Danny Jones Podcast - #145 - The Sinaloa Cartel is Becoming More Powerful Than Ever | Luis Chaparro

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

Luis Chaparro is a journalist and producer moving between the border of Texas and Mexico covering narcos, drug cartels, immigration and more. https://www.instagram.com/luiskuryaki JOIN OUR KULT: https://bit.ly/koncretepatreon  Danny  https://www.instagram.com/jonesdanny  https://twitter.com/jonesdanny Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of the main reasons I wanted to get you in here is not only because your work is incredible, but the cartels in Mexico and Central and South America are, you know better than anybody, one of the most misunderstood topics. And being a journalist in Mexico covering the cartels has got to be one of the most dangerous jobs on earth. Definitely, man. It really is. It really is. What the hell is going on in Mexico? Well, man, in Mexico, it's always something going on and it's been crazy for some years now. But I think it's just in recent years, maybe the last, I guess the last decade, things are really going off rails, you know.

Cartels are overpassing the power of even politicians or, you know, like the government. And they've been receiving so much support by the U.S., you know, like a lot of U.S. trained police officers or Mexican military. going to work with the cartel. So you can sort of like guess what's that like. You know, like those guys are properly equipped, properly trained, hard to fight on. And in Mexico, as you know, there's a lot of, well, I think all Latin America, corruption is ramping. You know, it's crazy the levels of corruption.

What made you want to, like, get into this world and cover all this stuff and document these things going on and embed yourself with these cartels? Like what made you want to do? I mean, it's a fucking dangerous thing to do. Like, what was it that got you into it? It is, man. I mean, I think what got me in was the fact that I grew up in Ciudad Juarez. I was born and raised in Ciudad Juarez in this border city just across El Paso, Texas.

And back then, I grew up in the 90s. And in the 90s, everybody was talking about Narcos, you know, like about Amado Carrillo, El Senor de los Seleos, the Lord of the Sky, and all of those guys. But they weren't talking as we're talking right now. You know, like, they're, like, dangerous people and they can be ruthless and violent. They were talking, like, if you're talking about Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, you know, like, everybody was like, wow, Amado Carrillo is cool, man. He has, like, three wives on the same school, the same school, his kids, where I went to school with two of his kids. So it was some glamour, I guess, around his, around, like, all narcos.

But to me was really confusing because I grew up in that. And then when I came like to, I don't know, maybe a secondary school, middle school, I was so confused because then everybody started talking about how they were being violent. And my parents, they're sort of like wealthy in the city. So they've always lived in a world neighborhood. And all of a sudden, like, they started like expelling narcos from the neighborhoods, you know. because before you will have a neighborhood and Amado Carrillo and all those guys were leaving on the house next to yours.

But out of a sudden they were like, okay, we don't want these guys because they're violent and they're bad and they're doing bad shit. So they started basically outcasting them. So that shift made me, I don't know, confused, made me like, what is going on in my city? What's going on in my country? I grew up with those guys. I know some of his kids and everything, and now they're sort of like outcasts.

And then when I started growing up also, like in 2010, I was, I guess 18 or something like that, the whole violence broke loose in my city. Ced Juarez, as you know, was once called the murder capital of the world because we had so many killings. The rate was like certain killings a day. How many a day?

13. Holy shit. It was fucking crazy, man. And I remember that I was, that every time I went out, I had a motorcycle. So every time I went out and then we'll go back into the Gator community where my parents live. I was like, fuck, man. I made it another day, you know. I got five of my friends killed in the same event, in the same place.

Five of your friends were killed at one place at one time? Yeah. At a bar. What? How did that happen? I'm not sure. if they confused them for someone else or

it was because another guy told me that they got into a fight in a different bar of her girl and apparently she was with one of these bad guys so he had them followed and he just shut up the bar and killed everybody so but that was that was

fucking crazy because I mean I was supposed to be at that bar that night you know we're supposed to go all together but I overslept in my in my house so I woke up about three in the morning and getting all these calls from my editors about five young kids

being killed in a bar because I was already writing for news. So I showed up there and it's all my friends. So yeah, that was fucking crazy, man. That changed my life a lot. And since then I started wondering what happened to them.

And then I realized that it doesn't really matter what happened to them because it keeps happening to everyone. But the thing that matters It's like, why, who's moving this issue, you know, who's really behind the whole thing and how this shit works. Yeah, so I think that's how I got to jump into this. Is the CIA working with the cartels? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, short answer is yes. They are. Yeah, man. Not only the CIA, also, I guess every other agency in the U.S. Or every three-lettered agency in the U.S. D-E-A-CIA, yeah. You know, like most of those guys are collaborating with narcos, not only in Mexico, but all through Latin America, man. And I mean, it's not like they're, you know, like smuggling drugs themselves, but it's like they're breaking deals.

You know, the narcot, the drug traffickers in Mexico, the issue has gotten so big right now that it is easily, it's very easy to unstabilize a country through El Narco, you know, through violence. truck trafficking and all of that shit. And I know for a fact that some of these Nauticos, they don't even know they're being played by U.S. agencies to destabilize, you know, the Mexican government or Mexican forces. So what specifically is the U.S.'s involvement with these cartels? Like, you told me to watch that documentary on Amazon Prime, the last, I think it's called the last narque.

The last narc. Who was the guy's name? It was the Mexican DEA agent who was basically murdered by, so a couple drug lords, and there was a famous, or a very well-known CIA, clandestine CIA agent there. Felix Rodriguez. Exactly. And they murdered this guy, this guy who worked for the DEA. Yeah.

What is their specific involvement and what is in it, what is the incentive to work together? I think the involvement has a lot of layers. So one of the main layers is supplying aircrafts or legal entrance under the elevator to drug into the U.S. I guess that's something that the U.S. has offered before. But there are a lot of, there is a lot of collaboration out in the open. Talking about El Mayo, you know, El Mayo Zambada, it's basically like the biggest narco now in Mexico.

So he has always been El Mayo. El Mayo. He started before El Chapo Guzman, and El Chapo Guzman was actually working under Elmayo Zambada. The thing is, like, he's too shadowy. No one really knows where he is. There's only one photo of him on the internet. Really? So no one has really, in that photo, it's like from the 80s or 90s, some shit like that.

He must be old. So he's old now. He's old now, and he's always been around. He has his people. I was personally at a party recently in Kuliacan with his security people. He's basically his cicarios, his hitman group. And he's still in the mountains controlling the whole fucking business from Sinaloa. No one really knows where he is, how he looks right now.

He's been too too shadowy. But the thing is, most two or three of his sons were arrested in the U.S. in different occasions, right? So, 2013, one of his son was arrested in Nogales, and then another one in, I think, San Diego, something like that. And that family keeps ducing both governments. Keeps, they're keeping out of trouble like El Chapo, right? El Chapo got life sentence.

And these three kids of him, knowingly by the U.S., that they were trafficking and working under the biggest organization in Latin America, which is the Sinaloa Cardo. They're breaking deals with everybody. So they're in the U.S. One of them, it's actually free to go back and forth, Mexico, as a legal permanent resident of the U.S. The other guy just got his sentence reduced,

so I think he's going to go out next month from Yale. And the other guy received, he got, I think they changed his old identity, and he's got like legal status to stay in the U.S. with his family and everything and I really know where he is. And, and Elmio is still free. So when you, when you see that, there has to be some involvement, right? I mean, it's not, it's not like they hired super fucking great lawyers that they can, you know,

do whatever they want. It's because they're breaking deals with the U.S. Yeah, I have a really good friend who's actually a lawyer who has represented some big drug lords in, I don't think Mexico, but definitely Columbia. And the way he describes the whole war on drugs to me is this. He says, these guys who are hiring him to represent him,

they'll fly him first class to Columbia and they'll meet in like, he'll be instructed to go to a lobby of a hotel and they call him up whenever they're ready. And these guys do not get in trouble. These guys stay out of jail.

They stay out of trouble completely. The guys who get in trouble are like the low level ponds. Yeah. Like the guys who are captaining the boats or picking up cargo or making shipments or moving shit around. Like it's the poor people. Yeah.

Who are like the foot soldiers are the ones that are getting in trouble and getting busted. Exactly. Definitely. And that's like, let's let's call it like the simplest collaboration, right? Now, talking about all the, I don't know if you, if you know this operation called Enitiata, Medida initiative, whereas basically the U.S. funding millions and millions of dollars to Mexican security forces so they can fight against

the Narcos, right? They're basically funding weapons, vehicles, airplanes, training. And all of that stuff is ending up working for the Naticos, right? Because Mexico is so corrupt as well. And the U.S. has done nothing but just wash their hands and say, like, okay, we're just going to train you and give you a lot of money and good luck. with fighting the fucking cartels. A whole fucking town was killed by an elite group that was actually trained with the U.S. Marines. And so they were, initially there were Mexican military elite group.

They got like the best training with the best of the best in the U.S., like from Navy SEALs and all that shit. Oh, so these guys were, these guys actually were like born in Mexico, moved to the U.S. and were recruited by the Army or the Marines. They were officially trained by, both countries, right? So Mexico said, like, okay, I need these people trained because they're like Mexican top elite military. So they trained them. And after training and giving them equipment and everything, they started fleeing the Mexican military and jumping and going to work with a

cartel, with Los Zetas. But they still got a lot of links and contacts inside the Mexican government. So there was a time when the Seta had a snitch inside them. So the snitch was given information to the U.S. authorities, to the DEA specifically, about the movement of these guys, where these guys were shipping drugs from, cargo. So they started, like, busting a lot of cargoes from Los Zetas, right? The thing is the DEA called the Mexican Army and said, like, hey, we got a snitch on your side, and I think you should talk to him. He's a pretty good contact.

He's inside Los Zetas, not that shit. and of course that that group in the army leaked the information to losetas right because they were getting money so they're like hey guys what child you got you got a snitch on your side and i'm getting this information from the DEA directly that's where you're getting a lot of drug busts and what they did because they didn't know who their rat was so what they did is they killed a whole fucking town in one night one day a whole, we're talking about like a whole families, a whole fucking town. How many people? It was by the hundreds.

Jesus. So they killed a whole fucking town. How long ago is this? I think it was in 2011 or something like something. 2011. Something like that. There is a Netflix show, a series called Somos. Somos, yeah, I've heard of that.

Exactly. And it's about that massacre man. And that was fucking crazy. And that's another proof of the involvement of the U.S., right? sharing information with people that is not properly bedded not taking care of their informants all that shit and they're breaking deals with everyone right now just coming here

I was a bit late a few minutes late because I got a call from a guy who works with a criminal organization in the in Sonora State at the border with Arizona and he was I've been in touch with him recently talking about pantony and all that shit yeah and he was like hey man you don't want I want I want I really want out and I really need out from from from from from the cartel because things are getting crazier and crazier for me and my family yeah so I don't know if you know someone in the US government that wants information and that I can share info with

but if they can relocate me to the US I will share the whole fucking shit like who's dealing fentany allow that stuff and I'm like dude I don't know if I can do that I mean that's pretty fucking tricky, you know. That's something I've never done and I don't know if it's actually, if it actually works like that. But good luck, you know. I wish it. So he wants out of the cartel and he wants protection from the U.S. from the D.A. or the CIA or something like that. And we're talking that happening a lot, you know, and the U.S. playing, playing along those lines as well. Yeah. Yeah, that's a crazy thing because, I mean, I feel like even if you did do that, you would still, they still, the cartel can still find ways in the U.S. to kill somebody.

right? Yeah, for sure. Oh, yeah. What is it like, how do you embed yourself with these groups of people and how do you get them to trust you when you're, are you like filming shit or do you just like, what do you document and how do you document it when you meet up with these people and you stay with them? I have a lot of years working on the same beat and doing the same and learning the bad way. I've had to guns to my head before that I, that I thought that was going to die right there.

And I learned... You got kidnapped, right? I got kidnapped, yeah. So in Ciud Juarez, by the local police, by the way. It was not even, you know... Who all clearly worked for the cartels. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

So I got kidnapped by the local police ones. And I got locked up in a warehouse by another fucking guy who was a cartel member. So I learned the bad way, but what I learned is, to be completely honest and clear about my intentions with these people, right? Not faking that I'm friends, not faking that I'm on their side, not faking that anything. And also letting them know that some of my sources also are on the other side of the spectrum, right? That I have sources in the DEA, in the FBI, inside CIA,

and that I'm not, and that I'm talking to them in the same way that I'm talking to, to these other bad guys, you know? That I'm making them super clear that I don't believe in good guys and bad guys, that I understand that everything is a gray scale. And there is good guys that do bad shit and bad guys that does good shit and all that stuff. So I guess that's how they feel comfortable sharing

a lot of their stuff with me. And because I've never betrayed anyone, right? I've never had to call, you know, authorities or someone and say like, hey, here is a huge fucking bus, a huge, huge fucking load of whatever drug or something like that. Or the other way around, right? A U.S. agent telling them to do those guys, like, you know, this agent is investigating you, it's after you, whatever. I keep all that shit to myself because it's not worth it. It's a fucking game that no one's going to fucking win, and I don't want to be in the middle, right? I'm just there to tell stories to bring light into what's happening, trying to educate readers in Mexico and the U.S. about what really is going on and why and who's playing behind these fucking forces, right?

And I think that's that and time gave me the access that I have inside some of the organizations. many people are pretty pretty scared to go and to embed with with narcos and and I'm not saying I'm not but I don't know I guess like to me it's like there's an opportunity these guys are like I'm man I've been reading and watching your reports and somehow I feel like I trust you that I can trust you for the way you protect your sources for the way you don't share like specifics on any information do you want access to these or do you want access to that and I'm like fuck yes and I take every single opportunity I can get you know of course if it's if it's worth it and if I feel safe enough if you can call it that what's in it for them for you to report and like write this

shit about them make documentaries about them like what do you what do they think about that you you have to know that the the way social media is playing now is making everybody one to show what they do for a living, you know. You have car sellers, you have, I don't know, water sellers, you have drug sellers, drug traffickers, killers. And many are attracted by the fact that they and their work can be out there without actually no one really knowing who is who. And that's something that attracts them,

that I find that they want to share, you know. If you will look at my WhatsApp or signal or telegram right now It's fucking loaded with a lot of shit You know a lot of cargoes a lot of guns A lot of you know stuff But they keep sending me

Because they're like hey dude watch they They want like the It's like anonymous clout Exactly it's weird I know it sounds weird But they're just like that You know like they want to They want to show what they do

They want to feel important Remember that By the time you are inside De Anarcho and you have a narco Corrido in your name, that's huge. You have a song, someone's singing about you. Yeah.

That's fucking huge for them. That's when they feel they made it, you know? That's like, okay, I have my own career. Do you think these guys, like aspire to be like El Chapo or Pablo Escobar? I think so. Really? Really? Really?

I mean, those guys pretty much think that they're going to be the next, the next one up, right? And especially because most of them, they start early. They start very young. So they start looking up. to old chapel or to El Mayo right now. They call him El Señor del Sombrero, the man of the hat.

And that's a, that's a, that's a key word to talk about the real boss of the Sinaiwa cartel, right? If you see someone with a, with a vakero hat, you know, a cowboy hat on the cap or who has a hat on the, um, hanging from their mirror,

you will know that those guys praise or work for El Señor del Sombrero, right? So they want to be El Senor del Sombrero. They want to be that. And they're super young. I mean, of course, if they last enough to turn 30, 40 years inside the cartel, that's when they start getting disappointed and saying like, shit, man, it's not like that. Yeah, bro, the life expectancy of somebody starts working for the cartel at a young age must not be that high. Because you got, like, even El Chabo, like, I didn't, was that something I didn't realize about El Chapo that I learned from that documentary was that he was fucking slugging. He was, laying and butchering people at a super young age. Super young age, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I don't know if you saw a story I posted on my Instagram recently. I think it was like two days ago about one of the youngest hikarios for the Cartel-Halisco,

Nova Generation, which is a ruthless cartel. He was like, what, maybe nine years old? I mean, the weapon he had on himself was bigger than him. He had like a huge, I don't know if it was like an age. were kind of fucking weapon, but it was huge. And you can watch his face, and he's a kid. Of course, I posted that and I covered his eyes to sort of like protect his identity. Yeah.

But he's a worker for the cartel. He's a worker for the cartel, man. And he's like super, super young. Let me see if I still have the photo of him because he really looks like, I mean, if he's on your Instagram? It's on my Instagram, I think. We got it right here, so if you can pull it up. I think it wasn't one of my stories.

I don't know if it's a story. Okay. I don't know if he expired. Okay. But, but yeah, man, I mean, he,

he looked like if it was, if he was 12 years, look, there he is. Jesus Christ, man. How old does it look like, just barely a toddler?

Yeah, exactly, man. And I know that this guy. You took that photo? No, one of the, one of the guys working on there,

Carter, Halisco, signed it to me, sent it over. And said, like look at the soldiers of the Cartel of Calisco. And then I posted that and then I covered his face and everything. And then another guy from another cartel fighting the Cartel,

sent me a DM and said like something like, poor kid, he's dead now. He's dead already? And I asked him like, is he dead? He's like, no, but we're after him. I mean, he's going to die young. I'm like, shit, man. But he's a kid, you know? Can you fucking leave him alone?

Just scare him and have him out? You know, and is it like, no, it's not like that. Dude, that's so fucked up, man. So scary. Yeah, man. It's a different fucking world there. How does a kid end up in the fucking cartel at nine years old? Is it just like, is his parents in the cartel?

Or like, is it just that way? Is it just like you're born and you, if you're poor and you grow up on the streets, it's hard to not get into the heart cartel? You know, it's, I know, I know, like, the, sort of like the story of that guy, of that kid, he doesn't have a dad. He has a mom that she knows what he's doing. But still, she treats him like, like a kid. I mean, he had a birthday cake on his, I think it was like 10th birthday or some shit like that, like a kid. So they're just normalizing Mexico, it's normalizing violence. Like, everything is getting to a level where a new, incident that happens like younger kids. The first, we are like super scared and alarm about that, right? We were like, fuck man, they're super young.

But then you have another news where a nine-year-old kid was shot dead and this and that and then you start normalizing the whole fucking violence. And that's happening in Mexico a lot. And that's what is worrying me. You know, like it's like, dude, this is not normal. This is everything but fucking normal

what's happening in Mexico. And to answer your question on how these kids end up working with the cartel. A lot of rural Mexico is super poor. There's no help from anyone. Basically, you will have to do a lot of shit to get food to your table. You know, like it's really like that. Or education, roads, no work at all.

So that's a gap by the government. And every gap that the government has, the Nautico steps in. covers for that gap, right? You need schools, I'm going to bring it in. You need food. I'm going to bring it in. You need to work. I have work for you. So that's why I say everything is a gray scale, because it's like, all right, what are they supposed to do, right? To die of hunger, to leave their parents to die at the town and go to the city to work, which was what Chappo did. What are they supposed to do if the government is not taking care of them or anyone, you know, like citizens

like myself or no one is really taking care of them and their needs. There's only one group that is actually taking care of them and it's the nautical. And what do they get in return the loyalty of a whole fucking town? Right. So when militaries come in, they start bloaking,

fighting, or snitching on them and say like, hey, the military is coming, be careful, right? Right. It's like, what am I going to do? Am I going to bust my ass and struggle and try to, you know, whatever, work in a fucking in a cornfield or do some other fucking manual labor for pennies.

Yeah. Or do this, get a fucking gun and kill some people and make tens of thousands of dollars. Yeah, exactly. And it's not like, for my experience, it's not like the cartel is enticing them or, you know, like forcing them to work. Just everybody knows about it, right? They're just around all the time. But they are the only ones with the huge pickup trucks, you know, with the blings and the grills and everything. So they're like, dude, I want to be like them.

They have like cool fucking pickup trucks. And my neighbor is 15 years old. And he has already an ATB and a pickup, you know. So they're like, hey, dude, where do you get that pickup from? And it's like from, I don't know, they usually have a name, right? From El Tiling or from El Cholo or from whatever. And it's like, dude, can you tell him if I can go into? And it's like, for sure.

And those guys are like, yeah, why not? How did and why do you think? El Chapo got busted and how did he end up in prison in the U.S.? Because you think that he would be somebody who would remain fucking untouched

like El Mayo. El Chapo was never the boss of the Senaloa cartel. He was never the... No, he was never the boss of the Sinolaa cartel, not at all. You know, most of the people don't know or don't grasp the idea

that the Sinaloa cartel was not born in Sinaloa. It was born in L.A. That's where the Sinaloa cartel actually grew and was born. In Los Angeles? In Los Angeles. That's the, that's the, that's the, the, the, the, um, basically the cradle of the, of the, of the, of the, of the Sierra Loa Cartel.

El Mayo Zambada was one of the founders along with a Cuban man that I forget his name right now. That was, uh, that was like the father in law or something like that for Mayo. Uh, and they both were immigrants living in L.A. And they started, because the first thing. think you need to be a successful trafficker is a buyer, right? You can have all the products you want, but if you don't have a buyer, you have nowhere to go, no money to make. So these two guys made a whole network of buyers in LA, and they started moving the money. They started, they knew

the place, they knew Sinaloa, they had family there, so they started like making the strings. The first time the Sinaloa cartel became a cartel, it was established in L.A. From buyers in L.A. And what was, what were they selling? Cokane, weed. Wheat. Yeah, exactly. It was weed at the very beginning.

But also, like, the first established connection to bring huge loads for the Sinaloa cartel of cocaine were, as well, buyers in L.A. Wait, was that in the 80s? That was in the 80s, yeah. Okay. So that was like Roger Reeves' era. era. Yeah, exactly. So that's, that's, that's the, like, the first thing, right? And the thing El Chapo grew up in Badiragwato, a very small town in Sinaloa, someone gave him a job, right? Someone hired him first to wash the cars, you know, to actually clean the cars and the shit,

and it got, like, more involvement. But what he had was a huge fucking ego and a huge fucking necessity to be recognized other than a little indio from the mountains, right? He wanted to be someone else. And I guess that served its purpose for the cartel. It's like, oh, so you want to be important, right? You want to be someone. So why aren't you the face of the cartel, you know? Go out there, have the money, have everything you want.

You're the fucking face. Well, we run the cartel from behind, talking about El Mayo, and talking about white-collar people, right? Like lawyers, politicians, business owners, and all that. stuff. They were like, as soon as he's willing to put his fucking face out there, like, we're good, man. How about it?

And he did. He wanted to make a fucking film. He wanted to make documentaries. So what was he doing? What was his role at the peak of his involvement? I guess he was like a manager for the whole thing. It's like if you had, I don't know, a store on this place. And I'm the real owner.

I'm the one with the money, with the hooks, with that thing. But I'm like, okay, I'm getting the money, the big bugs. Do you want to take care of this and be the face to our clients? He's like the Ronald McDonald. Yes, exactly. Chappers like the Ronald McDonald for the Sinaloa cartel. And once his purpose stopped serving the real owners, they deliver him. They deliver him.

They were like, fuck it. We'll give you Chapa. Exactly, because he was too flashy by then, right? Right. Every fucking buddy knew his face, his whereabouts. Everybody knew his whole family. I have most of his family on my Instagram account. And they still have a lot of fucking money, man. What do you mean on your Instagram account?

They have Instagram accounts. I mean, they're following you? They're following when I'm following them. Yeah, yeah. And most of them are living in the U.S. They don't even, many don't even speak Spanish, man. Really? He has a two or three-year-old granddaughter living in L.A.

and her gift for this birthday was a, I think he was a raptor, a raptor Ford or like, dude, but like the fuck in the 2022 Ford Raptor or something like that. So he was just a manager and he had that kind of money. He has that kind of money. Exactly. And how does he have that money still? How is he doing it from prison? I think, I mean, you don't need to be there for every deal, right?

You just need to have the contacts and the sources and keep everything. everybody at play in playing their role, you know, go kill that guy, go do this, go do that. And he is doing that? And he used to do that. Right now he's not able to even talk to anyone. He only has three calls a month to bedded people, right? So it's basically his granddaughter, one of his daughters also, and his mom. And he can only speak 15, he has only 15 minutes a month to speak to, whichever.

those three persons he can talk to and his lawyers, his attorneys. I had an exclusive interview with his main attorney posted on my Instagram as well last week where she tells a lot of details about how El Chapo is really. She says he's funny, he has good sense of humor, he's very respectful, and that he knows that the U.S. wants to stop the cartels, you'll have to go against politicians. and so that's an interesting thing. Against what politicians?

Against the U.S. politicians? And Mexico, both. U.S. and Mexican politicians. That's how you stop the cartel. I'm like, wow, that's a fucking interesting... Have you ever met Al Chapa? Never met, but I saw him on his last arrest before being extradited. He was arrested in Mexico City,

and he was presented to the press from the Mexico hangar, from the military base where he was being held before being transported to Ciudad Juarez, actually. I try to go into the prison in Ciad Juarez to try and see if I could speak to someone. But now he was like completely on the shoe, you know, like he was not able to, he was not able to. I mean, the guys who deliver food for him where they couldn't even look him in the eye. They had to be looking somewhere else. and then give him the food. It's so crazy how, at least from my perspective,

it seems like the media has portrayed him as like the kingpin bought, like the number one hefe of the Sinaloa cartel. It's also a purpose, man. It's when you work in the news, and I'm telling you, because I work in the fucking news, it's super difficult to tell a story right because you will need to write so many words and enter in so many details

that your articles will have. had to be extra fucking long and complicated articles explaining how everything works right so the easiest way is let's just say old chape right i mean he's sort of like the manager and the head and everybody says he's the head so just put old chap because people knows his name people knows who we're talking about it serves a purpose especially for uh especially like getting clicks and views and click bait type shit yeah totally you're talking about el chapo people are going to click on it exactly yeah yeah And I mean, I've written stories, obviously, trying to set things straight and say, like, okay, he was just a fucking manager. Because how comes if he was responsible for all this shit, he's in jail?

He's not even to speak to anyone right now. How comes his family keeps getting a lot of fucking money? How comes his organization, the Zina Loa cartel, has never shipped so many cocaine than when he was in jail, right? They're shipping more since he's been in prison? Exactly, more. Yeah. So it's like, dude. I mean, it's obviously not working, right?

That kingpin strategy is not fucking working. It's just a waste of the taxpayers' money. How much money are they're spending on keeping El Chapo locked, on paying agents to go into Mexico to try to capture a kingpin, to put him behind jail, behind bars, to transport him, extradite him, and all that shit. And at the end, it doesn't really, makes nothing on the on the on the real business right on the on the coke trade on the drug trade

why don't we obviously if america wanted to they could completely take out the cartels but how would they do that i think first of all we'll have to you have to go after the money and not after the guys right you stop the flow on money however it is you know like by frozen uh freezing their accounts seizing um bank accounts because we're talking about these guys are laundering money in U.S. companies. They're laundering money through U.S. banks, through U.S. established companies. So you have to go after all of that fucking shit. I mean, the remittances that go to Mexico, and Mexico is super proud of that,

saying like, wow, the more people in the U.S., hardworking people, has never sent more money to their families in Mexico. 80% of those fucking remittances are going to... Of the what? Of their remittances. Remittances? It's the money,

an immigrant in the U.S. working sends back to his family through, you know, like through Monty Graham and all that stuff, all this kind of stuff. And they say to support their families in Mexico, right? That's where they're working here.

But the reality is most of that money is going to smugglers to keep their business going and keep their family trying to bring their family into the US. But that money ends up in the smugglers pocket. And that's a reality. And people don't grasp it because when they say like, oh, so they're not so poor because if they're paying eight fucking grand to get across the border illegally,

I mean, you can establish a business in Mexico with eight grand easily, right? A small restaurant, something like that. but it's not the money of the people in Mexico, that's money from the people working in the U.S. And that's basically payment for smugglers. That's not remittances. That's payment for bringing illegally people into the U.S. So, I mean, this world works like that.

It's all on our noses working under, you know, like established companies, established money being sent into Mexico. But behind that, it's a whole fucking criminal world operating right in front of us. So these cartels are also making money by trafficking people across the border? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They've never made more money out of that than what they're doing right now after the pandemic. Really? And they're charging $8,000 a person?

Yes, on the best case scenario. This guy who works, I was selling you in Sonora, border state, with Arizona. was telling me they're raising, raising their rates to 15 grand per person. They're making shit tons of money, man. Imagine a trailer like what we saw in San Antonio, full of, I don't know, 60 migrants, and each one paying at least 10 grand, 8 grand, that's a shit ton of money.

Yeah. Right? That's fucking wild, man. Yeah. I had no idea that was going on. Yeah, man. I mean, for cartels, we have to understand that everything that is illegal, they're going to bank on that.

They're going to bank on everything that you make illegal, right? Or everything that has a good fucking profit. I'm talking about avocado from Mitoaqan. They're banking a lot of fucking money from avocados. They're banking on everything they can, on everything they can right now. Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things that Roger Reeves was also telling me was that George or Choa, he was like, yeah, he's like, I know exactly where he lives.

I know where his house is like, I can fly you there right now. He's like he's sitting there probably drinking a glass of whiskey smoking a cigar He's like he has a horse ranch I was like how the fuck is he doing like how does he this guy is completely immune to everything after everything he's done all the people that he's killed like he's completely Just living free riding his horses Yeah Yeah, in Mexico that's that's what what struck me also about the sons of Emil right when I learned that one of his sons was free to go back and forth from the U.S. and Mexico. I call his lawyer.

No, his lawyer called me first because he was, he called me to tell me that his client was sort of like angry at me about an article I published where I had the name of his client, the son of El Mayu, because I said that he was still working with the organization of his dad. The lawyer called you? And the lawyer called me a U.S.-based lawyer, and he called me and told me that.

his client was not happy about my story and that I should leave that part out of my story or change it. And I'm like, dude, I'm backing up my sources. They're pretty strong sources inside the Cinaloa organization and they know for a fact that your client is still taking decisions for the organization. And he's like, my client is a family man. He's working legally on a corn farm in Mexico in so in Caborka and you know Caborka it's like one of the hottest place in Mexico for the really and I'm like is he able to go back and forth then and he's like no he's established his life in the US but then like two or three weeks later he got involved into an accident where his wife died in Caborka and I'm like I mean he wasn't really supposed to be in Mexico

and it's like no comment and I'm like so he's he's able to go back and forth because he got into an accident in Mexico, in Calork. But why would you, fuck, man, I can't imagine if one of El Mayo's kids lawyers called me and said, don't publish this shit. I'm not going to lie, I would be hesitant to publish

it. I mean, it was already published. And second of all, I told him, like, all right, so if you have something to say, I can't publish your version in what you say as a lawyer. And it's like, no, don't quote me. And then I'm like, okay, so then tell your client that he can

openly talk to me and go on record. And I can definitely write a whole story about his version of things. And he's like, no, he's not talking. And I'm like, so what am I supposed to do? And then he basically hung up the phone and then sent me a text message with a paragraph and say like, this is what you should write. And I'm like, well, this is not how it works, right? I'm, I need to quote what you're telling me. I need to make it like attributable to someone. Right. I can't just say that because you're asking me to, right? So my phone is open, you know where to find me,

and if you want to go on the record or tell me, who am I going to attribute this quote to by all means? And he never answered back. So explain the story how you got kidnapped. I was basically starting to write, right? I started working on a local newspaper in Zad Juarez by, not by chance because I was already looking, but I was too young. I was in my first year of college, and I went into this local newspaper,

the main local newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, which is called El Diario de Juarez. And I went basically to apply for a job to be a delivery boy, right? So I'm like, eh, I can work during the night delivering the paper, being the first one to read it, and actually just, you know, like sneaking to the newsroom to start finding how this shit works. and figure out if I really want to be a journalist or not. Okay. So I went there, and the editor of the paper got confused,

and he thought I was there applying for a copy editor position. So he came down from the stairs and told me, oh, you're here for that copy editor position, right? And I'm like, yes, come on up. And he showed me around. He put me in front of a computer, and so like, okay, so that's your first job, right? And I had no clue what the fuck to do. So I asked around like, what should I do?

How do I turn on this fucking machine and everything? Of course, after, I don't know, maybe three months, they learned that I faked my position. But I was already in and I was already working and doing some good jobs. So we're like, ah, fuck it, man. We're going to give you the job on the longer term. So I started very young without actually college education. right so I started like working learning while I was working and going to college that's

incredible and it was pretty cool to me how old are you now I'm 35 okay and so that was pretty cool to me but at the same time it I have I I didn't have the proper tools right and not to say they we have never seen anything like that fucking war and drugs in Mexico before that was the first time in the whole country that we started seeing people hunking from the bridges, that amount of murders in the city, talking about a fight between cartels, that ruthless, talking about, you know, like bassookas in the middle of a fucking gunfight, you know, like grenades. So it was full on war.

We didn't know what to do it, not even like experienced journalists had experienced that before. So I was in the in the battleground learning at school at a newspaper and at the same time in the streets of the fucking epicenter of a drug war. So in the middle of all of that, I started like publishing some investigations like how cartels were recruiting people over Metroflog back then before MySpace and before Facebook. What was it called? It was called Metroflog. And it was huge in Mexico. It was like a social network. And they started recruiting people, young, young cicadios, over Metroflok, right? And I published that, and that gained a lot of attention for that story from everywhere,

from other journalists, but also from sources in the cartel, but also in law enforcement. So I had this guy who told me that he was an informant for the DEA and that he had a lot of information about what's going on in Mexico. And we kept writing back and forth for at least a year, I actually met him in Ciadaduarez. And he gave me these papers with a lot of phone numbers and audio files from a woman working for the local police in Ciaduarez. She was a police officer, but she was literally fucking military commandante, federal police commander as well, and a local police chief. So she was in bed with the three of them and an arco.

So she was sharing information all over. You know, like she was getting paid by all over those guys but to share information about each other. So she was like in the middle of everything. He gave me her name, her phone number, a lot of recordings he had on her and how she was operating. And of course, it was a fucking story, right? This is a local police woman

in bed with all these people sharing information On one of the calls that I got, I got to listen how she's dealing information between each other. She said these and that. So I had the whole fucking story. It went to the cover of the newspaper on both sides in El Paso and Ciot Juarez. So it was a huge story. I was super happy because I was like, wow, finally my stories are making the front page, right? And that was that my editor told me, are you sure you want to have your byline?

your name of the byline. We can have a different name or a, you know, like a nickname or something. And I'm like, oh, of course I need my name, man. It's a huge fucking investigation. And that was my mistake. After, I don't know, two or three nights, I left my girlfriend at the time at her house, was driving back to my parents' house. And two police officers on different pickup trucks,

they stopped me in the middle of the night. they started hitting my my window with their guns like get the fuck out of the car and I was pretty sure that they were taking me by mistake right I was like they're looking for someone else it's a fucking mess in the city and I'm the only dude that it's out one in the morning in the streets but I had my my newspaper badge and everything so I went down from my car they started like kicking me and pushing me around I was like hey dude I think you're mistaken it's like no we're not mistaken man you know what you did they kept kicking me and and and beating me and i never i never understood like until that point i was like why are they these guys are just fucking confusing i mean i have

what did i do and they're like you know what you did after a while of that they took my my car keys some one of those guys jumped into my car and started driving and they tied my my hands and my ankles and put me in the back of a pickup truck and they put their foot on top of my... On the back of your pickup truck? No, on their pickup, on the official police pickup truck, right? And they put their feet on my back so I will stay down while they were driving.

They started driving for a bell, I don't know, like 20, 25 minutes, and then I felt they went like into a dirt road. And I was like, fuck, man, I'm, I'm fucked. And they stopped. They untie me. And one of those guys told me, like the commander told me, I'm going to give you a chance to run.

So start fucking running. And I immediately knew that he was going to fucking shoot me in the back if I started running and said, like, he got me there by mistake or that I had a gun on me or some shit like that. So I was like, I'm not going to run, man. It's like, are you stupid or what? I'm giving you a fucking chance to run and you're not taking it. And I'm like, no, man, I know what's going on.

These guys are straight up playing on executing. Yeah, yeah, totally. Because he told me, he told me, like, they're going to find you. He used this word, he told me, they will find you in the back of your car as a cattle, as dead cow. All right, like, like, that's what he told me. So they were up to me, like, they were really trying to kill me. And I remember that I got in my knees, and I don't remember being yelling or screaming. rimming but the commander told me stop fucking yelling and I'm like I'm not yelling I'm just asking you

for a favor and it's like you're not in no position of asking a favor and you start like beating me again with this fucking gun and I'm like I'm not I'm not yelling I'm just asking you for 10 minutes 10 minutes give me a number and I can have the money someone to bring the money here and just give me 10 minutes how much money will 10 minutes cost me and it's like it's not like and you fucked up with the wrong person, so you were fucked. And then another guy stepped in and said, like, what if we, and then they just used code numbers, right? That I sort of understood that they were talking about that deal.

That if, what if we get money and let him go for a few minutes? And then we go after him and then we fucking kill him and get the killed and the money. Right. Because I didn't remember, I think it was 25 on the radio thing. They had, they used to have radios, right? Like two-way radio communications to talk between. the police. And I think 25

was referring to a male dead, to a deceased male. And 24 was deceased woman and stuff like that. So I remember that he said something like, what if we 19 first and then we 25 him? And I was like, shit,

they're planning something and then they're going to kill me. So I was like, that's my chance. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, just let me know. Keep my fucking car. let me know how much money you need and just give me 10 fucking minutes because I knew I'm a dual citizen

right so I was like I'm gonna fucking run to the US to El Paso and stay there forever and fuck them right and then they started like fighting between each other and then the commander said like all right you know what bring me

I had two cards at the time a Mexican debit card and a US debit card where I was paid by the news organization I worked with but the limit to withdraw from the ATM was six grand pesos which is like around 300 bucks

on each car so I bring back 600 bucks and I was like that's the limit that I could get from the ATM I was walking so they let you leave by yourself

yeah and I'm walking though because they kept my wallet and they kept my car and I remember when I started walking, I was like, hey, just give me your man's word that you're not going to shoot me on the back while I walk out. And he's like, you don't, you can't ask me for a man's word, man. But he's like, but you give me yours. You're not going to fucking run because we're going to find

you and your family who have your IDs and everything. I'm like, dude, I'm not trying to run. And he's like, all right. So I started walking instead of running because in my head I was like, if they shoot me, it's going to look different. And my colleagues at the newspapers, they're going to investigate. And they're going to know that I was not running, that I was actually walking and someone shot me in the back. Because I was fucking sure that that was, that were going to fucking shoot me in the back. So I started walking down this dark alley, went up to an ATM down the street, down

one of the main streets, took money from both of my cards and then came back and gave them the money. It told him, like, just count the money. And it's like, now there's no need. There you go. That's your car. Make sure you're not missing anything from your car. That's your wallet.

Make sure you're not missing anything from your wallet. And we'll see you in 10 minutes. And I'm like, all right. And I started fucking driving like crazy. By then it was like maybe 3 in the morning. They'll see you in 10 minutes. They were going to find me. They were going to look for me again from the IDs that I had and from, you know,

everything they gather on me. But the thing is I haven't updated my ID from Mexico. So I had an old fucking address on my Mexican ID, not the address where I was living with my parents, right? And that address was, I mean, where I was living with my parents was a gated community, super fucking protected, where most of the owners of Silat Juarez's sleep, right? Like the main business owners, lawyers, doctors, other stuff,

so it's very fucking protected. It's impossible that they would go in without getting into trouble. So yeah, that's how. I left, I went home. I remember one thing. I had two phones on me. I had my personal phone and the phone from the newspaper, right? And they asked me to turn off the phones. So when I was turning off, I turned off the work phone. And when I was about to turn off my personal phone, my girlfriend called me to see if everything was good. And instead of turning off the phone, I answered. So she started listening everything and she called my parents. And she, both of them were listening. When these,

guys told me that they were going to find me dead on the back of my car that they were going to kill me when they started beating me all that shit so when i got home my parents were fucking hysterical oh my they were like what the fuck is going on my dad was fucking crazy and i was like i just need to need to go i need to go i need to go and i packed a fucking backpack you know with clothes i remember i only packed um i only packed uh jeans and no fucking shirts I was not thinking straight. What did you do? Straight to El Paso?

And I went straight to El Paso to a hotel. And then I started renting a department in El Paso. And I remember it was fucking dark times because I was crying almost every fucking night. I was looking at my city and looking at the, you know, I was like, I want to go back. That's my fucking city, man. That's where I want to leave. And I lived in an apartment. It's like in a small hill.

And I will look over to Ciudad Juarez to a whole fucking city. And just thinking about how many people were being killed and what happened. to me in that traumatic aband and all the shit and the fact that I couldn't just go there and the fact that I had to change my my beat of writing from writing from security and investigation to fucking sports and cultural shit in El Paso it was just too much and I remember I used to drink a lot and cry a lot like every fucking night you know because I was feeling so fucking bad about that and then like nine months later a source of mine a guy who I went to in middle school, he started working later eventually.

He started working with a Korean organization in Juarez, right? He started like growing up because his dad used to be Natica, and then he started like playing the same path. And he called me and he told me, he asked me like, hey, what happened to you? And I'm like, nothing. And he's like, what are you? And I'm like, I might work at El Diario. And he's like, and what happened?

And I'm like, what do you mean? Because I didn't tell any. anyone like anyone I didn't I didn't want anyone to fucking know what happened to me so I was so fucking scared for my family that was still living in Juarez I did a report to human rights to leave it as background for something happened to me I had a file on human rights the international commission of human rights and that was fucking it and and and he told me no I know that something happened and I'm like no man it's like well I don't know why why are you not trusting me if I always

I have always trust you with my sources and my information, and now you're not trusting me. I know something happened to you. Anyways, you have your reason not to tell me, but if you want to turn on the TV tonight, I'm going to leave you a present to make you feel better. And I'm like, whatever. Turn on the news.

I think it was like at 9 p.m. And in the same spot where these first two pickup trucks stopped me before taking me, in that same place, those both pickup trucks, rocks were shot dead. They killed the fucking police officers. And I'm pretty sure it was the same police officers that stopped me that night. So I think it was him. I think it was my contact who actually got them killed, got the police killed and shit. And I called him back. So he knew about

all this. He knew how you, so that means he must have known about you getting kidnapped and you, the plan for you to get executed. Yeah. Yeah. And I asked him, crying, angry, and told him that To never call me again. I was like, dude, I don't want to carry those fucking buddies with me. You know, like, that's not my fault. I'm a fucking journalist. I'm not a fucking murderer. I never asked you for anything.

You fucked up. That's on you. That's on your hands. Not in mind. And he was like, aren't you happy? You can actually go back to Juarez now and feel safe. And I'm like, dude, it's not how it works, man. I'm not in that world.

Stop calling me. I'm telling you from today on we're not friends. We're, I don't know you, man. Bye. I stop communicating with him. up until today. I never have a word again with him. This is a guy that you know since...

Since kids. He used to be my neighbor and then we went to school together and all that shit. So it was a very mixed feeling, right? Because at the same time, I was like, that's not who I am. But at the same time, I was like, wow, does that mean that I can go back to my city and feel safe again? Right. And I started going day by day and feeling more comfortable and more comfortable. And then I move back into Juarez.

I fucking love living in Juarez. Really? What is it about Juarez? That's so much better. What do you love about it? I don't know, man. I don't know. I mean, of course I have family now.

So that's why we have a house in El Paso, but we rent an apartment in Juarez. And of course, my family stays the longest time in El Paso. We don't really spend much time in Juarez. But every time I can, I stay there. I stay there. I just fucking love the path to the city.

It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a dangerous animal, you know, like that about Juarez. I mean, is it like the,

is like an adrenaline rush being there? I guess it's the mix of, I guess it's the mix of, I compare it to like, imagine you, you're the owner of a super fucking dangerous lion. It's a lion and it can kill you

anytime. But you've known him for fucking, ever and you know he's not gonna kill you so you're going to jail and you enjoy you know like playing with the fucking killing animal that you know he's not gonna kill you but he might you know and it's and you know him so fucking well have you ever heard of that theory people have i've heard it talked a many times before where people talk about that there's supposedly a set time and place where everybody's gonna die yeah have you heard that have you heard that talked about before and there's like a people they try to attribute it to people who are just like do crazy daredevil stunts like that

that guy Alex Holland who who climbs the mountains with no no gear or anything he just has a bag of chalk in his hands and he climbs these giant like 100 foot cliffs and they're like they try to figure out why these people just do these incredibly death defying feats with all the time and they're still alive and they seem to have no fear of it like how do you know how are you not afraid of dying. No, I am. The thing is that's what I get a lot of wrong from people. They always assume that I'm not afraid

that I'm not afraid when I go into these places where all that shit, but I am, I am afraid. I've been afraid most of my fucking life and I am afraid every time I have to go in bed. I'm afraid everything, every time I get a call, all this shit.

But you were born in it, so you understand it better than 99.9% of people. I guess, I guess. I guess I'm more curious than afraid. You know, I'm curious. I mean, when the lawyer of El Mayo son called me, I knew that something, because I was like, this is an Arizona area code phone number.

Not good news are coming from this shit. I knew it. So I had a choice. I had like, I can either don't answer the call or answer the call. If I answer the call, I'm going to engage in a conversation that I might not want to hear, you know, that I might be better well off. But at the same time, it's like, fuck it. I mean, I'm so curious to know who it is and why.

The call just got before getting here, that guy talking about, and I know his number, and I have him registered under codes as most of those sources. And I know who he was. and my phone started ringing and I'm like oops I'm about to leave I'm about to request my over drive to to here but I'm like fuck it let's see what he wants and I'm more curious about that you know don't you do you feel like that you are these guys like you were the same you like you and these guys that are in these that are working in the cartels whether no matter what level they might be at do you feel like that you guys are like the same it's just that you kind of you took one different turn at one point, but you guys are still like, everything about

you is the same. Like you could easily have been him. He could have easily been you. More than that, I feel like I'm the same as every other fucking human in the world. And that's, I think that's, that's my advantage, right? Like, we are all a gray scale. There's no bad guy that is fully bad. There's no good guy that is fully good. When you see someone, that is portrayed as a 100% bad person. There's something wrong about that. It's like there's something off. There's something that it's not right

and it's not completely through. The same as if you feel that one guy is so fucking good and he's 100% a good person. There has to be something super fucking off on that day. Because that doesn't exist, man. And I know that for a fucking fact. There is no black or white. We are all a fucking great.

gray scale. Some of us are a little more on the, on the darker side of that gray scale. Some of us more on the wider, wider, you know, like scale. But we are, and then that's how I feel about everyone, every single fucking human. I guess that's, I guess they see the humanity in these people that no one else does. And I think they perceive that, that I treat them as I will treat everybody fucking else, a president, US soldier, my friend, you know, like, they're not my friend so I don't talk to them like hey amigo you know I talk to him like with respect respecting they're a fucking human and that I'm not especially afraid of them for any particular reason that's what they do for fucking leaving they're adults that's their that's what they chose and I have

nothing to do with that right I'm not pushing them or asking them out of that I'm just taking them for what they are it's like okay that was your fucking choice I'm not judging and by showing fear you're judging someone right you're judging that you're dangerous you're violent you are bad guy and I'm the good guy because I'm the one afraid of you and by not having or showing the fear you have it's like equals it's like yeah I mean I can be bad too man and you can be good too and whatever I don't I don't care about that let's let's talk business let's talk what do you want to talk about so does that not frustrate the shit out of you when you see like the main news organizations especially on TV, talk about everything,

because they talk about everything in black and white. That's the narrative. You got to paint it one, this news organization paints it black, this news organization paints at white. And they all try to just like generalize everything. Yeah, I mean, it's frustrating because I'm part of that shit, you know? Like I work for news.

That's what I'm saying. It must be so frustrating. I work for news outlets, and every time I pitch something, it's not interesting. And every time I know that I'm going to pitch something that it's interesting, it's because it's over simplistic, right? I mean, I got used to it. I'm used to it.

And that's why I'm being more active on my social accounts, on my Instagram account, to talk about how I really feel about issues, how I'm really finding these particular issues or people or stuff, right? Because, I mean, one thing is to put up a news where you say, El Chapo was the biggest trafficker in the world, whatever. But when I go in my Instagram or my Twitter, Twitter, go and say, like, well, he's not really the boss.

And I try to explain what's behind that news, right? And I try to have, I don't know, like live streams every month, at least where I talk about that. And I talk about, like, their latest news and try to go more in-depth about all that stuff. That's why I guess I come to shows like yours, like the one I was in the other channel. trying to to set the records straight, right? Because

the news are not the place to do that. I mean, they are supposed to, but they're not. So does that, does the process work where you're pitching stories to just like your contacts in the media? Like, you have different relationships and different, like

publications like Vice or business insider and you kind of come up the stories, or do they ever reach out to you and ask you to do reporting? Both. I guess at the beginning it was more of me pitching a lot. Okay. I used to, I used to had a record of pitching and I was like, okay, how many stories did I pitched on this week? And I was pitching about 200 stories a month.

So I was like pitching and getting 10% of those approved. How the fuck do you find 200 stories to pitch? There's a lot of fucking stories all over Latin America happening at the same time. And so it's just a matter of being aware and how you look that, say, Neville. that everybody's reporting on and finding a new angle, you know? And as a freelancer, you have to be way better than their staffers. Not better in the sense of better journalists, but with a different perspective than their staffers.

Something their staffers are not tapping, right? Because otherwise, they will go like, nah, I'm already having this guy, I'm in a payroll, so I'm going to go with his story. So you have to bring something new, something different about that story. And it's about how you look at the world. And I think I've always had that look into the world in a different manner that most of the people, and it's just a matter of how I see it and how I perceive stories and how I perceive the world. And so I used to pitch like a shit ton of fucking stories.

Of course, some of the editors were fed up with my pitching. They were like, fuck, man, this is too many fucking stories. Really? So I had to come up with different outlets, right? Like, okay, I'm not going to pitch 50 stories to Business Insider and 50 to buys and 50, you know. I was like, I'm going to find 20 different news outlets and pitch everyone a story that it's more catered to their needs, right? So I know that VICE has a certain style and certain, they like certain type of stories. Business Insider is different.

The Daily Beast is different. CBS is different. New TV, like Netflix shows and everything like that. It's different. So I started like catering for everyone and I'm a fucking workaholic. so I'm working almost 20 hours a day. Do they ever like fuck with your stories at all, like the editors, like try to get you to change stuff and make it, like sway it, like make it weird?

A lot and I used to, and I, somewhere along the way I lost my, my willing to push the right story. So. You mean willing to push back against some? But very recently, I recovered that, that will. that will, you know, to push back and say like, hey, I'm not liking that. I'm not happy with these or not happy with that or the way you're saying this because it's not necessary true, you know.

You have a substack, right? Yeah, yeah, I have a substack account where I post most of the stuff that goes out from my editors, right? Like that interview with a Chapp's attorney. With who? With El Chappo's attorney. Oh, oh, oh, yeah. I think the main thing was to paint a different picture about El Chappo, about Emma's

Ema Coronel, his wife, and about how the attorney ended up being the attorney of the fucking most notorious truck cartel boss, you know, and about how he felt that the U.S. needs to go against politicians of both sides of the wall, of the border. But when I pitched that, didn't ring the editors. The editors needed something more simplistic, right? They wanted to talk about the role of women in the narco world and if I could speak to the attorney about that the role of women in the narco world like how they are how women are stepping in more and more getting more involved in better places better places well more more high up in the organization which is pretty cool but to me was like a waste of time talking about that with el chapas attorney right right um so yeah

they wanted to fit yeah they want it to fit into certain things that they think work for them. And I think it's cool. I mean, that's their job. And most of my editors are really respectable people and really respectable journalists. But at the same time, that some, like, some stories are not their feet, right? And instead of, like, sending them straight to the trash bin, I started a substack account where I post most of those stories that don't really make it or didn't make it like the way I was receiving that news and maybe going raw, you know, like putting. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure, that's the goal, right, is to be a completely independent publishing your own

check. I mean, because if I can think about any of the most, any of the most notable journalists or reporters that I actually think are interesting or pay attention to, they're completely independent. They're not staffers for fucking business insider or some, or vice. You know what I mean? These guys are completely doing their own thing. They're rogue, in a sense, you know? Which is fucking hard on the financial side of it, you know? You need to fucking work a lot to make a decent living out of that. And the thing is, is the whole thing about how payments go

because they pay you 30 days later after publication and you have to submit an invoice and pay you own taxes and sometimes they're late on payments. Talking about substack? You're talking about like the publications? Publications.

Oh yeah, yeah. So yeah. So it's, you have to be a fucking mastermind of the accounting, you know, to have your accountings on check and not face money gaps.

You know? So at the beginning when I started freelancing like 10 years ago, I faced a lot of fucking money gaps where my money flow was not well organized. And sometimes I was like, what the fuck? I have zero fucking money for the whole month. That's fucking crazy. And then I started working on that, right?

Working on setting better prices for my stories, saying no to publications that want a low value, and being more smart about invoicing and having a fucking whole thing organized when this is the day that I show invoice because I'm getting paid up until the next month. Right. Right. So I need to put more stories to the next month to make up for that. So it's a hard thing to balance when you just want to like go do the fun shit. Like I just want to be creative and do cool shit.

I don't want to fucking worry about. Totally. Because I mean, you're tied up enough with talking with these people trying to set up interviews, traveling on your own money, all the shit. Right. And then after that, you're still going to have to go to all of your financial stuff. You know, like getting paid and the invoices. paying your taxes, all that shit.

So it's a lot of fucking work. Yeah, man. So it's a lot of fucking work. Yes. When did fentanyl become first come on the scene in Mexico? I mean, I know it's been going on since at least since 2015. But over the last two years especially, I feel like the fentanyl thing with the opioid and the overdoses with fentanyl have been just skyrocketed. Yeah.

The thing is the crazy fucking thing is, uh, Fentanyl, it's a story in the U.S. But it's not a story in Mexico. Because fentanyl is not staying in Mexico. No one is doing fentanyl in Mexico. No one is consuming fentanyl in Mexico. If you go to any city like Ciud Juarez or Kuliacan or Montereo, whichever city you go, Cancun or whatever,

and try to get a pill. You're not going to get anything. Can't find it, not even in Monterey? No. Dude, funny story about Monterey. I have a bunch of Mexican friends. And they taught me, I used to know Spanish, like, very well. Like, I could speak it.

I could hold a conversation. No way. Like somewhat, at least. And I would try to convince, like, I had, I bet my buddies, be like, I bet you I could convince him on Mexican. And I would, he would just, I mean, like, I would, like, get little tips. Like, how could I convince this dude on Mexican? He goes, just say, so did they Monterey, all the white Mexicans are from Monterey.

Of course, yeah. You could easily play that out. That's funny. Yeah, so, yeah, I mean, it's impossible to get pills because this, the same criminal organizations have it prohibited, right? You can sell fentanyl in Mexico to Mexicans. It's all for export. Well, the fentanyl in the U.S. is, like, hidden, though, right?

Like, you're not actually buying fentanyl. People who are dying are trying to buy other shit that's cut with fentanyl. Yes, exactly. But there's two ways fentanyl is getting into the U.S. One, it's pure fentanyl where they ship pure fentanyl so people in the U.S. can cut their own shit with fentanyl. They're manufacturing here. Uh-huh.

Well, they're manufacturing. Well, they're manufacturing, like, the pills and shit. Exactly, yeah. and the other is the actual peels or heroin or coke laced with fentanyl and shipped into the U.S. Here's one thing I don't fucking get. How is, there's no way people are intentionally cutting coke with fentanyl. I don't think so.

Because it's the complete polar opposite drugs. If you want to keep selling your Coke and you're giving people Coke with fentanyl, I mean, you're not going to keep your clients for very long. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. At some point, I was convinced that that was a myth that Coke mixed with fentanyl.

I found no proof. But then I found proof in the U.S. of U.S. law enforcement who started sending me results from analysis, drug tests, where coke was being mixed with fentanyl. But I think, and I'm guessing, that has to be unintentional. Yeah, exactly. I read an article, and I saw a guy was basically, I guess he was just going around doing coke in different cities or asking Coke or testing Coke from different cities. And I think what the analysis was. is the people who are buying like shit from the street, like the shitty stuff from like low level drug dealers who are selling. You have low level drug dealers who are selling cheap shit to poor people.

And these guys are selling coke and heroin to the same people. And they're cutting it on the same fucking table. So they're accidentally getting a little bit of fentanyl in the coat. But the people who are like the rich people who are buying it from high little people who don't mix. These guys aren't selling heroin. They're just selling coats. They're not going to get it cut with. Exactly. That's exactly what I think it's happening because there's no, I mean, it wouldn't really make sense to cut your cope with fenton, right?

Right. But I mean, on my own experience, I've never found someone who was actually telling me like, we're cutting coke with fentanyl. I have never. And then there's this craziest stories about weed laced with fentanyl. Weed laced with fentanyl, right. And it's like, how and why, you know? I don't know, man. It's a, it might be happening, but not that I'm aware of, you know. No, I keep reading stories, but it's always from sketchy news outlets that they're putting out this super fucking, you know, like. So the people in the U.S. that are dying, the large majority of people who are dying from fentanyl, what is it, how is that happening? Are they intentionally taking fentanyl or is it just, what is it?

The best majority, it's an intentional overdose of taking some, something that it's slaced, usually this fucking pale, fake percou. The fake percocet pills. Perkinsettes. Mm-hmm. The fake blue pills. Yeah. Those, that shit. I went into a laboratory in Tinaloa of fake perkinsettes.

Really? Dude. I mean, it's crazy how that shit is, how they're manufacturing those pills in a small fucking apartment. I was in one of those biggest labs two years ago, I think, or three years ago in Tena Loas as well. And the thing used to be very different. It was a huge lab in the... the outskirts of Kuliacan. So it was like outdoors lab, you know, like what you think with huge fucking burials of precursors

and shit. And they will do huge fucking batches of fentanylaced, like paste that they will turn into pills, press into pills later. But then apparently this year, El Mayo order the whole fucking industry to make smaller labs all over the city. More labs, but smaller. The smaller quantities. So if they will get busted, they will just find a lab

and they will lose that small amount. Exactly. Right. So I went there last year to one of these small new labs and I mean they don't even know what they're fucking getting right. They just got a Chinese man, a Chinese

chemist straight from China to teach them how to fucking cook pills mixed fentany because everything, all the precursors and penthouse coming straight from China to the Sinaloa cartel. So who's sending the Chinese chemist? The Chinese, the Chinese triads, which I'm pretty sure the fucking government. Holy shit.

Who's paying this fucking chemist? The Sinaloa. The cartels paying out. The cartels, yeah. Both cartels, Sinaloa and Cartel Calisco, are paying like the same group in China, right? And this Chinese chemist come here, will come into Mexico. and they teach both on different places and different dates and everything like by separately. But it's the same guys that are showing both how to do shit, you know.

Whoa. And it's crazy. So I went into one of these labs and... Is this one of the labs you went to? Yeah, exactly. That's, exactly. That's the lab I was, I think last year. Wow.

And that's one of the Sinaloa chemists that was recently. show by this Chinese chemist on how to cook those pills. So this was a Chinese guy? No, that was a Mexican guy, but he learned straight from this Chinese guy and he told me how, he told me how he basically said like,

the Chinese came here and he was like, I'm going to be here for three months and you're just going to watch how I do shit. Every single time I do when you batch, you're just going to watch. And after three months, you're going to, you're going to, You're going to be on test.

You're going to make a test for me. And if you're ready and if we ship that shit to the U.S. And the shit sells and the customers that are happy with it and everything, then you're ready to go. Otherwise, I'm going to have safe here another three months and stuff. So that's how that guy learned how to make pills. Whoa. He's like, okay, the three months, he stopped. And he said, like, okay, you're flying solo.

I started cooking. He just watched and watched and watched. I made a whole batch. We shipped it over. and the shit was good. They have a test that I show on the video how they test the pills for quality. And apparently they use a foil paper,

aluminum paper, and then they put the peel and they start burning the paper. And if the peel slides, that means it's a good quality peel. And if the peel gets stuck, that means it's a shitty batch and you have to do all over again. Now, is this because the fentanyl is cheaper

than what they used to use? Yeah, man. I mean... What are they used to use? Opium? Yeah, they used to do heroin, basically. Heroin. But fentanyl, it's not that it's cheaper, but it's, you have to use less of a quantity to make it like super fucking, you know, strong.

They have addicts in the city that they test pills with as well. Like they give them a pill or two. Right. That's got to be a crazy thing when you're making a giant batch of those things. Like, if you could just put the, if you put a little bit too much. Fentanyl in there. Actually, one of the one of his helpers, one of the helpers of these, look that he's a he's testing that he's testing the pill for quality. Oh, is this what he said when you when it slides to make sure it slides. If you see the peel slide,

the peel will stock that means that's not a good peel. Wow. But that was not the proper laboratory. Yeah. Later that night so that other guy on the on the yellow. Oh, got the I'm sorry. No, we're good. That guy on the yellow thing, he was just out of the hospital because they fucked up over a pack of fentanyl, of pure fentanyl. What they do is when I was there and when they were going to throw

the fentanyl into the mix, they asked me to go as far as I call from them. And I was wearing a fucking mask, like a, you know, like a proper mask, not like a face mask from COVID or whatever. It was like this gas mask. Like breaking bad. Exactly. And they were like, can you get away as far as back as you can?

Because they closed windows. They sealed everything. Because they were like, if we pour the fentanyl, the potter, and you inhale some of this shit, you're fucking done. The guy in yellow was still shaking because he was just out of the hospital because he fucked up. And he nailed. Like basically, he threw too fast the potter. So the dust came up, you know, they lifted some dust.

He nailed that seven days in coma. Oh my God, dude. And that was the day that he was just out. So he was like, when they put the fucking fentanyl into the mix, they opened it like super slowly and they threw like, and he was like, like super fucking scared, you know, to put that shit. And then they started like mixing the whole shit and the pressing the pills. The only thing that they didn't let me record was the pressing of the pills.

They were like super sketchy about the machine, about the presser. I was like, that's a fucking Amazon, you know. It's super cheap and easy to find. Why? It's like, I don't know, my boss told me specifically, you're not going to record the presser. Really? All right. I mean, they allow me to record the whole fucking precursor, the whole fucking thing, the whole apps and everything.

Uh-huh. But the presser. So all, but all of the action. like raw like raw fentanyl all of it 100% comes from China yeah 100% yeah I love it coming from China

sometimes it comes from Germany but coming from China so it went out from China stopped in Germany to some organization in Germany and that was shipped over to Mexico coast called Montanis now has anyone ever tried to figure out

who like who specifically in China they're getting it from? I mean, I'm getting a lot of a lot of stuff from there. But most of them are saying triads, and then they keep sending the names of the triads and stuff. But then I'm talking with a guy that he used to be like an, I don't know if there's something like an undercover working for some U.S. sketchy organization in China.

He was recently blacklisted, so he had to go out from China and he's living in Taiwan right now. because he was looking into that shit. And he told me that it's the government, the Chinese government. It's like it's a Chinese Communist Party that it's allowing these shipments. So is this like, I guess the big conspiratorial question? Is this like China trying to get revenge for the opium war that happened between the British? British like sold tons of opium to China way, way, way back.

in the day and like really fucked up China. I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's revenge, but, but honestly, it looks like, it seems like a conspiracy theory, you know, like when you, when I, when I talk about that, everybody is like, well, that sounds a little bit of a conspiracy theory, but also sort of like racist, right? And I'm not trying to be either both. I'm trying to be very objective for what I've seen with my own eyes and reported with my own sources.

And it is, if you were China. Yeah. And wouldn't that be a great way to attack your opponent? That's the only way they're fucking diminishing the power of the U.S. That's their only way in the U.S., right? Mexico's having this new or renewed diplomatic relationship with China, commercial relationship with China. China is opening more to Mexico financially and economically. we have more diplomatic relationship with China than before with this new government.

China is sending diplomatic people to greed governments like Nicaragua that are openly socialist and blacklisted by the U.S., Venezuela. So they're making their moves everywhere the U.S. is fucking up, right? And that includes Mexico. The relationship between Mexico and the U.S. has never been at the lowest, you know, as it is today. Really? Yeah, man, it's awful.

It's never been that bad. I mean, not even during the Trump administration that was pretty hard on immigration and Mexicans and everything. I mean, this time around with this administration, that relationship is going south super fucking quick in every single issue, you know. But specifically on security. the cooperation between both countries is shitty I can say it's not for the best maybe for Mexico because I understand what the Mexican administration is trying to do

which is gain independence and say like okay my issues I'm going to take care of my issues and you take care of yours because your help has not helped very much funding the fucking drug cartels shipping drugs in exchange for fighting the guerrillas back then and all that shit it's not working

for us, right, for Mexico. And I understand that. But at the same time, you have to keep certain diplomacy, right? Certain relationships, especially because we're so tied together. And these administration is closing, they just closed these special unit in Mexico handled by the DEA that has been going for fucking ever. And that was the unit that capture L. Chapo and several other main kingpins. and the Mexican government just closed that out of the fucking blue.

They're just like, nah, this is a fucking corrupt organization. It's closed. And that was a main issue for the U.S. government. It's like, how the fuck are you closing? The DEA had forever, for years, had these operational plane installed in Mexico in the Mexican airport. And the Mexican government just asked them to take that plane out of Mexico. So it's like, okay, take your fucking DEA plane out of Mexican soil, get it back to the U.S. so they had to and that was pretty hard a hard fucking act against the u.s right cooperation

the u.s arrested general sian fuego one of the main army top army guys in Mexico and Mexico had to go in and rescue that guy and set him free in Mexico so they got Mexico got in full-on government to say we need you to give us back siamuegos which is like the badest motherfucker arrested at a U.S. airport for helping the Sinaloa cartel openly. And he was arrested under DEA custody. And Mexico went up to say, okay, I'm going to kick out every single one of your agents and diplomats in Mexico.

Because we were holding him? If you don't release him back to us. So that's the extent Mexico is going against their relationship to the U.S. And China is watching all that shit, right? They're like, oh, you're fighting with the U.S. So let's be a friend. Dude, that's fucking scary. It's crazy, man.

So essentially, the entire Mexican government is controlled by the cartels. Yes. I think right now it's really hard. How much influence do they have on like the very top, like the president? Like how much influence is there? I think a lot. I think a lot. More than more than everybody thinks really.

I'm not saying that it's like they call the president and say like what to do. But they definitely have the. means to pressure his agenda, right? By taking out armed people into certain strategic places. Like, let's say the Mexican government is trying to open a new oil refinery or processing center of whatever or a new hospital in some city. So the bad guys will go and, I don't know, kill a couple of doctors or, you know, shoot the whole fucking scene or kill a family around the area where they were supposed to set up

a new school, stuff like that, to pressure the government. to do their will, right? To hand them contracts for the construction of a street, of a hospital, or of a new, I don't know, department complex or whatever. They're making a lot of money out of legal money, legal contracts of construction specifically for roads that they need to transport drugs, right?

So they're like, we need this road. And the Mexican government were like, well, there's no fucking money to do that road. It's like, all right, so let's pressure your fucking government one way or another. So you feel like you have to build that fucking road. Right. And that we're going to get that contract also.

So they own the construction company that's building the road? They're somehow getting a percentage or extorting them somehow? I guess a good percentage of the whole construction around Mexico is handed by cartel members. Wow. That's fucking bananas, bro. It's crazy, man. I mean, it's up to the point where it's really hard to say that there is a government and that there is a cartel or cartels. It's the same.

It's the work like. So what do you do? Like what do you like how do you handle that? How does the U.S. handle that? Like especially when not only is it a fucking narco state, but when you have China siphoning fentanyl through there. It's like a, it's like a, it's like a proxy. or just like a Trojan horse to get fentanyl into the United States,

which is fucking fucking up young people and like killing a lot of fucking people in the country. I don't know, man. I don't know. It's so wild. That's a fucking question I make myself like every time. But I guess the U.S. does better to a country when he stays out of it. You know, like when they don't involve actively in trying to help a country.

Right, right, right. When they stay away from that country, that's better for that country, right? Because I mean... Unlike Ukraine. Yeah, no, that's a... Because they're a war, full-on-war, right? Yeah. That's actually a war.

It's not a threat, a civil threat, or something like that. Right. And what would it be if the U.S. hadn't put billions of dollars of weapons and shit into that country, you know? Exactly. Would it be a war? Yeah. Well, yeah. Who knows?

But how did Afghanistan end up, right? They don't end up well. For either. Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador. Panama, Venezuela, Cuba, every single one of those, Haiti, every single one of those countries has had a lot of intervention by the U.S. trying to help. And all of those countries are devastated.

Devastated. And it's becoming an issue, and it's backlashing into the U.S. because a lot of the migrants are from those specific countries where the U.S. had stepped in, right? A lot of the migrants from those countries are from, what do you mean? Yeah, like basically the U.S. trying to help those countries and fact,ing them more than actually help is backlashing into the U.S. because most of the migrants getting into the U.S. are actually from those countries. Right, right, right, right.

Yeah, that makes sense. A lot of people from Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Salvador, Guatemala. Has anyone else talking about this thing about how all this stuff is coming in from China? Is any, like, one reporting on that mainstream? Because I haven't seen that anywhere until I really started digging into it. The thing is it looks very conspiranoic, right? The thing is that narrative for editors, it's a conspiracy theory even though you hand out proof, right? Even though if you are bringing like interviews and all that stuff, it's still, for most editors, it feels like, eh, I think we're more on the conspiracy theory right there, right?

And I'm like, well. Because there's no, there's no definitive proof, obviously. Because of course. That that's their intention. Exactly. But if it was their intention, that's what they would do. Yeah. Right?

Exactly. Because of course, I mean, when you're an editor, what you need is proof, right? And you will need a proof of the Chinese government saying, yeah, let's fucking kill a lot of U.S. citizens with fentanyl going through Mexico. No one's going to fucking say that, right? But you can have a proof. by showing where is all this fentanyl coming from. And why is it not affecting Mexico? Right.

Right. It's affecting specifically the U.S. It's not drug. I mean, Mexico and it's shipping drugs all over, right? They're shipping shit to Europe, Middle East, Asia, Africa. They're shipping fucking drugs to every single other fucking country, the U.S., of course. But fentanyl, it's only being shipped to the U.S. fentanyl, it's not shipped to Europe, it's not shipped to Asia.

It's not shipped to Middle East. It's shipped specifically to the U.S. And that's because that's what the bosses in the cartels are asking, right? This is only for the U.S. This is why only for the U.S.? Because there's only people taking that shit in the U.S.? I guess that's what makes it fucking suspicious, right? Is it because there is only a demand in the U.S.,

which is fucking weird that the demand will be only in the U.S.? They didn't happen with Coke. They didn't happen with heroin. They didn't happen with weed. That goes everywhere. Everywhere. And math. you know that that demand is worldwide

so it's the same fucking drug worldwide right has the amount of coke gone down has like the the amount of money and the volume of cocaine being trafficked has that gone down since no it's actually going up as well you know the u.s also has funding a lot of the drug war in columbia against truck traffickers and they just nabbed this narco called otoniel right

who are they funding the columbia government They're funding the Colombian government to fight the... To fight the drug hotels. They just arrested this guy who was like El Chapo for Colombia, right? It was called Antoniel. But when you look, again, at the figures of Coke being shipped from Colombia into the U.S., it's an all times high. And again, it's like, it's not working.

Your strategy is obviously not working. Colombia has never produced more cocaine in the whole fucking history as of right now. Wow. That's crazy. So they're getting all the big bosses and their organizations keeps shipping shit tons of money. Maybe it's because of COVID. Maybe people are just sort of lonely. They want to do more fucking drugs.

They want to do more coke and eat more pills. COVID definitely skyrocketed the drug business. And that's for sure. Yes. And it's the same, is the same, is it as violent? Have you ever been to Columbia? Yeah. Is it the same?

What's the main differences between like the cartels and Colombia? and the cartels in Mexico? I think Colombia is, I think, I think Mexico, it's Colombia 15 years back, right? I think we're moving into that direction straight, straightforward. Meaning it's more. Meaning Colombia got so mixed, the drug trafficking problem and politics so fucking intersected.

You know, Pablo Escobar, he used to be like a congressman. He wanted to be a president. So he mixed the whole fucking organization with politicians and politicians on his organization so that changed the whole fucking thing. Also, the guerrillas that used to be guerrillas and not traffickers,

but now they're traffickers saying they're guerrillas, right? There's this group called Clan del Golfo, which is basically Cartel del Golfo. But they say they're called the Autodefenza Gatainistas of Colombia, right? So they are guerrilla, or a self-defense group.

But they're not. They're fucking traffickers. The FARC, the forces revolutionaries of Colombia, the main guerrilla group in Colombia, they used to be a guerrilla, right? Fighting against the government

and trying to gain autonomous territories and all that shit. They are the ones cooking more cocaine than every other single organization in Colombia, dealing in Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, they're fucking everywhere. They're huge.

And they used to be guerrillas, right? So Mexico, we don't have guerrillas, but we're about to. All of those groups from auto-defense. What does guerrilla mean? Guerrilla. Guerrilla, okay. Yeah, sorry. You said it the proper way, didn't I?

Yeah, yeah, guerrillas, yeah, exactly. So all of these guerrilla groups, I mean, they're not. They're traffickers. These guys, those guerrillas, right? We're not. Mexico is still not at that. in that point in time right now. But we're going to.

We're going to. I mean, these guys, I don't know if you've read this manual. There's a U.S. Army manual on insurgencies and country insurgencies movement. And there is established like a one by one point on how does an insurgency group builds up, right? And they start basically by unstabilizing governments, doing certain actions. And if you look at that guide and you look at what's happening in Mexico, it's like, dude, we're on the final fucking face of these guys becoming an armed or mixed insurgency,

which is like a drug trafficking slash insurgency groups operating in Mexico. They're not only cartels right now. That's why I usually refuse to call them cartels or drug cartels. And it's more like organized, insurgencies, right? Because it's totally different now. It's not the same. They're wearing military baths, military dress.

They have their armed groups, which is one of the requirements of the insurgency, right? You have leadership, and then you have a circle of an armed group that is going to protect you or attack. And then outside you have what it's called social basis, which is basically the people

supporting you on certain region you want to get control of. And they're getting a lot of social bases around Mexico. All of those gaps we were talking earlier, that's how they are gaining social bases all through Mexico. So people today respects more a drug trafficker than a politician. If they say, who's giving you more? Who side are you going to be of? And they're like, of course I'm going to be on the side of El Mayo,

instead of the fucking governor of my state. Right. Because they feel they're giving more. And that's how they're gaining social basis. And that's fucking crazy because that means when the time comes, they can't ask people to go out against the government and throw a fucking government out and they will step in. And then you'll have a fucking mess.

One of the articles that you wrote was about their problem with getting guns, dealing with the gun manufacturers in the U.S. wasn't there some sort of law that had to get passed to sort of restrict the amount of guns being trafficked because the NRA had something going like the NRA had some sort of thing going on with the gun manufacturers

where they were able to illegally ship guns into Mexico? Yeah, well the thing is in Mexico it's almost impossible to get a gun legally, right? To get a gun... By the way, you want to drink? I didn't offer you this earlier.

It's, uh, it's, uh, it's, fucking, it's whiskey. It's actually not bad. It's pretty good. Looks good. It's like single malt whiskey. Awesome. Let's go for it. Oh.

So, yeah, it makes it good. It's really hard to. Do you like it straight or do you want ice? Uh, I'll just straight. Right. Right. Okay. To, to get a gun, right?

The, the legal way. They look, that looks super good. It is good. Um, but, but if you try to get a gun, a gun illegally you'll have it like cheers cheers to get fucked up and talk about narcos let's do that that's why i'm here not to drink water and tie yeah for real should offer it earlier i'm just kidding man wow this is good pretty good so so yeah i mean that and again only the bad guys

are are having guns in mexico they they are the only ones with guns in mexico right if i want to get a gun in Juarez to protect myself, that's fucking impossible. There's no way. They say there is a way, the proper way, and you can apply for a fucking license or whatever, but it's impossible. They're never got approved, right? And if you get approved, it's just going to be like a small handgun, whatever. And these guys are dealing with fucking AKs and a lot of other, like, big stuff. 50 calls and all that shit. And it's like, what am I going to do with a fucking handgun? Yeah, that video that you sent me with those kids, those foot soldiers, wearing out 50 caliber

sniper snipers. Exactly, man. What the fuck are you going to do if the Mexican government is allowing you to carry a handgun against all those fucking guns? Right. So that's that's for one side.

And the other side, Mexico is pushing a lot to sue most U.S. gun manufacturers trying to blame them for the whole shit that it's going on in Mexico, right? So the Mexican government, what is saying is

you are as responsible as the criminals for what is happening in Mexico because you know that you have to bet better the people that is buying guns from you. Of course, the U.S. companies

are saying like, that's not our fucking fault. We're just selling and producing guns for a U.S. market, and if they end up in Mexico or whatever else, that's not a problem. I honestly think that's a political stunt from the this politician that wants to be president next after this Ambrose administration.

And he's doing good because he's getting a lot of legitimacy in Mexico, right? Everybody's like, wow, he's the only one stepping up against the fucking U.S. manufacturers, which I don't really think it's going to do something. Are the U.S. manufacturers selling directly to the cartels? No, directly. Well, not like that. Not like they're shipping shit tons of guns directly to cartels and shit. But they're getting like massive fucking orders of shit.

lots of guns to organizations or companies in Mexico. Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing. Not only in Mexico, but also in the U.S., because they are allowed to, right? But if they were to really vet who is getting their guns, especially very specific shipments of a shit ton of fucking AKs, a shit ton of fucking AR-15s, a shit ton of 50 calls,

that should be enough to raise the alarms and say, like, okay, let's have a lot. look and who's buying all this shit from us right maybe we should look i mean and when we check their fucking id or something their background yeah because when you look at them and i i had i had look at the fucking lists and they're like okay so this is supposed to be a company that is um selling guns out of uh whatever then you go and it's a small house you know paso in east elpaso from a single fucking guy just sitting outside his porch and just sitting like that and telling guns to every They would have to do the least amount of work possible to actually do any sort of research to find out that this is like a 500 square foot shack in Mexico.

AC. No, they're probably, it's like a fucking billion dollar gun order. Exactly. And when I met that guy, he's a Mexican guy called Luis as well. And I was like, so here's the, I don't know, I can't remember the name of the store, but let's say, I don't know. Guns company. And it's like, yeah, it's like, but this is a house. He's like, yeah, man, I'm allowed.

And I'm like, so you have a permit? I just need to send the list of buyers to the ATF every month. And I'm like, dude, but what if I come here and ask you to get two-way case, 550 calls? Are you allowed to sell that? Yeah, I mean, as long as you give me your ID. And I'm like, dude, but are you aware that most of those fucking guns are going to end up in Mexico? And it's like, dude, I have clients from whatever.

I don't ask questions. I just give me your ID and I'll send them to ATF. if there's an issue, ATL will reach out to me and say, like, hey, someone bought this gun from you or whatever. And I asked him, like, has it happened? And it's like, yeah. And then what happened? Nothing.

I mean, I'm just selling guns. Right. But see, well, I understand what you're saying, but still. So how long, I mean, the question is how long until fucking they start buying nukes from the U.S.? I don't even think. Do you think the cartels ever buy nukes? I don't know.

But I don't think they need to, man. I think they have more than fucking enough. to get us all on our knees, you know? I mean, it's super fucking... Even a small nuke. Yeah. Like, we'll take out your state or we'll take out your city, you know, if you fuck with us.

They don't fucking need to. That's a thing. They can't take the whole fucking city if they won. Only by the amount of people. Look at what happened when they tried to capture El Chapo's son in Kuliacan, right? The Mexican government went full fucking on with a lot of fucking army, guys, helicopters, everything, tanks, like on war, to capture one guy that is actually like 30 years old, some shit like that.

And when they got him in his house, he just made a call. And hundreds of fucking soldiers came out from nowhere, from the fucking sewers, from houses around. And they paralyzed the whole fucking city for the whole entire day. They started killing people. They went into the maximum security prison to 300 of fucking people. and arm all of them. All of them like started getting armed and go against the army.

They went into the army. There's an army base in Kulakan. They went there and tied a lot of grenades and, how do you call it, like the fucking proximity mines, landmines to the gas tanks where the families of the soldiers were leaving and said like, okay man, if you don't let our guy go, we're going to blow the whole fucking military base

where your family's staying, right? And they paralleled the whole fucking city, and that happening like, what, three hours? They had to let that go. So they set them free, and they just went back into hiding. So if they want, they can take a whole fucking city

without the use of anything else, but the amount of people working under their instructions, right? God damn, bro. That is so crazy. Where is El Chapo's Son now? In Kuliacan. Yeah, he's living in the outskirts of Kulakhan. Of course, if I knew I will be, I will be getting myself five million fucking dollars.

If you knew where? Yeah, because that's the, that's the, that's the $5 million question. That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What if you had the opportunity to, like, go meet him and, like, interview him? Well, dude, I'm, I've been trying that for a fucking lot. But if they were like, we got to fucking put a, we got to put a bag over your head. We got to tie you up and throw you in the fucking bottom of a truck.

Wouldn't be the first time. I went to a place like that like out of, you know, like with shit in my head. I mean, I've been in places like that in Sonora. You've been to places where they had to like literally blindfold you and take you there? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean. By yourself? Yeah, by myself.

Jesus, bro. Wouldn't be the first time. So I will be like, yeah, for sure, man. Let's let's do it. I mean, if he offers me a fucking interview, that would be... Yeah, but you just said that you would take the $5 million or so where he's at? No. No. If you're watching this, I'm not taking the five males. I'm taking

your interview. He definitely watches this podcast. What was the story? There was a story about you were in a safe house or somewhere and there was like a they ordered tacos. Yes. So that's the time where they blindfolded me and stuff. Okay. I went to meet one of the Caro Quintero family, right?

Operating in Sonora. Karo Quintero is this Senaloa cartel founder as well that got arrested. and he is accused of killing Kiki Kamaana, the DEA agent in Mexico. Although most of my sources said that it was not. Karo Kintere was actually the CIA who killed his DEA agents. That's the whole of the story. That's the story of Narcos.

Last Narc. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this guy, how do you say his name again? A caro Quintero. El Caro Kintero. So he's still running around and he's still pretty active. He was in jail for several years. After the, yeah, he got busted after the Kiki.

Exactly. A murder. Exactly. Murder. And then he was in jail. And then he was set free for two hours. Because the judge said he made a mistake on the ruling. Right.

So the attorneys submitted a motion. And the judge was like, yeah, you're totally right. Kiki Kamarena was not a federal official person in Mexico. Because that was the, that's why he got so many years. he was not operating as a federal. He was under cover. He was from the U.S. So it was just like a citizen.

So you just killed a regular citizen, a foreign citizen in Mexico. I thought he worked for the DEA. He worked for the DA. But under the Mexican law, he was not officially a federal agent in Mexico or a Mexican federal agent. Oh, because that's what he needed that status to stay undercover. Exactly. So you just basically killed a foreigner in Mexico. And you served that time for that, for that.

crime right they set him free two hours later he's like oh shit no my bad we need him back of course he was already hiding well protector right right and um yeah during those when they showed that footage and they were interviewing him and he was just like nonchalant smiling kind of like laughing and giggling and like he was very like matter of fact answering the questions like he knew what the fuck he was doing yeah yeah yeah yeah and he seemed young back then back then what year was that was 87 exactly he's yeah exactly and um there was a recent interview i think it was like three or four years ago when he was just recently out. A Mexican journalist found him and he gave her an interview.

And he is like in a shitty place, I guess in the mountains. You can hear a lot of fucking rain and stuff. And he's saying like, I'm just a farmer. And I did what I did, but I paid for it. And I was not involved in anything. I never even knew that guy, Camarena, whatever, that they are accusing me off. Right. Who knows?

So that, we're getting a little bit off track. But that audio, they recorded the audio of torturing and interrogating that DEA agent Kiki Camarena. Is that audio available for public? No. So no one's ever heard it. No, I've been described the audio by Hector Berreyes, who is the last dark. By Hector. So Hector has heard it.

Yeah, Hector, Hector, Hector has heard. So did they have the actual full audio version of that? when they made the documentary where they didn't even have the full no no okay they just had like people's memory of it exactly yes exactly um and so yeah anyways i went to to visit like a source of mine told me that they can get me a uh uh to to to to talk with one of caro quintetro's family um a nephew from caro quintet was working and leading the organization in sonora so i went there i was staying in Nogales and he called me to meet him up in a place called Caborka, which is like two hours, I think, two hours or something like that from Nogales. But it was like 11 p.m. right? When they call me and said,

like, hey, you need to show up here. And I'm like, I'm two hours away. And it's like, okay, so if you want, we'll be here. And I drove in the middle of the fucking night alone all through fucking Sonora to go to that shitty place. And of course, he had left already. So I was like, shit. So I was like, can you call him back? Tell him, I'm sorry. I'm two hours away. I'll stay here. Stayed there for until like three in the morning.

And then I drove all the way back to fucking Nogales to my hotel. The next night, again, the same shit. Call me up to meet him there again. There I am again in the middle of fucking night going back and then back because nothing happened. It was like four times that that happened. And the fifth night, he actually showed up. Shut up with a, you know, you went back for five fucking nights. Yeah.

It's like driving back and forth. in the fucking middle of nowhere. And then on the fifth night, he showed up in this beautiful Tacoma, you know. And he was like a regular fucking person with a shirt, a white guy. He sort of like looked like you, but fodder. He was American? He is American, but I mean, well, he's a Mexican, but he's a U.S. citizen. Okay.

But he happened to be quero, completely white. Okay. So he was from honor. Monterey. Basically. And we started talking and I had an interview with him, a full interview on what he was doing and how he got involved with the cartel and Caro Quintero's organization, all that shit. And then he told me, well, so you want to go and look the warehouse? And I'm like, yeah, of course.

So he blindfolded me, put me in another car of one of his security guys. We started driving. I knew exactly where we were because I had fucking. driven that road five nights in a row so i knew every single bomb every single turn right so we were into uh we went into a small town called pitiquito which is in between where i was staying and that city caborka um but not i don't know exactly where but i knew we were like somewhere deep into pitiquito and then he showed me like this small house uh and he's like that's the warehouse so i enter the house and there was nothing just like an old man having at the catte right and i'm like but

where's the you have no drugs here like and it's like it's fucking full drugs and i'm like put where on the roof and it's like open the open the warehouse so this guy started like sweeping the it was a dirt road started like sweeping the dirt road um and then he he pulled like a like a like a like a i don't know like a thing like a water yeah like a hatch like double hatch and then they had a stairs And then back there, inside that thing, underground, it was like full of fucking wheat. It was only wheat, but it was like completely packed. It was a place, I think it was bigger than this place, twice this place, I guess.

And it was like completely fucking packed with bricks of wheat. And they had the whole accounting notes there. So I could take a look at everything. They allowed me to get a look of everything. So we recorded the whole fucking thing. it was for a show called dope on Netflix. So you're filming. Yes, I was producing that documentary for Netflix.

And so we filmed the whole fucking thing. And then we went out. I don't smoke weed. But the two guys that I was with, the cameraman and another cameraman as well, they both, they do smoke. They're from the UK. And they were like, this fucking wheat smells good.

And I told him, like, hey, my guy, that your weed smells pretty, pretty good. And it's like, yeah, have it it. So he grabbed a bunch of fucking wheat and it's like, to be it, that's all yours. No way. So these guys started like rolling and smoking. And we're like having fun.

And we're like, that's pretty cool. And it's like, Ustanafuma? And I'm like, no, I didn't smoke. It's like, no, me either. You know, I was like, oh, that's, that's good. He's DEA. Exactly. So, yeah, we're just like waiting for them to finish their fucking joints.

And I was having a tecatee and small talking. And then here I got a, got a call on his radio. They usually use like encrypted communication. So someone talked to him when he's walkie and said a couple of code words, you know, something. And he was like, okay, we kept talking. And then like five minutes later, 10 minutes later, someone let the call again.

And then he started like getting tens. And I'm like, is everything okay? It's like sort of, can you guys please give me your ideas? And I'm like, is it? I'll go, just give me your ideas. And I'm like, all right. So I handed my, my, my, um, wait, did these cameraman you're with? They speak Spanish?

No, they didn't. So you were the other than Spanish. Yeah, I had to tell them like, hey, guys, we need to hand out all these guys are like, why? And I'm like, not really short. Let's just play by his rules and let's see what happens, right? And they're like, okay. And he gave me their passports.

And I handed over their passports and my text and ID. And he's like, earn you from Juarez? And I'm like, yeah, I was born in Juarez, but I have the dual citizenship. It's like, so why don't you have an ID from? Juarez. And I'm like, I don't have any from Juarez have a U.S. a Texas ID. All right. Okay. And I'm like, is everything fine? And then he got a call again. And then he talked and then he told me.

You know what, Louise? I'm trusting you. So the first guy who's going to go out tonight, it's going to be you. Because if something happens to me right now, it's going to be on you. Because I'm not going to go after those guys. Those guys are from the UK. And I'm going to get into a fucking mess if I go after those guys. Although they're going to what they deserve but i'm gonna go after you because you brought him here and i'm like yeah i know and after your source which was called louis also and it's like and after louis du tocayo right so that's your

source my source the guy who introduced me to this guy and i was like but what happened is like i have three rings of security and there is a convoy of federal of federales and they already crossed the second ring of security the third ring of security it's just right here this block. So if we see them here getting across that, we're going to engage into a shootout. And that means they're following you. I'm going to assume that they're following you. And I'm like, dude, I mean, I don't even have my phone and, you know, well, not on. Though it's off. And it's like, whatever, man. So let's pray for them to stop at the last checkpoint. And I'm like, all right. We stay there. I was fucking shitting myself.

I was like, please, please, please, please, please. Because he didn't even, we weren't even talking anymore. We was just, like, sitting there all quiet. Before small talking and laughing and having a beer, Alfa's on him was like, silence. And I was like, fuck, fuck, and I would look around. So, like, there's nothing but fucking mountains around here. So there's no fucking way I can't want to anywhere.

So we stayed there, and then they called him again. And I was like, fuck. And then I called here. They told him. no they were coming to eat some tacos to the to the corner with an old lady that sells tacos in the corner they're like shh mother couldn't you fucking pick a different place to go for tacos it's Uber eats so yeah he was like no they're eating tacos so you're good there you go let's go we drove back that kind of shit is terrifying that was fucking crazy yeah yeah I got scared that time

Fuck. One of the things I want to ask you, I was in a couple years ago, I think two years ago, I was, I stayed in Puerto Vallarta for a couple weeks and Sayulita. Yeah. And I read a couple articles saying that those areas, including places like Cancun, are really highly sought after turf for the cartels because, or not for the cartels, but mainly for like the, smaller drug gangs because they want to sell to the tourists are those areas those places like cancun and and uh and uh porta biarta are those places becoming more and more dangerous yeah definitely um the thing is you're not only dealing with straight dealing which is a lot of fucking money for tourists right i mean the tourist um the tourism industry buying drugs in tourist areas

it lives a lot of money because they overpriced every single fucking bag of cocaine and shit. So they make a big buck out of that. But also, most of their resorts, if you look at the owners of their resorts, there's a lot of Italian people from Romania, Russian. It's a lot of fucking mafia from,

we're talking mafia from Korea, Korea, Italy, Russia, Romania, all over the fucking world. Mostly those four places. They own a lot of the real estate in those tourist traffic areas? Because they're,

They're laundering money from their own organizations through those resorts, right? Holy fuck. And not only laundering money, but also it's private land. It's private beaches. So by night you will see a lot of fucking small boats between the morning getting there and going out from there. So they're shipping a lot of drugs also from there out from Mexico, Mexican drug to Europe, right? to a lot of like Europe destinations or Asia destinations. Wow.

So they're making a big buck out of there. So Mexican cartels are trying, we're not trying, but they're looking to break a bigger deal with them, right, to make the biggest part. Not only asking them for, look, what they call uso de soil, which is basically I'm charging you for operating on my turf. you're giving me a percentage of what you're doing on whatever the fuck is that you're doing. Anything. Because they're on human trafficking, sex trafficking,

selling drugs, shipping drugs, laundering money. Those places are hotspots for fucking crime. All of that shit. Prostitutes, cocaine. Yeah. So the Mexican cartels are like, well, we don't want just a piece of your business now.

We want in. And they started like fighting, killing, moving, and the whole fucking dynamics started changing around those places. So right now, they're becoming dangerous places, not because they're targeting tourists, but because there's a

fucking war between the... Tourists are just like collateral damage. And when you heard that, they're killing, they kill the Canadian, they kill an Asian, like, almost all of them were targeted because they were part of the organization, right? These two Canadian, Asian-Canadian,

I think it were like Korean or Vietnamese, me, Canadian. What's the deal with that fucking monkey that got shot? Yeah. The narco monkey. What is the story behind that fucking thing? That story is like, I don't know if to actually laugh or cry because I mean, I mean, why will you kill a fucking monkey, right?

First of all, why will you have a monkey completely tactical dressed, right? Rest in peace. Rest in peace. Bro, those things are fucking, can be ruthless when they want to. want to be. Really? I mean, I know I had a friend that had one, but I was so fucking scared of this. Bro, I've seen videos of those things like ripping people's scalps off and shit,

moving their faces off. I mean, I was completely scared. Your balls off. That's what they do, Brian. Yeah, for sure. I don't know if they were actually using him as a weapon, you know, like attacking people or protection or whatever, or they just find it cool because he was properly dressed, right? He had his tactical vass and the, and the, like, sweatshirt, like, shirt,

I mean, he was all dressed up. What was going on? Like, why did he get shot? He was, apparently he was the pet of one of the, one of the guys from La Familia Michoacana, which is a cartel in central Mexico. In Michoacan, in Mexico State, they're huge. So apparently what happened is that a couple of members of La Familia Michoacana went to the police station, the state police station, to shoot the police.

station to actually shoot on the police officers so they started into a gunfight they started chasing them they went into a uh they tried to hide in one of their branches uh in Mexico state and one of the bosses had a spider monkey with him and so he was like a casualty of the gunfight but I'm not sure I'm not sure about that because there's that photo of that monkey laying on the side of a man allegedly his owner But there's another photo. I think it was not as popular as that one. There was another photo where he was actually on top of him. Oh, really?

So I don't know. On top of his owner. Uh-huh. Like on his chest. Wait, go up, scroll up. There's one with like a red circle. Yeah, click that one. No, he's on his head on his shoulders.

And I think that's a different photo that was around, but it was not from him. Yeah, I mean. So he was just essentially a pet. of one of the big narco guys. Yeah, exactly. So I don't know if during the shootout, they kill him or they actually execute the monkey, right? I mean, it's weird to even be wording those, saying those words. That's so fucking weird, bro, execute a monkey?

Yeah, man. What did they put like a fucking suicide vest on him or something? Yeah, I mean. Have the monkey, like, run out. And now he has his own corridor, right? His own songs. They're called narco corridos, which are songs that tell, the story of big narcos, right?

So El Chapo has the narco corrido, the Maya has his own several corridos. And now the Spider-Monkey has his own narco-corridor. Someone composed the narco song for the Chang'i-Too, saying that it was not his time to go, and then he left the legacy. Click on that one with him in the clouds and the cross. Yeah, that one.

Shit, man. Wow. Yeah, I mean. Mexico, right? You don't know if to actually to laugh or to cry. That's just crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pover Tchangito. So the Russian mafia is just specifically there just basically because they're shipping, they're there to control stuff that they're trying to ship back to Russia. They're just trying to make money on, there's like small Russian gangs that are in there that are just trying to make money selling drugs.

Both, I mean, the opera and both. There was a recent arrest and a guy called, Let me find his name because I have it in here recently. He was not Russian. He was Romanian. Oh, Romanian. I thought the Russian mafia was down there. Yeah, also.

Yeah, it's the Russians and the Romanian mafia is down there. I can't remember his name, but anyways. He was recently arrested in Cancun because Tudor. His last name was Tudor. T-U-D-O-R. And everybody knew that he controlled. most of the hotels operating in

Cancun. He operated a street truck selling, a sex trafficking ring, and he was laundering money for Romanian and Russian organizations out of Cancun. So, I mean, he was pretty fucking huge because he even got there's photos and video

of him on a public meeting he had with Mexico top security chief, Rosa Isela, whatever. She's the top security chief for Mexican government. He got together with her to ask her for more protection in Cancun because it was getting dangerous and whatever

and offering also his services to if she needed something in Cancun and all that shit because he was allegedly a business owner, right? But the Interpol had an international investigation out of him. So he got arrested. His organization is still gone. A lot of call centers also where he's laundering money and making a lot of fucking frauds. And it's U.S. call centers established in Mexico because Altarsing is cheaper. But he's controlling those call centers in Cancun.

Aren't a lot of the fucking U.S. car manufacturers based in, have manufacturing plants set up in Mexico? Yeah. There are a lot of them. Like GM and like Ford, don't they manufacture a shitload of cars in Mexico? Are those controlled by the cartels? at all? No, not really, but... How the fuck do they stay, like, away from the cartel down there? I think they...

I think they're just not a huge start. I think they're more problematic than a target for the cartels, right? Because they're bringing more attention. Imagine what will happen if you will have a cartel threatening or kidnapping or trying to get into one of the fucking Ford plant, right? So I guess what they

do is they deal... They're not a good deal with government, government ask them, like, just don't fucking mess with these guys, because it's a whole lot of inversion of investment that they have in in Mexico. So don't fuck it up, right? I guess that's what they do. Different from what they do with mining. Mining companies before establishing when they're on the exploration phase of a mine.

A mine, where are they mining? A lot of silver, copper, a lot of minerals. And now lithium, there's a huge fucking lithium deposit. In what parts of Mexico are they mining that shit? In the border of Sonora and Chihuahua. Imagine that. Really? Sinaloa cartel control place.

Fuck. So the mining operations... And guess who has the... Guess who has the contract for that? Who? China, of course. No. The Chinese company has the contract for exploiting that lithium.

And the cartel doesn't touch that. Yes, of course. Oh, they do touch it. They're in. They're in. They're in on it. They're partners with China. Well, they're giving protection to the China, China's company that is mining there. So they made a deal with the government and with the Chinese company, mining company.

That is the biggest supplier for Tesla cars for Tesla batteries. Whoa, dude. That's, I mean, I've been working on that fucking story. It's still not out because I still need a lot of more sources. and papers and untangle the fucking story. But I pitched it like a year ago. They said yes and I'm still working on it. Slowly but surely.

But yeah, that company... This is the biggest... This is one of the biggest mining operations in Mexico. It's the biggest in Mexico and one of the biggest in Latin America. And it's owned by China in partnership with the Sinaloa cartel. Well, it's... Right now, it's only the contract for experts. exploration, right? To explore how much lithium there is or whatever, but there are studies

already proved that it's the biggest deposit of lithium. So they're just setting up, they say on paper, they say they're just setting up and exploring if there is. But they could very easily be already taking it. But when you go there and talk to the residents around the area, to the local residents, it's a very small town in the outskirts of the middle of fucking nowhere. They are actually now working on setting up the whole fucking plant, right? So I'm like, but aren't they, they're just exploring? And they're like, no, no, we're setting up. We have contracts to work on construction, and we're setting up to start exploding the mine.

Right. Mexico is threatening to nationalize all lithium because they say it belongs to Mexican government. But it's still that. I barely got out of public high school. So you got to explain to me what nationalized means. That means that the whole lithium, will belong to Mexico. So they will give a permit for YouTube or for China or whoever to exploit and do the job.

But the actual mineral, it's Mexico's property. Got it. Right. So that's what they're trying to do. The Mexican government is it's threatening companies and doing that. And of course, it's making a lot of fucking people nervous about that. But for the time being, they handed the contract of exploration. to a China company.

Under a subsidiary, it's like under a smaller company, a partner company, a Mexican company that didn't exist until like two or three years ago. It's called Bacanora Lithium. Bacanora lithium. Bacanora lithium.

So that's supposed to be the Mexican company. But that Bacanora lithium, when you go on the webpage and see who's the owner of Bacanora Lithium is this biggest China company that is the main. supplier for lithium for Tesla right so there's an interesting thing going on there

and when I spoke with some of the Senadoa cartel members around that area they were like I was like how's that playing out with you guys because I know that's your territory and they told me no we got hired to give out protection while they do the work and I'm like by who it's like by the Chinese company by Bacanora right by Bacanora lithium Mexican company, but it's owned by this Chinese biggest company. So they're protecting the area. That means they are threatening, kidnapping, and killing families that don't want to sell their land they own to the company.

They're setting prices for the Chinese company. So if the Chinese company wants to pay them, I don't know, one buck for, I don't know, a mile of land or whatever. and they don't want to sell, then the Sinelau cartel jumps in and start threatening those guys or killing them until they sell the land for what the Chinese company wants. So it's a big fucking shit

going on with lithium. And it's, I mean, it's under the radar, of course, because on paper, it's still, and then on the news, it's still on exploration. We're not even sure there is lithium there. Oh my God. Where else is this company in China getting the lithium from where they're selling it

They're the Tesla's biggest supplier. I think Bolivia. Uh-huh. And I don't know. If you go into that company, if you go to Baganura lithium and then you find the, I have all the fucking documents. And they're getting from a lot of places. Bro, China is balls deep in Mexico. And not only Mexico, man.

I mean, they're the biggest. They have Tesla by the balls. They have Elid Musk, the biggest fucking, I guess the biggest fucking businessman in the U.S. Yeah. Richest guy in the world. Yeah. If they have lithium, They're going to control the fucking future of cars.

Ford is going to start making a lot of fucking... I think every car making, right? Every call here. I think somebody said that... I think somebody in the Biden administration said that by 2025, 90% of cars in the U.S. will be electric. So, I mean, if they control one of the biggest or the biggest lithium deposit in Mexico or in Latin America, China is going to have... Are there any Tesla's in Mexico? Yeah.

People drive Teslas? Yeah. Somebody showed me a video yesterday of in California there was like fucking a line around two blocks wrapped around two blocks twice waiting in line to get the charge. That was a that's a old video from 2019, I think. Oh, is it? Thanksgiving. It was like, it was like, it's a, it was called something like the, the Tesla something, whatever. But it was like there was no electricity or something happened, but whatever.

Thanksgiving had to go into that specific place to charge their Right. But it's an old video. It's crazy. The only thing I worry about it with Tesla is electric cars is that in Florida we get a lot of fucking hurricanes. Yeah. And we lose power for multiple days on end. Yeah.

At least once or twice a year during hurricane season. I think that's going to be an issue, right? So I think that that's the one reason. Like, I don't think that one little thing. Like that one little thing is like makes me fearful of it. But like, it's weird when you compare it to all the benefits, I'm sure the out benefits way farther outweigh the when you really think about it those fucking benefits are not really benefits i mean supposedly the benefit is um for um the environment right right they're

not going to be emissions uh-huh right but what are you going to do without all those fucking batteries what are you doing with your iPhone right with your phones and and iPads and tablets and tablets what do we do with all that shit it's become It's waste That it's gonna be there for fucking years Contaminating the fucking environment What do they do with it? You know? Do you bury it?

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, many of us We're just, your cameras or whatever, the batteries Yeah. Many of us just fucking throw it in the trash And that's contaminating a lot, right? If you do it properly, you're going to a deposit, right? To live your batteries and iPhones and all that shit.

But what are they? Well, Elon's whole thing is like we're eventually, It's inevitable that we're going to run out of fossil fuels. at one point. That's what he says. So we might as well start now because we're going to run out of fossil fuels. But I think even he said,

he said that the batteries, the lithium that we're using to make these batteries is not the best option. He's like, we eventually got to move past that and figure out how to get into nuclear-powered cars. He talks about getting into nuclear.

I mean, I don't know. But honestly, with the lithium, it's like, okay, the batteries are going to start piling up on your fucking backyard every time they didn't work right right contaminating maybe more than the emissions of a fucking gas car and the other thing is like the mining for lithium it's uh it's called open mining which is the worst fucking thing that ever happened yeah it's not it's not under ground mining they just basically blow up full fucking mountains and shit and the in the mining it's

it's open it's at the open right it's not closed or underground right right right And that shit contaminates like a hundred percent more than any other fucking type of mining that it's saying too much, right? Like underground mining contaminates a fucking lot because it's exploiting the land. Open line mining, it's like 100% worst. So in order to get lithium, it's open mining. What kind of damage does the open lithium mining do? Like what does it? It contaminates the atmosphere?

I think the atmosphere, yeah, exactly. It goes straight to the atmosphere. And I think the whole explosions that you need to do in order to get to the lithium also are very, like, harmful for the environment. I think apparently, like, it also has a lot of emissions. Yeah. So I think it's, I think it's like when we talk about lithium, I think it's just a trend. You know, like saying, like, it's cool cars and it's a cool trend. Yeah.

But not really, not necessarily. better than what we're doing right now right yeah i had one for a while and we sold it because i had so many problems and i think we're looking at getting one of the uh diesel cars yeah one of the big SUVs that come with diesel because it's way better yeah diesel's worse yeah environment i mean we're going from electric to diesel yeah i mean it's crazy but i think one of the one of the solutions wouldn't it be to actually have maybe um lithium driven public transportation like instead of using a fucking car

you're using a railroad or a or a fucking bus and then we're we're using a collective fucking car right

we're using a boss we're just in a train or some shit like that and it's and that's electric and that's not making emissions so using batteries but not a single

two or three batteries for per home right right and less traffic less of that shit yeah I mean there's already less of it because this is the way the economy's better way that people have been working since COVID everyone works

fucking from home now yeah exactly and that too yeah that measure I mean it's helping right yeah and I'm sure even especially in your industry in journalism and then publishing and stuff like that I'm sure I'm sure 99% of fucking reporters and journalists are working just straight from home and reporting on stuff from home and that's pretty cool I mean that's uh yeah that's a big push for the environment right stay fucking home don't move yeah don't commute do you ever think about like think about the idea if in the future this whole America, Mexico, China thing turned into like what's going on right now

with Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S. Do you think that could ever fucking happen? Like a sort of like a war? Sort of how like Ukraine is just like this proxy area that the U.S. is using to push against Russia. and to fight against Russia.

And it's like this middle ground. It's like this turf that they're using to wage the war between the U.S. and Russia. Because, you know, it's Russia's main border between the rest of the EU, the rest of Europe. And half of Ukraine is divided. Half of its pro-Russia, half of its pro-EU. And it just, from what I'm, like, understanding from this,

it seems like it's almost the same thing with China and the U.S. and Mexico kind of just being that fucking middle ground. Whether they're using, exploiting Mexico to fucking hurt the U.S. And I'm sure it goes the other way as well.

But like it seems like it's kind of the same thing. It might be, man. I mean, I don't know if a proper high intensity war is what is happening in Ukraine, but maybe like a low intensity war, right? When you don't have missiles and you know, all that stuff, like a

But you're using it as a proxy. What I'm not sure of is if I'm sure that China is using Mexico as a proxy. And I think that's going to be happening more and more intense through the years. But I'm not sure that the U.S. can use Mexico as a proxy to China, right? No. I think the U.S. is going to go, what, Taiwan maybe? Taiwan, yeah. There's a deal where they legally have to defend Taiwan, right?

Yeah. Uh-huh, yeah. So I think Taiwan is going to become more like, I think Taiwan is more on the verge of being a proxy. I think it's, I've heard people say that it's basically inevitable that China is going to try to take over Taiwan. I think that's where that shit is going to happen.

And we're legally obligated to defend them. Exactly. Or turn them into a porcupine or whatever and try to keep them safe. Yeah. So maybe Mexico just becomes like leverage or something for China. Yeah, exactly. It's so weird, this whole jeepine or whatever.

political balance. Yeah, man. It's so crazy. And it's crazy for the middle ground countries, right? Like Mexico. Especially the middle ground countries. We're not fucking with anyone. Why are you guys fighting here over whatever the shit you're doing, right?

Because I mean, the fentanyl is, it's, uh, it's, uh, indirectly hurting Mexico as well. I mean, we're not having an issue on people using fentanyl. But it's being cooked in Mexico. It's being shipped over from Mexico. means the army, the U.S. is pressuring Mexico to go and fight a fucking undeclared war on our cities, you know. That's affecting us and our families and everybody who lives there. So, I mean, it's fucking bullshit. Well, what do you think it would take to get Mexico out of the state that it's in?

And like, what would it theoretically take to fucking get rid of these cartels? without the U.S. I'm saying like independent of the U.S. Like what would it really take to fucking turn Mexico into a sovereign country that is not fucking corrupt and overrun by all these criminal organizations?

I think it will take to it will take a lot of fucking people to lose a lot of fucking money. So I think that will change the situation in Mexico. It will have, and not necessarily like, not straight like, okay, let's take all the money from these people and then now Mexico's good. And I'm talking about like if you legalize drugs, if you actually work.

Other countries would have to legalize drugs. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And Mexico, including Mexico because, I mean, it's a huge consumer as well, but not as the U.S. The U.S. definitely main consumer. Europe right now, Antwerp and Netherlands. It's a huge fucking port for the Netherlands are? Yeah.

It's the biggest port right now getting. getting drugs almost as high as the U.S. I thought there was countries over there that had legalized drugs, like fully. But I think that's why they're using that port to get drugs inside. That's why it's convenient. Oh, wow.

Yeah. And the corruption in that port is called Antwerp. It's huge. Like, everybody's fucking working for the cartels right there. So, yeah, I guess we'll have to. So it's the fucking, it's the goddamn fucking churches. It's the Christian churches that are fighting against keeping drugs illegal.

that are fueling all these fucking deaths, bro. Yeah, man. I mean, it's that and that conservative thinking that drugs are necessarily bad. And, you know, I mean... It's so fucking crazy because you think if you legalized all drugs, like deaths would 100% go down. Exactly. And I know what some people believe that...

So everybody's going to use it. But that's going to be a way different, easier problem to solve, the problem of addiction. It's not going to be the fucking... It's going to be a health issue, right? Right. not going to be a security. You're fighting only the people who are abusing stuff and getting addicted and you're not fucking fighting tons of criminal organizations who are straight up fucking slaughtering people every day.

It will definitely need years and years of education and of helping addicts and all that shit, right? But it's going to be a different fucking fight than actually having cartels controlling full territories and killing people and killing monkeys. Right. Murdering innocent monkeys. Exactly. Spider monkeys. Yeah, there's a country. I forget which country it is, but they have a special program there where heroin's legalized.

And if you're a heroin addict, you can actually go and get like supervised doses of heroin from a doctor. And where you're not on the street fucking suffering, like using dirty needles and stuff like that. Exactly, man. I mean, the whole fucking world is, we got to a ridiculous point of hypocritical thinking. I mean, in every single fucking sense, right? the governments are against these helpers that go and deliver clean kneel to addicts in the streets and they go hard against them and they arrest them and put them behind yell if there were like drug dealers they're like dude those guys are trying to stop AIDS from spreading from the use of fucking syringes

right you should be helping those guys and that's the same thinking where I don't know what happened in this recent shootout in Chicago right in Highland Park And if you think about that And it's like, dude, that it's the same... You're talking about the parade, the Fourth of July parade? Exactly. And what I'm talking about was like the hypocrite of thinking. That guy was posting videos online.

He had like millions of listeners on his Spotify, whatever, because he was a rapper. The shooter kid? Yeah, yeah. Are you serious? Yeah, he was a rapper. He was a fucking rapper. You got to find this, bro. Yeah, he was a fucking rapper.

And he had like millions of listeners. And he was talking about, like, massive shootouts. He posted videos of how he was going to go and shoot into, like, people. Like, he was all there, right? And you say, like, okay, the U.S. is looking all over our fucking phones or apps. They have all over fucking information. But they can't get a guy that it's openly saying that it's going to fucking kill people. It's like talking about, like, reproduction rights.

Right. Right. Right. They are on their apps of every girl tracking their phone. fucking... Pracking their periods. Right. My wife just fucking deleted that app

off her phone. Because they're there. They're sneaking upon those fucking ass, but they can't fucking sneak upon a guy openly talking to a million of people. This kid's really a rapper? Yeah. Robert Creamo.

It was called Awake the something. Dude, I saw something where he put... Wow, he really did have a Spotify. Awake the rapper. Awake the rapper. Yeah. I saw some sort of post where he said, that he was a product, he was part of MK Ultra.

Man. The CIA's fucking mind control. I mean, he might, I don't know if it was, but he's, uh, that's a screenshot of, like all of those photos are a screenshot of a video he posted that it's very fucking disturbing. This video wearing the smiley face shirt? Yeah. What do you do in this video?

Can we watch it? I think, I think it's a video, right? Can you find the video? Can we watch it? Just click on, if you click on the picture, it should pull up the video. Yeah. Pull up the article. Yeah.

right there where says visit don't put this on the screen though because i don't want to have to get fucking banned by youtube yeah yeah the the video it's on his uh i can't remember what's the name of his beat meo account see this is the problem too we're fucking talking about it on a podcast and like giving this guy more attention this is exactly what he wanted exactly yeah but it is a problem though because we have and i mean the fucking with the uh all of the surveillance that the fucking NSA does on our phones and the way that the government regulates Facebook and control social media and tries to track people's information. So they're tracking people, women trying to get health reproductive services, but they're not tracking those fuckers, right? It's like, dude, we are all

thinking wrong. We are so fucking hypocritical. We need to, we need to set that fucking straight. How is that going to fucking affect Texas, that abortion law? I heard that it's going to be like the day one you find out you're pregnant, it's completely illegal to have an abortion. I'm not sure, but that's what I'm hearing to. I don't know, man. I mean... That's your state.

Yeah. I mean, that fucking state, man. Honestly, I'm fed up with that state. I mean, I like Texas as a land, but their laws are just so fuck, hypocritical again, right? And gun laws, you, what are the... How is it to get a gun in Texas?

It's nothing. It's nothing. What do you have to do? Nothing, just go and just go and get one, literally. Just show up with all fucking face tattoos and neck tattoos and they'll give you one. Literally, man. No, for sure. I mean, for real, that's what's going on.

And I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I think the whole debate between the gone law, if we should be able to or not able to, I think it doesn't really matters. Because if you look then again to Mexico, right? And if you say, like, let's prohibit everyone for having a gun. Nobody is shooting up schools in Mexico. That's not happening in Mexico, but still, there's a lot of fucking people getting killed in Mexico, right? I mean, how did it work for Mexico to being so strict, right? But the other way around is also, what I'm trying to say is like, it doesn't really matter. It's a wrong debate.

It's a wrong conversation we're having about, like, gone laws. It doesn't really matter. It has no effect into what's happening in the U.S. with the shootings and all that shit, right? It's not about guns. If you want a gun, if it's illegal, you're going to get one. It's going to happen what happened in Mexico, right? It's easier to get an illegal gun and a legal gun.

If you, if it's legal, you're going to get it as well. I think it's a matter of education. Those guys are a product of something that's wrong on their houses, on their schools, right? Which guys? The school shooters? Yeah. Or the guys like the Highland?

There's something fucking wrong. Because I don't know if it has ever crossed your mind doing some shit like that, right? And in most of us that grew up, I don't know, you always got a bully on your school, you always got bad times or whatever, but you never think about going to bring a fucking AK and shoot the whole fucking school, right? Right. Something has happened to those guys and they're not getting enough attention. Something really fucking bad is that.

And it's not gone loss. Those guys aren't saying like, oh, I can't get a gun. Let me go shit. I mean, it's easier for them, of course. But it's harder in Mexico, but we're still having certain people fucking kill the day. Different problem, but lives gone as well. If you want something, you're going to get it. If it's illegal, it's just going to cost you more.

Yeah. If it's illegal, it's just going to cost you less. You're going to get it. If you want to kill someone and have a gone and make a fucking massive shootout, The problem is not how easy it is for you to get a gun. The problem is why are you fucking even thinking about that, right? That's the main issue. Also, another part of the problem is the fact that the media and politicians in the U.S. specifically,

they just use this as political ammunition just to get more power. Exactly. They don't give a fuck whether it's illegal or not. It's just a matter what's going to get them more votes or what's going to get them elected. Yeah. Now, again, I'm not one of these. guys that saying like let's all have weapons or whatever I don't own and I don't plan to own I I just don't like weapons you don't like weapons at all I don't really I mean no I mean I've seen

just too much out of them that I that's that's that's interesting coming from a guy who's been around yeah I've been around too much to like them you know yeah yeah so I'm not I'm not against them but I'm not super fucking fond of of guns right right but but at the same time I think like If you make them harder to get, what you're going to do is you're only going to create a black market. A few ones, a couple of people that's going to make tons of fucking money out of that fucking industry. You don't want a black market market of guns in the U.S. Right.

I mean, that's going to add up to the fucking problematic. Yeah. So prohibition, whatever it is, it never works, never fucking works. It only creates black markets. It only puts more people in danger and only feeds the pockets of a few. Yeah, it's a weird thing. Like the difference between Mexico and America is in Mexico, the violence stems from an industry, right? A black market industry.

It's like life or death, like trying to put food on the table and a greed. Like greed, like making more money and turf, ego, businesses and stuff like that. Control. and here, like, when you're talking about school shootings, even though it probably adds up to way fewer deaths than the deaths that come from the cartels in Mexico, it's almost like it's from like things are too good here. Yeah. And you have people who are just isolated and fucking ostracized from their fucking groups or their school groups or whatever it is.

They have fucked up parents. And just like the culture here in general. general is so much different than there because it's like it's almost too good here yeah yeah yeah exactly exactly man exactly that's what that's what i've been talking with a lot of people leaving the u.s and they feel like like things are just too easy in the u.s that it makes people sick you know it makes people feeling lonely and and they and the other countries like the big fucking the russas and the chinas will exploit that yeah to work for like russia you'll see it with like propaganda and like the new like like the media like trying to manipulate that kind of stuff or trying to

try to manipulate the mind rather at least in history throughout history and then when you have things like what we're talking about with china and and fentanyl allegedly if that's what their intentions are trying to manipulate the weaknesses of america that way yeah i mean and and and again the media it's not helping right because every single one of those fuckers they always leave something like a manifesto or a video or something they want the fucking attention and they keep getting the attention they keep getting their names all over the fucking news their faces their videos their rap songs their manifestos it's like let's just fucking keep ignoring those motherfuckers so when they go out and think about like i'm going to shoot a lot of people for

nothing because no one's going to fucking remember me anyways i think that's going to that's going to keep them probably it's going to keep them like from doing that because they're not going to feel important right they're not going to feel like they're going to change something right yeah it's more of a public suicide than anything just like how can I commit suicide and create the most attention yeah it's like it's like the kid that's calling for attention by harming I don't know

the cat his cat or his pet or whatever yeah and it's like just fucking throw him in fucking I don't know man it's a hard it's a hard thing to to have an answer to but but I'm pretty sure that that guns had nothing to do with it. Yeah, no, I agree. Bro, thank you for coming all the way from Mexico and doing this. I think we're almost at like three hours, three and a half, three, two hours, 45 minutes like that.

My fucking hour went out of battery. Bro, it's been awesome. Tell people watching and listening where they can find out more of your, find more of your work, your substack, everything, all, you know, where they can follow you. For sure, man. If you go to my website, El Chaparro, L-C-H-A-P-A-R-O-com, you'll find my YouTube channel where I'm trying to be as active as I can, but I mean, I'm fucking swamped and work.

But every time I find some interesting clips when I'm embedding with cartels or with U.S. authorities or I did an embedding also with the Border Patrol along the border to find out how they are arresting and who are they arresting along the border and that stuff. So every time I do something like that, I will post it in YouTube. Also, you'll find there every single one of my stories regarding crime and immigration drugs. And if you go there where it says one detail insights on security click here, that's my soft-tech account, where I post more of like the raw information. It's called confidential. And what I try to think of confidential is like where I post that raw stuff that it's not curated or edited.

You know, it's like raw interviews, raw audio interviews, a raw article without being properly. Spell checked. Yeah, spell checked and, you know, like all that shit or, or, yeah, exactly. More like raw shit and a lot of, like. I can get out. I like that better because it's more raw. You can get it out.

When people are being more raw and trying to just get stuff out, rather than sitting on it for too long, I enjoy that shit more. Because I used to like be the same way. I used to like create like a lot of like documentary style stuff and and spend. months on one project. And when I transition doing this stuff, it's more like, it's more authentic because you can basically just get right to it.

You can fucking like me, like fumbling through my word, trying to learn as I go. But you're able to put out a lot more content that way. Exactly. I enjoy that shit more. And sometimes in the news you can't post like the names, you know, like who is controlling Sonora and who's controlling Chihuahua? And like who gives a fuck, right? But I

do give a fuck. And sometimes I just post photos of like, this is the cartel bows for Chihuahua and this state and this region and all post like their names and photos and you know like more detailed information that it's not really making the news because it might not be newsworthy but it will it will keep you um aware and informed and educated on what's going on in in the whole fucking crime world in latin america so yeah i guess that's the that's the way to go and and of course my my instagram account sometimes i'll be also embedding talking with someone uh sharing stuff that i get shared by on your instagram's awesome

bro. You're super active on my Instagram. I love watching. I'm super active on my Instagram. I had to do one thing, you know, and I guess that's Instagram, and I'm posting a lot of shit there all the time. Cool, man. Well, I will link it all in the description, and thanks again. Thank you, man. It was really fun, and thanks for the whiskey. Yep. Goodbye, world.