In Search Of Excellence - The True Story of Owen Hanson: USC Walk-On, Drug Kingpin, Prison & Redemption | E189

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Owen Hanson went from a disciplined kid in Redondo Beach to a USC walk-on football player surrounded by celebrities, pro athletes, and power — before one bad decision became the rush he chased for years. In this raw conversation with Randall Kaplan, Owen reveals the true story behind **Netflix’s The Cocaine Quarterback**, his rise from campus hustles to a global drug and gambling operation, his connection to the Sinaloa cartel, and the prison sentence that forced him to rebuild his life.Owen Hanson’s story is not just a crime story — it is a story about ambition, insecurity, adrenaline, ego, consequences, and redemption.Randall Kaplan sits down with Owen for a gripping Part 1 conversation that begins with Owen’s childhood in Redondo Beach, including his father’s strict discipline, his parents’ separation, and the early emotional wounds that shaped his identity. Owen opens up about feeling abandoned, learning not to cry, and channeling pain into sports, competition, and survival.From there, the conversation moves into Owen’s earliest signs of entrepreneurial instinct — including a childhood gambling hustle with quarters and lunch bets — before tracing how those same instincts later became dangerous when mixed with money, status, and the need to belong.The episode also dives into Owen’s rise at USC, where he became a walk-on football player during one of the most iconic eras in college football. Surrounded by celebrities, athletes, parties, and status, Owen explains how access became power — and how that power slowly turned into a criminal network.Randall and Owen then unpack the expansion from campus dealing to a sports betting business, then to international money movement, cartel connections, Australia, cocaine, laundering schemes, and the moment everything began closing in.Timestamps00:00 - The moment Owen realized he was in too deep00:42 - How a USC athlete became connected to the Sinaloa cartel01:52 - The childhood wound Owen says shaped everything07:00 - The 11-year-old hustle that revealed his future instincts10:54 - The line between strategy and manipulation16:47 - The USC setback that sent Owen to Tijuana21:08 - The first lie that gave him the rush he chased for years23:16 - How Owen became the only non-scholarship player to make the USC football team25:11 - Inside the USC football celebrity machine36:16 - The gambling customer who changed Owen’s life forever42:38 - The million-dollar-a-day offer that pulled him overseas1:36:39 - How prison became the beginning of Owen’s redemptionAbout Owen HansonOwen Hanson is a former USC athlete, entrepreneur, public speaker, and the subject of the Netflix documentary “The Cocaine Quarterback”, produced by Mark Wahlberg. After walking on to the USC football team during one of the most iconic eras in college football, Owen’s life took a dramatic turn as he became involved in illegal sports gambling, drug trafficking, and cartel-linked money movement.He was ultimately sentenced to 21 years in federal prison and served 10 years before being released early. Today, Owen speaks publicly about the consequences of his choices, the psychology of addiction to risk and status, and the difficult path toward accountability, growth, and redemption.About Randall KaplanRandall Kaplan is a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, professional coach, and the host of In Search of Excellence. He is the co-founder of Akamai Technologies, a global leader in cloud services, cybersecurity, and content delivery, and was an early investor in companies including Google.Through the Extreme Preparation™ methodology, Randall works with founders, CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs, and business owners to help them perform at the highest level, make better decisions, and achieve extraordinary success.If this conversation made you think differently about ambition, risk, success, or redemption, make sure to like this video, subscribe to In Search of Excellence, and comment below:What do you think was the turning point in Owen Hanson’s story?Want to Work One-on-One with Me?I privately coach a limited number of high achievers through personalized one-on-one coaching focused on elevating careers, scaling businesses, and reaching higher levels of success both professionally and personally.If you're ready to change your life and achieve your goals, apply here for my One-on-One Coaching program:www.randallkaplan.com Listen to my Extreme Preparation TEDx Talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIvlFpoLfgs Listen to this episode on the go!Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/23q0XIC... For more information about this episode, visit https://www.randallkaplan.com/ Follow Randall!Instagram: @randallkaplan LinkedIn:  @randallkaplan TikTok:  @randall_kaplan Twitter / X: https://x.com/RandallKaplanWebsite:  www.randallkaplan.com1-on-1 Coaching: www.randallkaplan.comCoaching and Staying Connected:1-on-1 Coaching | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok | LinkedIn 

We were the team that everyone wanted to see. Like you said, Snoop Dog would dress out in pads to come practice with us. Will Ferrell, same thing. Steveo from Jackass would come and just get his ass kicked. It was awesome. Man, I'm getting chicks left and right. I don't even have the money these other guys do, but I have the bag, right? And that for me became my power.

And he goes, hey, he got a problem. He said, I lost all the money. I'm like, holy shit. I am fucked. I get a message. Guess who it's from? They'll have fame. He says at 1 p.m., I need you.

be at the McDonald's on the Tijuana side. He says, I'm going to have my Sicarios pick you up. Welcome to In Search of Excellence. My guest today is Owen Hansen, a former USC walk-on football player who turned a Tijuana steroid run during a sophomore year and college into a multi-continent drug and gambling ring that moved tons of cocaine and service celebrities, pro athletes, and whales from the Sinaloa cartel, who ultimately ended up being his partner. Owen was caught, sentenced to 21 years in prison, served 10 of them.

It was led out early after testifying against her crooked lawyer who had been one. of his partners in crime. Owen's incredible story is the subject of the hit Netflix documentary, the cocaine quarterback, which was produced by none other than Mark Wahlberg. Owen, today is now a public speaker and entrepreneur. We're going to hear about his story of redemption throughout the show. Oh, and welcome to In Search of Excellence. Thanks for having me, Randy. All right, so I always start with our parents because they help shape who we are in our future. And I want to start with your dad, who was a very strict disciplinarian. He had a curfew for you during the week at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on the weekends. And he was a construction worker

who worked at the same company for 35 years. Correct. And an alcoholic. Just down the street. Just down the street. And an alcoholic. So I want you to tell us what was the first good memory of your dad as a child and what was the worst memory, the first bad memory as a child.

And how did he influence your future? You know, I think it would probably start off with the first bad memory, alcoholism, right? And seeing him and my mother fighting constantly. I remember my mother and his current boss at the time had an intervention with my father. And they said, hey, listen, you guys. got to stop. You're ruining your family. And he went into this hospital and I remember I was so young. I think I was like six or seven years old. And I remember visiting him at this hospital and my dad's pale and it just doesn't look like that surfer guy that he's always been with that tan skin playing

volleyball surfing on the beach. And he's pale and I'm just like so sad to see him like this. And I don't know. I'm so young like what's happening? What's a matter with dad? And you know, he was getting off the booze. And I remember after he got off, he got. He got to out of the hospital and my mother's and father decided to separate and no that was the first memory i saw of my dad and it was so devastating you know but after that my mom leaves the house for this they separate and i i didn't know what was going on like what happened why is mom leaving i was you were eight years old was eight years old was i'm like smelling me i mean i took my shower today like where did i go wrong i eat my vegetables i made my bed like how did i fuck this up is that you felt responsibility

Yeah, I felt like I was the one because I didn't know what the divorce was for. And obviously, my parents separated and my dad, he said, you know what? I started to cry. He said, hey, we don't cry. I said, what do you mean? We don't cry. He says, we're men. He says, grab your volleyball, grab your surfboard.

We're going to the beach. He made me the man I became today just being so tough on me, right? And I was like, okay, we don't cry. So I remember I made volleyball and surfing at the time, my life to not think about my mom, right? she was gone. You know, then I would say the best memory is obviously my dad's stopping drinking, and he stops for, you know, 13 years. He's literally sober as can be. I'm looking in the fridge, and there's old duels in there and diet coax. And I'm like, oh, great, my dad's sober, right? And there's no more yelling and no more slurring the words. He puts this strict curfew, like you said,

at 6 p.m. because he wants to make sure I'm doing my homework. You know, I don't have my mom there to help me. He's got my grandmother who's helping me with my homework. which is his mom. And 6 p.m. I'm in the house. You know, so weekends, 8 p.m. And I think he did that because he just didn't want me to go down that path he went down, you know, start drinking. And I didn't drink, Randy.

I literally was sober all the way up until I got to college. And my dad stayed sober the whole time. And I'll never forget it. When I graduated college from USC, he was so proud, you know, he put his son out there and said he did his part. And guess what? He had another drink to celebrate. and he fell off the wagon.

But I respect him for at least, you know, staying sober this whole time. So let's go back to your mom. She was a librarian. Yes. And then at some point she just took off to Wyoming. Did she, what was the conversation that she had with you and said, hey, Olin, am I, I, I'm a divorce in your dad. I'm just going to leave town right now? Yeah, you know, first she stuck around.

She tried to live in Redondo Beach, the same city as I was living in. It went good for about six months. and then she just couldn't afford to live. I mean, on a librarian's salary, you're obviously making, what, at the time, $30,000 a year, right? She ended up moving up north where she had a sister, and she got a job as a librarian again, up in a town called Albany. And she brought my sister. And my sister was at the time, I want to say four or five.

You're seeing your sibling leave, and you're wondering if you're ever going to see her again. And then you realize when you go see your mom, your sister's going to go see your dad, we're exchanging. It's like a one for one. So I'm not really ever getting to know my sister. I think it was hard on her. You know, my mom's bouncing around like you said. She went to Albany, and then she goes to Wyoming. And then she moves again. And I think she moved like, you know, 10 times in less than 10 years, right? And my sister just broke. You know, she's just going to handle it. And she, I remember it was my sophomore year in college. My sister ran away. She started using heroin. And my dad in her like,

Gosh, this is terrible. We got to go find her. And I remember my dad and I got into his pickup truck and we went to find her on the streets of San Francisco where she ran away. We got her sober. We got her in. We started, she lived in our house and now I'm back in Redondo Beach going to college. And I had my sister in this small little house and we're making sure she's staying sober and I'm commuting now to college. And it was it was a difficult time, no doubt. You're an entrepreneur at heart. We'll talk about the good things you're doing as an entrepreneur now and some of the bad things you've done as an entrepreneur. But I'm an entrepreneur and I had the gene. I was born with the gene. I was thinking creatively and I was wanting to start a company and I teach your business in college.

Your journey started a little earlier. Let's go back to when you were 11 years old. Tell us what a quarters game is. And tell us about your grandmother's garage. Man, you've done your homework. I'll give you that. Not many people know the quarter story. The quarter story started literally, I said, you know what? My dad gave me $3 a day for lunch, and this is in junior high.

And he would always give it to me in quarters because he had this bag in his truck that he'd keep his change in. And you'd always count out, you know, he's like, here's $1, $2, $3. And I'm like, okay, I've got 12 quarters. What am I going to do? How am I going to buy lunch, right? So I remember, I was like, okay, I'm going to practice something where I can hustle my friends in school, you know, because I, I,

I got to figure out a way to have more than $3 when we go to Jack in the Box. You know, at the time, it started in junior high, we would buy lunch on campus. Then once we went to high school, we'd get to travel to Jack in the Box Burger King. I started this game called quarters. And the idea was you have a handball court. You throw a quarter. One guy throws a quarter. And then the second guy throws his quarter.

And whoever lands their quarter closer to the wall takes the other man's quarter. I started this business thinking, okay, I'm going to get these guys on this, this gambling, but I'm going to first, I'm going to practice. And I'd go to my grandma's house every day after school and work on my homework, work on my basketball shot. And I'd start practicing against her garage with the quarters. And I literally had this toss where I could land that quarter almost like standing up against the garage, right? I got so good at it. I remember once I got really good, I introduced the guys to the game. I said, guys, we're going to start playing quarters.

And everyone likes to gamble, right? It's just a quarter, right? But you got to remember, we're in Redonda Beach, so we have some upper class kids, and, you know, we have some middle class kids, and obviously I was on the lower end. And so I'm just literally, first couple of times I'm getting my quarters taken. I just want them to feel that they can win, right? And I'm bouncing in off the handball court,

and it's like dribbling back, and obviously their quarters closer than mine, and they're taken and they're winning. And the first couple days, I do that just to get them sucked in. And then I remember days three and four, I just start breaking out the trick. I learned at grandmas. And I start throwing these quarters and I'm just taking all quarters.

And then I got like six of my friends and every day we're playing quarters. And next thing you know, my $3 lunches are turning into $10 lunches. And that was my first, first tussle. And then I started to play my friends one-on-one in basketball. I hope you're enjoying this video so far. But before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach a nice level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies.

I've invested nearly 100, including Google, Lyft at Seagate and I also co-founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage of my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey, I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others and I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success.

So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions, and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video. Well, can we just, I just have some questions there. There's a story there about human behavior that people don't think about. As a venture capitalist investor, when someone tells someone the deal is super high, you got to get in. I don't know if you can get in.

The human nature has got to make you want to deal more, as opposed to there's a deal. we're trying to raise $5 million and it's hard to fill. You don't really want it. So we all want something we can't have. FOMO, right? Yeah. FOMO and it's also, you know, if that many people want it, you know, maybe I should want it to or I should want it to. But intentionally losing to create demand, which you did in this game, is something that a lot of people do today.

Do you think professionals today should use that technique? Is it kosher? Is it not kosher? Is it fair game? I don't think it's fair game. I think it's taking the integrity. of the game, right? It's like what's going on with the gambling right now.

And it's, you know, we'll talk about that later, but I'm speaking on this. Guys are literally shaving points, not covering spreads, because they're getting paid and they're doing the same thing I was doing at a young age. But as an athlete, I don't find that that's right. As a bookmaker, I don't find that's right. As a bookmaker, you want to be able to give fair odds and you want

both sides of people to be able to bet on a game and make sure it's a fair game. When a player or a referee starts ruining the integrity of that game, then guess what? It's taking away from not only the bookmakers, but the casinos and these large billion-dollar companies that are creating this entertainment for the sport. In a similar way, as a salesperson, that's one technique. Okay, that's not a coach. The other technique is optics.

It's like today a consumer product company may shrink the size and the volume of a content and put it in a bigger bottle. Right? You say, okay, I have a deal. Tell us about the whole lunch tray versus the single burrito and that kind of trade, which you also did when you were 11 years old. So I would start to gamble. Obviously, I got really good at basketball. My dad was a pepper played at Pepper Dine. And he would play hoops with me every day at grandmas when he got back from work. So I was like, okay, I'm getting good at basketball. Now instead of the quarters, because eventually we got caught. We weren't allowed to do the quarters anymore. We got caught by by the principal. She says, this is gambling. No more. Did you get suspended? No, we didn't get suspended. We just stopped playing quarters. So I was like, okay, what's my next hustle, right?

You got to adapt, right? My whole life I've been the underdog. I got to figure out a way to move. I call it the wiggle, right? And I was like, oh, the wiggle. Yeah, it's all about wiggling, right? You know, you got to move around. And I remember I wiggled to the basketball court because I was like, okay,

my basketball game's on point. My dad's got my shot down. I'm a big kid. So I start betting my friends one-on-one basketball games. on the courts. I make it real easy. I say, hey, we got lunch today. It's Taco Bell day.

We used to get Taco Bells on Wednesday, right? And they give you Taco Bell. You get a burrito. You get an apple, a milk, and like some kind of dessert. And I don't care about the garbage. I just wanted the burrito, right? So I would go and I would tell my friends,

I say, hey, if you win, you get my whole tray. I'm giving mods, right? And I don't even know I'm becoming a bookie, you know, 15 years later. I'm just doing this off the top of my head. If you win, you get the whole tray. If I win, all I get is the burrito. So in sports, when you bet on sports, it would be like betting on a favorite.

And then betting on a dog and a dog would get like plus 170. But when you bet on a favorite, it would be like minus 120. For anybody who doesn't know gambling, so minus 120 means I have to risk $120 to win $100. If someone is the underdog, you risk $100 and you get $170, right? So that's what a favorite in an underdog is. But I already know I have an edge. I already know I've been playing with pops. It sounds more intriguing for when a guy can get the whole tray.

So I'm like, oh, man, I get the whole tray. Let's do it. And like I said, I just got so good. My whole tray's never got taken. I would always get that one burrito, the protein, whatever the item was I wanted. So your dad, former D1 basketball player, you're practicing, you're a great athlete. You played all kinds of sports.

You had a perfect attendance record as well. 3.5, 3 point average. Four years, perfect attendance. Not a single day. Very tough to do. Dad won't let me leave. I mean, flu, whatever. You're going to school.

But you were not allowed to play tackle football. And yet you ended up playing one of the most violent sports in college. So did you want to play football? I wanted to. All my friends were playing. I wanted to be part of it. My parents restrict them. My dad would call my mom and my mom would say, oh, no, he's going to get dangerous.

That's dangerous. He's going to get hurt. Let's not allow him. My dad said, no. volleyball, basketball, play what I used to play. And I just excelled at, you know, the one I excelled at was volleyball. Actually, you know, I got a scholarship to USC on a volleyball scholarship. Which with the heavy financial aid package as well?

Yes, yeah, heavy. Because in volleyball. But not a full ride. No, no, you can't get a full ride. It never happens for volleyball. You find a guy that gets a full ride in volleyball, it's probably like an Olympic volleyball player. Right.

Like a Brooke Billings or. Or part of the USC cheating scandal. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember the varsity blues. I was actually in prison with a couple of those people. So, yeah, I mean, thankfully, Dad didn't make enough money. So we get the financial package and we get, you know, a partial scholarship for the volleyball. And we put it all together and we're able to afford it, right?

I take a little student loan out and I go to college, go to USC. But I didn't fit in, Randy. Yeah. You know, I got there and I stuck out like a sore thumb. I showed up with my grandfather passed away. He gave me a 1989 Toyota Camry. Everyone else, including my friend Matt Moscow, has Mercedes-B-Ws, Denali's, you know, escalades. And they got that black card, that American Express black card.

I'm like, what is that? Like, you've never seen that. And it's metal. You're like, you hit it. And it's like, I'm like, what is that? It was the first time I ever saw a black card. And I remember I probably saw a hundred more the next two years. Yeah.

Let's, again, I want to come back to you parting with Reggie Bush and Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian and Matt liner. So let's freeze that story for a second. But I want to go back to your sophomore year in college because before you got there, really, you were there to play volleyball. Tell us about the conversation you had with Coach Char and getting cut. And then, you know, I've never been to Tijuana. Everyone said, okay, you know, Tijuana's kind of a shithole. You go down and eat some lobsters.

But I want to talk about Gold's Gym, how you got down to Tijuana, the $500 that you spent, and then what you taped your asshole to come back over the border. Not the hole, right? The butt crack. The crack. Let's start with a meeting of sophomore year. I get called in Coach Turhan. Coach Turhan, I was the coach.

Pat Powers just left, and Coach Turhan's our coach now. And he called me in the office, and he says, oh, and I got bad news for you. I'm like, what's the news? He says, I got a redshirt you. I said, redshirt, for what? He says, you're playing behind Brooke Billings. He's an all-American opposite hitter. He says, we don't see you getting much playing time.

So we're going to redshirt you. I'm like, I came here for volleyball. What do you mean? And Randy, it felt like the time my mother said she was leaving. I was like, okay, I just lost my family again. And that feeling was like awful, right? I'm like, fuck, I'm scrambling. Like, what am I going to do now?

Like I just got lost my family. And it's like a brotherhood, you know, like Matt Mosco, Evan Burden. All these guys are like your boys. You're with them all day long. You're eating. You're sleeping. You're doing your homework with them. So it's your brothers.

So when they told me I was leave, like I had to leave them. like, okay, for what? He's like, you need to work on your vertical jump. I know, he you need to work on your arm strength and your vertical jump. He says, that's my advice to you. Because you're 6-3. I'm 6-3. The average point on the team, 6-5. Yeah, average. And now it's probably 6-9, right? Matt Mosco is 6-6. Yeah. And so. Shout out to map. Yeah, that's my boy. He's a beast. He is. So I go, man, I'm devastated. I said, I'll do whatever it takes. And I remember I got back and I said, I'm going back to the South Bay. I'm from. You know, I didn't feel wanted anymore at USC. So I got in my car and I got to Goals

Gym, Redondo Beach. I trained there as a kid and I know that the gym well and I remember going up to one of the bodybuilders there that I've seen around for years and I told him what happened and I said, hey, I need some help. I said, what do you suggest I take to work on my arm strength and my vertical jump? And he's like, well, do you want to do it legally or illegally? I said, whatever's fastest. He says, well, we can get you on some performance enhancing drugs. I says, what's that entail? And he's starting to list the names like Winstrel, Anurvar, Decadurabon, and Sussinanon 250.

I'm like, okay, what is this stuff, right? I'm like, what's the price on this stuff, right? And he's like, well, it's about $200 a bottle each, and you're going to probably need 10 bottles. I'm like, doing the math. I'm like, dude, I can't afford that. That's $2,000, right? I'm like, I don't have that money.

He's like, well, the other option is you go to Tijuana. There's something called a pharmacy or a veterinarian, right? And I'm like, well, what's cheaper? He says, the veterinarian's cheaper, but it's the same exact stuff. Like, okay, well, I need to go to the veterinarian. And I said, can I have the list? And he gave me this list. And I take that list, and I remember, okay, I'm going to go down to Tijuana, but my Spanish

isn't there yet, right? I've taken Spanish in high school. I'm not fluent. So I called one of my friends from the North Side Redondo gang. Okay, so I grew up in a town that had gang members and surfers and Mexican gang members. And I remember calling my friend Spanky, who's a lot of the North Side Redondo gang gang. He was a Mexican gang member. And I say, hey, do you want to come to Tijuana with me?

I said, I'll treat you to Pappas and beer. He's like, yeah, I'll come down. Try it. And I said, come on. So I remember, we got in my Toyota Camry. We drove down to the border. We parked on the San Cedro side. There's a jack in the box right there.

And we crossed over the bridge. We got into a taxi. And I already had the name of the veterinarian in the list. And I spankies his name. And he looks at me. He's like, are we really going to a veterinarian? And I said, let's go to the veterinarian first. And then we'll deal with the Pappas and beer.

I get to this veterinarian, I'm like, okay, am I going to have to speak Spanish, right? And I get there and there's a bunch of big, big bodybuilders there. I'm like, okay, we're at the right spot, right? And I pull out the list and I started speaking Spanish and she's like, I speak English, come on. And she had everything. And she starts pulling it out, Randy. And she's giving me the vials and their glass vials and bottles of pills and like, okay, this is a lot of stuff. And I said, can I borrow one of those sandwich bags?

And she's like, here. So I'm dumping the pills in the sandwich bag and I'm taking the vials and I'm literally creating this, like a banana, right? I'm like, can I get your medical tape? And she's like, yeah, yeah, here, here. She's just cool. And I'm like, can I use your bathroom? She's like, yeah, yeah, go ahead.

So I go in the bathroom. I'm taping all this up. And I'm just trying to create this perfect banana. And I was like, okay, I have my compressor shorts on. I know if I leave it in my pocket, it's going to stick out. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to put it in the crack, Randy, not the hole, the crack. So I put it literally in the crack. I put my compressor shorts back on.

And like, like, the whole time I'm squeezing my cheeks together, right? I'm like, okay, I just got to hold this. We're going to go to Poppison beer. We're going to enjoy some tacos and beer for Spanky because I promised them that. And then we're going to the border. I spent $500 and I had $500 strapped to my ass. I taped it up real good. My compressor shorts held it nice.

And I went out and I said, Spanx, you notice anything? He goes, notice what? And I said, perfect. I'm right where I need to be. So I take him to Pappas and Beer. We have a couple tacos. He has his beers and some shots and we get out of there. And I remember we get dropped off to the line.

where you walk from Mexico into the United States and we're just, I'm sweating. I'm like, fucking nervous. Remember, I've had this strict father my whole life. At this point, I haven't even done a drug. And two hours goes by

and we finally get to that customs agent and he takes my passport and he says, Mr. Hansen, are you bringing anything back to America? For the first time ever, I've lied in my life. I said, no officer, I'm not. He says, welcome back to America. And that second I stepped over the U.S. side, that rush I had was the rush I chased for the rest of my life until I eventually got caught smuggling a ton of cocaine into Australia.

You've got $500 tons of pills in a bag, shaped like a banana, to be parallel with your butt crack. You come across the border. You have in your compression shorts. You've never lied. You're now essentially committing a felony. On a scale of 1 to 1,000, how nervous were you and how much anxiety did you have that you were going to get caught? Oh, I was, I was a thousand. No doubt.

Like, you have no sense unless you've ever been in that situation. And just to know as a young kid that the United States government's on the other side of this. And you're like, holy shit, like I'm breaking the law. I'm going to lose my scholarship. I'm going to lose, I'm going to have a felony on my record. I'm probably going to put in a Mexican jail because I'm still not even in the, you know, I don't know what's going through my mind. But all I care about is getting back onto that volleyball team,

and I'm willing to do anything for it. Okay, so just to fast for you, you start taking the Royts, you, in a very short amount of time, you beef up, you try for the football team because the strength coach said, hey, you just really go out for the football team. You run a 4-640.

You do 26 reps at 225. There's 85 scholarships at USC, and you're the only non-scholarship person to make the team. Correct. And Pete Carroll, Coach Pete says, Pistol Pete says, wow, you know, you're on the team. Yeah, he has no clue, by the way, right? Redemption. Yeah, yeah.

They have no clue. He calls me as opposite hitter. You know, we're stretching. We're getting warmed up, and he's like, how's my opposite hitter doing? And he just knows him, this surfer kid from Redonda Beach because he's bought a house in Hermosa Beach. So it's like, he has some love for me. I remember he wrote his skateboard into the surf shop I worked at as a kid called spider surf and the pier and this is when I was on the volleyball team so he's seen me I remember I

sold him his first skateboard and and he was just like cool he like thought I was just this surfer kid from from the beach and and he would just like how's the beach man like how you've been surfing lately playing volleyball because his daughter was a volleyball player and we're just we're cool it was awesome was just a real feeling right never playing the sport in my life it's intoxicating to come from a town where there's really no celebs hang in out on a regular basis. Now you're on the USC football team on a team that won two national back-to-back championships. Matt Liner, your buddy, became your buddy, wins the Heisman Trophy. You're going to nightclubs. I mean, Snoop and Will Ferrell. Denzo Washington.

Are hanging out at practice with you guys because it's cool. Yeah, they loved us. And so that's intoxicating as well. You want to be part of that life. I mean, nightclubs, black cards, um, booze at the table. of chicks, I'm assuming? Everywhere. I remember Matt was dating Paris Hilton at the time. And we didn't pay for anything. You got to remember, we had that red carpet rolled out for us because we were the professional

team of L.A. The Rams weren't there. The Raiders weren't there. We were the team that everyone wanted to see. Like you said, Snoop Dog would dress out in pads to come practice with us just to rally us up. Will Ferrell, same thing. Steveo from Jackass would come and just get his ass kicked.

It was awesome. You have, like you said, this insecurity and fruity complex. And then you start guys on the team, they get injured, they want certain things. You become the doctor O. And I said if you need to make a play, go to, you know, Dr. O. And then eventually you turn that into you're selling now cocaine, Xanax, to fraternities, sororities. You're in beta theta pie, I think. And you're making at some point $2,000 a week at 19 years old, maybe more than that.

Yeah. So the cash starts falling in. You're Mr. Social on campus. Is your ego now kind of getting big and saying like, I'm the man and this is just something I keep wanting to do? Yeah, you're chasing that. You're motivated by money at this point. I would have motivated by money, but, you know, I never had money. So I would say it felt good.

But I think what I liked is I liked having the people around me, like needing me. Like, I remember having that bag and the girls were like, gosh, I want to be part of the bag, right? Like, every girl likes the bag in college. Man, I'm getting chicks left and right. I don't even have the money these other guys do, but I have the bag. right and and that for me became my power and in something that the USC kids obviously would never have the balls to do are you aware that there were three fentanyl deaths the year that you were dealing all those drugs on the USC campus were you kind of thinking gosh you know my drugs

could kill somebody I wouldn't say I would I would have to disagree because I don't believe fentanyl was even around back then I mean this is what the research showed yeah so it's possible that Jam and I was wrong because I you know drug use is very common on campus as as you know I mean my kids just two of my kids graduated college a year and a half ago. I have a son of a senior in college and cocaine use is just rampant everywhere. I agree about I agree on that shocking. I agree on that but like I remember the fentanyls came in in 2015 when I was arrested I remember everyone started coming into prison on these fentanyl charges I didn't even know what it was and it was the synthetic heroin and they started to started lacing it with cocaine, vikin, oxycontin, even Xanax, right? Yeah. So I would say maybe there was some overdoses on maybe some harder drugs like the opiates. Yeah. For sure.

Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, I did sell opiates. But I can tell you, the people that were getting my stuff were getting pharmaceutical grade. And I wasn't getting it from the street. I was getting the stuff from the pharmacy in Tijuana. Is it fair to say that all the guys on the football team knew they, that you were dealing drugs and steroids.

And then the penultimate question is, if that's the case, how could Coach Carroll not know? I wouldn't say they all knew, but I would say a majority would, right? And I think I would say they would be, the coaches would be turning a blind eye, right? I think I...

So meaning they may know of something, like they see these guys bulking up a little too much, but they're not going to ask questions because they don't want to know the answer? That, and you got to remember, we, you know, to this day, I can honestly say no one ever tested positive for steroids when I was on the football team. Why? Because we knew how to get off of it when season started or once, you know, summer ball started.

And I had it down to a science where you're going to take this up to this day. And once you take it from this day, that's it. You're off of it. And, you know, I got drug tested many times. And I was obviously on the sauce before. And once the season started, I was clean. And that was my, you know, my prescription to all my teammates. So you come out of school.

USC is known for the amazing alumni network, right? The connections are massive. There's tons and tons of rich kids everywhere. And you have a great network. And now you're pursuing a legitimate career as a real estate guy. You're doing while you're making six figures back in the day. That's like a shit ton of money, six figures. Yep. Still is today coming into college. Then we have the 2007, 2008 implosion. Yes. And it basically snaps your career. It's over pretty quickly. So talk to us about kind of what you were thinking there. thinking, okay, now I really needed money? Was it a lifestyle? And then what was that transition into macho sports? Tell us about that. Yeah, you know, you're, you feel like you're missing something, right? When you go get that nine to five, you're not going to the red carpet events. You're not hanging out with these celebrities anymore.

You're wearing a suit and tie and going into an office right here off of San Vicente. And I remember that was my first job right there, you know, down the street. To lease office space? No, no, it was, we were a real estate development. company, mixed-use lifestyle. Okay. And we would do like shopping centers, kind of like the Grove, right?

Right. So. Was this Rick Cruz's company? No, it was actually a USC alumnae, Paul Orfala, who was the founder of Kinkos. Yeah. And he sold Kinkos to FedEx for a billion. Yeah. But he started a real estate development company, him and his cousin, Gary Safadi.

Yep. And, you know, they created me this job as this project engineer, but I remember I'd go into these meetings and they'd make me wear my national championship ring. and I'd go into these meetings and shake hands with these city guys. They're big fans of USC football. And, you know, they utilized me to close deals. And I enjoyed it.

But at the same time, it just wasn't that same feeling as I felt in college, being the man, right? And when I lost that job, I was like, okay, I lost my job. I've had this feeling before. Got kicked off the football, or kicked off the volleyball team. My mom left me. Okay, like, I'm scrambling again. What do I do? So long as I'm abandoned it.

Yeah. Right? And you're like, man, what do I do now? Like I was making everyone in my family so proud. I got that job. I was making more money than my dad ever made in his career, right? Like, what do you do now? Like, how are you going to break this one to your parents? And I remember going back to my father. And I said, dad, I lost my job. Don't worry. We're going to make something work. But for the meantime, let me speak to Uncle Tony. He's like, son, you're not speaking to Uncle Tony. I'm like, dad, come on. I lost my job. What am I going to do? I got, I still got student loans. And I begged him. And he finally gave me a meeting. with Uncle Tony and Uncle Tony was his friend from this fly fishing club my dad joined. Uncle Tony was a bookie. He worked as a bookie and he was a school teacher on, he was a school teacher full time, but a bookie on the side. And he, you know, he had probably maybe 20 or 30 clients. And he was

working, like you said, for the company, Machra Sports. It's obviously all public records so I can talk about it. He's like, hey, you got to meet the owners. He says, they're in Peru. He says, we got to go there first before I get you on board. So let's do it, right? So I fly, literally the first time I've ever flown out of the country. I've obviously gone to Mexico, but I've never gone to South America. So I get on this plane with Uncle Tony. I remember they got his first class tickets. And I was like, oh, this is awesome. I'm like, I've never been on first class. I'm like, this is great. And I get there and I meet these guys and they got private security guards, bulletproof vehicles. I'm like, okay, this is the life, right? And we're going out to restaurants and I'm starting to feel that

the same way I felt with these, you know, athletes. You know, these guys are the men. They got women all around them. They got security guards. They got a ton of money. I go in this office and you feel like you're in Wall Street. You know, they got VIP people, guys that are moving the lines. They call them line managers that move the lines for the spreads of the football games, basketball games. And then they have people that answer the phones down below. And they're answering the phones for their VIP clients, their regular clients. And then you got the two bosses that have their own glass office above everyone. And I'm like, wow, this is, this is life. I want to be part of this. And I remember bringing my old fullback, Brandon Hancock, with me.

And, you know, he just finished playing at S. He literally, like, a year before. And so these guys, obviously, I knew them. They're big sports guys, right? And they're like, oh, my God, Brandon Hancock. He's a legend. And we're going out. We go out to their private club.

And we go out to a hotel they own on the beach. And their sports bars. I mean, they got the life. I remember we're in these right range rovers, these bulletproof range rovers. And we're going, like, 130 miles an hour. And the cops are coming to pull us over. and their security grudge just like cut them off and stop them. And we just keep going.

I'm like, wow, these guys are powerful, right? Braddock and I are scratching our head. Like, did that just really happen? You've got to remember you're in a third world country. Anything's possible. And I start to learn the business through these guys and they offer me 20% commission. They said, we'll give you 20%. You know, Uncle Tony's brought you and, you know, Uncle Tony will get 10%.

But we'll give you 20%. And I said, okay, great. I didn't know anything about the business. But within the first six months, I had a whale lose a million dollars cash. cash and I'm giving them a million dollars and I'm getting my 20% I'm making 200 grand and I'm like this is my customer I feel like my percentage should be higher so I approached them again and I said hey can you bump me up I said I just brought a guy that lost a million cash I said I got 20 more of those clients from USC that are they want to do the same thing like we can't do it I'm sorry that's what we

pay I'm like that's ridiculous and they're looking at me like I'm just some punk kid I'm like okay well if you don't want to pay me I'm going to figure out how to do this myself yeah and that's when I I said, fuck it. I flew to Costa Rica, which at the time, Costa Rica was the mech of sports betting. And I remember going down there, and I would go to like five different offices to figure out, like, how is this going to work? And I finally found an office that was willing to rent me phone lines, a server, my own website, which I called Beto Dog. And I set up my operation down there. And I remember I started with that basically 200 grand, and I started small.

I started taking like a thousand dollar bets at a time. And I grew my betting website eventually grew to 2,000 customers. You know, we had whales. We had Paris Hilton gambling. We had, you know, many friends, Matt Mosco's friend, Doug Reiner, who's now a billionaire. We had everyone gambling with us. And I was like, man, this is really blowing up. Like, I got like 20 guys that work underneath me as, you know, sub-bookies.

I have, you know, 30 people in the office working full-time answering phones for this. And I'm just like, wow, I did it. I've done it. Like, where do you go from here? And that's when I decided to take this thing international. I want to... Right, so there's so many key moments in our careers that's a progression to the next thing. So now you've got your first major legal operation.

You're doing well. You go off on your own. Now you have your own company. One of the elements of success, and I have a clock on my desk that's black. And it says on the 12, 3, 6, and 9 hands, it just says the word now. And do it now is such an important part of our success. don't let things wait let us sit there so talk about this five leg parley that turned into 220,000 dollars and how that got you into the cartel that was the first step with el hafe

betting with you i hope you enjoying this video so far but before we jump back in i want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach a nice level of success in your life over last 25 years i've been an advisor to more than 50 companies i've invested nearly 100 including in Google Lift and Seagate, and I also co-founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey, and at this stage of my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey, I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others, and I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs

are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions. And if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video. Yeah, I think, you know, you just, with me, my, obviously, I hit that parlay big once I turned Beddodog into what it became. And I was like, okay, like, where do you bring this next?

Okay, we've already got pretty much every state in the U.S. with agents that are handling customers gambling with you. I'm like, okay, let's just, let's keep going, North America. let's go Canada, let's fucking go to Mexico. And I told my sub-bookies, I told him, hey, we're expanding the business. We have the platform to take bets internationally. You know, at the time we had ways to move money from Canada into the U.S., Mexico, vice versa. And I remember one of my sub-agents, he started to accept bets from Mexico. And he was good. He was like, I got a whale. I'm like, great, let's keep him happy. And I remember the first week, the guy lost $250,000. And the guy brought a duffel bag of cash and paid me like that. I'm like, okay, you got a great customer.

No one ever pays on a Monday, let alone in cash, right? They usually find some excuse. Oh, can I give you a check? Can I give you wire? I'm like, awesome. Next week loses another, I think 240, right? A third week. Another, I want to say in three weeks, this guy lost $750,000 and we're getting cash. Pags of cash. Like, this is a bookie's dream. In my rule in this business is we always keep the customer that's a whale happy. And the way we treat it, we treat them to, you know, Laker games, floor seats, trips to Vegas, trips to Costa Rica, you know, stay at the mansion, stay at the golf course, whatever they want, we give to them. Because we just, look at how much money we've made. We can fly in private to Costa Rica. It costs us 10 grand, but it's just a dent, right?

It's just giving back and keeping them with us. And that was my motto. I treated it like I was a casino a host and that they come to me and I treat them to whatever they want. I remember I had no communication with this customer because it wasn't my customer. It was my sub-bookies customer. I just told him, keep him happy, whatever he wants, let him know, we're here for him. If he wants to come to the U.S., we'll take him out to dinner, we'll take him to Greystone Man, or whatever. And finally, week four, he finally is going to hit. It's a Sunday night, he has a five-team parlay that's going to hit. He needs the Raiders. And the Raiders hit, and he wins 260 grand. And I'll never forget, I called him that day, right when I saw he's going to hit, I called the sub-bookie. I said, you need to get over

to my house right now. He said, for what? I said, your customer's finally going to win. I said, I need you at his house at 8 a.m. Sharp. I said, no questions. He goes, why? I said, get over here. I said, you don't understand our business is based off of our reputation. I said, my reputation is I pay on Mondays. Every other bookie in the world pays on Thursdays. You know why? Because they collect from the losers and they have their money and then by Thursday they can pay the winner. And that's not how you do business. They need to get paid. right away because then they're never going to change bookies. So that was my motto. So Monday morning, 8 a.m., he dropped off the bag of cash. Next day, he comes back with an encrypted phone of Blackberry.

And he says, this is from my client who is also my uncle. Like, okay, what is it? He says, he gives me a post-it. He says, there's three passwords to get in this thing. I'm like, okay, this is interesting. I'm entering these three passwords and says, wetto, I like the way you do business. And I'm like, what's this about? He says, we'll just talk to him. So I'm like, okay, anything you need, sir, I got you. We appreciate your business. Appreciate you paying us on time and we return the favor. Another day goes by.

He says, well, I need a favor for me. I'm like, whatever you need, sir, what do you need? He says, I need money in the United States and I'm willing to pay you 10% on the dollar. I'm like, okay, that's a no-brainer. Where do you need it? He says, can you drop off $100,000 to Vista, Vista San Diego? No problem. Call one of my agents in San Diego.

20 minutes later, he drops off $100,000. get an email on this encrypted phone, says, Wado, thank you. Where do you want the 110,000? I just made 10% of 100,000. I'm like, oh, this is perfect. I said, wire it to Costa Rica, right? I already got my office there. I have banking there.

I need to pay the staff of 30 people I have. Right? Yeah. So I'm like, this is perfect. So the next day, I get the wire. I'm like, okay, this is awesome. This is going to save, because before we used to bring cash to, we used to literally bring like 10 friends down.

to Costa Rica, and I would strap everyone with $9900 because that's the legal limit. And I would pay everyone 5%. And I let them stay at the mansion, right? That was my rule. So now I just solved all that. I no longer had to buy my friend's plane tickets. I no longer had to pay him five points and I no longer had to keep him at the house. I just solved it all.

And the next day, he's like, hey, can you do it in North Carolina? No problem. Call one of my sub-bookies in North Carolina. $100,000 dropped off. I'm not caring, right? I'm just making this guy happy because he's a whale. I like the way you do business. Sends the 110 to the Costa Rica.

I'm like, okay, this is awesome. I'm cleaning all this money off the streets and I'm getting it offshore now. A couple weeks go by, he says, I need you to pick up money. I need you to pick up a million dollars. I'm like, wait a minute, I just sent money. Why am I picking it up?

And then he says, this is an area we're not allowed in. And then I'm starting to scratch my head now, Randy. I'm like, well, we're not allowed. And he's like, this is rival territory. And now I'm really going, okay, I'm in deep now, but you know what? I'm thinking that 10%. I'm doing the math.

Okay, a million dollars. Is 10%. That's 100 grand, right? You got to remember, I'm 25 at the time. Like, 100 grand in a day sounds pretty damn good, right? So I just like, okay, if I'm going to pick up a million dollars, I'm going to need to get a private plane. So I remember I hire a guy that pays, he charges me, I think, $2,500 an hour.

And we take a turbo prop, and I'm like, okay, I need security. So I call my buddy tank. He grabs his friend, that's a UFC fighter, and I pay him each $2,000 to ride with me. We get on this private plane. We fly to Brownsville, Texas. And we get to Brownsville, Texas, and I'm on the encrypted phone. And I tell El Hafei, hey, we're here. He says, give me five minutes.

So I get off the plane, I'm walking. I'm looking around. I'm like, rival territory is all I'm thinking about. I'm looking around. He's like, there's a pickup truck coming right now. So I get to the parking lot of this private airport, and there's a guy that comes out in overalls. He's a gardener. And he hands me this stuff a bag of a million dollars.

And he says, Este Pada El Hafe. This is for the boss. And I take the bag, literally, Randy. I'm so nervous now because he said El Hafe. I'm like, shit, the boss, I've taken that bag, and I'm just getting back on that plane, and I'm wanting to get the hell out of here. Like, all I can think of is rival territory, guys are going to come shooting guns at me, and we get on that plane, I'm like, we're good to go.

And my tank looks at me. He says, that's it. I said, that's it. We're out of here. And he didn't know at the time how much was in the bag, but I obviously told him later. And he's like, fuck, that's incredible. And I remember paying the pilot in cash, and I paid, obviously, Tank and his partner. And I think I profited $80,000 that day.

And I was like, okay, this is awesome, right? This was eight hours of work. It's $10,000 an hour I just made. I was like, okay, I've found my calling. Like, I'm able to move this guy's money. And I'm running my sports book now. And now I have no worries in the world about backing bets or anything because I'm making so much a day just moving money for this guy. And then fast forward a couple more weeks.

He says, hey, imagine what you're doing now in the United States, but doing in another country and making a million dollars a day. And what does your mind think? At a million dollars a day, you just think about the son of a construction worker, right? You're just like, okay, a million dollars. My dad's never made a million dollars, and I'm going to make it a day. I'm like, okay, where do I sign up?

And you don't care at this point. I think anybody in my shoes would probably figure out how to make a million dollars a day. He says, I need you to get to Australia and do exactly what you're doing now. Move money around for me. But he says, there's a catch. He says, I have product over there.

And he says, you have to, you don't have to handle it personally, but you need someone to move the product for me. So I'm like, okay, I dealt with grams in college, ounces at the most. I've never dealt with kilos, right? So I'm like, just going to that Rolodex. I'm like, okay, where am I going to find someone that knows how to move this?

I don't know anyone in Australia. I have an aunt that lives in Perth, but I don't know anybody that's in the drug game. And I went to that Rolodex, and I remember I had a kid at USC that was on the baseball team. And he told me one day in study hall, his brother was in the weed business. And he was in the international weed business. And my mind remembers everything, little pieces. And I was like, okay, who was that? Okay, it was this guy.

I looked him up and he was an assistant coach at the time. He was at USC and he wasn't getting paid. He was getting his master's degree. So he was able to be a coach. And I went back to USC. I said, hey, man, I know you're going to think this is weird, but can I speak to your brother? He's like, why?

I said, I just want to speak to him about what you told me years ago that he was in the weed business. He says, yeah, he's in San Diego. So I get in my car and now I'm driving a Mercedes-Benz, right? I get in my Mercedes. I drive down to San Diego. I meet his brother. And I tell him, hey, I need help. I said, I have somebody that's in the international business that wants to move the white. He says, I don't do the white. He says, I only deal with the green. He says, but my partner over here that I'm playing racquetball with, he's from Italy. He probably could help you. Like, I need to talk to him. This old Italian gangster, probably 60 years old at the time, we get there, I get to him, and I tell him who I am.

and I tell them, I start to talk to him about, hey, I got product over in Australia. He says, hey, stop right now. He says, don't talk about anything illegal to me in the United States. He says, if you want to talk to me about anything illegal, you need to come to where I live in Naples, Italy. I mean, you've got to remember, I didn't know why. I didn't know what a federal indictment was, but he had gotten in trouble in the past. So he was obviously scared to speak in the U.S. All I'm thinking about is a million dollars. So I said, shit, I'm going to fucking tell you. I'm going to Italy, right? And I remember two weeks later, I get to Naples, Italy, and he picks me up in this fiat, and he takes me to his house. He has this beautiful home with two villas and a beautiful winery down the middle.

And I tell him, I'm like, listen, I got someone that's been gambling with me that has product in Australia. He's like, listen here. He called me nephew. He says, nephew, I'll tell you right now, there's no way in hell this man has product in Australia. It's the hardest part of the world to get product into. He says, it's the furthest island from anything. He says, there's no way. He said, stop wasting my time.

I was devastated. I was like, man, what am I going to do now? He's like, listen, if you really have the product, when you get there, you can message me and I'll fly over. I'm like, okay, so I left. And now El Hefe is messaging me. Are you ready to go? I'm like, okay, I got to get to Australia.

I'm like, yeah, I'm ready. I'm flying over. So I get to Australia. And now I got to lie. I got to lie to El Hefe saying I'm ready. And I got to tell the Italian that I've seen the product. Because remember, he said, when you see it, message me. So I'm over here on my encrypted phone and I'm telling him,

we'll call him Uncle Louis, right? Uncle Louis, I say, hey, Uncle Louis, I've seen it with my own eyes. Get over here. El Hefei's messaging me, hey, when do you want me to drop this off? I'm like, hang on, hang on, hang on, give me a day. Uncle Louis finally flies over two days later. And El Hefei messaged me. He says, get a hotel room.

He says, I want you to get a room at the Four Seasons in Sydney, Australia. And the reason the Four Seasons is because none of the hallways have cameras in it. So I get to this Four Seasons hotel. It's like $600 a night. And I bring Uncle Louis with me. And I say, okay, Uncle Louie, I'm going to. get a room and you get the room right next to me. Because I remember, Randy, I don't want to touch this stuff.

And I get in my room. It was room 428. No, my room was 426 and Uncle Louis's room was 428 at the Four Seasons Hotel. And I get in there and I tell El Hefe on the encrypted phone, I say, hey, I'm in 426. Within 30 minutes, I get a knock on the door. And a guy in a DHA outfit gives me a box. And I take that box and it's fucking heavy. I'm like, holy shit.

And I know what it is. And I'm like, I'm scared now. I'm banging on the wall having Uncle Louis. I said, get over here now. So he comes over, we cut it open and he opens it up. He goes, holy shit, nephew, you were not lying. I said, well, get it out of here. I was scared.

I was like, I don't want anything to do with it. Get it out of here. So our agreement was, I was going to give him wholesale price at $100,000. I was going to keep $50,000 a key for me and $50,000 key for El Hefe. Uncle Louis could charge whatever he wanted. It wasn't our business. So within 30 minutes, there was 10 kilos in there. Within 30 minutes, Uncle Louis brought a million dollars cash.

This was our test run. 500 for El Hefei, 500 for me, and I found out later that Uncle Louis charged 50,000 per key on top of it. So he made 500. So we all made 500 grand. I was like, okay, what am I going to do with the cash? And I message El Hefe, what do you want me do? He goes, hold on to it. Just hold on to the cash.

And now Uncle Louis saying, hey, when can we go again? A message is in El Hafei, hey, when can we go again? He goes, tomorrow you're going to have 20 dropped off. Same place, same time. This was a Tuesday. 20 come. Now Uncle Louis drops off $2 million. So now I made my million dollars a day, right?

Million for me, million for El Hefe. I'm like, holy shit. When are we going again? We work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. We take off on the weekends. We do it again next Monday. I'm like, holy shit. So now, Randy, I have $10 million at this point in my Sydney apartment.

It's a studio apartment, probably no bigger than this area. It's small. It has a kitchenette and a toilet and a bed that's part of the living room. And I'm literally like looking in the cupboards. I'm putting cash in the covers. I'm opening up the dishwasher throwing in the cash in the there, putting money in the microwave, the freezer. I'm going above the toilet and there's an addict. I'm putting cash up there. And I still have cash. I'm stuffing it under the bed. In suitcases,

like $10 million is a lot. And these are in $50 bills. And I'm starting to panic. I'm, I even have Uncle Louis starting to panic because it's coming in so fast and we don't have anywhere to put it. So I remember messaging El Hefe, I'm like, okay, hey, when are you going to pick up your half? You know, half of it's yours, right? He's like, whetto. Do you remember why I pay you a million dollars a day. He says, that's your job to figure out. And I was like, holy shit, what have I gotten myself into? And that's where we had to get creative. One of the favorite movies of all time by people is The Godfather. And so at some point, your name, Don Quilioni, and the Godfather is about a mob boss who's ruthless,

kills people, does whatever it takes to further as criminal enterprise. So innovation is so important to our success. So now you've got all those money. You don't know what to do with it, you got to launder it and get it out of Australia. So talk to us about the gold bars and the Ugg boots and this genius invention that you made up in order to wash all this money. So I had a good creative, right? I'm sitting there with $10 million in my apartment and I'm like, okay, I'm scratching my head. Like, who can help me? I'm going to call my accountant. My accountant lives in San Diego. I'm like, you know what, if anybody can help me, it's my accountant. But now I can't tell my accountant. I just move cocaine for the car.

So I got to tell him what he knows. He knows I'm a bookie. He knows it's a gray area in the U.S., but in Australia, it's legal. So I call him, I said, hey man, I just had this customer in mine lose a lot of money. He's gambling in the U. He gambles with me. He has money in Australia, but he gambles with me through my service in Costa Rica, but he wanted to pay me in Australia. So I lied. I said, I have all this cash in. I do not know how to get it back. He's like, well, let's figure it out. So he puts together a team. He grabs his brother, who's one of my best friends from college, one of the best friends from college, one of the best. volleyball players at USC, Eli Fairfield. And he grabs his brother or his father-in-law, who's a fucking fire captain. I just lied and I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe he's going to get these people involved, right? And we're literally in Australia and they show up and I'm like,

okay, guys, look at all this cash. And I'm opening the cupboards and they're like, their jaws are dropping. They're like, holy shit. And it was so bad. I feel so bad because these are my good friends and I feel bad, but I'm like, I got to lie. Like, I got to go watch a fucking game on the TV. Like I'm sweating a game. So they really. think the customer's gambling. I remember I was like it was like a Dodger game like fuck dude if he hits this bet he's going to win a fucking a million dollars from I have to take a million back and I'm lying my friends just to make them feel like this is legit because you're worried at that point if you don't get the money back you're going to get killed yeah well this is my responsibility right and

that's why I was getting a million dollars a day I wasn't even thinking about it getting killed at that point that came later no that came later yeah that point I wasn't even thinking about that I just wanted to get this shit out of there. And we started thinking, okay, what's Australia known for? And we're sitting down there and we're like, okay, ACDC, we're thinking like kangaroos, crocodile dundee, and then we're like Ugboots. Remember, Ugg Butts were so classic back then. Everyone had them. And I was like, okay, that's what we're going to do, Uggboots. And then my accountant says, okay, what can we buy in order to start laundering this cash? And he's like, let's just start buying Boolean. And at the time, Boolean was like $1,500 an ounce. And we could get these one ounce rounds that had a kangaroo on them.

And so we would literally, we team up where all four of us would go out with 100 grand in cash. And there was like six bullion stores, gold stores all throughout Sydney. And we would literally go and buy like $9,900 worth of gold. And we'd had these fanny packs and we'd just start stuffing these coins in there. And we would pretend like we didn't even know each other. And sometimes we'd run into each other at the gold stores and be like, oh, like, oh, look at your, he's here. You like, you know, because we don't want to be known. And then we're like, okay, we got all this gold.

Now let's take these one ounce rounds. and we're going to go buy Ugg boots. Now, in Australia, ugg boots are very cheap. Like, you can buy a pair of ugg boots for like 30 bucks. But in America, at the time, they're like 200 bucks.

And every corner has a different ugg boot. They're all named Ugg, but could be like Uggs Sydney, Ug Bandai Beach, and you know, there's different kinds. So we're calling our girlfriends, our wives, our ex-wives, everybody's calling friends.

They're like, hey, what color ugg boots do you want? You know, and we're like, one girl wants green, one girl wants pink, bland. Like, we don't care. We're just buying ugs. We're, my condos, this studio apartment's filled with

And now we're going to the ug stores and say, hey, we want the soles. Do you guys have the souls, the extra souls? So they had these thick soles. So what we did was we take out the original skull, sole, and we glue four one ounce rounds, so four ounces of gold in each shoe. And then we put the stuffing on the new sole on top. So if anyone looked, they wouldn't see it. And we, we package them up and we have P.O. boxes set up in America now, where we can just send these, these, these, these, these, these Ugg lutes to these PEO boxes. So we don't have to worry about people accepting them. The PO box gets it and they're there. We start shipping out probably like $100,000 a week in UggBootz, but it's not even putting a dent and like, man, what are we going to do now? So then we

start buying the Euro notes. At the time, there was a $500 euro note that was equivalent to $750 U.S. dollars. So we start taking all our cash and we start buying the Euro notes at all the exchange places. So we start putting them in comic books and then we have these vacuum sealers in my apartment and we'd vacuum seal these comic books and then we'd put them in an eBay. envelope. It looks like someone bought something from eBay, right? And we'd send them home into the PO boxes and we just started stackpiling this money. But like I said, it's not, it's not even putting a dent. So I'm panicking. I'm like, man, this is like we've probably moved a half million dollars. And we've got four guys. I'm like, we're started by watches, Hugh Blotes,

Rolexes, yacht masters, like anything and everything, right? I'm buying my friends whatever they want. We're going to steak dinners and they're buying Chanel bags for their wives and like anything we could think of like we're buying. And then I'm dating this girl at the time and I'm like, man, I need help. I said, this gambler, he's lost all this money. I'm no way to get it out of here. And she's like, you know, why don't you, why don't you try to launder it through the casinos? I was like, what do you mean? She's like, why don't you have like a high roller come in in over there and start playing with the money and laundered that way? I'm like, do you have anyone? And she's like, yeah, I got a friend that's a high roller in Las Vegas. His name's R.J. Sipirani, also known as

Robin Hood. I'm like, okay, well, can I meet him? She's like, yeah. So I remember she called him and says, hey, I have a businessman in Australia and he wants to meet you. He wants to learn about what you do. And I remember I flew from Australia into LAX and I met this guy at the Fairmount in Santa Monica. And I sit down there and I have a conversation with him and I tell him, hey, I got this gambling money in Australia. I said, this customer, he was paying me over there, but I can't get it back to the U.S. I said, I need help. He's like, okay. He's thinking. He's like, listen, this is what I do. He goes, I'm a high roller.

I'm a blackjack painter. He says, I'm considered a whale. He said, what I plan to do is this. He says, I plan to take your cash. You give me cash in Australia. He says, but first, I'm going to have my host in Las Vegas call. They're going to call the casino in Las Vegas. The host in Las Vegas is going to call the casino in Australia, which is the star casino.

And they're going to let them know I'm coming in town to play blackjack. And then this whale from Las Vegas. So they're already going to know I'm coming. They're going to have my room comp and everything. I'm like, cool. Let's do it. He says, I'm going to charge you 25 points. And he says, I'm going to need a first class ticket to Australia.

I'm like, okay, cool. The guy sounded so professional. I was like, this guy knows what he's doing. So I get him the first class ticket. It was a Qantas hairline. I get him there. He has his comp room that's at the star. And then he gets a four seasons penthouse.

And I see, okay, at this point, I'm so fucking paranoid. I don't want to move money. So I'm like, here, come to my suite. Come to my apartment. So I meet him downstairs in my apartment. and I give him $1.5 million in a suitcase. He gets in a tax and he goes to the Star Casino. He shows up at the Star Casino and they already know who he is.

Hello, Mr. Siparani, welcome. He's like him playing Blackjack the day and he takes his cash and he stacks it. They don't ask questions. He's a high roller. They take that cash and they turn it into casino chips. So he's playing like 30,000 a hand. He's got like a couple hands playing and he plays for like two to three hours. And he's like, you know what?

He tells the pit boss, he goes, hey, I'm not feeling it. He says, cash me out. You know, he's a high roller. He can do whatever he wants. Cash me out, I'm just not feeling it. So when he says that, they give him a check, a cashier's check. Because they're not going to give him cash. They're going to give him a cashier's check.

So now he has a cashier's check in the casino's name. And he can take that check now to Las Vegas where he's already a high roller. So he takes that check. Let's say, I don't know what the amount was, but let's just say it was 1.5 million if he did it evenly. But I don't know what it was. I can't answer that because he did it. So he goes back to Las Vegas and he gets to the Venetian where he's this high roller

and he tells his. host, hey, I got $1.5 million. I'm going to play a little and I need some cash. So he plays some hands. He gets some cash because they'll give him whatever he wants. And eventually he wins a little, he loses a little. And I think 24 hours later, he calls me and he says, hey, we're good to go. I have your $1.5 million minus my fee, which at the time was 25%, which I think was $375,000. And he had like right around a million dollars. I said, drop it off. Drop it off to my girl at the time. And my father, actually, I said, dad, I got a customer that owes me some money because I was back in Australia now. So my dad's involved. He's picking up like 500 grand. My girlfriend's picking up like 450 grand.

And I'm in Australia. I'm like, okay, I'm still working, right? I'm still moving. And two weeks later, he calls again. He goes, let's do it again. I'm like, fuck you. I got two and a half million sitting right here for you. Right. I'm starting to put some, some dent into this stack, right? I'm telling Al Hefe, we've got our guy, man. where do you want this million I clean dropped off? And I remember having it dropped off. And he's like, man, keep it going. Like, he was happy. And I go and I, he comes back and I give him two suitcases now of 2.5 million.

Keep in mind, we're still, you know, we're still trying to buy Euro notes and gold coins slow as possible and it's taken forever still. I'm like, 2.5 million. This is going to put a dent in this thing. Three hours later, he calls me. I'm like, holy shit, I'm in the gym with my personal trainer. And he goes, hey, we got a problem. I said, what do you mean we got a problem?

said I lost all the money. He goes, actually, I have 300 grand left at my hotel room. And I said, what? Now my, all I'm thinking is this guy just robbed me. That's all my mind's thinking. So I tell my personal trainer, he says, come on, we'll go to the casino. I have a pit boss there that I know. We're going to figure it out ourselves. So Randy, I remember putting on this three piece suit. This is where that Don Corleon came in Joe Fack. And I put on the suit. And I had my personal trainer put on a suit. And we went in there into this casino. And we meant business. Like, there's no way this guy's going to take me for 2.5 million of the cartels money, right? And I get there and he's just like shaking you. I lost it, man. I lost everything, but I can win it back. Just give me some more money. I have 300

at the hotel. Please help me. I'll get it back. He's panicking. I'm like, there's no way. So I have Sean, my personal trainer. He goes, talks to the pit boss. And he says, dude, the guy was playing like $60,000 a hand, three at a time. He lost it. He really lost it. I'm like, holy shit. So now we're like, okay, what are we going to do? We can't have this guy leave. We need to figure this out. I said, you know what we're going to do? I I said, you're going to get your 300 grand that's at the hotel room. I said, and you're going to get your passport. You're not leaving this country until you do that. He's scared.

He's like, yeah, whatever you need. Okay, I'll go get the 300. I'll go get my passport. And Sean tells him, my personal trainer, says, we're going to get a hotel room at the Hilton off of George Street. And we're going to call you as soon as we get there with the room number. And your job is to meet us there with your passport and your 300 grand. He's like, yeah, whatever you want, I'll do it.

We drive to George Street. We get the room. 1326 is the room number. We call him and say, hey, 1326, come on, get your ass over here. He was, okay, I'm on my way, I'm on way. We wait four hours, Randy. Doesn't show up. We're like, oh, fuck, this guy got us.

So I said, fuck it. Let's go back to my studio. Let's get out of here. We're not going to wait around. So we go to my studio. We're literally drinking white wine. I'm popping Xanax. I'm so stressed out.

And I'm just thinking like, man, what am I going to do? How am I going to tell El Haffa? I'm just drinking this wine. And he calls. He says, I got your 300. I'm coming over. I'm like, oh, fuck yeah. And at this point, Randy, I'm so paranoid.

I'm like, okay, what do I do? You know what? I'm going to take some of this cash and give it to Sean. You know, I'm going to give him 700 grand because he's going to pick up 300. Then he's going to have a million cash. And I'm so paranoid at this time because you've got to remember, I'm like, this guy knows where I live. He's already playing games. So I tell Sean, hey, I'm going to give you this suitcase of 700 grand.

As soon as you meet the guy at the hotel, take his 300, put it in the suitcase and go to your house. And he lived on the farm. I said, just go hide this million for me, please. because I just want to get cash out of there. So he shows up to the four seas, or excuse me, he shows up to the Hilton Hotel. And as soon as he get there, there's four New South Wales police there.

And they said, hello, we just got a call from an Australian, no, we got a call from American man that said you have a gun in your room. He's like, a gun in my room. It's like, I don't have no gun in my room. They said, well, we need to check your suitcase first. They open up the suitcase and they find the 700,000.

They detain them. They take them to jail. And like, at this point, I don't know what's going on. I told him as soon as he picks up the money, call me. So I know he's okay. Three, four hours go by, he hasn't called me. So I'm like, okay, my personal trainer just robbed me. That's all I'm thinking.

I'm calling him. He's not answering. And finally, like, five hours later, at like, two in the morning, I get a call from this lady from the police department. She's like, this is just junior, Junior de Luca, because that was my alias over there. She said, junior, we're calling about the 700 grand we just found on Sean Carolyn. Can you come into the station?

I'm like, oh my gosh. I said, I don't know what you're talking about. And I said, I'm not coming into any station because I'm in Koogee Beach. I lied to her. Koojee Beach is like two hours away. I said, I'm in Koogee Beach. It's two in the morning. I said, I'll come in the morning.

I'm not coming right now. So now I'm panicking. I'm like, oh my God. So not only did I lose $2.5 million of El Hefe's money, but I just lost another of the $700,000. And so in three, I lost, in within 24 hours, $3.2 million of the cartels money. I'm like, holy shit. I am fucked.

And Sean Carolyn, the personal trainer, gets out the next day and he's like, mate, we got a problem. He says that American guy, he's telling him we threaten him. He's telling him that he was laundering money for us. He says, you got to get out of here. He says, but the 700 grand, don't worry. He says, I told him that you were a businessman and that you gave me that money to invest in my rejuvenation clinic. He had a rejuvenation center. I said, okay, I can go with that. I'm good with that. He said, we'll get that back. worry. He says, I got a dodgy attorney. He says, this attorney's great. He might take a percentage, but who cares? You'll get it back. At this point, I don't care. I'll take anything back, right? You just lost 3.2. You'll take a dollar back and be happy. But now I know I'm hot. So I say, you know, I got to get out of Australia. He says, don't worry. We'll talk to the lawyer.

We'll get it resolved. I fly back to America. And as soon as I touch down in the United States, I get a message. Guess who it's from? El Hafe. He says, hey, weddo. I I need three million dropped off in San Diego. I'm like, oh, shit. I got on the encrypted front. I'm like, hey, I need to see you in person. I need to talk to you about this. I don't want to tell him I lost his money or he's going to think I'm lying.

All I can think about is if I tell him that, he's going to have me killed. So Randy, the only thing I was thinking about is if I get this man in front of me and I'm talking to you, he's going to know I'm not lying. I got to tell him the truth. And that's what I told myself I have to do. I was like, okay, do I run and have to look over my shoulder and be worried about getting killed or do I just face the music? And I remember it was a Saturday, and he says,

meet me in Tijuana on Monday. And he flew in from wherever he flew in. And he says at 1 p.m., I need you to be at the McDonald's on the Tijuana side. He says, I'm going to have my Sicarios pick you up. For people that don't know, a Sicario is a Mexican hitman. And I'm at McDonald's.

I'm waiting. I'm at 1255. I message, hey, I'm here. One o'clock sharp. Boom. Suburban pulls up. Rolls down the window, and the glass is this thick because it's bulletproof.

and they say, Weddo, get in the car. And I get in the car. I'm literally looking at the driver, and he has a pistol right here. And then I turn around, and there's two Sicario's in the back with AK-47s. And I'm like, holy shit. All I'm thinking about is they're going to fucking kill me right there, and it's over. Like, this is what they're going to do. They're just going to kill me.

And we get out and we get on the toll road, and next thing you know, we pull behind a Hummer, a black Hummer, and then right in front of the Hummer is another suburban. And I don't know at the time, but this is El Hefe. We take this entourage, and it's probably 20 minutes later, we're in this town called Porto Nuevo, which is Lobster Town. I'll never forget today, this Porto Nuevo number one, which is the most famous lobster restaurant, probably there, right on the corner, it was shut down. I've never seen this place shut down. Usually he has a line out the door.

And he had that line, he had the whole place shut down for him. He's now sitting at the table. He has six saccarias around him. I sit at the table across from him. I got the two ciccaras that were in the suburban behind me. And I sit down there and I tell him, I tell him who I am. He obviously knows. I tell him, hey, it went great.

The 1.5, remember, I gave you the money? I said, then we asked the 2.5 and we, we, he, he says, Wetto, I know. I've been reading the papers. It's all in the news. He says, but, well, we got good news and we got bad news. He says, you know what we say in Spanish. It's a famous cartel saying, plata or plomo, meaning we either kill you.

Plata, which means silver. You either pay us or plomo means lead. You get killed. And I knew the saying, it was an old Escobar saying, right? I've heard it before. And he says, you don't owe me $3.2 million anymore. He says, you now owe me $4 million. I'm charging the interest.

And he says, you now work for the cartel. I was like, oh, fuck. All I'm thinking about is I'm alive, right? Now I don't have to worry about this guy's behind me because he just told me. I own $4 million and I'm working for him. And I was like, okay, at least I'm going to leave this place alive. And that's all that went through my mind that day. I was like, okay, I've been the underdog my whole life.

I can get out of the situation as long as I'm alive. And I remember that day, he's like, okay, now let's drink. And I remember I took that margarita. I chuckled that thing. So fucking, I was like, this is, oh, now talk about a rush, right? That was a different rush than coming across with some steroids. That was a whole other rush, knowing that you're now working for the most infamous cartel in the world. Going back to the godfather, Don Corleone, the powerful head of the mom, who very violent will kill people to get whatever

he wants, said, make me an offer, I can't refuse. In so many parts of our life, that happens to us. We say, okay, are we going to go left road or the right road? What's your advice to people, even in a non-criminal fashion? When that happens, is it too good to be true? Most of the time it is, but my advice to anybody that's on the border, I tell them to do a background check on that person. You know, if I would have maybe done a background check on my customer that was betting through my agent and found out that, you know, he was working as a cartel member, I would probably say, you know what, let's pass on this customer. This is not all money is good money, right? You know, I tell people I had a private investigator on my payroll just for things like this.

And a prime example is the guy that lost the $2.5 million. You know, if I would have done a background check and realized that he was a Fugazi, I would probably want to have went into business with him. But I was so desperate at the time to get this money out of Australia, I just went with it. And that's the device I give people, you know, look who. you're doing business with before you get into bed with them. It's such a great point. Part of extreme preparation is doing the research and the background check on the people that you are doing business with.

Many years ago, I was looking to buy an electronics distributor. I went through all the due diligence. It wasn't on a computer back then, so there are all these no cards. I asked the owner of the company in writing, do you have any legal problems you ever been accused of crime? No, no, no. And then I asked him in person face to face and he said no. Hire a private investigator, which is fair game in a business.

and it came up with a guy who had pleaded no contest for conspiracy to commit fraud. And I said to him, you know, over, done, not truthful, your books are not clean. And you know what he said to me? He said, this is 20 years ago and you're not allowed to go back. It's not legal for you to count that against me. I said, you know what? Sue me because I would never do business with a liar. Do your homework, do the background check.

It could save you a tremendous amount of heartache later on. I think that's very important in life. You know, I'm an open book. Like, I'm not hiding my past. And I come forward and I tell you the story, you can either love me or hate me. And 90% of the people are going, man, you're honest and you speak the truth and you're transparent. He goes, I want to do business with you. And that's very important, honesty and integrity.

So now you're working with Al Hafe. You're now an official cartel employee, essentially. And there was a two-year cooling off period at some point now, right? You're still doing the same thing that you're doing. Are you laundering the money? in Australia, you're going back there now, or are you now in the United States trying to figure out how to bring money in?

I'm no longer going back to Australia. Obviously, I'm a wanted man. I have this lawyer in Australia trying to figure out how he's going to recover the $700,000, and he comes up with a story where he's going to have a concert promoter come forward and say that I was

a silent investor for the ZZ Top Fleetwood Mac concert that was in Melbourne, Australia, and I as this investor gave ZZTops manager in LA, 700 grand cash in order to be the down payment for their concert that they're playing. Because this really did happen. They really played in Australia. And this concert promoter really did hire them. Obviously, we lied. I didn't give anybody 700 grand, but this guy was going to come forward

and say this, and he was going to make a percentage. And then the lawyer was going to make a percentage. And I was just taking my lawyer's advice. And he's like, and then after that happens, after this guy come forward, he says, now you need to go forward and go into the Beverly Hills Playstation. confirm all this happened. I was like, man, we do not talk to the police. I'm not doing that. You're crazy. He's just, mate, it's not a U.S. matter. And that stuck with me. I said, okay, you're my lawyer. I'm going to take your advice. I went into the police station and I told him this fucking make-believe story. And that story will save my life. We'll come back around. Yeah. But just have that in the back of your mind. A lot of things that work for criminals are actually worked for

legitimate people, right? Some of the things that make us successful criminals, you could turn around to be successful in the real world. And we'll talk about what you're doing now that you're out of prison with your new company in a little bit. But I want to talk about one of the things that's made me successful, it's my Brandon writing book called Extreme Preparation.

That is when someone prepares one hour for a podcast, I'll do 14. I was going to be the most prepared person in the room, it just leads to extraordinary success and whatever that we're doing. How important has extreme preparation been in your success? And then on a scale of 1 to 1,000, how important is it,

I scale 1 to 1,000, how important is extreme preparation to be a successful criminal? I would say at least 9,900, right? You have to prepare for these moments and you have to be able to, you know, what's the word? I'm drawn a blank. You have to be able to know how to pivot, right? And be resilient. And like you said, preparation can be for someone that's a Fortune 500 company or someone that's working for the cartel.

And I had to prepare and figure out, like you said, I had to take two years off. And in that two years, guess what? I prepared what I was going to do every day to make him back his money. And the reason I took off two years was because he knew that the guy was cooperating with the government because it was all over the news. He told the story that he was laundering money. So he said, you take off two years, let stuff die down, the heat will die down, run your sports book business. Don't do anything with drugs. Don't do anything with money laundering. Run your sports book business like you did before you met me. And that's what I did. But the whole time, Randy, I was thinking about that debt, that $4 million debt.

And I started using drugs heavily. I started drinking heavily. I was so stressed out and knowing that I owed them $4 million. And I just started to prepare and figure out a way I was going to pay them back. And Hale Hafei said, when the two years is up, it's your job to figure out how to get the drugs into Australia. You're no longer using my routes because I don't want you to burn them. He says you have to figure out how to get my product over there. Is this when you went with the Everclear and you're stirring it in the bathtub with an oar of a canoe?

Yeah, it was a stand-up paddleboard. Never forget it. So tell us about that. What was the innovation, which, again, it's the same things that can make us successful in the real world. Yeah, the innovation was like, okay, you're getting something, you need to get something into a country that's impossible to get it into. And people have used every route, whether it's, you know, boats, planes, humans. And I was like, okay, I can't use humans. I can't use both. So, you know, I have a limited budget here. And I was like, ever clear is the way.

And I went to Fiji, I went to Fiji because I couldn't come to Australia. And I met someone from Australia over to Fiji. And I told my situation, I said, hey, I have to sell it to you, but I can't come in Australia. I can't get it there. I'm going to have to figure it out. And we were drinking wine. This is how it happened.

We were drinking wine and we cheered. And as soon as I looked up, the clear wine. with this white wine we were drinking. I was like, that's it. I said, what if we brought it in wine? I said, do you have someone that could take liquid and turn it back to cocaine? He's like, yeah, we got the scientists for that.

You think you could do that? I said, yeah, I'm going to figure it out. And I remember going back to America. And I had my contractor who, you know, we were building many homes and he was very creative. And I told him, I had to break it to him. I said, man, I'm in debt to the cartel of four million. I said, I got to figure out a way

to turn this cocaine into liquid. Do you have any ideas? is. And he says, yeah, ever clear. He says, it's 150 proof. It'll break down anything. He says, it will turn that powder into liquid. And he says, then the sky's the limit. And he didn't know I already had the wine idea. So I remember, I said, hey, I need a favor. Um, a thousand dollars every, every one we turn into liquid, I'm paying you. I remember El hafei had his runners drop off 10 kilos. And we were in this, this bathtub. You know, we had these these bathtubs for these construction sites because we were building homes. And we were in this Kohler bathtub. And I'm in there. And I,

I take every bottle of wine. We had two cases of wine from Napa Valley. We bought it at Bevmo. And we poured out all the white wine. And we had the darkest bottle possible. And we're dumping them out. And my contractor is a wine. And he's like,

God, I can't believe you're wasting this. So take some. You know, he's like filling it up with those big water bottles that you pin on. He's like filling it up so he can have the wine after. And he's like, okay.

And he's placing these kilos in the bathtub. And I'm standing in the bathtub. and he's dumping the Everclear. And I'm in there with my stand-up paddleboard, my stand-up paddle-bored ore, and I'm literally just creating this, this cocaine's turning into paste, and then eventually the more alcohol we add,

it turns into liquid. And now we have funnels, and we're funneling the wine, the cocaine wine, back into the bottles, and we're wiping down the bottles, and we bought this corking kit online. And you put the cork in, and it corks goes down,

and then they have this red wax that you put on, and you melt it on top of the bottle. And we put them back in the case, and I remember calling one of my runners. I said, you're driving to Napa Valley today. He said, for what? I said, don't ask questions. Take the wine, go to the winery, where this wine came from.

I want you to find the closest FedEx or DHO, whatever you find. Write the return address for the same address as this wine company and put samples. And we sent it to a, they call it bottle shops in Australia. And they sell wine and alcohol and beers. We had this bottle shop that was set up through my mate over there. And I remember six days later, I gave him the tracking number and six days later he he messaged me on the cryptid phone he goes mate you're a fucking genius it made it I was like fuck yeah so I just took 10 kilos and I

turned it into liquid and eventually they brought that back and it came out to after they brought it back to peer cocaine it came out to 9.5 kilos so it was you know you know 95% and I said okay we figured it out and I eventually started to pay back the cartel this way, until people in Australia got greedy. And they started to ask, the guys that were turning it back into cocaine started to ask for half. And I said, do you guys want a job or do you really want to get greedy? And I said, I'm not paying half. You know, once we pay half, we already got to pay for the product. We got to pay for the exchange. There's too many people involved. And I said, hey, I'm not, I'm not paying half. So you either keep doing what

you're doing or I'm going to find another way. You're still pissed at Chipriani because he's now fucked you by essentially calling the Australian police to show up at Sean your trainer's Hilton room and you still want the money back. So, you know, sometimes... The 2.5, right? Right. So, you know, you're still, you're making the money back, but fuck him because he still owes you the money, essentially at the end of the day. So when we're desperate, we're mad, we want to get even, we want to get back, still want your money back. Tell us about some of the crazy things that you did. You ensnared other people, a PI,

and talk about how you Photoshop something and then showed things to his wife, and you desecrated his mother's grave. Yeah, I would say in the collection game, it's all about tactics, scare tactics, right? And as a bookie, you know every story. I've been doing it forever and know how to collect money, and you always start with the family.

And you try to keep the, obviously, there's no violence because the violence puts you away forever, but you try to put this fear of God in them. And we go usually toward the wife or the dad or the mom. And obviously his parents were deceased. So we started with the wife and we figured out where they lived. And we sent her a bouquet of flowers and just let her know like, hey, just wishing you a happy day and tell your husband,

we say hello and we signed it, you know, junior, right? And then I remember we sent a pizza man to deliver a pizza at his condo off of Ocean Avenue and the pizza man opened the door and he said this is from junior you know so we put this fear of god in I'm like okay wow he knows where I live but it wasn't working like he he's like man you can't be doing that I said well we need to get paid and he started to literally insult me by putting like a thousand dollars in my accounts I had these shell corporations he deposit like a thousand dollars once a month I'm like dude this is insulting and and then I was like okay what's next and I I hired this private eye one of the things that my my girlfriend at the

time told me was he was really in love with his mother. Like his mother passed away and he put this big sign on the freeway that said, you know, rest in peace, mom. So I knew that was his soft spot, right? So it's like, okay, what can we do? I called this PI and I said, because there any way we can figure out where the mother was buried? He's like, yeah, we could figure that out. So he, the PI figured out that the mother was buried in a Pennsylvania cemetery. And I was like, okay, this is what I need you to do. I'm going to pay you $2,000. I said, all I need you to do is go to that cemetery and give me the headstone. He said, what do you want that for? I said, don't worry. I'm paying you. Just bring it back to me. So my idea, Randy, was to use that headstone as collateral.

Hey, you owe me money. I got fucking Regina's headstone here. I need to get paid back. If you want it, you pay me. That's the whole mentality I was going to use. My PI gets there and he realizes this headstone's like six feet tall. And he's like, dude, I cannot. He's like, this is no way. This thing's probably 2,500 pounds. And I'm like, okay, what do we do next? He says, well, there's plan B. I said, well, what's plan B? He says, I could throw some red paint on the headstone. And then he says, what we could do is, when I get back to California, we'll photoshop you with a shovel and we'll put you in front of it like you're burying, like you're digging the grave and we'll have like blood running down the back of the headstone. I'm like, all right, let's fuck it. We've, we've,

you're already out there. Come on. He's in Pennsylvania. He drove there. I said, okay, just do it. So he buys some oil-based pain. He splatters it and he takes some pictures and he comes back. And he comes back to America, it comes back to California. And I remember we go to La Brea Tarpitz and we're out there and he put this Nacho Libre mask on and he's got me out there with a shovel and I'm like, come on, man, hurry up and take the picture. You know, he got all these kids around. I look like I'm a rob a bank. And he takes the pictures and he screenshots me and he photoshopps me inside this cemetery area, like I'm digging this grave. And that was definitely the biggest mistake I made for sure. you know, if I could take it all back, I would take back what I did there because that's what got

him to take it to the FBI. That got him so upset. And he took to the FBI and showed him this and told him basically everything. He laundered my money. Yeah. You know, there's a huge lesson there at the end of the day, which is revenge and the desire for revenge, you can take it too far. And so a lot of people just won't cut their losses. Life's not fair. This person fuck me. I'm going to fuck them. It's not working, you're almost obsessed with it. Oh yeah, it's a sickness. And you can't stop. You can't stop. Sickness. And that was a sickness. But in hindsight, at the end of the day,

people have to learn to accept things aren't fair. People have to accept that someone fucked you. And there's nothing you can really do about it. But as a competitive person, it's extremely hard to do. Yeah. And especially someone that's never came from money and losing like all that that you earned, right? For me, that was like the hardest part. Because it wasn't like I can just go back to my Sydney apartment and get that cash

and pay the cartel back. You know, that's the thing. People don't realize, like, the Australian attorney went to the apartment and took the rest of my money. And obviously, you'll see I get my get back eventually later on in life with him. You want to be judge and jury at the same time.

Yeah. It's not a good place to be. So eventually, all good things must end when you're a criminal. I mean, most criminals are just not going to get away with it or whatever they're doing. Most. I mean, in the bigger,

you get the bigger the target you become because the fall guys, the less important guys at the bottom are going to sing to save themselves to go after the big guy. Yep. And you eventually got caught. Talk to us about your Al Wilson and the Ag McMuffin moment and your black matted porch and the white Ford F-350 trucks in an empty parking lot at the country club. So eventually, you know, we get these guys paid back. we get the cartel payback.

And during this payback, we're utilizing a guy that my contact in Australia, Craig Hauser, he met these guys that were in the money laundering business. And he met him on this yacht party in Australia. And the guy by the name of Al Wilson was one of these guys. And Al Wilson was in Australia and they were just shooting shit. And he's like, what do you do for a living? And Craig's telling him what he does and they're drinking. He's like, hey, I'm, you know, I clean money.

I'm in the game. And, you know, Al Wilson's like, tell him. and they're like feeding him what he wants to hear. And he's like, dude, you should meet my mate in America. He always needs money clean. He's in the gambling business. And he's like, well, let's try it out. What do you charge?

And you charge 12 and a half points, which was half of the industry standard. I remember Craig gave him like $10,000 that day. And he says, here, why don't you take this to Owen and schedule, why don't you schedule around to golf with him? He likes golf. Fast forward a week. And I meet Al Wilson and a couple of his, you know, banker friends at this golf course in San San Diego.

The Aviara. Yeah. Which had a four seasons. Yes. Yep. The first was Aviar, then eventually we played at Rancho Mirage and La Costa Canyon. We played everywhere, right? For this first one, we did a transaction of this 10,000 just to see if it would work.

He took his percentage and he gave it. And we went golfing. You know, he had this Swiss banker, a Hong Kong banker and himself. And then a guy that had a boat that transferred money through the boat. And I was like, sold. I was like, okay, these guys are legit. And the thing that sold me the most, Randy, was they had encrypted phones. When I saw that encrypted phone, I was like,

okay, these guys are in the business. And I told Craig, my friend from Australia, I said, mate, these guys are great. I think we've found somebody to help us. Every week we're literally dropping off like a quarter million dollars cash in Australia and these Al Wilson's giving it to me in the U.S. in cash minus his fee. And it's like this. And we're utilizing these guys, you know,

eventually laundering, you know, millions of dollars back to pay back L. Haffee. And obviously, we start to get ahead and start our own profit. And we get to a point where, you know, we've probably golf, you know, six times and we've taken each other out to dinner and we've gone on a cigarette boat and I've seen his stash spots. And, you know, eventually he's like, hey, can you help me with transportation? And he says he's in the business. Yeah, what do you need? You know, we sell him some cocaine.

Some of my workers drop him off some cocaine. He pays us for it. I remember we set up this tea time to discuss the shipment of this cocaine. He just purchased. and our next transfer. We had some more money coming back. And we had a 710 AM tea time at the Aviar Country Club,

which is in Carlsbad for the second time. We played there before. I remember I left my girl's house. I was in my, like you said, my black Porsche Panamara, and I was in the carpool lane all by myself and I was like, fuck it. I'm late, I got to get going.

And I was flooring it, Randy. I was going like 1-10, and I'm passing cops and no one's stopping me. I'm like, okay, this is crazy. Like, I'm late. I'm passing cops. I'm the only guy in the car. carpool lane and I'm going over the speed limit. I'm not being stopped. Like, there's something wrong

with this picture. And the whole time, I'm just like, am I really, is this really going on? Because the night before, El Hafe told me, and it's in court documents. He says, there's no way anybody's going to do what they're doing cleaning money at half. He says, the people you're meeting with right now is the DEA. He says, you're going to be in prison the next 20 years. And I have that message, still in my discovery. And I didn't, I didn't believe it. I don't want to believe it. But at the same time, I'm like, he's probably right. I'm like, fuck it. I'm going to this meeting. and I'm flying. And I get to the parking lot of this country club,

and there's no one in there. There's a F-3-50. And I'm looking, I'm like, okay, there's like six gardeners in there. I'm like, you know what, I'm out of here. I'm going to go to McDonald's. I'm going to have a breakfast. I'm going to have an egg muffin.

I'm going to have an orange juice, and I'm going to wait. And I get there, and I'm like, okay, do I just, you know what? I don't feel like, I'm thinking about El Hafe's message. I'm like, you know what? Maybe I just take my encrypted phone. I run over and I just go down to Mexico.

I know I'm safe over there. I just paid the cartel back $4 million, right? And I'm like, okay. And then I get the call. Al Wilson calls me. And he goes, where are you at, mate? I'm like, what do you mean? I said, I went there and no, I'm in the clubhouse.

Hurry back. So I get out of McDonald's parking lot and I get back into the clubhouse and sure enough, there's still nobody there. I'm like, okay, this is weird. Still see the car with the gardeners. I pull up, I park the car. I pop the trunk. I bring my bag of clubs out.

My caddy shows up. And he says, Mr. Hansen, welcome to Aviara. And he's shaking. Fuck, man. Why is he shaking? This is not a good sign. And I told him, I said, man, where is everyone today? Like, 7-10?

There should be, like, cars out here. He's like, I don't know, Mr. Hansen. And right when he told me that, I said, okay, this is, something's wrong. And I look at the F-150. I'm like, okay, like, there's something going on. There's guys in the car. And then I went to grab my man bag in my passenger seat where I had my encrypted phones and my gambling money.

And as soon as I grabbed that man-bag, I turned around, and there was 16 FBI agents that came out of the bushes. And then there was a helicopter with the FBI on it. that was in the sky. And then there was this Australian man with this Australian accent. And right when I heard him say, do you remember me, it was the guy that I had that interview with from Beverly Hills. And when he said that, I knew my life was over, Randy.

Because all I was hoping was these guys, these FBI agents, were here for the gambling. Because gambling in maybe two years. But as soon as I heard that Australian accent, I said, okay, I'm fucked. I'm going away for a long time because now I knew it was the drugs. And a lot of people ask me, were you scared? Randy, I'm not going to lie, I was relieved.

It was finally over. I mean, it's also crazy when you think about the story. And, you know, you have greed, you have insecurity, greed, fueling your whole life, and then fear of getting dead and killed and executed. You're the Tijuana restaurant. And relief can be a great thing at the end of the day because I'm sure you weren't sleeping. You said you were popping a Xanax.

Oh, yeah. Right? Just to just over my shoulders. And you know, you call that the best day of your life. That best day. And I tell people this day, I think prison's the best thing that could happen to me. Because two things happen in this world. You end up dead.

The cartel would have killed me, no doubt. Or you end up in prison. And in prison really saved my life. I tell people, I mean, you and I wouldn't be here today if I didn't go to prison. We wouldn't be telling the story about something that I just started from rock bottom. I wouldn't be speaking to kids like, you know, Chip Hale's wife who introduced us, you know, and telling them the dangers of what happened. when you start with one bet.

Shout out to Judy Hale. Amazing person, big fan of my show. Thank you for being an amazing friend. When you get busted like that, the first thing that you have to think about is I'm still in business with a cartel. They have relationships in every prison. They could still kill you within minutes.

And so to this day, you've never revealed the identity of El Hafe. Never. And are you worried? today that there are things that, you know, I mean, you know, the documentary is very public. It's also very public that you're never going to do it. Are you worried today that someone, as we sit there today, is going to somehow say, okay, you know, I'm still worried about, oh, and Hansen, they're going to come and whack you. No, no doubt.

I can't, you got to remember, I went to prison. I was with the cartel that I worked for it. I'll never say it. You can say it, but I'm not going to confirm or deny. I went to prison with this cartel, and I was with the accountants. I was with Sikarias. I was lie lie lieutenants, and they would come to me and say, What a good job. You know, you paid us back and you didn't squeal. I had the opportunity. I had the opportunity to get out and work with the FBI in bus Del Hefe, but that wasn't an option. I told him I'm not signing death certificates. You get into, well, let's go to the sentencing hearing. You know, you get your RICO charge. You get, you know, you have to forfeit, I think, $5 million, your homes, your porous, the coins, everything. And then you have your sentencing.

and your dad is there. And, you know, the words that the judge used were that you were staggering and astounding in terms of the size. And it is difficult to understand how you got here other than greed. And then one of the other things that he said was that you turn gamblers into book, drug addicts into dealers and friends into felons. Tough. Tough one. Tough pill to swallow. Because you start to realize like, fuck, I actually did that. Like that was my bad. Because I did turn my, you know, my gamblers into bookies because they were in debt with me, right? And how are they going to get out of debt? Well, they're going to bring clients to lose money to get out of their debt. And I do feel bad. One of my best friends, Derek Lavel, who's a three-time Super Bowl champ.

You know, he got addicted to gambling, obviously, and he would lose, and how was he going to pay off his debt? Well, he, you know, I started giving him, you know, oxy cottons, and he started using those oxycottings because he was in pain from 10 years in prison and, or 10 years in the NFL, and Then he realized that he had a market for it. And next thing you know, he's paying off his gambling debt with these drugs I'm giving. I lied to my accountant about coming to Australia saying it was gambling money when it was cocaine money. And every day I was in prison, I thought about it. I was definitely, it was part of me that I was like, man, I really fucked up.

And I'd write every one of them and apologized, you know, for my mistakes. One of the great things about this show is not only do I get to meet some of the, know it's amazing people in the world and stories of amazing people but i become good friends with some of the people on my show damon west was a upper middle class guy grew up in texas he won football player became a meth dealer one of the biggest he had a robbery ring he came out of prison after getting a life sentence now he's doing amazing thing yeah public speaking he's an amazing dude he told me that the first piece of advice he got when you come to prison you got to give him in a fight you're going to get the shit kicked out of you but you have to establish

who you are and tell everyone that you're not going to take shit from anyone, even if you get your ass kicked. So did that happen to you and tell us about the bone crusher and the advice he gave you and what what he did? Yeah, you're a shout out to Damon, a good friend of mine. He's someone I look up to definitely. He's speaking in the NFL, call it prisons. You know, I look up to him, no doubt. He's awesome. Stud. I love what he's doing. But yeah, you go to prison and you can't be disrespectful. There's a few words you're not allowed to use in prison. And if those words are thrown at you, you know, you have to do something about them. And there was the words punk, bitch and lame. And I remember I was working out. And this is during before I was getting

sentenced. And I was working out doing pull-ups in the day room. And some some units can't come out because we're working out. So they ask, you know, the inmates if they can get him some hot water or get him a towel or a book to read. And I was finishing my workout. And the guy's like, Hey, can you get me hot water? I said, let me finish my set. And he said, you're acting like a bitch. And this is literally a day before I was supposed to get sentenced, Randy. And that's all I could say, everyone heard it.

You got the Mexicans, the blacks, the Asians, they all heard it. This white man called me a bitch. And I was like, man, I got to do something now. I'm getting sentenced tomorrow. All I was thinking about, if I go beat this guy up, I'm going to go be put in the shoe. I'm going to come to sentencing an orange jumpsuit. And the judge is going to look at me like a troublemaker, right? And I was like, okay, but I can't be disrespected because everyone now thinks I'm the bitch.

And for me, I was like, man, I was so stressed out, Randy. I told him, I said, you better have your shoes on because when this gate is open, I said, I'm coming after you. And everyone heard me say that. You know, as soon as they opened the gate, I went into the unit and the guy was in a cell. And everyone's watching me, right? And I shut the door. I'm like, I'm not going to beat this guy up. I just, I don't have it in me.

So I slapped him. I slapped him so hard and he fell on his bed. You know, I didn't sock him, but I slapped him. I said, who's the bitch now? I said, don't you ever call someone a bitch? I said, you know the rules. And he was on the bed. Please don't hurt me.

And everyone's looking and everyone's looking in the window. After that, I never got fucked with the rest of my prison bid. And like Deemann said, you have to. And then once I went to the penitentiary in Lompoc, the first day I got there, they gave me a bone crusher. And I remember the white rep saying, hey, this is yours. You protect yourself. And if we ever go to war, this is what you use.

And I've never even seen a bone crusher. I was like, holy shit, what am I going to do with this? And that's prison. You got to survive. You got to survive. You're in prison and you reset your life and you're getting the best shape of your career. You decided to get an MBA in prison. What motivated you to get an MBA?

And I think it was from Golden Coast University. And then you were teaching inmates as well to get through GED. Did you just say to yourself, okay, this is my chance at the start of redemption and I'm going to improve myself for one, when I get out of college, I'm going to be better. trained, better business person, and that you really wanted to help people? Yeah, you know what stuck, Randy, was when they said, the judge said you have 21 years to, 21 years and three months to rehabilitate. And it really stuck with me. I'm like, fuck. I was like, that's a long time, right? But you know what? There's two types of people in the feds. There's the guys that basically, I tell people, it's like getting in the ring with Mike Tyson. You're going to get,

you're going to get knocked down, but you can either give up or you can get up. And it was a, it was tough pill for me to swallow to see my father, you know, nearly in tears and knowing 21 years would probably mean that I've never seen him again in the free world. I was like, fuck, man, what am I going to do? And I remember, I told my mother, I said, you know what, I'm going to go back to school. You know, she was for school. She says, I'll help you pay for your school if it's, if you want to improve your education. And there was a college called California Coast University and they're the only people that had offered a master's program and a doctor's program through correspondence. Obviously it was paid, but who cares? My mom was willing to pay the $100 a month

to help me pay for it. And I was like, okay, I'm teaching these kids how to get their GED, these guys that never got their GED, and I'm helping them. I'm like, okay, this is, this is cool, but I want to do something for me. And I was like, you know what, I'm going to go back to school. I'm going to get my master's degree. And after my master's degree, I'm going to get my doctor's degree. I got 21 years, right? That's all I was thinking. Like, I'm going to become a doctor in here. I remember it took me four years to get my master's degree due to COVID. And I started in like 19 and I think I ended up finishing in 23. And I got it in business administration and I'm I'm like, okay, I'm a convicted felon. What the hell am I going to do with an MBA, right? You're listening to Part 1 of my incredible

interview with Owen Hanson, a former USC walk-on football player who became a massive drug cocaine kingpin who worked for the Sinolaa cartel. This is a story about greed, adrenaline, near-death experiences and then ultimately redemption and entrepreneurship. Be sure to tune in next week for part two of my incredible interview with Owen. Pretend I'm a shark on shark tank. You're giving me the product. Where should we start here? We're going to do a little taste test here. So, you know, we decided that we needed 20 grams of protein and, you know, I felt like everybody was doing pints. So I said, you know, I wanted a protein shake on a stick and I said to myself, you know, what would it be what's the best bet so i was thinking you know probiotics 20 grams of protein no sugar added

use monk fruit as sweetener and i came up with these are my three most popular flavors i got the coliseum cookies and cream named after obviously where i played football at i got the uh have your cake and eat it too for all the ex-girlfriends that used to tell me i want my cake and eat it too and then i got the uh my one of my favorites which i hope you try is the strawberry swole cake everyone ask about strawberry swole cake where did the name come up well there's a guy named brandon hancock brandon hancock used to visit me every month in prison he was my old teammate and his nickname was swolcock on the football team well obviously i'm not going to call it swolcock no one's going to eat a swolecock so i called it strawberry strawberry strawberry okay let's eat these things before the belt but uh you know

you know they got a little melted but i i love when i was a kid you know the strawberry strawberry Yeah, strawberries like a cake. It's like that. Cheers. Cheers. So that's right there. So no added sugar. Delicious.

Greek yogurt based. That one has inclusions of real strawberries. Really delicious. We let it melt a little too much. But he'll get over it. Michigan Beach USC in the, in their game next year, you know, they're playing now each year, both in the Big Ten. Are you going to make one for the big house as opposed to calcium?

Oh. Only if I get a collaboration. And I get to speak to their football team. I could probably help you with that. My goal is to speak to any athletic department, whether it's baseball, football, anything that involves gambling. You know, like, that's why I spoke to Chip Hale's team, because gambling, people can bet on baseball, people can bet on basketball, people can bet on football.

And that's something that needs to be talked about. Well, I think it's so crazy about so many people who get greedy, They do it for the small amounts. You know, they got these basketball players. I think the average good basketball player, I'm not sure what it is. They make an $8 million. I mean, it could be a scrub basketball player. I make $8 million a year, you know, $10 million a year.

And they're taking these illegal bets for $25,000. You know why, though, right? They're adrenaline junkies. And if they can guarantee themselves a win, they're going to take it. So my thing is this. If you're a star player and someone offers you, let's just say $100,000. Let's say $100,000, like you said. If you know that someone's giving you $25,000,

and you can guarantee that you're not going to score 10 points or more, then guess what? You're going to take that 25 grand, and in order not to score 10 points, you're going to stop playing at halftime. You're going to tell coach, hey, I got a stomach ache. I can't play coach, and you're going to leave

because you know you just guaranteed yourself this money, and you won, right? And as an athlete, we like to win. And that's the problem with these athletes. And that's how it started with me. I was given the opportunity before, and no one knows this story, but I was given an opportunity to make $100,000 for myself and $100,000 for Matt Liner.

In this book, he came to me and he says, hey, you give $100,000 to Liner and you keep $100,000 for yourself, but you need to make sure Liner doesn't cover the spread. And I turn it down. You didn't even go to Matt at that point. I didn't even go to the point because I already had that six-figure job and I already knew Matt. I wouldn't ever do that to my brother. That's like my integrity wouldn't allow me to do that because why would I cost Matt his NFL career. He was still in college.

And so that's how this started. And that's when I go tell these college teams, like, hey, this is how it started for me. And guess what? I didn't accept it, but I very easily could have. And I still went back to being a bookie. And I still ended up working for the cartel all because of one bet. And it could happen to you guys. You guys could accept that $100,000.

It might get away with it the first time. But guess what happens? The second time you accept it, someone finds out, then you get arrested. Then you go to prison. Then you're shitting next to your friend that's sleeping on the bed right next to you because that's how it is. You have your toilet seat and you have your head right now. next to the bed. And nobody wants that. And I explained it to them. And they're looking at me like, wow, that's what happens. I said, yeah. And it can happen to anybody. Yeah, and especially today,

it's a different world, you know, way easier now. You can essentially pay the players. The players, you know, players do go. Yeah. And it's really only the top guys that get paid. Yeah, the big guys. So if you're just, I mean... Do you're a third string, you're going to take that money. You're going to take the money. Yeah, and if you can bet on your, you can bet on the NBA, guess what? Right underneath that is college basketball, so you can bet on your own team. Yeah. It's an epidemic right now. It's just the tip of the iceberg.

It's even easier now than it used to be because there are all these websites now where you can place bets on what color shoes is you going to wear in the game. Props. Yep. Propositions. Yeah. It's, you know, is someone, well, it's a friend of a friend of a friend was placing a bet on one of these websites. What's the likelihood that Trump is going to bomb Tehran in the next 12 hours? There are a bunch of trains because what happened is there's people in there. Israel and the Army who somehow are getting messages out and people in the United States are getting

messages out and people are making 5 grand, 10 grand to bat. They're going to get away with this. This is essentially insider trading. Yeah, it's inside training. Same with the bad thing. And there's no rules governing these websites right now. But a lot of people are eventually going to go to jail. There's a lot of regulation around this. And, you know, that one is just going to be so hard to kind of figure out. Yeah, they're on-troid, though. Look at the UFC. Dana White's pulled a couple fights just because of the FBI. Yeah. You know, Dana's an amazing person.

He's become a friend. He was on my show, one of the best episodes ever. So if you haven't listened to my episode with Dana White, that was actually incredible as well. Yeah, I feel like the UFC needs a pep doc for me because they're being investigated right now with this gambling. Yeah. I mean, Dana, Dana's on amazing things for the UFC. Yeah, he's awesome. Yeah, I love the flavor.

It was really great. You know, the ice cream's amazing. Yeah, I'm glad you like it. You know, I got to send it to the University of Arizona. Chip Hale, the head baseball coach there, and, you know, Judy Hale's amazing. The one that actually introduced you and I, and she's been great. We've been in contact, and she's going to hopefully get me some speaking gigs with the MLB teams about, you know, gambling awareness because it's such a big problem right now.

Fortunately, I was able to speak to the University of Arizona, and I told them, you know, the issues I had, obviously, as a college athlete and where it took me in life. And obviously, it all started with one bet. And at the end of the presentation, I brought the protein ice cream and they loved it. Ice cream's great. Judy Hall is amazing. Shout out to Judy. She recommended that you be here. And one thing also that we should tell people is that you are happy and willing, eagerly to speak to teams,

to warn young kids, athletes, people about the dangers of gambling. Absolutely. You know, once you cross that path and you make a bet, you never know where it can take you. And I'm a prime example. It took me to the most dangerous card. town the world. You have a new company today and one of the hard parts about a consumer product is getting shelf space. What people don't realize is when you have a new consumer product, the shelves are full. So you have to replace someone else and the way that they measure it is a number of sales

per skew per month. And the retailers all look at that and they say, okay, what isn't going well? And that's coming out and this is coming in. So talk to us about the hustle that you've done to get, your amazing product into these stores? I had to think outside of the box, right? I'm creating a protein ice cream that's never been done. It's never been on a stick, right? I tell people it's like a protein shake on a stick. So I'm like, okay, who would want this product the most?

And I was like, you know what, gyms, okay? Well, you go to a gym, have you ever seen a freezer out of gym? You don't see it. You see refrigerators with, you know, Rex protein shakes and pre-workout drinks, ice appears, but you never see a freezer. So I'm like, okay, this is going to be. costly, but I think it's going to be worth it. So I came up with this idea with my partners that

we created this brand. I said, let's go buy those free and let's wrap them with our branding and let's go to the gyms and we offer all the free for free to any gym that that wants a freezer. And so what we do is we place that freezer there and now that's our real estate. And we're not paying a, you know, a stocking fee. We're not paying a fee to keep our ice cream there like you would in a grocery store, right? So I go to these gyms and like, we love a freezer. You know, what a idea and I say okay all you got to do is buy the protein ice cream at wholesale and you know you make 75% on your money and it's been great I'm in 350 gyms right now spread throughout the United States California New York Las Vegas Arizona and Miami and our

goal is just to keep putting these freezers in these gyms and eventually once we create enough brand awareness from people that are into their fitness they're working out that's that protein ice cream they grab it they taste it oh this This is awesome. Where else can we get it? Eventually, once we have enough sales data, we're going to go to the big box, like the Target or the Walmart or the Costco. And we're just say, hey, we're in all these gyms. Can you guys start carrying our four packs or our six packs, whatever it may be? And then when people go to that Costco, they're going to be like, oh, that's that ice cream I always see in the gym. It has 20 grams of protein per bar. I'm going to grab some of that. And that's our goal.