Digital Social Hour - C*rtel Wars: The Brutal Truth Behind Tijuana's Chaos!| Ed Calderon DSH #623

Episode Date: August 11, 2024

Get ready to dive deep into the untold stories of Tijuana’s C*rtel Wars with Sean Kelly on the Digital Social Hour! 🌟 In this explosive episode, we sit down with Ed Calderon, a former state police officer, who spills the brutal truth behind the chaos that gripped Tijuana. From the militarization of the c*rtels to the life-or-death decisions on the streets, this episode is packed with jaw-dropping insights you won’t hear anywhere else. 🔥   Ever wondered what it’s like to be caught in the crossfire of Mexico's most dangerous c*rtels? Or how a punk rock kid turned into a paramilitary-trained officer fighting corruption from within? Ed takes us through his intense journey, revealing the shocking realities and high-stakes battles that shaped his life and the city of Tijuana. 💣   Tune in now for an eye-opening conversation that will leave you at the edge of your seat! Don't miss out—watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more captivating stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀   Join the conversation and hear about: - The rise and fall of Tijuana's most notorious c*rtels - Ed’s firsthand encounters with corruption and danger - How Tijuana transformed from the world’s most dangerous city to a booming metropolis   Watch now and get the inside scoop on the real stories behind Tijuana's Cartel Wars! 🌐🎥   #UsmexicoBorder #IllegalDrugTrade #EdCalderon #TijuanaCrimeRates #CartelInfluenceOnYouth   CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:45 - The C*rtel Wars Begin 04:59 - Join the Digital Social Hour 08:52 - The C*rtel Wars: Outnumbered and Under Supported 11:46 - How the C*rtels Recruit 15:54 - Corruption in the Justice System 21:37 - The C*rtels Target Families 23:38 - Current State of the C*rtels 25:28 - Tijuana’s Transformation 27:39 - C*rtels and the Marijuana Market 29:40 - Border Security and C*rtel Tunnels 31:24 - C*rtel Drones 32:50 - Drug Smuggling 36:10 - Corruption in Law Enforcement 42:00 - Resignation from Position 42:57 - Leaving the Seals 44:13 - Starting a New Life in the US 45:07 - Advocacy for People in Mexico 46:55 - Where to Find Ed   APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail]   GUEST: Ed Calderon https://www.instagram.com/manifestoradiopodcast   SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly   LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey Billy, why don't we tell them what we're about, man? So we're here to welcome you to the Madhouse Chronicles. It's a talk show with myself, Billy Morrison. And me, Ozzy Osbourne. This man, Prince of Darkness, and we watch and react to the maddest internet clips. What do we discuss, Ozzy? Drugs, rock and roll, aliens, all that kind of shit. Drugs, rock and roll, aliens, and all that kind of shit.

Come and join Ozzy and myself. Visit osbournemed media house.com to get special access to come on what do you say do you think it's the wildest show on the internet until back then was basically the u.s would tell us certain things or we would get information handed to us from either the investigative branch of our department or some of the military intelligence units. One guy would turn into four houses that we would hit in a night. Were you ordered to kill them on the spot or just capture them?

There was an open call specifically for our group to have us murdered. There was bounties on our badges. We got Ed Calderon here, former state police officer in Tijuana during the cartel wars. Live to tell the tale. The beginning of the literal shit hitting the fan of the cartel wars. Wow. 2004 era. So walk me through that year. That's when it all started.

Did you see that war coming? Cartel stuff had already been happening across the country, but not to a level where it was heading. I was part of an experimental police force that they were trying to set up in Baja specifically. Back then, there was no state agency, basically, that was able to police the whole state region of Baja. It was too big. It was too big. It was too big. And also there was just no, that just didn't think about it.

It was not an issue. The federal police was, were basically army guys dressed in gray, which funny enough, they're that's the same place we're at now. And really nobody knew exactly what was coming. They just saw a militarization aspect of cartels in Mexico. They realized that larger groups were fragmented.

And what used to be a Tijuana cartel by the name of the Arellano Fias cartel that we used to control the whole of Tijuana specifically, which is basically the richest drug route into the united states started to get fragmented uh some of its leadership got killed and arrested and like this the the phenomenon of cutting off one head and having it turn into three or four started to happen. So they started basically training up people like myself in a paramilitary way, fashion. I was trained by members of the GAFE, which are Army Special Forces people. And I thought when I saw a police academy, I thought I was going to go into a police academy,

you know, be some sort of, uh, some sort of a law enforcement professional and community policing stuff. It was not that. That's an understatement. Yeah. So they, uh, shaved all our heads and, um, they told us the first day we have bread and dick for you and bread ran out a week ago. So, so it was, it was pretty brutal training. These guys were basically there to try and make us quit. A lot of the training was basically militarized. It was assaulting training, vehicle assaults, hardcore physical training, and basically a lot of things to make us quit. Meanwhile, that was going on. All of us were getting basically FBI background checks and our backgrounds in Mexico checked.

So as you were going through training, you would have people being pulled out of training. Like, hey, did you move a few pounds of marijuana across the border here in Texas? It's like, how did you know that? Wait, so the FBI was involved at this point? The FBI was doing background checks on all of us as we were going through this. So this was very much a transnational effort at that time there were the u.s had good relations with the with mexico in this in this specific time frame which has changed now yeah changed a lot right yeah they don't work together anymore so that was kind of the start of my uh my entry into this world um once i got out this was around the the presidency of vicente fox

once i got out we had felipe calderon no relation by the way not not he's not my uncle although some people are like hey what's your name tag not related um we we got basically pulled into this militarized war. He basically declared a full-on assault on cartels all over Mexico. He took the military out of their barracks and put them front and center as far as the main weapon against cartels. Not a lot of planning, not a lot of smarts behind it. It was very much like there was nobody else. Wow. And during this whole process,

they didn't have a good idea about how to do the work that they had to do. Are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest? Well, click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life.

Click the application link below, and here's the episode, guys. In certain regions, they didn't know their way around. People don't know this. In Mexico, most of the military forces are drawn from certain parts of the country, and they get moved for security purposes. So you would have members of the military in Baja

operating in places where they didn't know their way around or they couldn't blend in realistically. And also the law was pretty vague back then, so a lot of them didn't have arresting powers per se or they couldn't document certain things. So I was part of a very big effort by the government to basically integrate state, local, and federal forces into a cohesive units to go after cartels. So it was everybody's problem.

Wow. basically mixed operations groups where we would be the military us and uh federal agencies or uh federal uh federal uh law enforcement personnel and we would basically go out and see what we could find or we had no intel you just go out there so until back then was basically the u.s would tell us certain things sometimes or we would get information handed to us from either the investigative branch of our department or some of the military intelligence units. Or if something popped up somewhere

and we managed to grab a few of them, that would lead into more work for us, basically. One guy would turn into four houses that we would hit in a night. And were you ordered to kill them on the spot or just capture them? Well, that's an interesting question. There was an open call specifically for our group to have us murdered. There was bounties on our badges for a while. During the beginning parts of this weird war what happened in tijuana specifically

was there was a faction of the sena law cartel battling it out with remnants of the tijuana cartel what was left of the ariana fiaz cartel for control and in the middle was us uh on one side they had people trying to infiltrate us and have people that worked with us be basically started being corrupted and flipped flipping. And on the other side of it, they were offering bounties were badges. Holy crap. Because they, uh,

we were known for showing up to places where other people wouldn't show up. Um, the whole command structure around it was militarized. So we had military leadership above us and the order was less detainees and more bodies. Speaker 2 Jesus, that is scary. Speaker 3 On the leadership side, that was kind of the mindset. I think Tijuana at that point was the most dangerous city on the planet. According to, MetLife told us that it was, we had the, one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet for the people because we had MetLife insurance.

A lot's changed there. Now it's the party city of the world. Now it's San Diego South is what they call it. But it was, it was pretty dire and uh a lot of interest came together and basically started pressuring both government private sector and uh and the military and security to basically do something about it and that's how that's how we got a lot of uh support and push to try and do our jobs. You guys were outnumbered, right? It's not that we were outnumbered per se.

I think there was not a lot of us. The operations group that was part of it wasn't numerous, but we would work with the military, so we would show up in bulk. Got it, got it. But what there wasn't a lot of was support. We were undermanned at times because of shitty decisions in leadership, underarmed. I mean, I remember going out on my first operational work

with a handgun, two magazines, and a rifle with two magazines. Oh, my gosh. And some soft armor that was probably third or second hand. Jeez. The first solid plate armor I had we found at a safe house. Wow. We went in there, and we saw a bunch of vests on the ground, and the commanding officer was like, it fits you know just put it on

yeah so he flipped something fighting with scraps we were basically undermanned uh under supported we didn't have a lot it was a running joke that we would run into naked um geez then a figure by the name of lieutenant colonelzaola kind of made an appearance as far as leadership for us. He has a few documentaries on him, and he's a very legendary character. Lieutenant Colonel from the Army, who basically came in, and he was involved way back in the formalization

of the unit that I was in. So he was there for our training, our selection. He was there for the planning of our unit and what it was going to do. And all of a sudden, he was now the guy in charge. So he was basically from start to finish, he was there trying to figure out how to use us. And once he got into a command position, basically it was game on for us. Weaponry started being like, we went from having an AR rifle with two magazines

to now having a German G3 rifle and all the magazines we could carry. And we started basically doing a lot more with the support that we had. That's incredible. And again, the society as a whole was just like done with it. There was curfews.

People couldn't go out. Abductions, ransom were rampant across the city and across the state. And shootouts, middle of the day. When I first started working in Tijuana, you would see these cartel convoys in the middle of the day, broad daylight just rolling around Tijuana. There would see these cartel convoys in the middle of the day, broad daylight, just rolling around Tijuana. There's no fear. Wow.

And that changed when they started basically supporting us a bit more and started implementing some of the upgraded tactics with Lieutenant Colonel Lizell and the militarization of what we were doing. How did these cartels get so big? Were they recruiting people at a young age? Yeah. I mean, it's Tijuana. Like I grew up skateboarding, uh, and I was into punk rock. I was in a few bands. I was a dork. Um, I went to medical school for about two years and it didn't work out for me.

Um, and there was realistically, once I, once I got out of school and tried to figure out my future, I realized how there's absolutely no opportunities for people like me. There was no job opportunities. It was barren. Wow. A lot of my friends started showing up in fancy cars and started showing up in parties with money. And like, what are you doing for money uh so a lot of them were started working as drug mules trying to crossing stuff into san diego um

some of them started working as pistoleros or sicarios were some of the organizations out there and again some of these kids were um there weren't, they aren't who you would expect. We had this concept that kind of originated itself in Baja, the narco juniors, which are basically middle class cartel, middle class kids going into cartel work because they're bored. And also because their, their future, basically taking over their family businesses wasn't romantic enough for them and going out seeing the life and hearing some of the music and being enticed by some of the romanticism of some of these cartels because the cartels and some of these criminals are the heroes

and the songs down there and they're the heroes of the movies and the novellas. So a lot of them went that route. I was a punk rock kid. I was an anarchist and I was very anti all of that shit. Did you get approached at any point? Of course. Of course. Early on when I was trying to figure out my way after school, I had about a year and a half where I didn't have a fucking clue what I was going to do with my life.

And I started seeing a lot of my friends basically going to do with my life. Um, and I started seeing a lot of my friends basically just show up with money and cool cars. There was a, there was a kid, a redhead kid, um, who showed up with a, this Dodge Ram, this brand new fucking Dodge Ram to a house party that I had. And this is a kid that grew up in a house that had garage doors for a wall, you know? Wow wow and all of a sudden he shows up in this dodge uh dodge pickup truck um and he's the first one that kind of told me like hey you know here you're young and energetic and you have a lot of cardio because you skateboard wouldn't you want to come work and um again i was i was very into the counterculture.

Money as a whole didn't really entice me, although I did want opportunities for myself. I just didn't see that as a life for me, though. So I shied away from it. I actually put my paperwork in to work at a call center that was telling that that was down in Tijuana because of my good spoken English that I have and that didn't work out and I saw the ad in the newspaper for this weird experimental police force and my brother and my dad made the worst mistake by

telling me that I couldn't do it that They thought it was too risky, too dangerous? No, they thought I wasn't man enough to go through that type of training. Because a lot of people probably didn't make it through the training like you said, right? It was something challenging. And they saw me as this skinny skateboarding punk rock kid. And like, what are you going to be doing there with all these men you know it's not for you right and that's probably the worst thing that could have done i guess it fueled you it uh it it motivated me to to try wow i did my i did my qualification run vacation run wearing idney skateboard shoes classic um the uh the the but the the amount

of times that people approach everybody was approached you know money yeah and you say they even approach police officers to to bribe them right constantly like when we were active when we were cops that it was it was always somebody inside that would approach you. So we would do things called careos. Careos are basically when you go and face off with the person you arrested for something. Which is back then the justice system was different. Something changed probably 10 years ago. The justice system changed in Mexico. But back then, if you arrested somebody with an amount of drugs, you would have to go to a federal courthouse and basically sit in front of the accused that you arrested for something. And his lawyer would question you about how you did your arrest and if everything was on the up and up and the judge would question you.

And in these moments, basically you were exposed. There's no hiding who you were, your name or anything. So it was risky. Damn. So you didn't want to arrest the wrong person because then...

And even if you arrested the wrong person, you would find out there. One, because if you arrested the wrong person, he probably wouldn't be in that chair anyways because he would get paid out right from high up because the the corruption ran all the way to higher federal judges wow so even the judges were yeah so you would you would arrest somebody and you had everything on him and the judges would say oh this is uh he's no this is all wrong you did you did this arrest this was wrong you weren't here you lied about this and this is wrong so he's off damn and you would be like wait what and then

you would somebody would approach you and say you just just let it go holy crap because the corruption was that high it still is it's still like that right now still it's still like that in a lot of places. That's when you would get approached. People would see who was working with who, and also now they had a name to the face. So that's where you would get approached, by lawyers, by other members of the groups that you were in,

because we were placed through various background checks and verifications and safety checks. FBI background checks were done regularly. If somebody looks me up, I have a few in my career because of weird access I got to training here in the U.S. But also we were polygraphed. Our financials were looked into. They would show up at your domicile, wherever you were living, and they would inspect your house to see how many TVs you had. And if you had one more than the last time, you would have to verify and document how you got that TV, basically.

Wow. So your privacy was gone. Wow. And if you were up to some shit and they asked your neighbor about you and he's oh yeah he has weird cars coming here all throughout the night then you would be screwed they were really anal about it so they were trying to keep us clean this lasted for a few years it didn't last long though um but all it took was one of us to flip and he would approach the rest wow um for me it was an easy choice i saw the older generation that was in front of me when i got out go through the same process and i knew

as soon as one of the guys started showing up with a new car or money his is time frame as far as being alive was going to be short because because if you get flipped by one of these cartels are basically battling it out for the city the other the other cartel is your enemy so they're going to go after you they're going to go after that whatever exposed heads the other side has. Holy crap. So if you're working for one side, they'll get to you. So if you flip, it's like a death sentence. It's not a long-lived type lifestyle. Oh, my gosh. And it's probably tempting to flip, too.

I mean, the amount of money that some of these guys would get, tempting. The influence, the power, the access. Yeah. Again, I was a punk rock hit i didn't care about a lot of that shit i i my my days were spent playing playstation in a empty fucking uh apartment with a mattress on the ground that was my heaven so that's what saved you that not no desire for money kind of works in your favor. It wasn't that I didn't desire money. I realized early on that the way you survive there is if you did your job, you didn't make anything personal, and you just fucking kept it on straight and narrow.

Right. Not a lot of people had that fucking mindset. I mean, you can have that mindset being single and not having any kids. Right. But once you have kids, are you going to fucking live off the amount of money that they're paying you? So being single helped you too then? Yeah. I got married later on in life and had a kid later on.

But while I was going through that whole process, it was just me. Right. Some of the other guys didn't, you know, they're Mexicans, fertile Mexicans. So I saw them, as soon as I saw something getting married, having kids, the need, the need appears.

Sign of weakness, because they can expose it, right? And also you have family now, so they can go after them. Right. So it was... So were they actually going after kids and wives and stuff too? Yeah.

Wow. One of my friends, and we were talking about Ensenada. Yeah. One of my... All of us would identify with the generation of police that we came out of as far as training. So it was like first generation, second generation. I was of the seventh generation of the operations group that were coming out of the academy. One of the eighth or ninth generation old guys, he was coming out of his house with his wife and kid in the backseat.

And they got shot by FN-57 pistols, which I'd never seen before. This was like when things started getting really escalated down there. They had their kid in the back. She lost her arm. She's still around. Oh, my gosh. But they their kid in the back. She lost her arm. She's still around. Oh, my gosh. But they got him and his wife. These guns are,

have a, they're calling cop killer guns up here. They have a pointy, fast round. It's almost like an AR round, but shorter. We start seeing a lot of them show up down there. So it goes straight through you,

basically? It's a high velocity round, so like soft body armor. Yeah. we start seeing a lot of them show up down there so it goes straight through you basically it's a high velocity round so like soft body armor go through it we start seeing a lot of those and later on we found out all of those guns were looked at fast and furious

so that was like a that was both a wake up call as far as the fact that they're targeting family now, and they didn't give a shit about family or kids. So there was a weird escalation to that. And also the fact that they had these new guns. Yeah, that's scary. Yeah, because with the mafia, Italian mafia, they wouldn't touch the wife or the kids ever.

There was some sort of code down there. It's been dead for years. Jeez. And now it's a free-for-all. Like anybody that's involved. Is it still really bad right now? In certain parts of Mexico. Baja itself is complex right now.

The violent isn't as overt as it used to be. When I say overt, I mean abductions for ransom are low. Basically, people would get snatched in the middle of the street. If you have a business or something, you would get snatched, abducted, and you're ransomed off to your family for whatever they own, basically. You would have roving gunfights between the military and the cartels and the cops out there. Some pretty legendary ones.

But now what you see is basically people working their sales points. If I sell drugs for this cartel over here, the rival cartel will kill my sales rep, basically.

That's a lot of the murders you're seeing are that. Now you're seeing a lot of extortion, paid extortion. So if you don't pay for your business to operate here, we'll burn it down or shoot your employees. Wow. So that's a lot of the violence that's happening in Tijuana right now. You're seeing this revival of personalities and people that I used to work with are now stepping forward into politics now.

So like the lieutenant colonel that I was working with is running for office. The general that I was under, Duarte, is also running for office. And they're all basically trying to get the band back together like all successful operations I guess

Tijuana and Baja itself and what was done in that region by all involved from the army to the state to the private sector and to the government it's probably the only successful uh counter cartel operations that happen in mexico wow it's like it's in the it's it's a few people have written books about this this this this whole debacle that happened there but uh we managed to take

tijuana from the number one city most the most dangerous city on the planet, to not even being on the list. Yeah. And with calm comes amnesia. Having robe and gun fights in the middle of the street to now being calm and peaceful and now attracting investment and 90% of all housing in Tijuana

now being bought up by people from San Diego. Yeah, the real estate is skyrocketing over there. Yeah. You're starting to see all these- You need like a million dollars to get a place out there now. You, the real estate is skyrocketing over there. Yeah. You need like a million dollars to get a place out there now. You start seeing apartment buildings going up all over the place. So this prosperity and peace that came after all the work we did also made us irrelevant and obsolete. Interesting.

When I was on my way out of that job i all of us were pulled into retraining and one of the first things they told us that there was no need for us to walk around with rifles anymore because everything's okay now yeah you know so chill out uh there was no need for you to show up operationally like you always did in the past to some of these situations because everything's just basically told us to chill out uh because we're not in war anymore so a lot of us were viewed differently after you know things started to calm down we were no longer needed um the boss we had lieutenant Lieutenant Colonel Lizola, was sent away. The safety measures that they put in place for us from the background checks to the polygraphs every couple of years to the home checks and all that was slowly but surely taken away because it was deemed unconstitutional and against human against our basic human rights apparently in privacy so a lot of that was taken away but with it basically

it made corruption fester and all of a sudden i found myself in a room with the new leadership of the group that i was in who were all basically on the take. And now there's nowhere to hide. Dang. So you just left. Wow. So we just left. And things have been spiraling after that. And, I mean, again, you say Tijuana is booming right now economically.

And with it, paid extortion, cartels, abductions are back, human trafficking, sex trafficking, and a giant local drug market that is growing off the U.S. money basically there with all the people that can't afford to live in San Diego are now living in Tijuana and with them they bring their drug habits. So all weed trafficking is now from San Diego to Tijuana for example which is a weird it's ironic but yeah it's beautiful it's a beautiful phenomenon well weed prices have gone down and I feel like it's legal in a lot of places now I wonder if the cartels are still making as

much off that so the the the way you think about it though is the cartels have been making money off legal and illegal weed in the U.S. for years. They're the ones that grew the original large pock rows here in the U.S. Really? In federal lands. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. I mean, they've had their hands in legal and illegal weed here for years uh their recent uh discovery of uh them put pulling their money into some money laundering scheme with the weed money in places like colorado so that they didn't lose money or

velocity with the legalization of marijuana in the states i think that was that was talked about as a as a positive if they legalize weed in the states but i remember that realistically it didn't do a lot i mean it didn't affect them a lot and there's still weed being trafficked from mexico up into the u.s i don't know why but there's still some of it there's a lot of border issues right now yeah people are just walking over at this point well i mean that's the the border itself and it's from to me it's been look i i've been able to see all the... I was born in 82 in Tijuana. So I remember when the border was just the metal panels,

the brown metal panels that you could put up. You can go to Home Depot and step a step ladder and just jump over it or not even that just have a guy just give you a boost uh and i remember seeing them basically line up on the border they would wait for a moonless night with with fog and there's no there's no there's no technology that you that the border patrol could use to basically nab them that was then and then i got to see the the post 9-11 border wall being built up and yeah armed security armed security cameras fleer systems uh camera nest uh motion sensors you name it they put it on that border but the enemy that they're trying to stop

you know it's not just they're trying they were trying to stop people trying to cross the border for immigration. They were also trying to stop drugs. And well, cartels started making some of the most sophisticated drug tunnels on the planet. So sophisticated in some cases that technology being utilized in Israel to detect Hamas

terror tunnels was completely useless to detect some of the tunnels in Baja. Wow, they were that deep underground? They were that deep underground and they were not well made. I've heard stories of the soil type being different, the clay type being different.

I don't know, but a lot of those technologies were tried in Baja and they wouldn't work. Wow. My unit was one of the first ones that found some of the the first cartel drones on the orders yeah they had drones the 2011 we found i think it was 2011 2012 era we found these uh these big agricultural chinese quad drones about that big with uh with a giant brick of meth on them. Holy crap.

Just crashed near the port of entry in San Ysidro. I'd seen them on YouTube, but I've never seen one for real. And all of a sudden I saw this and everybody had their sirens on. So I was like, hey, shut the sirens off. And as soon as we shut the sirens off, we didn't see them, but we could hear them wow

so did you shoot it down no it's a bad idea to try and shoot uh shoot down something like that in the city uh it's an urban area and bullets and tend to go down uh we just didn't know we didn't know it was nighttime we didn't know anything about these new technologies um rc cars small rc vehicles being back and forth wow they got creative oh uh we know that at some point submersibles fully submersible somewhere somewhere on the uh on on the on the pacific side uh going across dang uh drug boats speed boats uh back then i don't know if they're still into miami right that was a big thing but also on the pacific side oh yeah they would have these panga boats basically roll in drop a load uh market with floaters and another ship would come

by and pick it up um catapults like uh catapults old style style old style siege engine I don't know if you know what a trebuchet is I don't it's a French siege engine it's basically a catapult arm with a rope and the load tied to it

so when you activate it it has extra fulcrum and they would use that to launch loads across the border the load tied to it. So when you activate it, it has extra fulcrum. Oh, okay. And they would use that to launch loads across the border. Wow. We found a few of those.

That's not far. Small, just small planes. And it was weed mainly they were sending over? Cocaine, weed, heroin. Damn.

Back then. A lot of heroin, but like uh this this different mexican heroin is different it's a brown it's brown powdery light brown powdery heroin uh i remember when the 2005 2006 era i found a ball of tar heroin on a kitchen table somewhere down in Baja. Jeez. And I never saw one. I saw heroin on TV and stuff like that,

but I never saw that much of it. It was this black tar heroin ball. It looked like a ball of Tamarindo candy. And you can smell it. You can smell it from outside. It has a very distinct smell. That was the first and last time I saw that type of heroin. I don't know where they source that specific heroin,

but later on, the type of heroin you were seeing was lighter colored powdered heroin that was laced with fentanyl. Right. That got big. And that started to seep its way into preferences both in local markets because Mexico has a giant local drug market problem. It's not just drugs crossing it to go to the U.S. It's also the drugs that are being sold in local markets.

Oh, really? Wow. So we started seeing the shift in those. So some of the loads that we would see were that. We didn't recognize it looked like Nesquik in a package. They would get it from China, apparently, right? The precursors to make it, and most of the fentanyl, yes, China, China source.

There was some facilities in Mexico that were found during a period that were basically manufacturing it. Realistically, Mexico has, I mean, there's pharmacies on every corner in Mexico. And with it, there's basically giant pharmaceutical companies across the country fabricating things legally and not a lot of oversight. Wow. So what else could they be making? Yeah. So some of that, source from china uh and you saw proof of this during the covet epidemic everything shut down supposedly and uh but not the fentanyl was everywhere man yeah not the fentanyl so

that's that was still going is it true true the – oh, go ahead. So you started to see the U.S. started putting a lot of money into the border security, specifically in Tijuana. And where the most secure border on that whole border region is, is probably the Baja region. And that's where all the drugs go through. Baja region? The San Diego port of entry is the richest drug port on the planet.

Wow. So they paid off all those guys. There's corruption on both sides. Yeah. You hear that, right? Because there's conspiracy theories that the government, the U.S. government knew about all this. And it's horrible to say this, but it's true. The most corrupt federal police agency in the United States is Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol because of convictions of people that they caught doing shit. I get a lot of shit online when I say I was a cop in Mexico.

So automatically I was a corrupt cop. I get it. People that know me personally can tell you that I fucking drive the same truck that I used to drive when I was a cop. I came out of that job with less teeth, with the money in my pocket and not a lot to show for it. Just experience. Um, but there, yeah, there's rampant corruption in Mexico, but there's also corruption here in the United States. I could see that. Um,

we would see, uh, border patrol moving suspiciously out of the way before a big shipment, a big group of people would cross. Wow. Or, uh, patterns. You would see people on the Mexico side of the border basically with binoculars and spotting scopes looking at the border crossing and radioing something down to the people that were trying to cross the drug

mules that were in the vehicle lanes yeah and all of a sudden you started seeing all the vehicles because they knew that the their guy was in one of the uh wow inspection that is crazy money they say money is the root of all evil yeah i mean but it's like one thing you learn there is everybody has a price. Right. Even higher politicians. And when you say that, the head of all of our operations was the public safety security chief, Martinez Luna, who was basically the head of the drug czar of Mexico, per se, under Felipe Calderon. And he is in federal prison in the United States right now

for cartel ties. And he was in charge of keeping us honest and setting up the programs to keep us honest. He was the one that installed these processes to keep us clean and polygraph tests and drug tests and all that. That's insane. And now, after all that's been done, he's in prison. I think he was recently caught trying to convince somebody else to do some false testimony for him in prison.

So he was the guy in charge. Wow. So you can imagine what a minefieldelable life and professional life that was. You couldn't trust anyone. You were just doing your own thing. The people that I did trust back then, it turned out later on, it turned out like, hey, you were on the take. You were on the take. I recently, I have a small podcast that I film out of Tijuana.

And I had my former boss, Lieutenant Colonel Izole, show up for it. I talked to him for about three hours about the work we did. It was surreal. Somebody that I worked in that life. It was long ago. It's a lifetime ago in my head. He had a warrant out for his arrest when he was, when we were interviewing him for the podcast.

Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. Because he represents a political party and interest that is counter to the one that is in power now. So that they, they make villains of even if you were, you know,

he's considered a local and almost a national hero. But he doesn't represent the interest of the current party in power. Oh my gosh. That is scary. Yes, you can trust a lot of people and the people you did trust

they would eventually be turned into the villain somehow. Yeah. In some way. I mean, when it came time for me to leave, they basically told me, hey, you either work for us or you don't work. What does that mean? Well, I mean. Subjective, right? Yeah.

I mean, I left in a hurry. Yeah, I bet. They gave me that offer, and there's some people still around that work in that office that remember this, and I recently reconnected with some of them. They were all freaked out. I was doing pretty well for myself. When I left the job, I had a rank of policia segundo. It's a second police officer, which is the rank. I was a regional subcommander for a while, had about 80 people under my command for a bit.

Wow. I had, my record was clean. I never did shit. I didn't have any investigations underneath me. And I got to work security. I got to manage security for a governor. I got to work with all these amazing people. I did great work a stellar work uh and they basically told me that if i didn't play ball this time that

i was not gonna play wow that was basically a death threat holy crap you spent your whole life getting up to that level second in command and you're gone gone just like that yeah i handed every i put everything in a garbage bag all my shit in a garbage bag my vest my badge my radios uh work phone uh gun everything all the all the gear they gave me because everything's signed so you have to give everything back i told them that i was gonna try and see if i could get a vacation time and i actually went there and i printed out my resignation wow after that meeting. Crazy.

Dumped everything in the armory downstairs from the office. And I left the next day. Damn. So your family must have been pretty scared. It was, I was a ghost to my family for most of my career.

Oh, yeah? I didn't show up a lot for obvious reasons. For. Oh, yeah. I didn't show up a lot for obvious reasons. For their safety. Yeah. But they got wind of my departure. I had an opportunity here in the States to seek out my immigration.

And I had friends up here, great friends that I had met and trained with and liaison with when I was still active that basically helped me figure out how to become an American. So that was a godsend. But it was from one day to the other, I had two phones and a bunch of military equipment that I would roll around with and then I didn't have anything. Crazy. Starting a new life in America.

Starting a new life in the US and with a job like that you know there's I remember watching True Detective which is probably the best show ever made. Be very careful what you get good at is something they say in that show. I was very specialized and highly trained in a very specific field in a very specific country. And it's very hard to get a job and do that type of shit.

Yeah, I bet. country and it's very hard to get a job right you do that type of shit yeah i bet um i uh while i was still active i started doing um small training engagements with people um basically showcasing and showing them some of the stuff that i know how to do just from the experiences that i had uh and when i came up here, like I got some pretty amazing opportunities from some of the people that I used to liaison with and work with up here. Amazing. And slowly but surely I started, uh, becoming an instructor and starting a company and just figuring my shit out. I came here with, I came here with a nine, with a, with a two

year old in my arms and the money in my pocket. Wow. And that was it. Uh, the, uh, there was no severance package down there. I bet. Uh, it was just basically leave now. Yeah. I'm glad you're here, man. I'm sure fellow Americans are as well. Yeah. It's a, people see the way I talk about the U.S. and it's weird. I mean, I'm an immigrant. I'm new here. And I'm very appreciative of the opportunities that this country has.

I'm also scared for a lot of the shit that I see in this country and how familiar it is in a lot of ways as far as some of the things I'm seeing. But my kid's American you know yeah i have a vested interest in this country doing well uh and i haven't forgotten about where i where i come from tijuana right now is going through a lot of changes it's my hometown um i have the podcast set up recording in tijuana specifically because i want to try and get people there so they can see the realities of what's happening.

Every guest that comes on my podcast has to go to Tijuana. So that's a filter for people in a lot of ways. I always take them out to get amazing tacos. We had Eddie Gallagher on, amazing guy. Took him to get amazing tacos. We had Eddie Gallagher on, amazing guy. Took him to get some tacos. But I haven't forgotten about where I'm from. I'm pretty active as far as an advocate for some of the people and some of the issues that I had to deal with down there.

I've spoken to Congress a few times up here in the U.S. Nice. And some of the people that I used to work with are now in politics, and I'm like Lieutenant Colonel and like General Duarte, and I'm being useful in the new format that I have, basically. I love it, man. As a public face and a voice for a lot of people down there

that are not alive to speak about some of the things that we went through and uh or are just you know just don't have the ability to speak about some of these yeah it's important well i love that uh where can people find you your programs and your podcast um manifesto radio podcast on instagram uh we're shadow band like uh most people out there. I think I am too. Meta and whatever new algorithms they have are being horrible. Ed's Manifesto on X or edsmanifesto.com. They can find out more about our company, our charity, and also our training that we provide for people.

Yeah, we'll link it below. Thanks for coming on, Ed. Thank you. It means a lot. Thanks for everything. Thanks for watching on, Ed. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Yeah. Thanks for everything. Thanks for watching guys. See you tomorrow.