30,000. The only thing I need to do is get those $30,000 and decide how much I'm going to pay the truck wherever, decide, you know, if I have somebody that's corrupt at the, at the bridges, just how much I'm going to pay them, and then the rest is mine. So there's no, there's no, you know, it's just simple money. It's almost 100% profit for them, right? Where with drugs, it's a more risky situation.

Plus, you're not going to get the drugs back. And if they fail in their attempt, they might come right back to you and pay you again. Yeah, exactly. Like if undocumented immigrants would get busted at the checkpoints, most of them, if that's their first time, they're going to get a voluntary return to Mexico. And guess what they're calling you. hey, you know, I'm here, whatever, you know. And so, so the product comes back to you.

So it's almost like a, like a, and then at that time, now it's a little bit more stricter. But at that time, the punishment for, for human smuggling was almost nothing. It was like a slap in the wrist for the most part. It was, it wasn't, you know, the AUSA at that time, they didn't find it appealing. They didn't find it, you know, they kind of almost, it was almost like it was a victimless crime. Hey, these people want to get smuggled. They're paying somebody. It's not like, you know, it's not, now it's a little bit more.

more sod, those that works a little bit more sought after. Like, I mean, even if I did a UC case in Opaso where it was a truck driver that, that had a dedicated run from Opaso to Las Cruises. Every day, Monday through Friday, that's what he, that was his run. He would start in Opaso and in Albuquerque, right? He was so well known by the Border Patrol agents at Manda checkpoint that they were like, he would go and take them presents or like cookies or whatever. Yeah, he even was proud.

out, and he told me that on video, that one Border Patrol agent had given him a Border Patrol hat, right? So, but what they didn't know was that he was actually smuggling at least 10 people per day. And what he would do is he would put him on top of the aerodyne, the air, you know, the air, yeah, it's a little scoop for aerodynamics. It's a little void there. And he would squeeze him in there like Serdine. Now, he would guarantee you that he would get you to the bus station or the airport in

Albuquerque, right? for $10,000. Think about it every single day. A hundred Gs a day. A day tax free. And I got introduced like I was going to help him because I had a CDL license, whatever. I remember going into this house. I kid you not.

Andy, there was money everywhere. There was money every like there was money. Oh yeah, because he's getting paid in cash. In cash. There was money every. There was high end boots that were like talking about $3,000 boots, cowboy boots. Yeah. that the guy bought and they were just there.

And give you example, I got introduced to that organization by a girl, a female, right? So when I was in there talking to them, you know, arranging all this stuff, the girl got cold. And the wife of this guy told her, I go get a jacket from the closet. So she goes and gets the jacket and she put it on. Then when she puts her hand into the coat, she comes out with two watts of money. Like 100, right? And the wife is like, hey. And the bad guy was like, oh, shit, I didn't know that was there.

Like, they had so much money that, but he would always say, I know one day I'm going to get caught. I know one day I'm going to get caught, but all my money is going to Sakatecas. They're not going to really do anything to me. I'll probably get five, ten years. Yeah. But all my money is already in Sakatecas. I have a ranch over there.

And, you know, so it's just a cost. Like, whenever they, whenever they arrest me, when I get out, it's going to be time for me to retire. Was he trying to get that paper money back south of the border? He was getting it. Yeah. We missed so much of it. Like, we miss so much of it because the USA was trying to get evidence on this guy.

Yeah. That we missed so much. But yeah, from what we understand from the intel that we received, like, they had a huge sprawling ranch in Sakatecas. Yeah, probably paid for it in cash. In cash. I think it was, Michael, we look this up. I swear this stat is, Pablo Escobar at peak drug running operation

was willing to accept losses of tens of millions a year from mold due to the paper money that he had. Yeah, he had problems with rats too. Rats and just we're talking rooms that were like this entire room, Florida ceiling in hundreds. Yeah. What? So to this day, they still find barrels of his,

I don't know if you've seen that. Like, you look it up. Yeah, like every now and then there'll be an obscure, thing from a farmer that a farmer was tilling some land and comes up with a barrel full of money. It's all. God. The rat tax, roughly 2.1 billion, was written

off annually, annually for spoilage. $420 million per week. Think about that. I have a hard time thinking about that. That is a billion dollars every two and a half

weeks. And Amado Carrio was way bigger than this guy. How is that possible? literally just existed in a time where nobody had the ability to share information like we did. It was hard. It was hard to trace money. It was hard to do financial investigations. It was very, very, very hard to cooperate. And Mexico had, I mean, Mexico has always been in Colombia, too. I mean, we all know that. I mean, the elephant in the room. I mean, the corruption is, is rampant there, right? So, you know, and a lot of it has to do with.

Speaking of finding money, farmer finds 600 million. This is like all the time. They found more, more... Here's the most important question. Does he get to keep any of it? I don't know how the rules in Columbia work. I doubt it. I doubt it.

I might report finding 300 days. Actually, let's be honest. Let's not be greedy. I found 595 million. Yeah. You know? I mean, I don't know what you can fit in your pockets, but yeah. Can you imagine burying $600 million in forgetting where it is?

Yeah. Like, I mean, he had him everywhere. Think about it is that I think that, like, that, like, that currency is so old, like those dollars are so old that you're not going to be able to spend it. No, probably comes to part of your hands. You would have to take it to a bank for them to, you know, and it would have to be a U.S. Treasury bank for them to give you new cash. There would probably be some questions.

Oh, yeah. I don't think you're allowed to wheel a 55-gallon drum in the Bank of America. They would definitely reason. I think they would let you in and you would hear a little as they were on the phone with the local FBI office to come ask a few questions. Man, that is crazy. So the guy knew he was going to get caught. but was just setting up his lifestyle for his family probably, man. But think about it.

That's 100 grand a day. I can't fathom that. And like his struggling company was, it was under the family name, never hauled a legitimate load. Really? Never hold an lien. How did he not get any scrutiny from the Border Patrol checkpoint? Not even a once over.

Because, I mean, I don't know a lot of the stuff you guys have there, but you'll see sometimes these horrific images where people are stuffed into compartment. It looks like x-ray, but it might be magnetized or whatever. Right. I mean, like these cutouts or you're finding, you know, in the documentary, they were drilling out floorboards and finding. And then that was obviously, that was physical product, not necessarily people. But man, in all that time, it's wild that you caught him via Intel as opposed to necessarily just a random stop and check at the checkpoint. You got to think about the vast numbers of vehicles.

Can you imagine how many vehicles go through the I-10 checkpoint? No. How many trucks? I mean, I used to live, I've gone through the I-5 one by Tijuana. Yeah, it's every single day. It's especially at rush hour before and after, it's just slammed all day long. Not only that, but there was a few instances where the Border Patrol was doing their job in really scrutinizing loads coming in.

And they backed up the highway so much. There was an accident. Somebody got sued. And so when they get to Russia or a supererzer, like, hey, get this traffic out of here. Get it out. We'll get them next time. And so just the sheer numbers of it tells you that there's a lot more going on

than was tens of thousands per day. Wow. Yeah, that is almost unmanageable. And that's why they will throw so much volume at that because they know that they're, I would imagine to them they look at it as kind of a tax. Yeah, like you'll get some of this, but the vast majority of it will make its way through.

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How long did you do undercover work for? I did undercover work until I got promoted in 2009. Was it tough to leave it? Not at the time. Now I miss it. Like I said, I fucked around and got promoted is what I say. You know what I mean? Because now I was so much fun.

I think I left a lot on the table, right? Like I remember when I was a supervisor, my guys would come in and say like, hey, boss, there's an undercover deal. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. And I was like, I wanted to be like Bovino and be like, hey, I'm going to go out there. But I was like, oh, fuck, you guys don't know how good you have it, right? Because here I'm dealing with budgets and, you know what?

You know what's funny that I always tell people is that when I was working on the border, right, doing UC, working against the cartels. I thought that was the maximum. Like, nothing can. be more important than fucking working against the cartels and trying to, you know, try to take them down high-level targets or whatever. Then my ass got shipped to, I got promoted and got shipped to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, right? I was the attach, the special agent in charge of at that time, the Riyadh office handled

Afghanistan, they handled Egypt, all the Middle East. And this is why you were at HSI. Yeah, I was with HSI. So I got sent out, but, you know, I didn't, like, I didn't realize, I knew about the, you know, the Muslim and the Jewish conflict, kind of knew it. I just never realized it. Let me tell you who made me realize it, right?

I was, when I was there, we were negotiating. I was a senior DHS individual. And we were negotiating, what was called an advanced passenger information from the Saudis, right? We know the majority of the terrorists came from Saudi. So what DHS was trying to negotiate with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia

was that they would give us advanced passenger information on everybody leaving the kingdom, not just people that were coming to the U.S. So it's a big political thing. So we worked on it for months, right? Verbiage, all this. And at that time, Michael Sherdof was the Secretary of Homeland Security. So we dealt, we, I, you know, I'm not very diplomatic, but I had to deal with, you know, with, with, with, you know, the, the higher-ups of the, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. So finally, after months of negotiation, the king said the king of Saudi Arabia said, okay, we're ready to sign it, right? So I call, you know, my contacts in Homeland Security and said, hey, when can Mr. Shredoff make it? Because the king

is ready to sign the agreement and it's on this date, right? So then they get back to me and they said, okay, Mr. Shurdof would be here on this date and leave on this date, which was like eight or nine days. And I thought, that's ridiculous for one signature. Like, and I was concerned. because I'm like, I have to take care of this guy. You know what I'm saying? I'm in charge of his protection. Even though he had secret servers, but he's Homeland Security. I need to, you know, so I called back.

I had a meeting with telecom with the headquarters and I'm like, why does he want to be here so long? Like, who does he want to meet or what? And they're like, I just fill his schedule with whatever. Just fill it, right? And I'm like, all right, so I try to find as many meetings as I could or whatever. And I'm thinking like, my motherfuckers just come in to chill, right? Like he wants to be away from D.

see this kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But so anyways, he gets here on the date that he's supposed to sign, right? So I called the Ministry of Interior and say, like, my boss is here. He's ready to sign. Can we go over to the palace? And they're like, oh, no, the king will see you tomorrow. Okay, so then we go tomorrow and then, oh, no, the king will see you the next day, right? The king will.

And this was day after day. And I'm thinking like, man, it's a good thing that he came for so many days. And it wasn't until the last day that we had to go meet the king up in the, what he called, like a little tent that he had out in the desert. Oh, that you're talking about, yeah. Yeah, but it was huge. Airconditioned was the biggest buffet I have ever seen, to be honest with you. And it was on the final day.

So that's when they actually signed their agreement. Shirtov and the king signed the agreement. The meeting lasted less than three minutes. The guy was uninterested. He shook our hand and that was it signed or whatever. And then as we're driving back, because Shirtov had a beer in my house, which is pretty cool because it's Saudi Arabia. I had the secretary of Homeland Security at my house having a beer.

But anyways, he was going, I was like, man, I was like, hey, boss, I'm glad, you know, it's a good thing that you, that you booked so many days here. He said, Oscar, he said, I knew that he wasn't going to want to see me right away because I'm Jewish, right? No way. Yes, that's what he told me. I'm Jewish. And he didn't want to seem for the rest of the Arab world that he was conceding to me coming in. So he was going to make me hold on as long as possible. and then at the last minute's side just to save face.

And I was like, damn, like those politics I have never experienced in El Paso, right? I would have never been like, and that's when I started realizing like, man, there's so, it's the policies and the politics in the world are so complex. Yeah. Yeah, they are complex and they are nuanced and they are going on all the time, right? Everywhere. Wow. Where'd you go after that posting?

Over inside. I went to Monterey, Mexico. Relatively violent, I have heard. times? A little bit by lit. Yeah, I mean, we had a, we had our fair share of close calls, but like I said, it was different, it was different times. Still working cartel there as well?

We're working against the SETA's. Yeah. We had high level, which is another thing that I wanted to bring up, and I wanted to get your, your feeling on this, right? So, so for us, U.S. law enforcement, U.S. military, PTSD is a big problem, right? PTSD is something that is documented, that is clinical, that you can say, this is, you this individual is, you know, it's stricken with PTSD, right? And for a U.S. law enforcement agent, if you get involved in one shooting or one critical incident,

man, that's a career, right? It's like, oh, shit, that's the guy that got into a shooting and, you know, whatever, right? So you're kind of like, you know, like, but I dealt a lot with Mexican military, and I dealt a lot with Mexican special forces, federal special forces. Yeah. And you don't hear that PTSD is amazing. your problem with them, right? Like, you don't hear that, oh, yeah, the guy is not working anymore because he had PTSD. As a matter of fact, I have a real close friend of mine who

ended up being the head of the Chihuahua State Police, right? And there was times where I would call him, like, we had plans to go have lunch or whatever. And I would call him and he would be in the middle of a firefight. You could hear the gun bull is going down range. That's a good friend that call. And he would call me like, hey, what's up? And I'm like, I would be like, voicemail. First off, I actually wouldn't touch my phone, but... He was... I mean, and... And then when you would sit down and talk to his men, right? Like, his hierarchy, they would be talking about...

Like, me and you were talking about, like, oh, this guy was dead. But they would confuse shootings. So they were like, no, that was a shooting that we had in Morelos. No, no, no, no, that was a Cancun shooting. That was... So, like, my question is, like, why... Like, is it something that they don't... Like, is it their mentality that...

Or is it something that we kind of copyrighted and became owners of it? That's my whole question. I've asked a lot of people. They have different different. I'm certainly no expert in this by any stretch. I can hypothesize and that's all it would be. In my experience, just because people don't overtly talk about any impact that it may have. And there's a lot of people who can put on an incredibly good face for a real.

really long period of time. And what I've seen, again, and I'm not an expert on this, but what I've seen is it starts working its way backwards. And almost always the thing that suffers the last is their professional environment. That's where they can keep a grip on keeping everything together and that presentation of that everything is fine. And it starts away from that, whether it be, whatever it may be, sleep issues or stress issues or family issues, and it slowly works its way to that. And sometimes it just unwinds. You know, you look back at like the greatest generation of the US fighting World War I and World War II, they were oftentimes talked about on how stoic they were. They never talked about anything. And I was just recently having this conversation with somebody

on the show. I wonder, and I posed the question to him, like, how much suffering was occurring behind the scenes? What did that look like? The alcoholism or the substance abuse. I don't, I don't think we have copyrighted post-traumatic stress by any stretch of the imagination. It might be more in the forefront. My suspicion would be is that, you know, as a species of homo sapiens, I don't think there are small segments where trauma doesn't have any impact. If you're a psychopath or sociopath, maybe, but that would be a small fraction of the number of people who would want to do that job.

For everybody else, my guess would be that it is manifesting itself if they have issues with it, because also not everybody has the same issue. You can have six people in a situation that respond to it completely differently. Completely different. Different memory, an immense, too much stress. for somebody to handle and then honestly something that doesn't even register on the scale for somebody else and i don't know why that is maybe that's upbringing or just mentality or what you came

out you know that's the the DNA mixture of your mom and dad and like for whatever reason you're good at dealing with that but for most people it comes out somewhere yeah um and like i don't know i don't know what i meant about amount about that culture and saying meaning i don't know if that is something that is culturally acceptable to talk about like because one thing that shifted in the U.S., I would say specifically with men and men coming from either law enforcement, first responder, or military backgrounds. It's like, don't sit with that by yourself. Share that with other people. I don't know if that's the same thing in the Hispanic or Mexican culture down there, because if it isn't, it doesn't surprise me that they would be dealing with that quietly.

Yeah, and I could get that, right? And I see that. Like, I see, yeah, they're probably struggling with it internally. But, I mean, it's got to be manifested like you hit somewhere, right? And here, in the most part, how many people, how many of our friends have committed suicide, right? Farts bad. That we're dealing with PTSD. You don't really hear that in Mexico. So that's where I would say, I'd be able to quantify it. I'd be able to say, like, yeah, they're just not talking about it, but look at the number of suicides with soldiers and the number of suicides with law enforcement.

But you don't see that. And yeah, it might be culture, right? It might be like, as a Mexican macho, you don't want to show that you have weakness or whatever. but like you would think that it would be a uh and i'm sorry i threw this question i went no no i enjoy questions like this because honestly i never thought about it in the difference between god what a horrendous statistic to view back and forth right but again the stats are out there so you might as well look at them and maybe they're useful is there something that is different because the number in the u.s is wholly unacceptable from people from the background of military

law enforcement uh first responder if it is lower there I have no explanation for why that may be. I would love to do a study or have somebody do a study. Somebody should. It's way smarter than me. Yeah, because like I said, they would talk about it. And I, of course, like you say, you don't, you don't see it, right? It manifests differently.

But you would think that there would be a high number of, of, I mean, there was just the fact that you're losing, you know, colleagues. There was 50, I think it was 52 murders last year in Senaloa itself. Yeah. Fifty-two law enforcement murder. right? People that are law enforcement, you would think that just even that you would be, you know, but, you know, I mean. Can you imagine if there was 52 targeted law enforcement murders in like Chicago? It would be, you know.

Holy cow. Yeah, but that brings me to the next thing, right? I'm glad you said that because this is a difference between Mexico and the U.S. I had a, when I was working in Mexico, I'm not going to say where, because it'll identify the person. Go broad. Right. So, so I had a. information from a source, a snitch, that told me, hey, boss, in this, he even brought me a map.

In this general location, there's five bodies that are buried in this, and they were all in one general area. There's 10 bodies here. And I'm like, how fuck does he know, right? And I'm saying, I'm thinking, this guy's full of shit, right? Like, I'm thinking that's bullshit. It can be. So I'm like, all right, he's looking for some money.

But he had been on point on other things. He had missed him, but he had been on point on some other things. So I gave that information to the state police from that area. And sure enough, but I just gave him one location and said, hey, there's a guy that says there's five bodies here. And one of them is a U.S. citizen, which is where I come in. It's my interest to kind of give closure to the family. And I say, yeah, we'll go out there and look at it. Sure enough, they dig and there's five people.

And the guy that he had said is right there, right? So I'm like, I'm talking about hundreds of bodies. So I start telling the authorities, hey, there's bodies here, there's bodies there, there's body, right? So sure enough, they go and do their little, they go out there and they start unearthing bodies. And so the information is panning out, right? Then all of a sudden, they stop. They stop doing it. And I'm like, okay, what's going on?

So I called the authorities. I called the Attorney General's office. And I'm like, hey, you know, what's going on? Oh, we're going to resume this, you know, next week. We need more, you know, that area is real hot with cartels. So we need more help from Mexico. So I'm like, okay, I make sense. Wait a couple more weeks, nothing.

I finally call a meeting with this individual, right? And I'm sitting in his office. This is an attorney general, being a big guy, and I'm telling him like, hey, you know what's going on? And he says, he tells his man, hey, can you leave me in the room with Oscar by myself? And I told my guys, yeah, go ahead and leave me. So he tells me, Oscar, like, it's not like in the United States. If I come up with 200 bodies that are murdered, those bodies are on me.

I'm responsible because I didn't keep them safe. He says in the United States, United States attorney would become famous because he investigated the murder of 200 people. It's not like that here. First of all, I'll probably end up dead. I'm going to lose my job for sure. But then he tells me this,

which to me was astonishing. I'll tell you what, when it's a slow month for murders, we'll go on under three. We'll use this as our fishing hole, like a little honey hole. Exactly. Whenever they can afford to find.

So that's, that's the, it was like at that point, I don't know how it is now, but I'm just talking from experience what was going on back then. Can you fathom if it ever were to come out like a chief of police had said something like, hey, if it's a slow murder month, we'll just go pull a body or two out of a place where we know their bodies. Exactly. Oh my God. You know, and that's, that's the complexities of working in Mexico. How bad is the actual corruption there? Because it depends on who you talk to the answer that you get. Cartels have no influence.

They're fringe. Cartels have deep influence and their tentacles are into everything. Yeah, they're everywhere, right? They're everywhere. You're seeing it more now with the politicians, the narco-politicals, what they call them? The narco-politicians is that, and it goes back to what's always been said in Mexico. It's either plomo or plata, either lead or silver. which was an old saying, but you either get killed or you're going to take our money, right?

So, I mean, in a way, I don't, I mean, I see why you would start taking bribes as a politician there because, you know, you're either, you know, going to get, you know, very few of them are doing it for the, and you've seen the ones that do it for, you know, God and country that they want Mexico, they usually end up dead, right? The other ones, you know, they start off like, oh, I'm here to fight corruption and eventually if something's going to come up where, you know, somebody was paying, you know, but

I mean, it's, it's a, I think it's not unnecessary evil. I don't want to word it that way. I'll say it's something that that the Mexican economy needs to operate, right? Because, I mean, that's money that's injected into their economy directly. You know, they say that oil is the number one export in Mexico is what they were saying, or one of them.

But I think that, you know, drugs and the money that's coming in because it's like feeding a junkie, you know, whatever their drug of choices without any backing. You're just feeding it. You're just feeding it. What happens when you stop that? I mean, the junkie's going to go crazy, right? It's going to start robbing people, starting, you know, and, you know, unfortunately,

that's our neighbor, right? You don't want your backdoor neighbor. So it's something that, you know, something that's a necessary evil for them to, to, to, I'm not saying it's like everything's corporate, right? Yeah. But there's very few people that I would trust in Mexican government. Is it possible, do you think for Mexico, the government of Mexico, to separate themselves from the cartel? Or are they two interwoven at this point?

They're interwoven. Like, for example, in Juarez, the Juarez cartel has, it's Juarez. The Juarez cartel is Juarez. It's the economy in Juarez. It's people in high-ranking positions and television networks. And, you know, it's just, it's been woven into their, into the society, right? That is a Juarez cartel. It's not, you know, it's not like, like, you know, the economy and Juarez and the way that the businesses started, you know, started going up.

It was because of the money that was injected into the economy by the cartels. And a lot of them have family ties. And so that's why it was real hard for what Chappo had been trying to take the Juarez cartel forever. I mean, forever he wanted that nobody can take the Juarez cartel because the Juarez cartel has been passed on generation, from generation from generation, and it's very hard to lose a hold on that. Yeah. What, I mean, obviously you worked cartels for a very long period of time.

Was there anything that surprised you about the organization itself, that maybe a misconception you had before going in and you realized that they were either way more sophisticated or they just did something that you wouldn't have expected them to do so? You know what? The only thing that really surprised me is when all this violence started happening, you know, where the beheading, and all that stuff.

And I can point it directly as to why it happened, right? It was the fact that the Cetas, right, were there were special forces within the Mexican military. They were actually started to go after the Gulf Cartel, which is Osiel Cardinals at the time. So they started hitting, you know, they started taking down a lot of his men. They started arresting.

They were doing their job, right? So Osial Cardenas was like, who's this new unit? They're not regular military? like they're really hitting me. So he kidnapped one of the guys and kind of told him, hey, go tell your boss that

if he leaves the military and starts working for me, like this is how much I'm going to pay you, right? So that's what happened. They defected as a group. The boss said, hey, we're working for it. Defected from the military. From the military as a group, right?

They defected and they started working first as bodyguards for Osiel and then they started doing operations. But you got to realize that the majority of the hierarchy of the Mexican cartels, right? Those were old school cartel members, right? It was smuggling routes and in hierarchies that were started even from the prohibition

era in the United States, right? The majority of the Mexican cartels started from Sinaloa, which coincidentally were my mom's from, but started in the areas in the mountains in Sinaloa. And they started smuggling liquor, tequila to Americans because, you know, the prohibition era, They was making the money. Like during World War II, there was a ration on candles. Really? Yeah, because there was blackouts, there was rolling blackouts in the United States

because they were afraid that Japanese or German were going to bomb us. So a lot of people did their nightly stuff with candles. And there was a ration. There wasn't, you know, or it was expensive or they can only have a few. So they started smuggling candles into whatever, whatever, you know, whatever the Americans wanted is what they were going to smuggle, right? And then later it became opium. and then marijuana, whatever, right?

Whatever is one. But all these guys, they knew the rules, right? Like their grandfather was cartel, their father was cartel, now their cartel. And for the most part, they didn't want to heat up the plaza. They didn't want the government mad at them, right? Because they're making money. There's no reason for us to go after the government. The government's getting their cut.

We're getting our cut. Everybody's happy. Everybody's eating, right? So even stupid stuff, like rules that you would never, you know, you try not to kill somebody if they're with their wife or their children, with their family. You know, that was... Almost like rules of engagement. Exactly, right?

Like, you would, you know, even to, like, we would joke in high school. If we would see a guy with his girlfriend or his kid or whatever, it'd be like, oh, he probably lost a load, right? Because, you know, shit like that, right? Because it was just common sense. Like, you wouldn't do that. Well, all that was lost with Asetas, because the set us, they didn't have that lineage of cartels, right?

They were military. You know, the majority of those guys were... were poor people from, you know, from the, you know, from the rural areas of Mexico. They got into the military and, you know, they don't know anything about, you know, the hierarchy of the cartel. They just know that, you know, with a Mexican military, they're making 50 bucks a week. And now, you know, we're making 300 bucks a week and we get the unlimited use of, you know, new vehicles. They're stolen, but, you know, unlimited amount of cocaine or whatever. And so that's where a lot of that started because when when the set up,

and the golf cartel, they broke apart. You know, the SETAs are military. What do you do when you're in the military and somebody hits you? You strike them back. You're going back. And that's what started happening. This escalation.

Yeah, they escalated. And then they started getting like, they tried to do intimidation, which is where all the beheading started and all that stuff. And that's what really shocked me that I never thought that just by the SETA's doing that, that everybody else was going to employ the same tactics.

And now it's almost like, like if you look at this, websites, right? Like, it's almost like who can be more brutal, who can be more sadistic, right? And it's, it's something that, you know, something that I never foresaw it happening.

I mean, I always knew about the structures. I always knew like that somebody was getting paid in the government, you know. You kind of always knew who the Plaza bosses were, even not because you were in law enforcement or just because of you, like the news used to. Remember when

Oseil Cardenas got arrested, which was the head of the Gulf Cartel, And he got extradited to the United States. The newspaper actually said, Osiel Cardenas, names Laskano as a new head of the Gulf Cartel. Just getting the word out. Getting the word out. I mean, that's, isn't that? You know, that was kind of like Chicago in the 20s where Al Capone or whoever got killed.

Now, this is the new boss. Man. What is the state or what is the state of the state of the cartels now in Mexico? who's in power. You hear a lot about like this, you know, the HALISCO, New Generation Cartel. What are you seeing now as far as the power structure in Mexico? Yeah, the, the Halisco Nue Generation is extending and Mencho's extending, right?

Was that an offshoot of one of the existing cartels? Yeah, it was the Familia Michoacana. Okay. Right. And so you see him influencing more and more and more in different states, right? And I think what would help them expand is the fact that the Chapo's kids, the Sinaloa cartel and Mayo,

the maiza, which is the other, you know, the other head of the cartels. They started fighting within each other. And, and he kind of did an allegiance

with the Mayos and kind of extended his reach to, to the Sinaloa area. But yeah, I mean, they're the strongest cartel,

but they're still, like, Juarez remains as the, you know, Juarez cartel. It's hard for them to lose that. You know, the golf cartel is still there.

The Cetas are still there. Whatever they want to name them. themselves, a new generation. But, yeah, Mancho is the one that's really, really running stuff right now. If you were, is that you or me? Sorry, it's me. I don't worries. The war on drugs is an interesting one.

We have spent a few dollars as a nation on it. Right. I don't think we could really drag that one into the W column. No. As a win. Do you think it is winnable at all? And if you were in a place where you got to write policy and how the U.S. dealt with the cartels,

your experience with them, what would that look like? I mean, we have the technology and we have the means to stop, you know, stop the flow of narcotics into the U.S., believe it or not. We can do 100% inspection on every vehicle that's coming into the United States and do an inspection on everything, run x-rays. It would be tedious, right? Yeah. It would be hard.

But then what are you going to do to the economy, to the commerce coming, you know, from both countries, right? If you're inspecting 100% of the containers that are coming into the United States, I mean, you're going to stop. The pace of the borders go to a crawl. Yeah. Prices are going to go up.

You know, so we do have the means to do it. It's just, you know, how, I think that one thing that did surprise me, right, you can say that kind of shocked me was, you know, these boats that are coming out of Venezuela that, you know, started getting shot down by the military, right? I think that that would be a way to do it. Like, for example, if you send the special forces into get Mentiono, right? You can show that, you know, anybody's touchable, right?

Because right now Mentional says, like, I mean, he brags about it that, you know, hey, Americans come get me. You know, like he's ready for them and stuff like that. I think we just had a guy in Venezuela that was talking like that too. Yeah, you were saying that, yeah. But there's a big difference between Mexico. Oh, yes, there is. There's a huge difference.

I was sort of like when the president took office this second term. And I actually did a podcast that day. And he had just named, you know, all these criminal organizations or as terrorist organizations, right? And they asked me like, like, what does that mean? Why is he doing that? And I said, you know, it's just, you know, it's just rhetoric. He's just saying what he promised in the campaign is, you know, the only difference of naming somebody as a terrorist organization, you know,

and the King Ping Act, which the King Ping Act takes all their funds. They can't travel, you know, like members that are cartel members that are documented. They can't freely travel, you know, away from Mexico and stuff like that. I said the only thing that it names it is, the only thing that changes is by naming them terrorist organizations so you can use the military to go after them. And I doubt that will happen.

Boom, it started happening. And I was totally surprised because that elevates the game. You know what? Because like, yeah, the official word is these are cartel members, right? But how do you know? Like, are you 100% positive of their cartel members? Second of all, are you 100% positive that they're carrying, you know, narcotics, right? Are you 100%?

And if you have the intel that's telling you that that's what they're carrying, then you have the intel to intercept them, right? Intradict them, find intelligence, where was it going? to get, you know, get the telephone numbers, exploit those, find out where they're going. And by you just killing them, you're becoming the judge, jury, and executioner, right? And I can tell you based off my experience with military intelligence, 100% is not a number that is used often, if ever. Right.

So, and I don't even know what there, I've never been involved in a kinetic strike like that from a platform other than talking to platforms on a radio. which there is no, it's a very flat chain of command. If you have the authority to release the audience, you're talking to the guy in the airplane. In these, I feel like there is a little bit more of an extended chain of command, and somewhere in there, there's the Jags, right?

The judge... Yeah, yeah, the generals. It'd be an interesting conversation to have with one of them because I don't know what level of certainty their strike threshold is at. Is it 80? Is it 85? Is it 90? Because 100 is just impossible.

The two numbers that I don't believe in are zero and 100, just like that BS, zero illegal, crossings. Yeah. It's like, come on, man. Yeah. Like just at least put one. Right.

So we could argue about that. Zero. Yeah. Zero is a little tough. You're going to put that one up there demonstrably like, okay. So I don't know. And I've had a lot of people ask me about those strikes. I don't know where it leads us either.

I would like to believe that they are also interdicting some. Right. And maybe that's not making the news. And the ones that do is that just a. a flex by the administration to show people what we're capable of. And from my understanding, all of the strikes have occurred in international water, right? Which is, you know, I think that changes the legalities a little bit. But I mean, what if they identify a cartel convoy that's loaded with whatever fentanyl or cocaine or whatever it is?

What's their threshold to do something? I just feel like a kinetic strike like that in Mexican territory. I don't know. That's a jump to me. between the international water and then into our southern neighbor, I just don't know the legalities of that. And that, that to me becomes a very complicated situation.

Well, the legalities of it, if they're named as, like, I think that for the first time ever, the last couple of weeks, they extradited the first individual that has been actually charged with, with terrorism or narco-terrorism.

Yeah. And the Mexican government gave him up quick. They arrested him, and within two weeks he was gone. where extraditions used to take forever to happen. And now it seems like the current Mexican administration is kind of pushing those. Like for us to get, you know, Chapo and even the Trevinos, Miguel Treviño and Omar Trevino, which are the head of the Settas at that time, for them to push him forward to us right away,

I think to me it's showing that the president is saying, telling Trump, like, hey, you're cooperating, slow down, don't, you know, don't come into our territory. Let's see, the drone strikes and special forces for them. And also, I mean, I always thought that those, those strikes, strike the drone strikes on the on the speedboats were just an excuse to to go after maduro honestly that's what I thought again I was obviously not consulted for any of those and I'm well out of the military I can see that world as well too and because if you look at the vast majority of what is killing people narcotics wise that's probably not what was

on those boats from Venezuela anyway right because China is bringing the precursor chemicals into ports in Mexico and it's being brought that way A boat from Venezuela, I don't think has the legs to make it all the way to the U.S. So there's probably some different type of substance, which may not impact even overall fatalities from overdose. So yeah, I could see where you could align that towards maybe there was a breadcrumb trail towards Venezuela. I could see that for sure.

Those people you mentioned that were being extradited, does that even have an impact on the cartel, though? No. I mean, no. It doesn't other than the fact that you're showing probably, you know, the other people that are aspiring to become leaders in the cartels that hey, we can come come get you after all, you know? That's it, but as far as

the overall operations, no, not really. I mean, was Chappo running the Svinanaloa cartel? No, he wasn't. Was Maya running, he was running a little bit more than Chappo, but I mean, these people in the hierarchies that are really running the day-to-day operation, so it doesn't impact them. As a matter of fact, it benefits

the people that are in line to elevate. To elevate? To elevate, but it kind of benefits them that they have a hit that they're going after, hey, we're going to remain here, you know, kind of low level. Yeah. And let that, you know, let that happen. And, you know, I mean, Chappo made some critical mistakes by trying to be in a telenovela, you know, because, you know, he wanted to sell his story as a movie and that's ultimately what led to his arrest.

What, I remember when you were texting, you mentioned that one of the first places you got sent was Montana. Yeah. What did HSI do and sending you up to Montana? I don't know if you know this. The northern border is completely secure. Oh, yeah. There's not one. You don't think there's no one.

It would be one, right? You know, after September 11th, there was a fear that, there was the last time I've been to Montana. Really? Yeah, there was a fear that the terrorists or terrorist organizations or undocumented immigrants were going to, you know, we're going to come in through the Canada border. And so they wanted special agents assigned to the northern border

and Border Patrol agents, but as a special agent, I was to investigate any possible ties, you know, with Al-Qaeda or whatever that was coming into the northern border. I was in a little town called Turner, Montana, which I don't know if you know where is that. I don't. To the middle of nowhere. There was no infrastructure.

There was no houses. There was no hotels, nothing, right? So some intelligent farmers there converted a bunch of a bunch of their barns into like sleeping quarters for agents. Just entrepreneurs. Exactly. They made a killing because they were taking all up or den. Let me tell you, the sleeping accommodations weren't the best, right?

But yeah, we were up there for a few months, you know, in Montana. In 2001? 2001, yes. Wow. Oh, wow. When you said that's in the middle of nowhere, you were actually not even remotely joking. That's the part of Montana that doesn't make it onto the postcards. I don't imagine.

Yeah, the postcards are mostly elk and, holy cow. I think that the farm, because that's the grocery store, the farm that we were staying at is that next farm up there. I feel like this population might be in barely triple digits. Yeah.

Wow. There was one bar in town and one grocery store. Do you think enough attention is paid to the northern border and how at least expansive it is? It's expansive and I know they're exploiting it a lot. I know that for a fact. How dare you say that? Because Canadians get very upset with me when I say things like that.

Because their government tells them that they only seized 10 pounds of fentanyl last year. That just doesn't mean that like 10,000 didn't make it through. It just means that that's what they caught. Yeah, I mean, it's being exploited. I think that there needs to be a concentrated effort in securing the northern border. I mean, it's not as, well, it is porous. It's more porous than the southern border, but it's not being exploited as much as the southern border. is, but it is being exploited. I know that for a fact. You know, if you pay a little bit of extra,

you fly into Canada and simply walk, you know, that imaginary border. I just was doing a content project last week. It might actually be out by the time this episode comes out, but hopped in a helicopter and just flew along the border because people don't believe me that it looks like a stretch of mowed lawn in between the forest. And so we went up towards glacier and just caught it and just caught it and just up and over some hills and you can there's a road there's a small town up here called polebridge they're the same as for their bear claws not the actual animal bear but like the pastry if you keep going on that road it just ends in a little tear drop and you can drive back down but there is just a stretch of snow and on the other side of that is a building that's in Canada and we so we flew from

west to east and maybe it was game trail tracks you know what I mean because animals will take the past of least resistance maybe there's people hiking whatever it may may be, but there is absolutely nothing stopping anybody going either north or south. There's no physical barriers. I know, I mean, I imagine they have some sort of sensors, right? Vehicle sensors or stuff like that. Those are all reactive, though. Yeah.

You know, maybe you got game cameras. It's like, cool, you caught somebody wearing a ski mask two weeks after they were there. I don't know what you did with that information necessarily. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And I, you know, if I look at it, I'm like, okay, if Mexico is easier from a volume perspective. And if I was at the thinking about this from an organized crime perspective, I'm like, okay, we'll keep the material goods, push them through the South, but like really important people that we might want to get across. Like you said, Canada has a relatively permissive passport acceptance policy. Visas aren't required most of the time. Yeah. And it's like, you know, with enough money, you can go to any one of these countries and get a passport from there and then come in. And, you know, there are, there's a woman named Katerina that works with the production company, Iron Cloud that I do.

I know, I know. She's talking about, you know, you can go up there. You'll find just discarded travel documents or passports, fake names, right? And so they know that it's happening. And that's how I would probably move somebody a high level. A high level, right? Those people, I mean, not that overdosing and drug usage is obviously catastrophic, especially for those who've been touched by it.

But I worry a lot about somebody who is a sophisticated individual who has patience and time to plan and recruit. I just don't know how you stop it, though. I would definitely, if I needed to get somebody high level into the country. It would be the northern border. Yeah. Northern border, of course. Yeah, through Canada, through the passport system and just, I mean, probably were some layers if it's the wintertime.

But you also could choose to go. Yeah, I have some buddies who work up here for the Border Patrol. And I'm like, I'm sorry, how many guys did you guys say you had again for the state? Yeah, that's not enough. Yeah, I don't know how many they have, but it's probably not. Most of the agents, you know, go to the southern border, understandably. Yeah. Very few come to the northern border.

And it used to be, I don't know how it is right now, but these were choice stations because. Oh, 100%. You should hear some of the conversations. We're talking 15, 20 year guys who come. They're like, oh, yeah, never leaving. They call them a Roth retired on duty. You know, like, hey, I'm pretty much done. They're doing their time.

I get it. Yeah. Yeah. So policy-wise, what would you advise to policymakers on how they should deal with the cartel? is it just always something that's going to be a give and take? Is there, I mean, how do we deal with it if it's, if it's so ingrained with our southern border and our neighbor? It's hard. It's hard. I think that like as much as I criticize the Mexican government, like they're taking huge strikes right now with actually extra guiding these individuals, right?

I remember having a conversation with SETA, high-ranking SETA member, that, that was kind of mocking me like, hey, you're never going to extradite me. You know, I live like a king in Mexico and, you know, and they're extraditing them now. So at least we're getting that satisfaction that we're going after these high-level individuals, you know. And so I think that's a big step. I just don't know. I mean, I don't know what, how are you going to gauge, you know,

what effect all that is having on, you know, on how the cartels are operating right now? I mean, it's kind of hard. Would they, like you're saying, a cartel member would say that to you, when you were doing non-U.C. stuff, like maybe when you were down there in Monterey, just there as a representative for HSI, would they avoid you or would they talk with you? No, there, they would talk to you. Really? Yeah.

Yeah, they would, I mean, they would call it. I had a, there was an individuals of a very infamous individual, La Barbie. I don't know if you've heard him. This guy was born in Laredo, Texas, played football, all-American guy. but he had dual citizenship, started working for Beltran Leva, which was a big cartel there. He was a millionaire.

He was making a lot of money, right? But he was an American citizen, right? And so when the Cetas and the Gulf Cartel started, or Beltran Leva started kind of fighting with each other, I had just gotten to Monterrey from Saudi Arabia. I was literally unpacking my books from my office. and I get a call and this individual

from the operator tells me there's an individual that wants to talk to the new ice boss and I'm right patch him through so I patch him through and he said

he tells me like hey my name is I forget what his first name was Villarreal but he said like he said his name and I was like yeah that doesn't mean

anything to me I was new to the area I hadn't gotten the briefing yet right so I was like okay and it goes like La Barbie right

like the Barbie and I'm like Barbie, because you don't know who I am, huh? And I'm like, no, but that's a fucked up name for a cartel member. He was saying he was feeling the heat, right? And he wanted to start the process to turn himself in, right? Oh, really? So he called the ICE, and unbeknownst to me, I didn't know, I didn't know who it was, right?

Because I hadn't gotten the briefing. Like a day later, that's when I got the briefing from DEA, from ICE, from ATF. And that's one of the guys that came up. La Barbie is, and I'm like, La Barbie, so I start looking at my notes. but the fucker they called me yesterday, right? So, I mean, that makes the investigation easy. Yeah. A little bit easier when they call you.

Yeah, but no, they don't really hide it in Mexico. I mean, there's been agents that have been, you know, that have been stopped and, and, you know, like, for example, when we would travel from the nearest U.S. office when Monterey was Laredo, right? And then we would, so whenever we were crossing to Nuevo Laredo, that's a big set, you know. and as we were driving south to Monterey, you would see the vehicles following you with the long arms. Like you see the guys looking at you with the long arms. And, you know, at first, you know, we were like, what the hell? So we would call our intermediate, the guy that had direct contact with the cartels

and be like, hey, there's a vehicle following us, like, what the hell's going on? They're like, no, yeah, boss. We're just making sure that nothing happens to you on your way out of the city. Because they wanted you to go into Laredo and then get the hell out. So, I mean, a lot of the times they were there. And then we just look at you like, you know, like, hey, you're traveling in our city. Wild. Are you familiar at all with the Operation Fast and Furious?

Yes. Okay. I have a funny story about that. Not funny, because nothing is funny about it. I have an interesting story about it. So I did not pay nearly any attention to this when this was first being disclosed or talked about. And I was listening to a Rogan episode. I think it was with Mike Benz recently.

And he was talking about how it was very similar to the IRA and Contra and a way to get something accomplished outside of the purview of what they were told they were able to do. Can you break down what that operation was? Because now I'm a little bit fascinated by it. Yeah. So basically what that operation was an ATF-led operation that wanted to follow the gun trail, right? People that were buying... The Iron Road, if you will.

Exactly. They wanted to follow that. And basically, they had informants that were actually delivering these weapons to the cartels. And then when the guns were seized in Mexico, right, and we were running, we would see that, oh, yeah, this is one of the firearms that was purchased by this individual. So we would kind of see, like, the time to crime, right? The time that it was... Flash to bang, yeah. Yeah, the time that they was purchased to the time that it was seized in Mexico,

it was just a way of furthering the investigations. I was going to tell you a story about that. Back in 2011, maybe, 2010, I remember exactly when it was, when Fast and Furious happened. But it was during when it was starting, I was acting, because at that time I was an assistant special agent in charge in El Paso. I had come back from Monterey. And it was during Christmas time.

And all the, like my boss, the special agent charge left, the deputy left. So guess who was running the show of me? They're like, hey, you're in charge. Nothing happens during Christmas. So I'm like, all right, cool. I think you mean to say nothing has happened during Christmas? Nothing has happened.

So our agent in charge of our Deming office, which is an office in the outskirts in New Mexico, call me and he tells me like, hey, boss, you know, I'm going to run an ops pantry. And it's basically what it is is that, you know, they're going to buy some weapons in Deming and we're going to help ATF. all the way through as it makes his way to Columbus, New Mexico,

into Mexico, right? I'm thinking like weapons that are not working, right? And this is where I get a little bit weird about this theory, because if they were real weapons and they were allowed to go into Mexico, you are facilitating the death and violence of people in Mexico. Exactly right. But, but so he tells me like, okay, so we're going to be, and I'm waiting for the punchline, right?

I'm waiting for them to say, like, oh, we're going to stop them at the border. Or no firing pins or something. Right, right, right. something I got it and he wasn't he wasn't telling me anything I was like literally and I was about to say it was like I was like halfway home it was I was gonna say like I can't do it you know what can go wrong right well I can go wrong but then the more than more he told me I was like Bart that doesn't make sense how does that make sense like these weapons are are operating weapons yeah yeah they're going straight from the shelf into Mexico and I'm like but how does that make

sense and he tells me this I remember this like it was yesterday he was like boss, the AUSA already authorized this, right? Like, it's already authorized. We're just trying to help them because they need manpower to do the, you know, whatever, whatever. And I was like, that doesn't make sense to me. So no, I'm not going to authorize it. And he gave me, like, that's why we're not elite law enforcement agency, because we don't take risk.

And I'm like, you can ask the boss when he comes back on Monday, or whatever the time was. But no, that would have been probably one of the only times that ICE got involved in a fast and furious thing, which I thank God right now that. He opened my eyes and said, like, yeah, don't authorize it. I don't understand how there were any measures of risk mitigation. Yeah, it was ill advice. I don't understand.

But like, who comes up with a plan? Like, here's an idea. Let's send weapons down to Mexico. Yes, they're definitely going to be used in the commission of crime. Definitely, most likely, violent crime. Right. And so even if they were able to trace them through that Iron Road, what are you going to do with that information? What is the end result?

Exactly. I don't, yeah. It was a little advice. It wasn't a good operation. It wasn't, you know. But that leads me to another thing, right? And we say that Mexico right now is doing that push again. It's saying that I don't know what the percentage is what they're claiming now that 80% or 85% of the weapons that are seized in Mexico, you know, are coming from the United States, right?

That doesn't surprise me, though. But, you know, like from experience in Monterrey when I was there and from Juarez, and from Juarez, but more specifically in Monterrey, that's not an accurate way to word it. At that time, it was like 90% is what they were claiming. 90% of the weapons that are seized in a crime in Mexico are traced back to the United States. But the true phrase was 90% of the weapons that are traced are coming back to the United States. Right? And let me tell you why.

Those are two very different things. You tell me what this means, right? There was times where we would get called and say, hey, there was a shootout. in such and church place, you know, there's, the last one was like there's 10 dead. So we would be like, okay, we're going to go out there, try to get the, you know, the, the, the serial numbers and the weapons run them, see how we can help, right? But we'll go out there and there was 10 dead bodies and two ARs, right? What does I tell you?

And we'd be like, those two groups killed each other with two weapons. It was a concentrated effort from the Mexican authorities to take the vehicles that were stamped Sedena, which is Mexican military or weapons that were coming from somewhere else. Just leave the ones that we know are going to trace to the United States. And that way we can pressure them and say, you know, hey, you need to help us. Which is not, I'm not saying that it's, that it's, that is not happening. Because I know in Sinaloa, the problem with the 50 cows is out of the world. Like the 50 cows are now.

Why do they love those? That thing unloaded weighs 750 pounds. I've never fired it. To be honest with you, I don't have any experience with it. I have only seen for real one guy carry one, and he was getting his ass kicked by the weight of this thing, which was in a backpack. He ended up shooting a motorcycle with it.

But then you have like a little sack of the rounds that are like the size of this box, not exactly that size. But they're like a maybe not a pound each. The point being this. O ounces become pounds. And if you take a 50 cow, you're taking a lot of pounds with you.

I get it. A bear at 50 cow looks cool, but you better wear a double ear pro buddy. And the people next to you, I've had one of those things crack off when I didn't realize it was about to go off. My ears were ringing for days. I don't know if it's a status thing.

I don't know what's going on, but they're having a problem with that. They've seized, I don't know how many they've seized. But the majority of you, there's a way that ATF can trace the zip quotes of, you know, where any particular weapon type is being bought

and most of them are being bought in Arizona, right? Interesting. And most of the weapons that are being seized are in Sonora in Sinaloa which is where the Chapos are. I don't know why they like that weapon

but I mean that's... So they're just banging it out with dueling 50 cows. I guess that's what it is. Now they're using drones with... I don't know if you've seen those videos. See if you can trace

the Mexican cartels using explosive devices on drones. They're going after the military like in Ukraine where they're doing. Exactly like in Ukraine. Which makes sense because that evolution in technology of warfare is 100% going to make its way.

Oh, yeah, it's going to make a round. Wow. I want to see the 50-Cal brigades that the cartels. I need to see the size of the men carry. I'm telling you, this rifle is unwieldy, large, and heavy. But you would think that they are, I haven't seen any videos of it, but seeing how they advertise everything, there's nothing out there that shows them? Because it would be funny to see it. I will be on the Internet tonight looking for that video for my own personal.

entertainment. You find anything on the cartel drones, Michael? Oh, boy. It's a wild, wild place. Oh. Why did you decide to leave Federal Service? Did you time out or did you have enough? I had enough.

I had enough. I got involved in an incident, which I don't... Still going through some stuff, so I don't really want to get in. But I got involved in an attempted kidnapping in Juarez. Of you? They were trying to kidnap me.

Or at least that's the version that I got. Yeah. And so it was right as COVID was kicking off. And I was lucky to, you know, I mean, it's, it's something useful. I mean, I was lucky enough. I had 15, 15 vehicles following me, 15 Mexican municipal police, which, you know, where have you ever seen 15 units in one air, not even parked, right? So they.

Sicario, that's the only place. Yeah, exactly. Which is a documentary, correct? Yeah. Yeah, but it was, I mean, I made it out of there, and it was, I have full custody of my son. He just turned 14, right? So it's just me and him, and I was like, man, something would have happened to me, you know, we're with my, you know what I'm saying? Like, I, like.

Were you aware that there was that much heat on you or that you had hit the radar to the point where they? No, I wasn't aware. It was a surprise to me. Interesting. The only thing that, and this is another reason why I decided to retire was that I didn't, I didn't get a warm, fuzzy feeling from my headquarters. And it was, you know how it is politically? That situation had just happened in Kuliacan, Mexico,

where the U.S. or the Mexican military, but with the help of the U.S., had arrested Chapo's kit, El Raton. I do remember this, yes. And then all hell broke loose, right? They started, like, shutting down the city, burning vehicles, killing family members of the police and all that. So since that time, the people, president of Mexico at that time said that he was going to question every operation that

was being helped by the U.S. And I kind of kind of pushed the envelope in one operation. And it wasn't liked because it hadn't been approved by Mexico. And I mean, but the way that I saw, it was like by the time it gets approved by Mexico, you know, these guys are going to know what's going on, right? And so I kind of pushed it. They didn't like it. And the Mexican president was upset at that time that that that that that that that that that happened so they didn't want to push any they didn't want to make it bigger than it was so they just simply told me like yeah you need to go back to the states and I had no issue with that I was like yep show me the way I'll be there yeah I had enough I had enough of that 25 years total yeah what do you make of your

career looking back on it what are your thoughts on it now you know what like I was saying earlier man I fucked up and got promoted you know what like definitely I know exactly what you mean because even in the SEAL community, especially on the officer side, if you make it past lieutenant, which is like 03, your operational duties are probably going to involve a desk. Right. And I hate it that. Yeah, the enlisted side, you can just bang it out for a career. Unless you want me, you could go warrant. There's some, there's some, you could specialize in some stuff if you wanted to. But if you really wanted to just bang it out for two decades, you could find the way. But on the officer

side, they're like, oh, have you ever heard of a disassociated tour? You need to go to Germany. to fly this desk to, for your career development. People are just like, where's the nearest six-shooter to put in my mouth? Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, like that's the only thing that I really, I really, because I, I mean, financially it was better. I getting a lot of experience. Like, I wouldn't, I have, you know, a little bit of a platform where I can speak out

and stuff, which I wouldn't have had if I was, of course, if I was still doing undercover, but, man, it was so much fun. Like, it didn't feel like work. It didn't feel like every day was the supervisors didn't even want you to go to the office. They're like, don't come to the office because you. You know, these cartel knuckleheads are going to have, you know, people in the office seeing who's coming in or out. I mean, that would be smart. Yeah.

So I simply get up, call and tell my boss, say, hey, I'm up. Like, hey, don't worry about it. Like, go have coffee. We'll let you know what's going on. So I would just, like, roll the streets and, you know, we're cruising. But every day was something different. One day you would think that you're going to be home for the weekend. And by that afternoon, you're in Chicago doing the deal in the back parking lot and stuff.

Wow. So it was, it was, I mean, that's what I look back and say, like, man, I should have. I should have just stayed in the street. Yeah, but then you never know what would happen from that either. I've had those same thoughts and conversations with buddies of mine where they're not resentful of being promoted or changing their trajectory, but they fail to realize you could have such immense influence on the people underneath you by being the right person in those seats. Right.

Is it sexy? No. No. But could you maybe enable your buddies to do some really sexy stuff? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you provide top coverage, right? Which is, I'm very proud of, like, there's no one.

one person is going to say that I never backed them up. I always felt that I mean it was a big deal for example if you would lose a load right like if you were doing a control delivery of cocaine or whatever it was and and you somehow lost the the vehicle oh man you had to cut people where it was like frowned upon people were always worried about it my thing was like yeah there was a couple of loads but was anybody killed was anybody hurt I mean those knuckleheads are going to get their drugs through whether it was us letting it go through or and it was before fentanyl now now it would be you more. But, you know, like as long as anybody did, everybody made it home, you know, at the end of the day, that was my biggest concern. I'm, I have to assume that the cartel understands how dangerous fentanyl is. Isn't it a bad business plan to kill a good

percentage of the people that are using your product? Because they just don't care. Most definitely. I just don't think that they, they don't put the care. They're getting better. Yeah. They're getting better because if you think about it, the, the, the, the, the, the, over deaths. It's dropped. It's dropped. So they're getting better. It's just at first. It was just a knucklehead.

Yeah, it looks like a tablespoon or whatever it is, right? Damn. But no, I mean, they don't want to kill their people. I mean, that's a way for them to get more profit, right, from mixing phenol with whatever they're going to mix it, heroin or cocaine or whatever. But no, they're not specifically targeting to kill people because it's not good for business. I was going to say that's a really bad business plan. What would you say that one thing I am hearing? specifically around the current events in Minnesota.

It's changing people's perception of those federal agencies. Oh, actually, before I even get to that question, what are your thoughts on the $50,000 bonus and the shortened training pipeline, the mass recruitment that they did? What kind of impact do you think that that could have on those legacy organizations? Well, I can go historically back to,

whenever any federal agency, but more specifically, like the border agencies, when they would all of a sudden get this mandate to hire so many agents and train them as fast as you can and put him out on the field. A thing that have you noticed from the past and you can look this up is whenever there's a mass hiring mandate within like a three or four year span, after that, you're going to get a lot more of corruption investigations, right? So, so, yeah, in the haste to push these people through, it's not like, it's not unlike, remember when there was a big problem with gangs in the military? Yes.

And these gang members were actually pushing people through that they know we're going to pass the background. Yep. Get them through, get him trained military. Yeah, take that knowledge right back to them. Take that knowledge back to the street, right? So it's not unlike that. The cartels see that.

Right. Now, I'm going to get a lot of arguments from people because people will argue with me. Like, no, we're still doing the same thing. The background checks are the same, but not really, right? First of all, the majority of background investigators, and a lot of people don't realize it. But the majority of them, they're contractors. They're not federal employees. They're people that a lot of them, a lot of them are retired agents, but a lot of them are just people that just graduated from college or they just needed a job. And so basically these companies are employed by the federal government to do a background check. Now, if you're mandated to hire so many people and do so many investigations, what happens in a, and you know, the SF 86, what you're going to put there, if you're going to want to get hired by Border Patrol,

by HSI, by whatever, you're going to have whatever it is, three or four references. You're going to call your buddy and you're going to be like, hey, bro, they're going to call you, you know, from Border Patrol. Oh, cool, Rob, my telling me, you're the best, you know. Yeah. So those, you don't put your worst enemy down. Yeah, you don't. You don't. You don't.

But the good investigators, right? The good investigators will see the first name and say, like, do you know anybody else that knows? Yeah, they ask for additional numbers. Right. So then eventually you're going to find a person that is not on the list, right? So you go talk to that person. And, you know, a lot of times they're like, oh, yeah, he's a good guy. I didn't know he was applying for Border Patrol.

But a lot of times are going to be like that knuckleheads wants to get into Border Patrol. Yeah. But what's happening about takes time, though. Yeah. Well, it does, right? And these companies, they're like, hey, you stick to, and I know this for a fact from information that I get from people that are doing background, you stick to the script. You stick to those three numbers. They don't have a police record.

You know, their immediate family members don't have, like push them through. We'll eventually catch him down, right? But a lot of times it doesn't happen, right? So, yeah, I mean, if you're a cartel member and you have maybe a cousin or somebody that you know, like, hey, I can push him through. And maybe you're not telling them or her at that time, I'm going to use you to give me information. But man, you're hoping that they get through and you, hey, you know, get into board. And then they do. And then after that, you know, blood is thicker in water.

Hey, you know, can you give me information? And there's been a lot of cases, which is what happens, you know. You can see it historically. After hiring blitzes like that, you get a lot of corruption cases. And I'm afraid that that's what's going to happen. What would you say to people whose opinion of this federal agencies based off what they're seeing locally in Minneapolis has shifted and maybe they were looking at joining the agency before, but now they're uncertain? What would you say to somebody who's on the fence like that? Like they want to, they had liked the idea of it, but they look at what's going on and say, I don't know from a tactical level like this is not what I agree with.

Right. I think, you know what, Andy, I really don't think that it's made a big thing. difference on, no, I don't. I don't. And maybe a few people are saying, I don't want to join those knuckleheads. Maybe, right? But I think that a lot of people, I mean, whenever there's a, for example, whenever there's a special agent position open in HSI, there's thousands of applicants, thousands of applicants for ICE, the same thing, right? So I think that a lot of people that were on the fence saying like, oh, man, it's going to take forever to get hired or, you know, my background or whatever. They're thinking right now is a, right now is the opportunity to do it. First of all, the bonuses, right? And and then, you know, it'll be quicker for me to get in. I don't have to go through all the red tape because it is hard to get a federal agent position. It's hard. You know, if you do the background and if you do the hiring screening, right, it's hard. So I think that it's offering a lot of opportunity for people that really didn't think

that they could really be employed, you know, are saying, like, well, now's the opportunity. And I think that there was a mandate to hire 10,000 ice agents and they've hired 13,000, which that tells you that there's a lot of people but what I would caution them is that you don't know politically what the what that means right because you hear now the rhetoric

from from you know people against the White House saying you should abolish ice or you should you know you should because right now they're getting so much funding I wish that I had the funding that they have right now when I was in a HSIS because I would be running investigations on everybody you know it was so hard for me to get funding

for a Title III a wire tap, right? Like, okay, you have to go through a bunch. And if I had that money that they're offering, like, they're for, just for operations, right? Operational ways, I mean, we would, I mean, I would love that, right? But I think that if the current, the current atmosphere that is going against, you know,

the agents specifically in Minnesota, if it continues, like if they do, if they have another misstep like they did in Minnesota, I mean, it's going to be hard for me to, see ice surviving the way it is if a new administration takes over and it's not a Republican. So I would caution myself of leaving a job. I had a call from a friend from the sheriff's office in Opao and he told me like, hey, you know, what do you think? Like I'm really like he's, he was about five, he's about five years away from retiring. I just offering this and what do you think

should I take it? I'm like, bro, I'd be very careful giving up that career, you know, because you don't know, you don't know what's going to happen. And you know, likely nothing's going to happen. But I mean, want to run that risk. If they do a riff, you know, reduction of force, we hire too many of you guys. Yeah, they're not going to start with them as senior guys. What do you think about them shortening the training pipeline? Well, the official line that I've heard is that they're just extending the days, right? So instead of training five days, they're training six days, but they're still stuffing in the same curriculum. But I don't know, I don't know if that's a fact. I don't know That's the fact.

I know that I think who I said that they had gotten rid of a couple of courses that were redundant, you know, that really, you know, you could learn in the field to speed. But I don't know the fact. I couldn't comment on that. If they're shortened in it or taking out training, I mean, that's not good. No, the data is well back on what happens when you underprepare people for the role that they're going to be asked to do. Right. What are you going to do the rest of your life, man?

You got a bunch of runway ahead of you? What are you doing now? You know what? I'm a private investigator, no pass one. What kind of stuff you're looking into? Missing cats? What do we got? Missing cats?

UFOs? No, you know what? I try to, a lot of people think that you make a lot of money as a private. Honestly, believe it or not, I help people out that wouldn't have the means to hire a private investigator, but they really need it. What are most people hire a private investigator for? You know what? For the most part, see, that's the whole thing. Texas is for the most part a no fault state, which means, you know,

that they don't care why you got divorced. Yeah, you can be banging everybody straight and they don't give a shit. Like basically at the end of the day, it's going to be 50-50 split. And as long as there's, you know, they're going to determine who has custody of the kids. So those kids involved, properties divided 50s. So a private investigator really doesn't make money in Texas. In California, on the other hand. And if you can, especially there's a pre-nup and you can show that the other party was responsible,

you know, they, and that's where private investigators make a lot of money. In Texas, it's a lot of missing, I do a lot of missing, person cases, Mexico, people that believe it or not, it's people that go missing. And I call the South Side and be like, hey, he owed money, tell the family, forget it. Or it wasn't a company, it's somebody else. You know what I'm saying? The company, by that meaning the cartels, yeah. Right?

So it's a lot of that. And then I do, like, I do some stuff with, like, battered wives or spouses that, you know, are seeking some sort of evidence so they can show the courts like, hey, this guy, you know, or this girl. So it's just like that. And then the rest of the time, I don't know, go spend time with Jesse and look at all his cool, cool cars, which is funny.

Problem is there's not enough time to look at all of this cool cars or motorcycles. There's pistol that he pulls out for Elon Musk that has this etching on it that somebody hand does in Europe. He didn't show you mine. He might have. He just kept pulling out pistol, piss. And it's like, and this one took eight months to create. I'm like, I don't feel.

comfortable touching this, nor would I ever want to crack off around in this work of art. Yeah. Yeah. He gets on my ass because every, as a matter of fact, my gun is with him right now. Okay. And he asks me, have you fired it? I'm like, no. And like, why would you have a, and I'm like, why would you have a, and I'm like, this beautiful

piece of art. I'm not going to. I'm not going to. So this guy says that, right? Why would you not shoot it? He gives it to you in this beautiful box that is glass with velvet on it. Like, you are making me, if like, if you want me to shoot this, give it to me in a paper bag.

Yeah. Here, yeah, right. Yeah. No, and he asked me once, it was a vehicle was. I don't remember what vehicle was. It was like, what would you do with this? It was a truck. One of the first time that I went to the show,

what would you do with this? Like, asking me, like, and I'm like, are we talking Jesse James money or are you talking Oscar money? Because if you're talking Oscar money, I'm going to throw a couple of wheels on it and that's it. But, yeah. So, I mean, basically, I do a lot of, like, I'm a Mr. Mom.

I take care of my kid 100% of the time. So that's what takes most of my time, which is a... Is there a more important job? No, you know? I love it. I mean, I think that everything happens for a reason, like you said. And I think I had my kid older in life. Yeah.

But now he's just about to start high school. And I remember how I was in high school. So I'm going to be there 100%. I don't want him to. He's a good kid, but you know, you never know, like what he's going to need. I feel like I was a good kid too. But I did some real dumb stuff. No, I did some.

I did some dumb stuff. Man, I have three kids, 22, 20, and 17. And, yeah, you think back. because my children at least seem to think that they're like Jason born. They just were born as an espionage agent. Oh, really? Dad would never be able to figure out what it is that they're not. I'm like, okay.

Oh, what it is? Where are you guys going to? What are you going to go do? Who are you going to be with? Also, these electronic devices. Can you imagine if we had to grow up with those things? Like life, just life 360 alone in your pocket, constantly telling your parents where you are. Yeah.

Yeah, I wouldn't. But by the same token, if I don't. They know how to use them better than we do. as well, trust me. Yeah. But it's, yeah, even when you do your best, standby for some surprises, Oscar. I'm ready.

We'll see. We'll see how it goes. I'm stoked that you get the opportunity to do that with yourself. The full custody is a cool thing. Where can people, we've been at it for two and a half plus hours? Oh, man, that much? It doesn't seem like it.

That's how you know. I have a million and one things to say. What do you got? What are you talking about? No, far away, dude. What else you want to talk about? I don't know. I lost my friend of it.

train the thought. But no, I mean, just... If people have questions about the cartels or they want to talk to somebody who lived in that world specifically, as opposed to maybe just listening to a talking head on the internet, are you active on social media? I am on social media. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, X, whatever you call it. So just Google my name and you'll be able to reach me. And I'm more than happy

to talk to anybody. I mean, I get questions from a lot of people. And like I said, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm not going to, you know, like, I tell it like it is, whether it's to the left or to the right or it is, it is what it is. You have to be able to call balls and strikes. I don't understand, again, why people can't do that. You can support your team and still say, yeah, we didn't do great on this one. Let's do better next time.

Right. It's when it's like, when it's raining on you and you're like, no, I'm totally dry. Yeah. Like, nobody's going to listen to what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, but I just, you know, what I do want to say is like, give, give ice agents and the border patrol agents, just give them the benefit of the doubt, right? Like, yeah, they did some missteps.

I know that. They were put in unfair situations, and maybe the leadership wasn't, not that there wasn't, there weren't good leaders. It's just maybe a different type of leadership was needed in those situations. Yeah. And so, I mean, hopefully they can rebound from this. And, you know, because like I said, for those, you know, since 2003, HSI, DHS, all the law enforcement components of the Homeland Security, they've been doing good work.

They've built a good reputation, you know, a few snacks here and there. But, I mean, most of the men and women that are out there, you know, I saw a commercial, this is the first time I saw it this morning for ICE, which was less, less military, for lack of better times. Because I know when they were recruiting, they were saying, we're going to defend the homeland. And there was a lot of military stuff that was, you know what I'm saying? Now it's a little bit more toned down. I don't think it was ICE to put it out of somebody that's supporting them. but it's a little bit less controversial.

So hopefully they're rebuilding their reputation. Awesome. I got one more thing before you go. Montana Knife Company makes awesome blades. This is one of the daggers that's behind me over my shoulder. So you're probably carry on, so I'll mail this to you. By that, I mean Michael's going to mail it to you. Nice.

You have a new role in responsibility. Yeah, it's going to be late. I appreciate it. Can I open it? Of course, please do. Yeah, they're just down the road. This is the V24, yeah, the V24 dagger.

Jesse doesn't have one of these. Oh, he doesn't? He was probably boring you with his Damascus, right? Oh, God. I mean, I wish I could make Damascus. That's a sick blade. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Of course. Yeah, and so I'll mail that down to you. Just because otherwise TSA will have a... Can you imagine the knife collection the TSA has? I'm sure they all get destroyed. Actually, which is funny. because I used to participate in the, in the, like the testing of the TSA. Oh, okay.

Oh, you red sell them essentially to like try to get through security. Yeah. How that go? You know what? Surprisingly, I was surprised because, like, there was one thing that I forget what it was, but they gave me a briefcase. And I actually was wearing a suit and tie that time. And there was like a little thing sticking out of something that,

And that's what the guy picked up. Cool. He's sick and I was like, yeah, but I was surprised. I'm glad to hear that because every once in a while I read articles, like thousands of loaded firearms make their way through accidentally through security. And then people self-report on the other side of security and they get in a lot of trouble. Yeah, they do. Which I'm not saying you're not, you shouldn't self-report.

I'm just saying if your car is in the parking lot and you have enough time, you could exit the airport and go through security again. And then come back again. Yeah, because I'm not giving advice to anyone. I'm just saying that there are creative solutions to real-world problems. I agree. I'll think about that. Yeah.

I used to, that's one thing that I do miss is, you know, for all these years as a federal agent, all you did was bat yourself and you wouldn't have to go to security. Yeah, you go through the other door. Yeah, it was fun times. Now I'm like, my kid is like, dad, we have to wait. Oh, yeah, dude. It is a pain in the ass.

It is a pain in the ass. And then I had buddies who do firearms training, and then they drive cross-country, man, you could end up in some real trouble depending on the state you get pulled over in. There's some risk involved in that too because the laws just aren't the same. It's different, yeah. Oscar, thank you so much, man. Thank you for having me. Of course.

Yeah, open invite to come back anytime you want to. So we got terabytes worth of hard drives. Awesome, man. All right. Thank you. Yeah, of course.