Julian Dorey Podcast - #229 - Sinaloa Cartel is Funding Chinese Syndicates in California | Jorge Ventura

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

(***TIMESTAMPS in description below) ~ Jorge Ventura is a Mexican-Border Journalist with NewsNation. He has released 2 documentaries on the Cartel Border Operations in America. JORGE LINKS: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jorgeventuratv/?hl=en Twitter: https://x.com/venturareport EPISODE LINKS: - Julian Dorey PODCAST MERCH: https://juliandorey.myshopify.com/  - Support our Show on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey  JULIAN YT CHANNELS: - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@juliandoreyclips  - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily  - SUBSCRIBE to Best of JDP: https://www.youtube.com/@bestofJDP  FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY INSTAGRAM (Podcast): https://www.instagram.com/juliandoreypodcast/  INSTAGRAM (Personal): https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/  X: https://twitter.com/julianddorey Get $150 Off The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress / Mattress Cover (USING CODE: “JULIANDOREY”): https://eight-sleep.ioym.net/trendifier ***TIMESTAMPS*** 00:00 - Cartels almost k1lled Jorge (Story) 11:03 - Cartel-owned American land 19:10 - California’s Water Supply Anarchy 32:22 - John Nores fighting Cartels in Cali 38:21 - Oklahoma Chinese W**d Groves 44:29 - Cartels Working w/ Chinese; Darien Gap 57:43 - Chinese-owned Farmlands 01:05:31 - Cartel Business Booming; Tijuana Airport 01:17:48 - Disturbing Story from the Border 01:27:50 - El Paso Storm Drain Migrant Route; Politics of the border 01:37:02 - Jorge goes viral overnight 01:47:33 - Undercover during 2020 Summer Protests 01:54:10 - Portland Riots; Jorge's friend witnesses Kyle Rittenhouse Shooting 02:10:49 - Richie testifies at Rittenhouse Trial; Social Media Cultural Shift 02:22:40 - Jorge becomes major border journalist 02:35:36 - Sources at the border; The 50,000 Haitian Crossing; Tijuana Mayor 02:40:51 - Cartel Murders Americans in Texas Story; Luis Chapparo & Mexican Drone Wars 02:54:41 - Fears of Reporting in Mexico; the Most Dangerous Country for Journalists 03:01:17 - Dangerous New Venezuelan Gang Arriving (Tren de Aragua) 03:12:00 - Find Jorge CREDITS: - Hosted & Produced by Julian D. Dorey - Intro & Episode Edited by Alessi Allaman: https://www.instagram.com/allaman.docyou/ Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey ~ Music via Artlist.io ~ Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 229 - Jorge Ventura Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So then obviously as a reporter, we obviously are going to go to the migrant drop-off So one thing that we see a lot of these guys street releasing then they immediately go to the san diego airport and whatever So i'm spending time there. There's a bunch of cab drivers. Obviously these guys are like immigrant cab drivers So i'm talking to the these guys from somalia and obviously these guys wait there and wait for migrants to you know Because they're making money right dropping dropping these guys to the airport. Nothing wrong with that So i'm talking to the somali guys. I'm like, hey man, like how long have you guys been doing this? And the somali guys are pissed and they're like, hey man, you need to start looking at the Chinese. I'm like, what, why, what do you mean?

Stop looking it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just creating a small attack, because it's basically like, if you're a migrant, you basically literally, or you enter to San Diego legally, and then you go into a holding facility, and then within 72 hours, because they're so overwhelmed, they'll put you in one of these buses, and then like on the morning, they'll literally just release you with no direction. So then, you know, many of these migrants, they just go to a tech guy be like just take me to the airport or whatever so i'm talking to somali guys about this and they go hey man the chinese have their own drivers i'm like what do you mean so he's like he's like look look at the

next bus and then he pointed me to a street that was down where we were at so basically down the street from this this drop-off is a whole wave of just Chinese drivers. What's up, guys? If you're on Spotify right now, please follow the show so that you don't miss any future episodes and leave a five-star review. Thank you. Jorge Ventura, welcome to Jersey, baby. How we doing? It's good to be here, baby.

A little different than the border, right? A little different. Haven't been to the East Coast in a minute, man. It's good to be back here in Jersey. Actually, last time I was here, I was back in 2020 covering some of the business closures here in Jersey. But definitely good to be back. Great year. My favorite year.

Good stuff happening around here for sure. But, yo, what is this story with you and Sagnik? You just dropped this on me before we got on camera. You guys almost got killed by Mexican cartels in the middle of some Chinese wheat field or wheat field. Yeah, me and Sonic Basu were working. This was our very first documentary. We were doing the introduction into the illegal marijuana operations

in Southern California in the deserts. And we ran into an instance where we were about to go check out some illegal marijuana grows in a very sketchy area up in L.A. County, almost bordering like San Bernardino County. And then we got stopped by two Mexican cartel growers in this like F-150. Both guys were armed. The guy in the passenger seat was like ready to go. And what Sonic tells me now is that he basically just thought about his mom because he thought he was going to get blasted.

And so that was his last thought. But, yeah, man, we've been in some close calls. It's been kind of a wild roller coaster, man. And it really kind of kicked off, I think, really with all of us, right, 2020. And now we're here heading into election in like less than four months so it's been a wild journey well shout out to sognyk yeah putting this together he's the man i laugh because that dude he just he's about all the action bro and then he finds himself in these wild situations he's just a media guy from new york at this point he's like five two bro five

two above 30 all right he's like five six let's let's let's give him a few inches but the dude finds himself in in the middle of the stuff i respect that a lot and he was down there making making i think it was two docs yeah you're working with him on right yeah yeah we did we did two documentaries it was really um into the the this kind of illegal marijuana issue i'll kind of um because it would be all over the place but basically what happened uh june was back in 2021 the border became like a big a big story so i started i started covering the border at that time i was with the daily caller and we were you know covering it for months and it was getting hectic and i um there was one day where i met he was a congressman his name is mike garcia so he

represents like a certain district in la county and we were in south texas at this time so for me i was me i was interested i was like hey what is a politician or a congressman from southern california you know doing in mcallen texas um because no matter what he sees here has nothing to do with his district he can't he can't do anything that's right so what he says he's like hey jorge because of what's happening on the border um we have a huge cartel issue back back in uh palmdale and you know we have we he explained he said we have these mexicanel issue back in Palmdale. And he explained it. He said, we have these Mexican cartels moving in migrants undocumented.

They're starting up these, what he was calling illegal marijuana operations. And he was saying that they're forcing these migrants, essentially almost like slavery on U.S. soil, to work on these marijuana girls. Brutal conditions, middle of nowhere. These folks can't escape. They have to basically pay off their debt to be in the US. So he broke it down. It seemed like a movie. And I was like, first of all, this is not true. Second of all, Palmdale was my hometown. I was living in DC at this time for Daily Call. But Palmdale was my hometown. So I was like, I'm from there. I'm from the 661. I literally grew up there.

So what the congressman did, he said, look, man, hear me out. He's like, in a month, they're going to have a town hall in Acton, California. So it's a little bit before you get to Palmdale. He's like, head to the town hall and then give me a call after. I said, okay. So I go to this town hall and it was with LA County Sheriff. So yeah, like the sheriff's there and it was a bunch of residents from that area. Between client meetings, managing your business and everyday tasks, who has time to worry about website hosting?

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Host your site on Google Cloud's fastest servers with worldwide data centers so your pages load instantly. Need help? WordPress experts respond in under two minutes and will migrate to your site for free. Try it yourself. First month free at Kinsta.com. That's K-I-N-S-T-A dot com. Kinsta. Simply better hosting. like little building and then i just keep hearing story after story from farmers saying hey um you know i went to go you know down to down the road to go like grab you know some water pick it up and we got stopped by mexican cartel guys and now they they control the water lines or like hey uh last week you know we were hearing noises like my animals were you know were barking or whatever was going on and i went out there and these like hondurian kids are like tapped into my water lines and stealing water or like i've been shot at or like out there and these like Honduran kids are like tapped into my water lines and stealing water. Or like I've been shot at.

Or like these Mexican guys come. It was all this like story after story. And I was like, this can't be real. Like this is happening on US soil. You know, we have car tow activity. Then basically the sheriff was telling these people like, hey, because of where you guys live, you have to be armed because if you call us,

it's going to take us two and a half, three hours to get to you. And I just couldn't believe it. And all these people so far have declined to meet with media. Like they wouldn't meet with any media. Really? Yeah. So I just couldn't believe it.

So I was kind of taken aback. So the first thing I did is I started to do, I'm like, let me see what local media did on these stories. So I looked at local media and you would just always see like a reporter in a helicopter in LA County. And they'll be like, Hey, that's a marijuana grow dangerous. Like, don't go. And that's like the gist of the story. And I'm like, there's no way we could get much deeper. So what I did is I approached each resident and I connected with them on a human level. And I said, Hey, look, my name is Jorge Ventura. You know, I'm a reporter for the Daily Caller. I'm like, I grew up here. Like, this is my home. Like I'm a hometown kid. I went to high school here. I went to community college here. Like this is, this is my backyard, I'm like, I grew up here. This is my home. I'm a hometown kid. I went to high school here.

I went to community college here. This is my backyard, too. I care about this. So I think when people saw that, they started giving us the access. So then when I gained the residence trust to tell us the stories, that's when I called our editor-in-chief back at Daily Caller, and I said, hey, man, we got a big story right here that if I could break this for us. I'm like, but, and at that time, Daily Call, they've never produced a documentary,

never investigated a documentary. Small digital media company, right? They don't have the funds for it. And I said, look, all I need, I don't even need money. I'm like, you just send me Sognik. Give me like two months. I could produce a documentary. Just me and him.

We don't need money. We don't even need crazy equipment. We don't drone like i could get some videographers obviously like you had some people doing it with you just him and then the only other guy and this this will be something we'll talk about later because you'll find this guy's story interesting another guy was a freelancer his name is eric that i met at the border i then i hired him to be our drone guy which is just basically my own buddy, just to shoot him some bucks. And just us three, man, we started literally putting together one of the more dangerous documentaries on illegal marijuana that haven't

been touched in LA County. We were the first ones to do it. Not only we were the first ones to do it, we were the first ones to go with the residents, embed it with the residents, get the craziest stories about them being shot at, crazy stuff, the stuff you would only find in movies. So we got all these crazy stories.

We got law enforcement side, local officials. But to put the kind of cherry on top, I'm like, the way that we could beat everyone, and I did this with my guy Eric, is we would do two things, bro. In the middle of the day, we would drive my little Honda Civic in the middle of the desert to the marijuana grows. I mean, they're protected by armed cartel growers.

And we would find a spot, and we would put a drone over it. And then, boom, we started putting drones over the growers. And we started to put them, boom, really low. So we started to learn the builds. Where would they put the gunmen? Like, how big did they grow? And so we started, I call them day missions. So we kept sodding at the house, and it would only be me and me and eric because we where is this in the middle of the desert like where

approximately we're talking about la county pomdo california antelope valley so so so and this is where i grew up like i literally grew up here so we would do bros me and eric would hop in a in a my little honda you know find like a little desert spot where we could kind of be hidden throw the throw the drone up and then boom just started like and then we would just be amazed we're looking at this drone like how are these operations like like we're talking about massive i'm talking about multiple acres greenhouses water lines guys transporting supplies gunmen looking out all all happening in the u like in l in la county and we kept throwing them up so we started doing our day missions and then there was one where sonic sonic came up so it was those three.

And we found a massive one. It was on the border of L.A. County with San Bernardino. And it was so massive. I make a joke about it when we did our media run. This operation was so massive, you thought Jeff Bezos and Amazon were running it. We're talking about it was over 13 greenhouses. I mean, multiple acres. Oh, they had greenhouses.

Yeah, yeah. Huge. I mean, these are Jambungi. So I think they had over – they were close to like 20 massive acres so so when we showed la county sheriffs they they said you guys probably you guys stumbled on multi-million dollar operations so no shit sherlock so so we so we threw up the drone obviously we're doing our normal you know stick you know throw up the drone and then we're finally flying it back and then as we're flying it back we get in the Honda, we're driving.

And then like we look into the distance and I think it was Eric or Sonny, one of them goes, hey, why is that plane super low? And because it was far away. And I'm like, that's not a plane. And then we saw it go low. We're like, oh shit. Guys, if you're not following me on Instagram,

you can get me at Julian Dory podcast or also on my personal page at Julian D. Dory. Those links are in the description below. You can also follow me on X at Julian D. Dory. That link is in the description below. And as always, please smash that subscribe button if you haven't already and hit that like button on the video. It is a huge, huge help. I appreciate all of you who have been subbing and all of you who are liking all these videos. Thank you. They the the cartel guys then threw a drone and followed me. And they basically took down my license plate.

And, I mean, we've been in, you know, several of those instances, man. But it kind of happened. So they got your info. They ended up getting my info. We are on our first week of shooting the documentary. We got into a car chase with one of the cartel guys. One of the cartel guys ended up chasing us because we we are on our like on our first week of shooting the documentary we got into a car chase with one of the cartel guys when the cartel guys ended up chasing it chasing us because we found his his grow so then he hopped in the car with another armed guy and chased me sonic and at that time we were with a resident a resident showed us and the only thing that saved

us man during this we were like in a it's called like lake la literally middle of nowhere in the deserts if you're from socal you know what I'm talking about. But we were getting in a car chase in the desert. And the only thing that saved us from literally being killed is when we found the road. And thank God they do this. But in the middle of the deserts out there, bros, all the media companies shoot commercials. So we stumbled on the road where they were shooting a commercial. So when they're shooting a commercial in the desert, they put cops in the end. So the resident B-lens to the cop and basically does it you

and was like hey man can we just be here for two minutes we're getting chased by a grower we'll explain later so the cops like chill out and the grower just draws drives by and in the documentary sodnik does a good job of when the grower drives by he puts it in slow-mo so you could see the guy like armed you know he he was after us and um are you afraid that guy's gonna come back oh yeah i mean but we were so passionate i mean we were no no i mean now they got your info oh yeah i mean that now it's scary because now anything could happen you know obviously then i don't pose like my family and stuff but i mean basically man with literally no money with no help with no like no security team you know if amazon did a documentary like this man they got a security team they got

helicopters they got like five team. They got helicopters. They got like five drone guys. You know, we didn't have that, man. So it's just with hunger, us three, bro, we put a story together. We were the first ones to break Mexican and Chinese girls in San Bernardino in L.A. County operating illegal marijuana girls and stealing water. If you don't live in California, you guys don't know, but water is gold to us in the Golden State. So they're pumping water. We have human trafficking, sex trafficking, murders,

all connected to marijuana. All right, slow down. I get hyped. I can tell. This is your backyard. I'd be hyped too. Alessi did a great job pulling up just to show how tight this is for people. This is not far far as you're

saying at all from los angeles and alexa go just a little bit up bro so you see so if you if uh you guys will also see alexa just go a little bit up so we're in lancaster right here you see that edwards so so that's another thing bro is in our deserts we have the bases so those bases you have military bases um surrounded by or so they bases surrounded by organized crime, bro. And the thing is, when we started this first documentary, the girls that we were running into were 70% Mexican. About 30% were Chinese at the time. San Bernardino started seeing more Chinese. But that's the scary part, bro, is that they're next to military bases.

We have organized crime. These guys are armed to the t the thing and then i know if you're listening to this you're gonna say how this happening basically bro we um prop 64 in california changed everything so marijuana was legal obviously for for a long time but if you grew marijuana um without like a license it was always illegal in in in cali like you could you couldn't do that but then prop 64 came in and then they they downgraded that so if you grow marijuana illegally now they put it to a misdemeanor so essentially that sounds great because it's like okay let's black and brown people in jail you know let people grow weed it's not a big deal well first the mexican cartel found the loophole saying, wait a minute, we could then now take over the black market.

And basically their job now, bro, is to grow all this weed illegally. They avoid the taxes from California. They obviously avoid any type of oversight. They could abuse their employees. I mean, they literally kill their employees. Some of them are sex trafficked. So they don't have to pay their employees. And all that marijuana is now being shipped here to like new jersey new york east coast oklahoma

and getting and getting pushed so we also part of the documentary too bro is then speaking to guys who are doing it legally like how how are you guys surviving and they're not they have to pay their employees california does crazy taxes on marijuana so right now the bad guys are winning and the good guys i mean and this is my prediction bro from following this probably the next five years the legal marijuana industry in california will be borderline destroyed or like it's not gonna exist anymore okay yeah so here's what's kind of blowing my mind about the location here and the fact that like you're you're uncovering this yeah right outside of forget that there's even a military base right there. This is L.A. County Sheriff.

I know. They have jurisdiction. So when I was down in the Amazon earlier this year with my buddy Paul, he's protecting all kinds of acres down there. Once you get into the Amazon jungle, it doesn't really matter what the borders are. The government can't really do anything. It's a fucking jungle. Like there's nowhere to go.

Whatever happens out there, it is what it is. So there was a point like, you know, guys like Paul are on their own obviously to try to protect places where loggers and coal miners are coming in and illegally harvesting land. So there was one point where we snuck around the back of like a new base that they were building through the jungle like i don't know i don't want to say how close we got but we were right on top of them where there was just enough jungle between us and them that we could launch a couple drones and take it over the spot and then actually like a bunch of them were away right then so we were able to drive it down into their little huts and get all the intel there and this was really cool because it's the middle of the fucking jungle of course who else is going to do it this is in la county why do you have to take a drone out there yourself as a fucking citizen and take care of this well we could bring i don't know fucking 700 SWAT teams right there and take

it down right now so then so this is where the documentary gets interesting bro in our reporting so because of that proposition because of illegal marijuana is now a misdemeanor just to get a search warrant and all this has now become a hassle for LA County sheriff. So the sheriff now is going against the DA. Obviously if you guys know, if you guys from Southern California, you know, our DA,

the DA is horrible. It's a George gas going. You don't say so. So basically now long, basically the best way that one law enforcement guy broke it down to me is basically what he was saying is back in a day before this Prop 64 is when you had this marijuana issue, illegal marijuana was happening only in public land. So that means law enforcement could go raid. Basically, he was saying when this issue started, it was a national forest, national parks.

So you didn't need a search where you could just go in there, raid it, and get it out. With Prop 64, what this law enforcement guy broke down to me is essentially you can now have organized crime, use the Constitution against law enforcement. Because now they could grow it on technically their property in the middle of nowhere. Now they need a search warrant. It's a whole ordeal. The other thing is these guys are also squatting on a bunch of fucking land out there. Squatting? Yeah. guys are also squatting on a bunch of fucking land out there so squatting yeah so basically they'll find like you know desert that's obviously been abandoned and they'll just go in there and start putting shed and just build build out the operation knowing that no no one's gonna no one's

gonna bother them and then what they do is by using violence and fear intimidation that's how you kind of anyone that can basically snitch on these guys are called they kind of weed them out so basically what was interesting man, is you got to remember, this is happening super rural communities. So if you have one house taken over by the cartel member, eventually they're going to take over that block because what they'll do is they'll use threats. They'll start to steal your water

and then they'll eventually push you out. What they're also doing, and this is the fascinating part too, is the real estate aspect. So a lot of the people there that we interviewed, they say, hey, like our neighbor, Johnny sold his house and now it's a grow. That same grower will then approach them

and be like, hey, we just bought Johnny's house for whatever. We see that your house is on the market for 300K. We'll give you 420K cash. We need you out by the first. Those people are going to take the cartel cash, dude, and they're out of there. So what was interesting about what we were doing is there's really so many dynamics to the story.

That's why I'm so hyped and sorry about that. I'm rambling. I love your hypes, dude. It's great. That's the one thing you have to think about too, bro, is also the real estate angle of these operations, of how they buy the properties, how they'll use threats to get people out. At the end of the day, if you don't leave, they'll just approach and be like, hey, you're on the market, you're $350,000, you're 350 we'll give you 470 cash out by the first so

then they're basically taking over neighborhoods and then so that that was kind of that was that was our first um document was called cartelville usa and we kind of opened up this can worth of these illegal marijuana operations happening in in the backyard how law how they were basically using the laws against us and how people were being, you know, traffic, sex traffic, killed in the middle of the desert. There was one resident, she and her husband like to take these morning hikes on their hills out there.

And essentially they went out there one day and they got stopped by a Mexican cartel grower and he showed them a picture of their neighbor and it was their neighbor who went up there, gunned down. he was murdered in the truck and they said basically if you come up again this is what's going to happen to you we've been watching you they that family actually had a special needs son so they were like we know that you're you know your son has special needs we know this and then they're they were like we just don't you know so that after that they're like we don't we don't hike anymore a lot of like you got to remember too a lot of people live out there bro

because they have a different lifestyle right they like the right quads they do horses that life has changed for a lot of people um what makes this kind of sad and the heartbreaking part is just that the american is that like a lot of the folks out there and i connected with them they're like they're like old retired you know couples you know in their 60s and their 70s they worked their whole life you know they want to get away from the craziness in la they bought a home in the middle of nowhere they're riding the horses and then went in within two or three years they now have literally mexican cartel armed guys control i mean it's it's literally the wild wild west guys if you're still watching this video and you haven't yet hit that subscribe

button please take two seconds and go hit it right now thank you while me and sonny were filming it then every resident we would talk to we would like, you guys are armed, right? I mean, we're not. And they would be like, you know, if you guys call the cops, A, they're not going to come out here. And if they do, it'll take them three to four hours and you're not going to have the firepower that these guys have. So the amount of water stealing that these guys are doing is insane. The water lines that these guys build. We interviewed one guy where he had a two mile long water line on line on his property built, and it was pumping water every day.

All right. As someone who's from California, speaking to a lot of people listening right now who aren't and don't understand this, can you explain the water supply in California and how this works and why this is such a huge issue so that we can really understand this? So, like, right now we're in New Jersey, right? So, like, you know, you could turn on your sink, your water. It's a normal thing. So right now California, and this is not new news. This has been going on. So for years California has been facing a drought.

So, like, every year our local governments, like, alert us, like, the residents, hey, you guys could use this amount of water. You know, do you have this for this? And then if you go over that, we're starting to get penalized and get taxed for it. So these ranchers and farmers, they're in a worse position because where they are in the rural areas, their water is even more limited than us city folks. So they're even on a stronger cap, what you would call it. So basically the city says, hey, because of where you live, you're capped at this per month.

You use anything over, we're going to hit you with a tax. right so what what happens is when these when these illegal girls start these marijuana girls obviously marijuana needs the water is in they what they'll do is in the middle of the night they go to these residents homes they'll get into the water line and they'll they'll do an illegal tapping and then they'll start to pump up water so we interviewed residents dude where you know maybe their water bill every month is around like crazy, like $200, $300. They have a lot of plants. $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000. And the water district doesn't care.

They don't care that you got your water stolen, you got tapped. So then that becomes an issue. And then what they started to do is in L.A. County, we have a little bit over 100 fire hydrants in the deserts. They'll go in the middle of the night and they'll legally tap into the fire hydrant, then pump the water and then bring it back to the plant. So actually, L.A. County sheriffs and the firefighters had to go out to all the fire hydrants and started to put special logs on them. Isn't that enough for warrants? I'm just thinking about this.

I'm trying to think like other detectives I've talked with who discuss ways to get in. Number one, look at the electricity bills on on these on these warehouses if they're there you go they're insane you can fucking go to a judge who'll let you in there step two go look at what they're doing to water lines okay there's a but I don't know there's fucking six fire hydrants that have been plundered within a 10 mile radius I wonder who did it like how why is the only thing my mind can get to is that the cartels are paying off the cops. And that's what a lot of people allude to. And it's – the situation is messed up when you talked about city council because it's like it will be like one guy sees it as an issue and then the other don't see it.

I think the only – the assemblyman that we talked to was Tom Lackey from Palmdale palmville he is like was like the only assemblyman at least for him that saw it as an issue the other ones that the the big thing man with this is is we talk about marijuana so the thing is you think weed it's already like oh it's just hippies smoking a couple joints to eat like that's how we look at weed right if i said hey these are fencing operations you know like you're like oh my god we got to take them down. But because they're weed, it's almost looking like, oh, it's just weed. It's not a big deal. And people don't know this kind of criminal underworld enterprise that has literally popped up and has now literally taken over the Golden State. I'm telling anyone listening to this, go talk to a legal weed grower in Cali. They're not surviving. They can't make it. They've been

trying to write to Governor Gavin Newsom about this this so this is an issue that's been on the governor's desk so it's it's been a huge deal man and like i said we i'm just a board reporter guy dude i i accidentally stumbled on this issue and i'm glad daily caller gave us the tools and then we put on a full documentary you know we we we marketed we we got the um the word out and what was interesting man is um we put the documentary out and then two things happened after the documentary um one was there was a resident that we interviewed in the in the documentary that was selling their home because of the of the girls we kind of tell their story at the end of the documentary they um like by the time we put it out they've sold their home and they were headed to oklahoma they were they're headed to um oklahoma so then one day um

they're the couple's name is Gary and Susan. So one day I get a call. Hey, Horry, how you been? Whatever. It's Gary and Susan. And they're like, hey, you're not going to believe what happened. And I'm like, hey, what's going on? They're like, well, we're in the process of moving to Oklahoma and we're here now. We stopped at a little hotel for the night, you know, just, you know, to rest up before we make the final little hotel for the night you know just you know to rest up before we we we make the final drive and the hotel is owned by a sheriff i said okay and they said uh i guess him and the couple and the sheriff started talking so the sheriff's like what brings you to oklahoma and they go like oh we're you know we were growing up in rural california super beautiful but then

you know our our hometown got taken over by cartels and this whole marijuana problem. And so the sheriff tells them, well, I hate to break it to you. That issue has reached here in Oklahoma, but it's all Chinese. So they were my first lead into that. So that one. So then the couple calls me, lets me know about this Chinese issue. They gave me the sheriff's name. I said, oh, okay, that's interesting. I'm going to do something.

I'm going to take a look at. Then another month went by. Then I get a random call from Northern California. It's a Northern California number. okay that's interesting i'm gonna do something i'm gonna take a look at and um then like another month went by then i get a random call from northern california it's a northern california number so i pick up it's a former law enforcement retired investigator he calls me said hey jorge like i saw your documentary it's a great documentary and i was just like hey thanks man like we did it with no budget you know we did we did the best we can to tell the story he goes hey man so i saw your documentary um you said that la county had a little bit over a thousand illegal grows and that san bernardino had over 1500 at

that time i said yeah he said um well i'm in we're in i'm in an area called siskiyou county northern california he said siskiyou county has over 5 000 and i was like wait what 5 000 i was like because i'm like i must have heard wrong i was like excuse me he's like he's like yeah you know how like because like I found it interesting in your documentary you talk about these two counties and they obviously

have a lot of grows he's like I think you should come up to Siskiyou because we have over 5,000 of these grows he's like but 90% are not connected

to Mexican almost like it's very minimal now I'm like what do you mean he's like we're now seeing he's like when this problem started in Northern California it was mainly Mexican mexican he says now shifted to almost

all asian chinese mung all right question because i keep thinking this in my head we all know at this point that since the fucking 80s different cartels and different drug organizations have all it's not to say like there's not a huge market for marijuana and they're not in it. Of course they are. But like their focus is more on the higher margin stuff, cocaine, heroin, obviously fentanyl and shit now. Why are the Chinese getting into weed, the lowest margin business? And it's also – it's huge. You have to make enormous fields for it.

It's not to say that you don't have that with other drugs, but like it draws enormous attention and you know, you have to get a lot of real estate to do it. Like, why are they choosing this business? So from, from our investigations and like the close sources that we, we worked with at some point, like, and this is something that we're still working on, but at some point there was, there've been agreements with Chinese kind of, if you want to say organized crime, like Mexican cartels, where there was this agreement where the Mexicans are going to essentially let the Chinese have the black market marijuana industry. In exchange, the Mexicans would then get fentanyl precursors. That's what they really want. Precursors.

Yeah, because they want the chemical precursors to make what they really want precursors yeah because they want the the uh the chemical precursors to make fentanyl for the mexicans they've used fentanyl as a big buck because it's super cheap to make you know you know the smuggling they got they got that they got that all that all that down so what they want is they want those chinese precursors from china what the chinese then want in exchange this is this from a guy from law enforcement contacts and the investigations we've been doing and what the then want in exchange, this is from a guy from law enforcement contacts and the investigations we've been doing. And what the Chinese want in exchange is they want the cartels to help them be smuggled into the U.S. undetected, which obviously they could do. And then they want the black market marijuana industry.

So there's kind of been this agreement. That's what we've been. And the crazy thing, Julian, at this time that we're filming this this marijuana stuff i haven't started cover i mean i've already been on the border but the chinese migration hasn't been the story yet like we haven't been hit by that huge wave that we're that we're seeing now so this is kind of the early stages we're gonna get there yeah um so like i said like this this guy calls me he he lets me know about this this issue in uh in in siskiyou County. And then so I start to ask him more about like, what do you mean Chinese?

And I never even heard Hmong, I guess, you know, and everything. So he breaks it down. He said, hey, man, over the last few years, we're having a huge influx of Chinese citizens with Hmong citizens move into Northern California. We're talking about communities in Northern California that are like... Ever feel like your WordPress site is moving in slow motion? Switch to Kinsta's managed hosting for WordPress and watch it fly. Host your site on Google Cloud's fastest servers with worldwide data centers so your pages load instantly. Need help?

WordPress experts respond in under two minutes and will migrate to your site for free. Try it yourself. First month free at Kinsta.com. That's K-I-N-S-T-A.com. Kinsta. Simply better hosting. Our majority white, Hispanic, you know, it's farmers up there. That's really a farmers, ranchers in NorCal. He says, we're having Chinese and Hmong's come in. What they're doing is they're buying, what they call them is a property out there as they call them parcels. They'll buy a parcel, but then they'll also cut it in half

and make it like a sub and then they'll invite or not invite, but they'll basically been bringing more family members. So basically in one residence, you have like 10 to 15 Hmong's living in this one residence. But maybe it'll be in papers registered as two. So he's saying what they're doing is first they started moving them in, buying parcels.

In Northern California, you get parcels for really cheap. People are not fighting for parcels in Northern Cal. So the mungs have come in. They are buying property. Then they're bringing in their family members. Then now the mung have gotten involved in black black marijuana industry so now they're growing the the marijuana on these properties and then now they're shipping that marijuana to the east coast so then this has now started this illegal marijuana triad trade up in northern california

involving mungs and asians and then chinese so according to him is they were having a huge influx of mung coming in from minnesota um so i basically gathered as much data as as as we could we try to get it you know we always try to get as much residence we could talk to and everything i talked to sonny i said hey man i think we need we need to go up there talk to daily caller and then what daily caller did is like hey man go up there by yourself for two weeks and then you you come back and tell us everything and then we'll see if we're like, hey, man, go up there by yourself for two weeks. And then you come back and tell us everything. And then we'll see if we're going to investigate it. So I go up there for two weeks. And I'm used to what I heard in the desert.

So I know what to expect. But it was at another level up there. So first, I meet a firefighter. And he goes, hey, man, because of the marijuana grows and because how armed these guys are, he gives me a map. He's like, these are all the residents or the neighborhoods we can't go to on a 911 call so like if there's a fire what we don't even attend because there's he's like there's literally asian guys with like ak's now that are they shoot at us they do he's like so he's like now america in america so he was the way he explained it saying the only way they could respond to a 911 call they now have to call the sheriff

of siskiyou county or whatever and the sheriff has to accompany that firefighter or they they just won't do it amazon there's a bunch of neighbor they broke it down a bunch of neighborhoods up there amazon won't deliver anymore ups can't send any workers up there they'll send a drone yeah um ambulances so same thing like they got a 911 call ambulances canances can't go up there. So it just started, you know, little by little. Then we met a teacher up there who owned property on a mountain in NorCal. And so she was telling us that she went on a summer vacation. And then during that summer vacation, essentially what happened was a bunch of Mexican and Chinese moved into that property, tapped into the water lines and actually camped

out there so they actually build huts and camps on her on her mountain and tapped into the water every day so while on summer vacation she just calls her son she says you know hey bobby can you just go check on the property you know make sure blah blah whatever so according to her son and i spoke to both of them to verify the story according to his son he drives up um up and then when he went to go check the water tank saw like four or five mexican guys armed obviously they were tapping into the water line he just immediately did a u and had to call law enforcement and then law enforcement went up there a week later and cleared out those guys were already out there so we went up there after to see the aftermath just to see all the lines was interesting

to see the the huts so to see how these guys were living was fascinating. And then the worst part was that she was telling me that at the end of this whole thing, Cal Fish and Game actually billed her for the environmental damage. That's another part of the story. Oh, they billed her for what they did? Yeah. Because technically all of that, because these guys are also bringing these chemicals from Mexico that are banned here in the U.S. to put on the weed because they don't want the animals to

eat them so she ended up getting billed for them like over 30 grand by by cal fishing game um and it was just like i said well it's just it was just crazy how this just kind of kept opening up opening up opening up and um it was just such a big stories that me and sonic just like i said we kept pursuing it we put it we put a second documentary out from Northern California. That was the one I was telling you before. John Norris, who was the original Cow Fishing Game guy. For those who don't know, John Norris, back in around 2003, he gets a call from a rancher. You remember, Cow Fishing Game just deals with animal stuff, ranch stuff nothing big it's hilarious how like these random ass government organizations that no one thinks about suddenly like fall into some crazy story like

you're gonna tell right now and then they're like well it's all yours boys get your guns have fun so um so john john norris back in like 03 gets a call about you know water being uh diverted on a river from a rancher so this rancher goes hey man you know my i have a river here we you know my animals get waterfront but it's being diverted but he's like i've been following the diversion but it's so far i called you guys so john and his partner then follow this um this diversion and then ultimately it leads them to a field with 2 000 marijuana plants and according to john it was being guarded by Mexicans with AKs in kind of military outfits. So basically camouflage outfits. So they were definitely hiding from something, some type of entity.

So John goes, reports it. They tell him to do a fallout investigation. They go and they raid it. They, you know, take down the grows, whatever. And one thing that John notices really early on is that the amount of chemicals that these guys brought in and all the environmental damage they have already caused you know because law enforcement because he's bringing in like you know the law enforcement from north they only care about the criminal aspect right but john is a cow fishing gang guy he's he worries about the environmental damage so that's one thing that he picked up on and according to john when we spoke he said the following a couple months later

he stumbled on the second one but with his partner that his partner got shot in between both of his knees so john with his partner with cow fishing game waited for a helicopter to be saved for about three hours and it was then within then ken cow fishing game got got together with law enforcement hey this is a bigger deal than just water diversions or growing a weed plant and then john norris essentially this is the first guy to ever start raiding these illegal marijuana grows and he developed what's called the Delta Team for a cow fishing game, which is essentially a sniper expert marijuana eradication team that goes in there, raids these grows. They're trained to go combat with these Mexican guys, AK-47s, rescue missions. And so I'm in, you know, when I was in college, I found out about John through John. You know, I'm listening to Joe Rogan and John's on there.

And I, you know, I found, I found it interesting. I'm being a California kid, like what the heck cartels marijuana, but I didn't think of anything of it. I was 22, you know, years gone by in me. And then, uh, John reached out to me cause he actually watched our first documentary and he loved it. And then he actually collaborated and the one in Northern California. So the great thing was to have John with us, to have a real expert expert on the ground and he could just like all the stuff he was seeing he says that

he saw in his early days but now that it was times at 100 he said the whole growing on the properties makes it just so much harder for law enforcement and he was so i think the the other angle to now is that the border wasn't an issue when john was working the way it is now so just the influx of migrants that these guys could bring in who who could work was it was fascinating that the that first firefighter that we interviewed he actually rescued three migrants that were being basically like held captive on one of these marijuana girls so he shared those stories so just to have john with us was um was fascinating and and grateful for for his expertise too on top of it what year again did he first this was in 03 and then john collapsed with us on this documentary in 2002 so even 19 years later

or 2022 yeah it's when um like he said like the the problem is a hundred times worse now at that time it was strictly mexicans now you have the the chinese the the the asian and then like i said we were further investigating and um the great thing with Siskiyou County sheriffs, and San Bernardino did this with us too, is they gave us access on the raids, which was key. So on the day of the raid, it was crazy because we hop in with Siskiyou County sheriffs and we're driving in the dirt roads.

And as we're heading to the grows, all the mungs are leaving their grows because they know they're about to get raided. So all these mungs are leaving. But there's still workers on these grows. So as soon as we get on a grow like these guys raid it and there was a couple workers they go they go bust them and obviously the first thing me and sadhna want to do is we want to talk to these workers because it's like we want to find

out more on the story right it's like obviously we can find as much as we can through law enforcement all this stuff but let's talk to the actual workers and um me and sadhna we met this married mung couple who got recruited online who lived in Minnesota, who got recruited on WhatsApp. And then through WhatsApp, got recruited to move to California to grow marijuana and that they were promised like five grand a month growing weed. So they basically, up in their life, moved to Siskiyou. I mean, this is the middle of nowhere in Northern California. We're talking about super small towns towns with like populations of like 600 people basically grow marijuana for a work their boss they don't even know who the boss is like that that's the thing is like these guys who

really run these girls are never on the properties you know it's like almost like a shadow government um so we interviewed this couple and we're like how long have you guys been doing this so they've been doing it for two months they've been living in a shack that's another thing too the living conditions are brutal for these um many of these workers have died because of the carbon monoxide of the generator generators but um so they were living in shacks and we're like so how much how much money did you make in these two months you know i'm expected to hear like 10 grand here's the cash zero and they were essentially what they didn't know is that they were basically being held captive they they still

thought they were gonna pay it's like dude they were never going to get paid um and that's one thing that the cot was breaking down that was kind of sad it was like at the end of this whole ordeal there's the one who's i mean they're going to get arrested they're going to get charged and the guy who's really running this is always going to go untouched because then for them they don't care if this property gets raided you could just bring in more workers um it's just a crazy ordeal man of what we stumbled on in in uh in north cow up in uh we were up in doris so doris is like the town right before you get to oregon and it was a population all the way up there yeah we were uh doors had a population of a thousand people and they had 1500 grows in their

town so they had more grows in people um isn't this where david is his name david holtzgall did i get that right the documentary guy didn't he make a documentary on something like this right yeah i'm not i didn't make that up okay all right yeah so wow there's so much on the bone here yeah yeah it's a get at like i i want to try to break some of this down for people i just want to add this last thing. Please, go ahead. Just on this. So obviously we produced that documentary, and it did great. But ultimately, man, it led me back. And this is the one that I was more shocked by.

But ultimately, it led me back to Oklahoma. So then last year I go to Oklahoma, and then we started basically reporting on – Oklahoma right now is not even having – I mean, from what we saw, no Mexican illegal girls. It's all Chinese. So it was crazy. oklahoma so it was crazy to be like you would go like we were like like it was my first time in oklahoma so we would be like a small you know small town obviously it's majority like white rural farmer towns chinese aren't sticking out in oklahoma no yeah and now and then so you're like you know you'll be you'll be in these small towns man and then now there's, now they're getting a bunch of marijuana grows. I don't know if you could Google this, bro, but there was a quadruple, you want to put

like Oklahoma quadruple homicide marijuana grow, but there was a, there was a, the famous one was, there was a Chinese guy that he had some workers and he felt like, I feel like the workers owed him money and they didn't want to pay him. So he murdered, he murdered four people on a marijuana grow. So there's... Let's read this real quick for context, just for people. Okay. Investigation continues after a man shoots, kills wife and three

children at Yukon home. What we know below is what we know about the case. Okay. A homicide investigation continues after Oklahoma City police say a 10-year-old found five family members... Put marijuana farm on there real quick. Put Oklahoma Chinese farm quadruple homicide.

Okay. Yeah, let's try that. See, it's like... Oh, the second one, right? Yeah. Yeah. You know Fox News is governing it. All right.

Chinese national accused of murdering Ford, a legal Oklahoma medical marijuana medical marijuana farm sentenced to life in prison okay go down a chinese national who admitted fatally shooting four people at an illegal medical marijuana operation on an oklahoma farm has been sentenced to life in prison chen wu 47 pleaded guilty at a court hearing friday to four counts of first degree murder into one account of assault and battery with the deadly weapon in connection to a november 20th 2022 killing. Prosecutors say Wu, also known as Wu Chen in jail records, fatally shot three men and a woman in a garage at the farm west of Hennessy, a town 55 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. Within minutes of him demanding they return the $300,000 he had put into the growing operation. Authorities say that Wu and all his victims were Chinese citizens and that the marijuana growing operation on a 10-acre farm

was operating under an illegally obtained license to grow marijuana for medical purposes. Okay, so they had it. Right. And so when I went to Oklahoma

and we further investigated, we found out that there was lawyers in Oklahoma City who were giving Chinese citizens these fake, fraudulent medical licenses

to then grow illegal marijuana lawyers yeah and then what they'll do is and then they'll smuggle in these these are chinese citizens that are smuggled through the southern border so they're here undocumented and they're here to work and many of these chinese citizens they want to escape but obviously they they can't they're basically being held captive google this one next one for me man it's like um he looks like a real sweetheart yeah put uh put like new mexico uh chinese marijuana lawsuit so so for the first time now you actually have some chinese citizens that got together and now there's i believe they're suing one of the um marrow uh marijuana owners i think it's um yeah two can't so the first one yeah i think it should be it

new mexico cannabis manufacturer files lawsuit against cannabis control division all right albuquerque new mexico where we know there's a lot of drug things going on breaking bad today marks two years of legal recreational marijuana sales in new mexico instead of a celebration the cannabis control division is now facing a new lawsuit a local cannabis manufacturer is suing the state over a recent recall of some of its products the manufacturer's attorney is calling the recent recall of some of its products. The manufacturer's attorney is calling the recent recall unlawful.

Oh, I think I might read another one. There's one where basically citizens have got together and sued, but just, this has, basically,

there it is, yeah. Chinese immigrant workers. Perfect, there it is, yeah. Okay, Chinese immigrant workers sue over forced labor and illegal marijuana operation on Navajo land. All right,

Chinese immigrant workers allege they were lured to northern New Mexico under false pretenses and forced to work 14 hours a day trimming marijuana on the Navajo Nation where cultivating the plant is illegal, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in state court. Job advertisements for the operation in Shiprock promised 200 per day. Very similar story you told about the WhatsApp couple. Housing and food in exchange for gardening and flower cutting. But when the workers arrived in New Mexico, the complaint said their phone and car keys exchange for gardening and flower cutting but when the workers arrived in new mexico the complaint said their phone and car keys were taken away don't you hate when that happens they were barred from leaving and in some instances family members were

separated in a statement wednesday lawyers for the 15 workers said the clients were treated like animals and commended their bravery for coming forward okay so they had to get off they had to get away like that's the one thing if they're not gonna kill and i'm glad they didn't kill these people by the way shout out for not doing that but if they're not gonna kill these people what do they think they're gonna do like none of them are gonna talk well i just think because they they're undocumented they're probably like they have nowhere to go they have no resources and all that and which they are right this is like first of all that loss is like the first one i think of of it of its kind but it kind of shows the trend right where like

they get lured in. They're promised this one thing. And then all of a sudden they're held captive and they're working in brutal conditions. I don't know the conditions of New Mexico, but the ones that we're running in the desert. I mean, could you imagine living in a shack? That's 110, no water. I mean, it's – this all started, bro, like I said, this was a Californian issue. And now it has spread.

Southern Oregon has this issue too because Southern Oregon, a lot of those guys work with the Northern Cali guys. And like I said, speaking to residents in – now we have it in Oklahoma, New Mexico, CNN, and now the new state is Maine. Maine. Yeah. So if you want to just type in, bro, Maine Chinese grows, you'll see right now. They're picking the whitest states in the union. But all that wheat is coming to here, bro. It's coming to new jersey it's coming to new york because you know these guys are you know we're going to pay top dollar for that for that cali tree um and you know they're always

going to buy it through an illegal they will always go illegal why would you go legal and pay even more on the taxes so yeah that's the problem that's the problem with a lot of the legal so a lot of these illegal weed bro and in in cali they pick one guy as a driver and then that guy's goal is to basically get all that marijuana and transport it to new york without being stopped by the by the police all right let's let's back this up for a minute with something you said a little while ago because i want to get to the root core of this so you were saying that in exchange for some of the products to put together fentanyl, that's why the cartels are making a deal with the Chinese.

So there was this guy, Ben Westhoff, who wrote a book called Fentanyl Inc. You ever read that? No, no, but I have heard of it. Right. So he was on Joe Rogan in like 2019. It was a great conversation. Essentially, this guy was like a pop culture reporter. Like he wasn't – he wasn't reporting on drugs or anything like that.

I forget what it was, but he was assigned some story on something maybe in the music industry. And somewhere along the way, one of the people he interviewed made some offhand comment about fentanyl or whatever. Long story short, this guy starts asking him about it, learns more about it about it starts looking into it himself can't believe what's going on here like holy shit like this is exploding and ends up writing this whole book on it and as a part of that book savage this dude literally went alone to china by himself as an undercover agent and just wanted to see how easy it was to get shit and it was a joke he walked out of there with whatever he wanted i can't remember he had the ship at home or whatever but it was easy yeah easy so some of some of when you say that i'm like

wouldn't it be easy for the cartels if this guy's getting it could maybe it's more complicated it's got to be more complicated than that because they're probably huge amounts but still like i feel like there's there's got to be an easier way that said at the same time the the contra argument there is that you know given some chinese nationals or internationals coming in as immigrants some weed fields is a small price to pay and what was crazy man is when we were doing the marijuana reporting i've been covering the board i was covering the border before marijuana until i stumbled on it but we weren't hit we weren't hit with that chinese surge yet yeah and we were putting out a lot of this reporting in in 22 in the oklahoma one we did early 23 but then um early last year i get a call uh from a texas dps

which is a texas state trooper who who on the border under Operation Lone Star, it's called. So he calls. Operation Lone Star. Yeah, so Operation Lone Star is Governor Greg Abbott's, basically him putting the state police on the border saying, help these guys out. Stop fencing. Stop criminals. Get on it. So I get a call from a Texas DPS agent around, this is, I would say, January, March, 2023.

And he goes, hey, Jorge, I'm working here in the Rio Grande Valley, which is the RGV sector. And he goes, hey, man, for the first time ever, we're getting Chinese in South Texas. And I'm like, interesting. He's like, but it's not just the fact that we're getting Chinese. He says, we're looking at our numbers. He says, we have a 900% explosion in Chinese national now apprehensions in Rio Grande Valley, Texas.

So I said, he's like, I think you should get down here if you can. So we get down to around McAllen, Texas, like I said, early 2023. And we look at the numbers and we saw that, like, I think in all of last year, Texas got, Texas, like I said, early 2023. And we look at the numbers and we saw that like, I think in all of last year, Texas got like maybe 10 Chinese the whole year. And then now we're seeing that in one month, they got like 1100. And it was like kind of consistent. So that's where the guy came

in. Like I said, we're seeing a 900% spike. So we hit the ground with him and um you know we're doing our thing and boom we start running into chinese guys and i was like i couldn't believe because i'm like i'm like he's so right because at first i'm like it's got to be rare we're not going to see any chinese it's going to be like venezuela as always nope in mcallen running into chinese to chinese to chinese and um so first man obviously we we're trying to put an investigation together obviously we don't speak mandarin so we're gonna have to use google translate and things like that so we started piecing up things so one of the first things that we learned instantly this is through texas dps intelligence too is that the chinese the reason why the mexican cartel loves the chinese migrant smuggling is because the chinese are willing to pay cartel up to 35 grand

and be smuggled into the u.s where venezuelan the most they could to pay cartel up to 35 grand and be smuggled into the US. Where a Venezuelan, the most they could probably pay is maybe up to six grand. Yeah, you know, like in that range, they're not getting up to the tens or whatever. So then you have that aspect where these guys are willing to pay 35 grand. And then one thing you'd notice

straight off the bat with the Chinese is that they look clean. Like they don't look like they trekked through a country. They're not, you know, like when you run into a Venezuelan or any other nationality, I mean, they trekked through a country they're not you know like when you run into a venezuelan or any other any other uh nationality i mean they trek through mexico they've been living on the street whatever they look completely clean clean luggage shoes outfit clean clean so um so what we learned is that um well well first first we learned about

the price tax we started learning about that um then i started doing interviews. See, that's in Maine right here. You guys see, just as the department says, Chinese cartels may be taking millions off illegal pogros in Maine, dude. So then we started doing interviews on Google Translate and about, you know, how are you guys getting into Mexico? What's the apparatus here? You know, because every nationality is different on how they get into the U.S. So we started learning through Google Translate with the Chinese. We're thankful that they were just open with us. What the Chinese were telling us is they have to fly to Ecuador because Ecuador does not require travel visa from Chinese citizens.

So Chinese citizens, if they want to come into the U.S. in this migration journey thing they were seeing, is through smugglers, with Mexican smugglers, with smugglers also in Colombia and Ecuador, and through WhatsApp and through the Chinese one is WeChat, is they basically got coordinated in all the directions and tips. So basically for Chinese, you first fly to Ecuador. Ecuador does not require a travel visa from a Chinese citizen. So it's not even a hassle. You fly right in. Once they fly to Ecuador, smugglers, and it's already coordinated in their chats, will then get them to Neocoli, Colombia. From Neocoli, Colombia, they have hotels just for Chinese migrants. Just for, oh my God. Yeah, so then the migrants will stay there.

In Neocoli, Colombia, some will go through other different parts. Mainly, they go to, they have to get to Neocoli, Colombia. From Neocoli, Colombia, they get on boats. I don't know if you want to just put this on Google Maps so you can see it. Just put like Neocoli, Colombia, Chinese or any of that. So from there, the Chinese get on boats. I don't know if you want to just put this on Google Maps so you can see it. Just put like Neocoli, Colombia, Chinese or any of that. So from there, the Chinese get on boats. Those boats will take them to Central America. They'll basically get to Panama. From there, the Chinese are going through the Darien Gap, which is, I think your viewers probably know, it's probably the most dangerous journey in the world, according to the Panamanian

government too. Why is that though? Because all the kind of like narco criminals that control that jungle. It's just like – I mean the stories that we hear from interviewing migrants, the amount of dead bodies, the women that are constantly right there. There you see a lot of the rock trees. So that's where you see like the trees with all the women's underwear there. I've done interviews and seen these videos myself to verify where migrants are literally walking over dead bodies in the Darien Gap, even kids, which is tough to see. So it's super dangerous to go through. But the Chinese will take a boat from Neocoli, Colombia, they'll get to around that Panama area. And then from Panama, they will go through the Darien Gap on foot. So

even the Panamanian government, if you look at their records, has a record number of Chinese nationals because they have it registered of going through the Darien Gap. Once they go through the Darien Gap, we'll talk about this later too, but Nicaragua plays a key role in our immigration crisis because Nicaragua allows irregular migration to the U.S. And they know it too. They'll allow the Chinese to go through. They'll make it obviously to Guatemala and they'll get to Tapachula, Mexico. So once they cross into Mexico, the first big border town for them is tapachula technically migrants are not allowed to go past tapachula without a travel document because then

they're technically in mexico illegally what mexican officials are doing and they're playing a role in this migration crisis is they're issuing migrants i'm doing this in air quotes a humanitarian visa pass oh boy so this humanitarian visa normally it goes for 30 to 60 days so this humanitarian visa technically is a lot it allows you to be in mexico for 30 to 60 days and allows you to travel the only reason government officials are issuing these travel visas is because they know these people are not going to stay in mexico they're headed to the u.s so basically saying here just go just get to the u.s over here so chinese migrants are giving these travel visas and all the nationalities other two but we're just uh talking

about chinese right now they're giving these travel visas from there the mexican smugglers through wechat and whatsapp have already coordinated their travel path so the majority that we're finding out right now are either from tapachula will get into cancun or get into mexico city from cancun and mexico city they'll buy flights directly to Tijuana, Mexico. From Tijuana, the smugglers will then meet them at the airport, and then they'll take them an hour out of Tijuana in an area called Tecate, and they'll cross illegally into the area that you saw me earlier in, Jacumba Hot Springs, right out of San Diego.

So that's kind of what we learned through our interviews is this all starts in Ecuador. Up to $35,000, they're willing to be paid. And then as soon as they get into Mexico, government officials issue them that travel visa. So then they're freely allowed to travel. And then the Somalis have already coordinated the flights. They'll be like, hey, from Tapachula, we need you to make it to Cancun or Mexico City. And then from there, they'll get to TJ, TJ, right out of Tecate and into Jicuma Hot Springs. And that's kind of the migration trail for Chinese right now.

It's interesting that it starts in Ecuador. I just had Luis Navia in here. I think you were saying you checked out that episode. So one of the things he was telling me, I can't remember if he talked about this off camera or on, but either way, he's really wired in to this day to where shit's going down and whatever because he's worked with the government forever now. And he was like Ecuador is a fucking mess. He's like that's the next cartel gang takedown spot. And I forget some of the details he was telling me. I think obviously some of it had to do with their government or whatever.

But that's interesting that China would pick that as like the jump off point. And some Chinese men actually fly to – first they'll get to Istanbul, Turkey and then some are getting issued fake documents in Turkey and then will then fly into Ecuador. How do they get issued fake – like is it like ID chief? Like what are they getting well it's literally like like fake passports to uh to just bypass literally just getting on getting on an airplane and then i mean we we find that we find this more later in the reporting but this

like i said back in back in 2023 this was early on in texas you know so so so we learned about the chinese migration like i said we learned about how they're coming and little other things, which we found interesting. And then late last year, early this year, it just made a huge push into Tijuana. So then we started going to Tijuana, and then we started learning more about how the cartels were smuggling the Chinese there, making big bucks. But one thing that we noticed on the Tijuana border particularly is that all the Chinese will destroy their documents on the Mexican side or right on the border. So then when Border Patrol agents apprehend them, they have no documents. The vetting is super difficult for Chinese because one thing you have to remember, if you're a Border Patrol agent and you vet these guys, you could really only go off information in the U.S., which if these guys have never been, you don't have that. What about the migrants though too?

A lot of them haven't been, right? Yeah, but this is particularly just the Chinese. The other thing here is China's government does not share a database with the US. So if you're a Border Patrol agent and let's say you come across this guy from China and he's a communist soldier over there or whatever the case is. You don't know. You don't know. He could be a criminal in China. We don't know.

So when we do the vetting, A, we don't know. So then we were in that area, Jakuma Hot Springs, and reporting on all this Chinese movement and Chinese migrants and stuff. And we're obviously – we speak with sources inside Border Patrol. One thing that they tell us, they say, hey, man, just letting you know, like, we're getting so many migrants. And with the Chinese, he's like, we're essentially releasing these guys in 72 hours into the public. So you have Chinese citizens coming from, you know, all over the world right now. Like some flying in from Istanbul, some from China, some will fly into Thailand and then to Ecuador. We don't know who they are.

They're not being properly vetted. You know, they are. They're not being properly vetted. These are Chinese. This is technically like a foreign adversary. And we're releasing these Chinese citizens into the public within 72 hours. And we don't know what these guys are doing. We don't know anything about them. Many of them now, dude, are getting involved in the marijuana stuff. The other one, I haven't done any reporting on this, but I know Dr. Phil pointed it out, was like the Chinese setting up, I think, like bases or setting up next to military bases. So you have that issue as well. It was just all this, you know, but the weird thing too, man, like I said, from a board report aspect,

is just seeing them destroy the documents. Because it's like, you know, it's like, why would you do that? It was sketchy. The one that I also found is because I discovered those humanitarian visas that they've been issued. Some of the Chinese citizens that we discovered have been issued permanent residency in Mexico. So technically, you technically found asylum. Because in U.S. law, if you apply for asylum in another country, you're good. You can't even apply with us.

But we have no records of that, man. So this is a huge national security kind of issue. I don't know if you could type it really quick, bro. I think it's like Chinese-U.S. military bases. But that's the thing too, man. So if you ever come down with me, dude, to the San Diego border, it's just eerie, dude, to see them destroy their documents, destroy all that stuff. You see them doing it sometimes. So I had Nick Shirley in here recently for episode 214.

He's a YouTuber. He does pretty much all content. He does great work. He does great work. Yeah, he does a really good job. Does a lot of work. That's what I was talking about right here, dude. These Chinese-owned farms are popping up all over, and they're right next to military bases.

See that? All right. And that's one thing— Put a bookmark in that for a second, because that's going to be my question on what happens here. Because you mentioned something Nick did. You talked about inside of 72 hours, they're gone. The destroying the documents is very— Sketchy.

—is sketchy, to say the least and like sinister in a lot of ways and just put it i've come across venezuela all over venezuelans colombians cubans every nationality they don't do this right right this is this is like strictly a chinese thing hey guys if you have a second please be sure to share this episode around on social media and with your friends whether it's reddit instagram facebook your friends, whether it's Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, doesn't matter. It's all a huge help. It gets new eyeballs on the show and it allows us to grow and survive. So thank you to all of you who have already been doing that. And thank you to all of you who are going to do so now. So Nick was able to recover the directions that a lot of these

guys are coming here with which are written in chinese and he had it translated into english and i'm we're not going to pull it up and read the whole thing i did that was in episode 214 i want to say that was like an hour 40 minutes in hour 45 minutes in something like that but like the the layers to the directions of what to do the minute you get to the border and every single thing that happens all the way to they go to fucking kingdom come and we have no idea in the country where they are is insane they have contingencies for contingencies for contingencies where they're also using our legal resources against us so you point let's pull it back to the map that you were

just talking about right here whatever this is and i'm less familiar with with like i haven't seen this map before i've heard what you're talking about but i gotta look into this more they end up at places like this because we lost them 12 layers ago because at part seven of the directions of 24 they were good like they were they were set they're free no one even knows who they are to your point like it's crazy because we don't have their database we have no idea who they are and then so then um if you wanted to do another tab bro because this is actually interesting i'm glad that you reminded me of this part bro is um put like um in this other tab put like san diego migrant street releases so this is the other part bro is is so when you're when you're in that san diego sector where it will be in jucumba you run into migrants.

Those migrants, because San Diego is so overwhelmed, they're going to be released into the public within 72 hours, right? So then obviously as a reporter, we obviously are going to go to the migrant drop-off. So one thing that we were there, we see a lot of these guys instantly street releasing and they immediately go to the San Diego airport and whatever. So I, you know, spending time there, there's a bunch of cab drivers. Obviously these guys are like immigrant cab drivers. So I'm talking to the, these guys, these guys are like from, from Somalia. And obviously these guys wait there and wait for migrants to, you know, cause they're making money, right? Dropping, dropping these guys to the airport. Nothing wrong with that. So I'm talking to the Somali guys. I'm like, Hey man, like how long have you guys been doing this? Blah, blah, blah. And the Somali guys are pissed and they're like hey man you need to you need to start uh looking at the chinese i'm like what why what do you mean

stop looking it up yeah yeah because i was just i just created a small talk because it's basically like if you're a migrant you basically literally are you enter to san diego legally and then you go into a holding facility then within 72 hours because they're so overwhelmed they'll put you in one of these buses and then like on the morning they'll literally just release you with no direction so then you know many of these migrants they just go to a taxi guy be like just take me to the airport or whatever so I'm talking to Somali guys about this and they go hey man the Chinese have their own drivers I'm like what do you mean so he's like he's like look look at the next bus and then he pointed me to a street that was down where we're, where we're at. So basically down the street from this, this drop off is a whole lane of just, of just Chinese drivers. Now I don't know what's,

what's, what's going on, but there's a, there's a coronation here. So basically every other nationality, when they get dropped off, they literally don't know where to go. Like, so they'll, you know, they go up to a taxi guy, they'll go, you know know whatever the chinese go directly to the chinese driver one thing that we notice is because because uh we'll kind of walk up with them is they go to the chinese driver the chinese driver will have a packet for them so they have um us dollar bills yeah so they'll give them us dollar bills they have cigarettes and they have a sim card for the cell phone and then um then they'll go with that driver straight to la according to the to the somali guys and what they were saying is the reason they were they were mad is they were obviously they're mad from a business angle they said hey man these chinese guys are

doing some illegal stuff because they're not they're not even taxi drivers but they're here loading up so we you know obviously we kept reporting on the street drop-offs but one thing that always just caught our attention and we didn't really fully understand is how the chinese had their own drivers These guys had their own package for them They had a US dollars waited waited for them and then they had SIM cards and then they would go straight to Los Angeles So it kind of court like a little bit more you say brother. There's just a lot of coordination with the Chinese nationals and I'm sure what with Nick saw what we saw too and our reporting is these guys have a

Extremely detailed plan. They know what happens in the U.S. They know that they're not capped. They know that if they fly to Tijuana, they're all good to go. And now they're all over the U.S. Some are involved in this military-based stuff with the farms. Others are in the underworld with this illegal marijuana stuff. It was like two or three months ago.

I don't know if you could Google this, bro. There was like a Chinese citizen. Put like Chinese citizen El centro california there was a chinese citizen bro that stumped that he didn't stumble he uh he was found on a military base in el centro and like they were you know it's like all these stories there it is like all right chinese migrants suddenly found on suddenly suddenly found on california military base the arrest of a chinese national at a marine corps base in california spurring many questions the presence of chinese nationals on american soil has been on lawmakers radar for months given the recent influx of migrants at the

southern northern borders and exacerbated tensions with the chinese communist party republican senators joni ernst and marco rubio are among nearly three dozen members of congress who have requested visa changes through the Department of Homeland Security. They told Newsweek earlier this week that Chinese nationals' ability to enter U.S. territories like Guam through the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands without proper B-1 business or B-2 tourism visas should be immediately addressed with reform. Well, and then think about this story, dude. Julian, you and I have been living in the U.S. forever. We can't, we probably wouldn't even find that military base in El Centro. Like, and then this Chinese migrant who, first time in the U.S., is able to locate it.

And then look at that. Imperial Valley. So the El Centro sector located in Southern California's Imperial Valley has existed for nearly 100 years and covers 410 square miles and 70 miles of international border. It is home to four border patrol stations in the cities of El Centro, Calexico, Indio, and Riverside. I think we need a few more. Four? How many miles does that say? 410 square miles?

We got four offices? Malaka, let's get fucking 100. Jesus. Bro, then read that paragraph here, bro. Let's see. California has experienced an increase in Chinese migrants in recent years. 100 jesus bro then read that paragraph here bro but let's see california experience california has experienced an increase in chinese migrants in recent years they were approximately there were approximately 15 700 chinese migrant encounters at the u.s mexico border in roughly

the first three months of the current fiscal year which began october 1st those numbers already surpassed the approximately 14 600 encounters in the entire 2023 fiscal year. Holy shit. Whoa. Okay. So – I know, right, dude? It's like so many layers.

There's a lot of layers, but there's two things you said back in there about them that makes this a lot easier. And unfortunately, you could use the phrase looks matter right they don't look like migrants and they have resources they have money so they can pay for it to get here and then obviously they use our system against us now if i wanted to be really simple and really broad thinking and probably land on the captain obvious scenario here i would look at a country like china of you know well over a billion people enormous marketplace that has significant economic ties with the united states companies and and markets obviously many of them i would look at that and say there has to be quite

literally a follow the money in the sense that you have companies public companies who are incentivized to have chinese buyers who are backed by the chinese government can't do anything without their permission and the public companies who are literally in some cases like small countries themselves in their own interest to meet their quarterly report every fucking quarter have to go to their politicians to say hey don't change this fucking shit right here we need that money coming in so they pay off the politicians who they then put in office to win elections on Tuesdays and Novembers. And then suddenly you have shit like this happening because now they're like, oh, well, that's what Chinese government wants.

If we spend on someone else who's not going to allow that, maybe they'll stop economic ties with whatever company we are. Dude, it's just a complete disaster, this Chinese thing. And then, you know, for a guy like me, bro, I was never even supposed to. It started off with, you know, I was already reporting on the border then we stumbled on you know then the marijuana took me on a side journey then it kind of tied me back to the border with this with this chinese stuff and then now we're here where the the chinese numbers are ridiculous they're they've been they're gonna they're gonna keep coming in waves the other aspect is if you're the if you're the cartel in mexico is you're making a killing up because these guys are paying 30 grand to be to be smuggled in you're getting your your fentanyl precursors

it's just going super smoothly then like um you know i spend a lot of time in tijuana you go to the tijuana airport you think you know you think you're in like shanghai you know it's just it's just it's just it's literally just chinese nationals flying in and then you know where they're going man and it's just a crazy it's just this kind of crazy cycle and the US government or whatever, immigration policy wants to act like it's not happening. And this is only one angle of all this. I mean covering the border, but we could dive into other things. Oh, we're going to. Following the Venezuelan and then the Trinidad and Tobago gang. But the Chinese, to me, one is one of the more fascinating angles just because of the relationship we have with China and the fact that we literally don't know who these guys are, dude.

You know what's crazy? It was like two years ago. I would still say like spring 2022. You couldn't talk about China. I was like, oh, don't talk about that and then suddenly i have to sorry to people who've heard this on other podcasts i've told the story but i remember one of the like you know pure washington-y you know moderate but totally status type think tanks maybe it was i don't want to say the name i can't remember what it was but one of the think tanks in

washington released some paper that then got a lot of tweets and traction in maybe june 2022 basically and i read it and i'm like wow this is like really this is hardcore like against china and i called up danny jones from dan jones podcast my boy and i was like yo i think i think the china conversation is going to become mainstream and i'm telling you within like six seven months suddenly it was like they want youtube wanted content on china and everything i was like oh that's that's really interesting and so part of me goes okay now it's starting to become more bipartisan that people are are looking at this and as we can see like there's congressmen who are commenting on this stuff or whatever but we're still letting all this happen at not only the rate it was, but at a significantly higher rate. And that part I still can't really make sense of.

Why do you think if guys like you – and there are more people like you who are talking about this. Nick Shirley is one of them. Obviously, like you guys are on the come up, but there's serious people who have been around for years reporting on this stuff, talking about all this, giving evidence to it. We see mainstream media outlets reporting this. Why is it getting way worse? Why are we not curtailing this at all? There has to be something there with the Chinese. I don't know. You know, it's, it doesn't make any sense. Back in, and then after we put out the first documentary on the, on the, on the marijuana stuff i was invited to washington dc to speak with with congressmen and everything i'm sorry to hear that yeah

and they wanted to speak to me they wanted me to present them my reporting on the border which i did but mid mid convo i switched it to the marijuana stuff because i was like i'm like the border so if you guys know about it you can turn this is the stuff that we really got to you know get after i'm like i'm like i don't know if you guys know about it. You can turn on the – this is the stuff that we really got to get after. I'm like, I don't know if you guys know this is happening. And it's one thing to always make fun of, oh, that's liberal California. It's in Oklahoma. It's in Maine.

It's in New Mexico. It's now in Southern Oregon. And it just has exploded. Almost like these guys are laughing at us because they're making so much money in the underworld. At the end of the day, if someone gets in these you know talking about the marijuana stuff it's these guys who get like recruited and then never get paid the big bosses always always get away with it the mexicans are laughing at us too man and their criminal underworld with working with the chinese because they're making a killing on smuggling getting a bunch of these guys in it's just like a complete

disaster i don't know where this goes i don't know how this how this stops um the other this is going to be the other problem too man is china going to be even accepting it's one thing to like let's say we apprehend someone who's in the country illegally is their home country even going to take in the deportation flight like right now it's going to take him what a deportation flight so like right now u.s and china don't have an agreement right to be actively be taking chinese nationals who are deported. So then you have – because we're running into that issue right now with Venezuelan nationals. Dump them in the Indian Ocean. Don't do that.

That's a joke. Just to be clear. Please don't do that. This whole thing, man. Yeah, it's been just a complete disaster. I mean we'll kind of see where it goes. But like you said, it's become a little bit more mainstream. I heard about the Chinese farm thing from doc you know dr phil's talking about it so that's you can't talk about a lot of shit oh yeah you can't get more mainstream

than than uh than dr phil's dr phil is having a a wake up dr phil i i have no idea what's going on there but these past two years he's just like i'm like wait you're doing a lot more shit that's not doctor stuff but okay but yeah i mean i i just it blows my mind when you see the the evidence guys like you are able to just capture sometimes with an iphone like oh look here it is happening again and yet you know i guess because people aren't there, there's enough that they go about their lives in the other 40 states that are unaffected right there. And it doesn't get through enough. But now you think with YouTube and Twitter and all these things to be able to get the word out. I mean, I see so many of these. It's like even if you say, OK, 50 percent of them are selectively edited.

Yeah. 50 percent of them aren't bro like it's bad like some of the videos nick gets of just like people just walking across the border like right through a hole oh yeah yeah it's like what and we'll we'll be down there man and um they'll like not only walk through it but they'll be like sometimes they'll be like facetiming a family member while they're using those oh dude that's the one that got me, dude. It's like, wait, which data plan are they on now? Did they cross over to the US data plan? They're like way back the agent.

And then Border Patrol knows like they're not even scared of us. They want to see us and stuff. Well, actually, that's something that you're really involved in, though, that I think you could educate a lot of us on. Nick was doing a little bit of this, but I think it's something a lot of guys, especiallyals like me don't think of but when we're looking at the border patrol we think like okay people standing on the border with a gun and someone comes across like you know they say you're arrested or they push them back on the other side but that's not what they're being told to do like i i heard you say something earlier about border patrol agents where you were saying what the fuck did you you had such a great phrase for it i know exactly um so so basically what we're doing

bros obviously we'll talk to border patrol and obviously being that so this is a big switch that i kind of want viewers to kind of get in their mind so under trump you know if you're if you're a man you cross illegally illegally illegally and you see a border patrol agent you would not you would be scared you don't want the apprehension because you're going to be sent back whatever whatever that process is under under biden that that that has changed where migrants want border patrol because they know that they'll they'll be processing everything so after you know years of this policy i've been speaking with border patrol agents. They want them. Yeah.

So for me, dude, because back in 2021, when I first got called to the border, I didn't understand it either. Because I'm thinking the same thing. Like, you see an agent, you run away. It's almost like a cop, right? You're breaking the law technically. So when we were down there, an agent was explaining to me first my first week. He said, no, no, no, no, man. He's like, under this administration, when they cross, they're looking for us. Because they know once they find us we do the apprehension and then they're released into the u.s in like

three or four days so and i remember i was like really and i remember being down there and we ran into like a group of 300 and the group like was telling me like where's the agent where's the agent we want we want to go to the agent and i you know i basically got into the agent and like he said they do the apprehension and i'm sure that would be released so then i've been speaking with agents and then um because morales as you guys can imagine is as low as it could be i mean if you can't sure you know so two quotes come always stick out to me is i spoke to one agent who says basically i'm a human smuggler now that's what it was like i'm not uh yes i'm not protecting my country i basically literally i'm bringing in illegals into the country, and I just do that.

And then another agent, this one stood out too, he was just like, because he was feeling so defeated. And I'm like, man, just to kind of talk to me how you're feeling or the role or how this has transformed. He's like, look, basically, man, the best way I could put it is I'm an Uber driver. He's like, I literally wait on the border when a group of migrants come. I get in my white van. You put the migrants in that van. You take them to a holding facility or a process facility or whatever. And I just repeat that for a 16-hour shift.

So then these guys' first of all mentalities, morale as low as it could be. Border Patrol, this is a super sad stat too. They're like killing themselves in like I think the highest levels ever. Really? Yeah, yeah. I mean you got to imagine it too, man. I mean this has happened to me as a reporter too. It's like when you're down there, dude, and you're seeing this amount of bodies, you're going to run into some real sad stuff.

So like these guys have run into like – they probably have run into like teenage girls have been – babies abandoned, kids abandoned. And I know probably like a lot of them feel guilt. There's probably a guilt factor that they probably have that they can't really help them out. And they probably seen the craziest stuff. So I know a lot of these guys have now like killed themselves. A lot of these guys feel their job is like worthless. It was like two years ago, Mayorkas, I believe he was in Yuma, Arizona doing a meeting with board patrol agents and uh i remember this story because my friend uh is the one who got the audio leaked to him um one agent like stood up to my orcas and said that like um you know evil happens when like good men stand down and do nothing and that's what that's that's what he felt um so that's you know these guys are going through it man and like

i said i'm a reporter so i only see i mean do i spend a lot of time on the board yeah and i've seen some sad stuff but i'm only you know i'm only there a fraction of the time that these guys are going through it man and like i said i'm a reporter so i only see i mean do i spend a lot of time on the board yeah and i've seen some sad stuff but i'm only you know i'm only there a fraction of the time that these guys are there these guys probably seen way more um so you know all that plays a role and um i mean just talk about the human side of it bro like even like in back in 2022 um i was in i was in eagle pass texas um and in eagle pass, they had the Rio Grande blocking Eagle Pass and Paita's Niggas, right? The river. And we would go report there and I remember looking at the current and I'd be like, oh, this is easy.

Like you could just, I could go through this easy. And the agent goes, hey man, he's like, once you get in that water, that current is going to sweep you. And then, so what I started to do, man, is like I would follow big groups in Mexico. They would get in the Rio Grande and I would get get in the water with them like me and my cameraman because we wanted to feel it too i wanted to feel it you know as a reporter to be like and um he was right bro we're seeing this water sweep grown man kids all the time and then um so we started putting this story together um basically this area of ego paths this is this

is just to share like kind of the human side and just to kind of share what Border Patrol is seeing. But this story always stood out with us is it got to the point in that area, bro, with the real ground and with the current

and we got to see it ourselves is the drownings picked up to one a day. So basically we would do, man, is we would go embedded with the Eagle Pass with their Maverick County constables and everything.

And so every day we were with them, they'll pull out a body. They'll pull out like an adult when they can be a kid. One day they're pulling out like two or three in a day. And we're talking about, you know, these are people in a small town. They're not even used to be seeing these small, these, you know, deceased bodies. So they're pulling out the bodies. And we were the first reporters to break that story and say, hey, guys, like, everyone gets caught up in the political right, left, right.

Republican Democrat. I'm like, at the end of the day, like no matter how you feel, you know, brown kids and adults are dying in these waters. Like they're getting one a day. And I, and I start, and so we start talking to the constable and the deputy and I'm like, what's the next step? We go, look, Jorge, we have a local cemetery here, but because we're getting so many drownings here, the cemetery is out of room. So basically, we have to call in the state of Texas to send a freezer trailer.

And they're now putting deceased bodies in the freezer trailer. And the other challenge now is they still have to identify these bodies. As of right now, they're all John or Jane Doe's or baby John or Jane Doe's. So me and the constable, we go to the local cemetery in Eagle Pass because he's like, hey, man, I think you need to see this for the story. So we go to the cemetery. And, dude, it's a full cemetery. And it's just PC pipes because they don't even have tombstones.

It's literally like the little PC pipes. And so we start walking and start putting the cameras. And the constable says, look at the names. And then he was right. It was John Do doe jane doe it'll be like baby john doe baby jane doe baby john doe it'll be like august 17th august 23rd september 1st september 7th just literal graveyard little graveyard i'm like in uh so we start um because i'm with the constable because he's the one who has to you know end the justice of peace and he's like look man the problem that we have is we're such a small poor community we have to pull the bodies we then have to do the identification and we now run out of room at the cemetery they basically had to call abbott and be like if you don't send a freezer trailer

we don't know where to put where to put these these bodies so then they they they have the freezer trailer down there and then uh the constable opened it up for us so we got like we got to see it oh you saw it we saw it and we saw we did just seeing everything was like it was just insane and i was just like what now now you're you're a journalist but yeah you're a human first oh yeah the kid stuff is brutal even look at that it's it's the the the the stuff is brutal dude how do you even look at that the stuff I mean where anyone would do this is the kid like the the thing that broke me man in person was

seeing like a baby John Doe and baby Jane Doe like I couldn't I couldn't fathom just like kids drowning and the thing is that it made it more real for me as a journalist because I went in that Rio Grande and I went in there with these groups so I know the current and I know the situations and just, and just imagine, and then, you know, like I was talking to the sheriff and the

sheriff was like, man, like, he's like my, my deputy's like, I got to give them, we got to like have the, the, we had to send them to like the university of Texas for mental health evaluations. He's like, dude, we're not used to seeing these amount of dead bodies. Like this is not even human. Like we didn't sign up to be in a war in Iraq. He's like, we're averaging, bro, a drowning a day. And this was in Eagle Pass, Texas. And I can only imagine, man, what those sheriffs are seeing every day, border patrol agents are seeing every day. Like, it's just like not even – the one that still kind of stood out to me, man, on a like a human level because we're on the subject was it was it was last year we were down there for that like i was telling you we were in mcallen for for the chinese story originally and we did the story

but we were down there and we we run across um like a like a woman and this kid like almost like by themselves in the like in his bushes and the lady runs up to us and she's crying and she goes like hey like this kid is not my son like i found him he was completely abandoned the smother abandoned him nate he was like she was he was naked we're like what she's like he's naked he's suffering he's cold he's shivering so it's like i gave him a black gate or whatever and uh we go up to this kid he's like four years old and he's like freaked out obviously and like we're obviously texas dps is going to take him in but the kid had writing on his hand and uh like all on all right here and we look at it and it says it was in english dude it says oh my god and it says like take me here and it was a louisiana address with a phone number so then we take a picture of it that's human traffic he's

being human traffic so we take a picture of it and then uh texas dps like takes him in and we're freaked out because like i've never this is only my um covering the borders was my second time coming you know running into an abandoned kid but uh youngest four my first one was was 10 years old but he was four so i just hit different and just to see like the writing to a louisiana address so i so we took a picture of it and like they they we we ended up doing the story and then um the producer my producer hits me up and was like, hey, Horry. She said, what do you think about doing a follow-up call on that number? And I was like, ooh. I'm like, we could give it a shot.

I don't know how this is going to go. So we went to my hotel room. We had our cameraman put the cameraman on me. And then I called the number, dude. And then what was sad about it like the guy on the phone was acting like his uncle and like but didn't know where he was and was like we're like and then we kept pressing him like why would you send why would you send him by himself like he literally was found naked if this other migrant woman doesn't found it this kid this kid's dying um and the guy like

danced around it then he like hung up and it was super effed up and like we know dude at the at the end of the day, when this kid is released or they're going to connect him to a sponsor, he's going to that Louisiana address. And that's one of many. I don't know if you could Google this headline, bro, so this is not even a right-wing thing. I believe Axios or New York Times did this story. The U.S. government, bro, has lost 85,000 kids in this system of unaccompanied children coming. I'll bet that's a low estimate. That's probably a low estimate. It's probably way higher than that.

It's sad, bro. When I hear shit like that and I think about the fact that it's year 2024 and we're supposed to be the best country in the world it makes me sick because unless he had actually recommended a miniseries that i watched like maybe a year a little less than a year ago called 1883 you ever see this no no sheridan he's the guy who did yellowstone okay okay i've never seen but he's i've seen some of his stuff now i haven't seen yellowstone but he's amazing and so he wrote this miniseries that was a far prequel of i guess the family that's in yellowstone about how they ended up in montana and it's basically like they were taking german migrants from i want to say

was texas up the oregon trail oh and it just shows their journey and you see how much it's not that crazy long ago but it's a long time ago right 1883 and it's very historically accurate you see all the different ways these people could fucking die every day and one of them was they simply had to cross a river with their carriages and horses and luggage and shit and motherfuckers were drowning and it's like you're watching a tv show even though it's historical and you're like yeah and you're telling me that in 2024 the same fucking thing is happening right in front as if they have a front row seat of the border patrol agents who can't do fuck all about it that is sickening to me it's in oh dude it's it's it's heartbreaking man and then um and like i said in that real

grind we've i've i've witnessed it like because like I said, in that Rio Grande, I've witnessed it. Like I said, first when you first approach it, man, it looks easy. It's like, oh, I could swim across that. But yeah, once you get into the current, and then as a journalist, man, I put myself in risky situations because it helps to enhance the story. So we went in there, too, and just to see, like I said, just talking to those guys and finding out about them pulling out the – like a body per day, the scene, like the cemetery. Once you see that on the human-to-human level, the news makes you more angry. Oh, yeah. Because then like you hate that like whether it's left or right, you're only getting the talking points on immigration. And I wish I could like take an American with me just down there like i just need you to see this and then i don't need you to have an opinion on

it or i need i need a hot take at the end of it i just need you to see it and then realize this is happening on u.s soil and real early on in my reporting man i would always say the word humanitarian crisis when i talked about the border and people people have asked me why. I said, the reason why is, A, it's a humanitarian crisis. But second is, as Americans, when we think humanitarian crisis, we think, oh, that happens in Yemen. Or that happens in, like right now,

it happens in Gaza. Right here, motherfucker. It's happening right here, man. And then it makes you more, particularly for me, being Latino as a Salvadorian, makes you more angry because there's a certain group of politicians that, like, vouch for, like, we're the party or we're the people for black and brown people. And then when black and brown people are actually dying on the border, they all disappear because of who's in office and all that. So it's like once you're down there, you forget about it.

And, I mean, shout out, to the men and women down there, the sheriffs, the deputy constables. Those guys are never going to get the recognition they deserve. But they're out there when no one's looking. When we already moved on to the next news story, they're out there, dude, pulling out another body of the Rio Grande. And then in about a week or two, man, I'm about to be embedded with, right now in New Mexico, right next to El paso sunland fire department little fire department right now

getting five five to ten calls a day on migrant rescues of migrants dying and 110 10 heat you know degree heat triple digit heat with no one could find them um the i was speaking to the fire chief like two days ago within a span of two weeks they had over uh six deceased bodies that they had a pool um so then so you have sun southern fire department going through it i was just literally in that um that el paso southern department area and we were embedded with border patrol in the storm drains like this is something i didn't even think storm dream yeah yeah so um el paso has these storm drains connected to juarez can we pull this up el paso storm drains yeah and um and uh so we went in bed with Border Patrol

agents in these storm drains, and they were explaining to us how smugglers bring in the migrants and sometimes completely abandoned kids. So then, yeah, but we were in these that's exactly what I was in. Exactly what I was in. I was in that, like, maybe if you guys look at my Instagram post literally two weeks ago, I was in those storm

drains, and they were explaining how, like, dude, they'll just leave kids in storm drains like that's just insane i mean out of all the out of all the ones that's that's insane um but they'll leave them in storm drains you know in complete darkness we're in the storm drains you know we're dying and we have equipment we have like air monitors we have helmets we obviously have lights and we're dying in there these they live they leave kids with no equipment and these kids are going through storm drains, incomplete darkness,

and then Border Patrol agents, just to save these kids, it's also almost like a suicide mission for them because they have to go in there. Once they're in, there's no cell phone service. So it's like, if he needs help, if he needs assistance, no one knows. So it's like all these little things, man,

that I think a lot of people don't get to see about the human aspect of this whole of this story that i think i think in 20 years is going to be a historic i mean it's going to be a story of just like how this all occurred and i think we're going to be feeling the repercussions of it we're going to be feeling the repercussions of it for a lot of different reasons but you keep on bringing up the political divide on this and i think it's important to it it's a 500 pound elephant in the room. I think it's really, really important to address this and talk about it because, you know, the way our country seems to work, it's stronger at other times with this than, than, than certain times. But you see the

pendulum when it comes to the, to the top end, ever since, you know, world war two, it's like Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican, like it kind of goes back and forth and now we're at a point where the division is so much that those swings are like this right so right now we're coming up on you know the end of this current four-year term of biden and democratic president where obviously it goes without saying we have seen unbelievable records of the migrant crisis at the border. Like it's just statistics. It is what it is. He's, he's been a failure on that front. And he followed up a guy who Trump, who put a lot of his campaign, his, his initial campaign and continues to do it on the border, who also had less of these problems

on the border and was trying to fix some of these things allegedly. Now, you get two sides of the coin here. You kind of said it yourself a few minutes ago with the left, but you get on the left like, oh no, we're supposed to love and let them come across and everything. But then the minute you tell them about the humanitarian crisis we're creating by letting fucking millions of them come across with no plan and no overwatch on who's bringing them across and you tell them about all them who are dying in these graveyards and i mean it's disgusting they don't want to hear about that right so they they preach with love right but then when you go show them an opportunity to show love they go well that goes against our political abilities you know what i'm not down there i'm sure it's not that bad anyway you're probably just you're overreacting to it then

on the hard other side and i mean the hard other side you'll have people who are maybe cloaking this in an ability to be completely isolationist and be like you know we don't want any goddamn immigrants in here right and that's where it actually i'm not saying like the right wing's all like that they're not but there's extreme elements who are more like that, who are like, they're replacing us and shit. And so you kind of – it's like a shit or a fart. They're both bad options, right? And so what I like about you is, number one, you can relate to it a little bit. You're a second-generation El Salvadorian.

You are the product of the American dream being existing here and coming here and doing things the right way. And we'll get into your story as well a little later. But like, you know, you see the humanitarian crisis, you see that this has to stop. You also see that we do have to put some type of system in place so that this can't happen in the first place, be it a border wall, whatever it is. And yet you kind of have – you have two loud voices who if they have their way, it's either going to get in the opposite direction really bad or worse in the current direction we're at. How do you grapple with that as a human being, not a journalist? I think for me, man, I think at the end of the day, I'm just going to do the best storytelling that I could do. I'm not out here to be like, I'm going to change the world.

I'm just going to do the best raw storytelling that I can. And at least, you know, if only 10 people watch my stuff, I at least want those 10 people to walk out with something be like i view it different or that just you know i didn't see it like that that's why i always try to lead with the video because it's more power you know when you it's more powerful um but that's that it's like it's like you know you could only you could only do so much so i mean for me man is i just want to show another side of it um and also not be sensation you know sensationalize every every everything um and i think that's what makes my

kind of reporting unique i kind of got thrusted into because of where i first ever got my internship i got thrusted into the conservative world so i have to navigate through that and then you know navigate through this kind of mainstream where like liberal mainstream still controls the majority of mainstream so it's like you're almost like dancing on this line right um and i think you know for me man i'm just gonna keep doing what i'm doing where it's like sharing stories from the ground um being being you know being a human um a lot of the some not all, but like some conservative journalists when it comes to the issue of immigration, they've – they become numb to the human part where then the people they see just become the political ploy. Yeah, the numbers and it just becomes like their argument, which for me, and I think what helps me is having the parents from El Salvador having the immigrant background.

I just can't ever view it like that. So I'm always going to view it as a human aspect. But we're always going to keep it honest with the real issues. We're always going to hit it with the political angle because you have to keep the people in power accountable. But it's just kind of showing kind of everything, man. Storytelling, you know, like, hey, this is obviously this is the effects on the politics and this and this and that. But then showing like just the real life human aspect. At the end of the day, these people are just like us, you know, whether you're left or

right, you run into a four year old by them, you know, with that, that's going to break you. It's going to make you look at it different. So I'm just always, I'm just going to like lead with that as the best that I can. And I think as of now, man, like the audience appreciates it. Cause like the messages that I get, you know, I get people that are like, Hey man, I thought, I thought this about immigration, but you know, I view it like this or like, Hey, I voted for this guy.

Cause I thought this, and then I saw your thing. I had no idea it was like that. The stories that probably always, always going to have the impact is when you show, show the kids. I think that's when people gravitate the most, But just always the reminder to not turn numb to it. And I've seen that into people. And I don't blame them. We work in a crazy industry, so sometimes you can.

But I think for me, it's always just trying to keep myself human and be like, I don't want to get too lost in the sauce, I would say. I still want to be human. I want to feel something. And at the end of the day, man, I'm here to tell a story. It's not my agenda. And I think people appreciate that left and right right now. hitting stories and looking at stuff, I can imagine as a human being, when you really get deep on something, right? You know all about it. You're there. You're seeing it all the time. You're trying to yell to the mainstream people about it. You know, guys like me who are just out here clicking this stuff online, like on Twitter and saying, no, look, this is what it really is. You know, it can get frustrating maybe when people don't listen. And I can imagine it's

tempting to want to, let's use your word, sensationalize some things. And I think it's, I think it's, if, if, if you haven't indeed done that, it doesn't appear you have, I think it's really good that you haven't. And I hope you don't, because I also happen to think a story like this, I don't think it really needs any sensationalization i think i think it's exactly you know if you're for example that graveyard scene if you can even call it that whatever that is you can't even put that on a video because exactly it will get taken down from everywhere but like what more do you have to do like that's what it is no you're right dude and it just it's insane man now we're here yeah 2024 we're close to this uh closest election and um yeah man i just been the the past four years as a journalist has been great because you said you

know the the pendulum swings have been so um. I wasn't even a border guy. It kind of stumbled. Yeah, how did you get into the border? So basically for me, man, is back in 2020, I was still a student journalist. I was going to College of the Canyons in SoCal, and nobody in LA was given an internship at that time. And his name is Sagar Njeti on Breaking Points.

Oh, I know him. Yeah, I don't know him, but I know of him. So Sagar at that time was, he was with The Hill, and he was doing his Rising show. I was a big fan of the show. And I reached out to Sagar on Twitter. I was like, hey, man, look, I'm a college kid in California. Like, I need an internship.

I feel like I'm really good at what I do. And then shockingly, Shocker actually replied. He put me on a phone call, and he kind of vetted me, I think. And then he thought I was legit. And he's like, hey, let me connect you with a daily call. I think you might be a fit there. And I started doing interviews with a daily caller. And at that time, they were like, when could you come out for the internship?

And I said, well, technically, I'm in school, but I could come out for the summer. But it's still, you know, it was COVID, so it was crazy times. So they were like, come in the summer. They're like, we don't know what your internship is going to look like because we don't have a newsroom because of COVID. But we need you in D.C. And it is going to be unpaid. So I said, I could come in May. And the only reason I made it work, and this is the Salvadorian thing, but a bunch of my family from El Salvador is in Virginia. I don't know why, but a lot of Salvadorians move out there.

So I had an uncle who was like, I got a basement for you. Live in the basement during your internship. So I flew out there. Flew to D.C. I believe it was like May 22, 2020. I'm bringing up the day for a reason. I'll show why. So I come out there and then my very first day is I just, I'm just editing other people's videos for them. So I'm editing other news reporter stuff. And it was like May 25th, I think it was.

It was like my second day on my internship. George Floyd. Yeah, yeah. So it was May 25th. I'm at my uncle's and I'm editing videos and I have live streams up. Minneapolis Police Department releases the George Floyd video. Obviously, that night, Minneapolis Police gets like burned to the ground, like the whole city basically. And I'm watching it and I'm obviously shocked as I report. I'm like, what the heck? And then the next day, people don't remember this, but like obviously I do because it was just insane. But the next day was around 2 p.m.

And then the riots started in L.A. So that's when, like, the video started coming out of, like, guys going into Gucci stores, bringing in the Gucci stores. There was, like, I think it was, like, on the 405. There was, like, an LAPD car. That guy was, like, on top of it. I remember just watching, like, this is, you know, I can't believe this is happening in the U.S. But I don't think much of it.

And then, like, I keep editing and then like i had this uh this female friend who felt really bad for me because she's like hey i know you're new to dc you have like no friends she's like come with me to this party you need to you need to mingle so i go to this party i'm doing my thing you know i'm drinking a little tequila yeah yeah feeling good and then um so during this time what i don't know because i'm trying to like get at this girl i'm drinking tequila i'm feeling myself so what i don't know because I'm trying to like get at this girl. I'm drinking tequila. I'm feeling myself. So what I don't know is that around 2,000 Black Lives Matter protesters are at the White House. And they're fighting Secret Service. And they're fighting local DC cops.

And it got so rowdy that they had to put Trump under a bunker because they actually thought for a minute that the White House was about to be breached. So – and I don't know this is going on. I'm having fun. I'm not checking twitter and around one in the morning i get a call from a producer and i'm like this has to first of all i just think it's a mistake it's super late but i answered the phone and he was like yelling he's like hori hori like no reporters answering the phone no one's either the phone they're like and he's just like this is your moment yeah yeah he's like he's like to have

trump under a bunker he's like there's a riot he's like we need a we need a you know he's like we need a we need a report on the ground so i uh i take an uber and i get to lafayette park park is front of the front of the white house it's it's chaotic man they're fighting secret service dc cops are like hitting folks you get the riot shields out there pushing the crowd back and then trump's under a bunker at this point so i get there and i'm trying to get my phone on this like selfie stick to you know start start reporting so i'm trying to get my phone on this jam thing and it's just taking my first night reporting ever for a media company remember i'm a student reporter so i'm coming from college and then next to me was a guy at the time at that time i didn't know his name but next to me was leland vitter to fox news so leland was

getting ready to do his live hit i think he was was like going to go on Brett Bearer or whatever. He's going to go live on Fox News National and probably do the walk and talk, show the crowd and everything. So Leland's getting ready to go on live. You know,

he has a security guy's camera and I'm getting my phone jammed on this thing and I see the whole crowd turn and they go, hey, that guy's with Fox News. He's a white supremacist.

Get him. And then I just see this whole crowd turn to Leland and start punching Leland in the back of the head. They're wailing at the security guys.

One of the protesters grabs the camera, slams it on the ground, kicks the cameraman. And I mean, these are big security guys, but dude, it's a mob of people.

So each way, these guys are getting wailed. And then, so I snap my phone on and I start filming. That's my video. See Daily Caller? Oh, this is you? Yeah. Each way, these guys are getting wailed. And then, so I snap my phone on front of me like da-da-da-da. And I start filming. That's my video. See Daily Caller?

Oh, this is you. Yeah. So I start filming Leland getting assaulted. So at this point, they kind of break away. And they're going to make it to a D.C. police line. So this is me as a reporter. This is me as an intern. And that's my hand right there. I'm doing the narration.

See how they're assaulting them. This is at the end of the assault because they finally break away. So Leland gets to a DC police line. I run right behind Leland. I go, you have no idea who I am, but I'm an intern for the Daily Caller.

I just filmed everything that happened to you. So then Leland turns to me and he says, thank you so much. I owe you. He's like, anything you need in leland turns to me and he says um thank you so much i owe you he's like anything you need in dc you let me know kid and then he gives me a business card and then it says leland vitter fox news anchor and i'm like oh okay so then what i didn't know is that i would turn i would i would get i went on twitter and i put like hashtag breaking leland vitter fox news anchor blah blah assaulted in front of lafayette park send the tweet out don't think nothing of it

take the Uber back to my uncle's house wake up the next day I go to Twitter first my Twitter DMs are like I have over like 30 of the blue check messages, so it's like NBC News primetime, Fox News business Fox News primetime, CNN business

NSBC, Young Turks it's every media company saying we're running your story crediting jorge ventura running your story crediting jorge ventura running your story you know crediting jorge ventura and it just exploded and i'm like what the heck is so then my uh editor-in-chief of daily caller basically calls me and says hey man we brought you into edit videos you just broke the biggest story in dc as an intern on your first night you're hired kid they were like basically they were like you could do what like whatever you want to do just do it and i said okay cool so then um like i remember like that night like the next day was like a

saturday sunday and it was a there was riots in baltimore so then i was like can i go to baltimore they're like yeah sure you can went to baltimore and uh you know and like and they you know covered the riots. And then on Monday, dude, this was just a cool thing. I was just a news student reporter. So on Monday, dude, I'm watching Tucker Carlson. Because at that time, during the riots and everything, dude, Tucker's monologues were on fire. He was just tearing the country.

So I'm researching another story and have Tucker Carlson on it. Because I because i'm like you know um it's monday let's let's see what tucker has to say and tucker always starts to show with a monologue then he gets into the news of the day but tucker doesn't go into a monologue he goes straight into the story he goes fox news tucker carlson welcome to tucker carlson tonight over the weekend our colleague leland vitter was assaulted and i go there's only one person with the video. He goes, Daily Call's Jorge Ventura captures the moment. And boom, goes into my video. You got to remember, dude, I'm a student reporter.

My first night interning. And now the number one show in primetime news, Tucker Carlson, that gets millions of views, rated number one, is now running my story in the first minute of his show. So they ran the story. And basically, bro, my company was like, dude, dude literally you could just do whatever you want this whole this whole internship but we didn't know at the time bro is that the riots were gonna go all summer long so my whole internship and how i got started reporting was because of george floyd so then i ended up immediately after

that uh we went to we went to atlanta covered the the mess in Atlanta. I don't know if you guys remember. That was where the dude got, there was a dude who got shot. He got shot. And then they created, I think this was before, this was right before Seattle, but Atlanta created their own autonomous zone. But it was only black. It was only blacks. So, like, we would go. I was with another reporter.

His name is Julio Rosas. He was with Talent Hall media at the time so we would we would uh we would go report and uh we noticed like a like a like a um like we would we would go report we would be fine and then we noticed like a white photographer came and he was like taking pictures of the burnt down windies they were you from and i forgot like what media outlet and the guys the guy uh goes oh yeah like, no whites in here, bro. And then just starts welling on him. And then, I mean, he was like, oh, this is going to get a little sketchy. And then, like, on the third day of us being in Atlanta, what actually stopped it, this is actually really sad, bro, is, like, that area got crazy. Like, because it created, like, an autonomous zone.

The thing about Atlanta is these guys are armed to the T. These are gangsters. So they were basically backing up the cops. Anyone there couldn't enter. And on the third day, there was a drive-by shooting on the Wendy's. We were there, and there was bullets fired at us when we were there. So we survived the drive-by. But the next day, they did another drive-by, and they killed an 8-year-old girl for the Wendy's.

And then the next day is when Georgia came in and were like, okay, we're sending in National Guard. Yeah, because that was a good idea. But it was immediately after that, man. I don't know if you remember the whole Chassing in Seattle. Oh, too, I remember. So then we went to Chass. Oh, you were in Chass. Technically, Chass was my very first time

then working with my boss. My boss at that time was a guy named Richie McGinnis. So it was my first time working with him because the previous times i've been recovering these rights a little bit just by myself but now they sent in richie with me because they wanted us to be a team to watch each other's back and uh richie comes out with one of the best tactics bro and this this came out later in the rent house trial because richie had to testify nationally and i'll break down tactics so let me let me explain so basically bro during during this time one thing that we we learned early on because remember that started to start

off in dc then it led us to atlanta then in seattle but one thing we learned early on was that the black lives matter protesters would assault any media member so um basically like on the first night one thing i know obviously the fox news thing happened but the next day there was another riot in dc and i went out there and i noticed that a bunch of there was like you know being regular white guys you know photographers for me for like washington post whatever would be taking pictures even like a black lives matter protester would come and like smash the cameras and like stomp them out like assault them so i would basically because i was the first reporter for the daily caller kind of on the ground scene and stuff i would then report it back to the group

i said hey guys um we're to have to change up the tactics. Like, we can't go in there, like, you know, like, just filming and just thinking people are going to talk to us. I said, we basically developed kind of like a rule book. So, the first thing we did is we agreed that we would dress in all black. So, just like the protesters. So, we would dress all black. We noticed that the protesters were all black with no logos.

So, we made sure that we would dress all black, no logos. We started to buy body cams. The other thing, too, was we wanted to disguise ourselves into the protest. So we made a rule that our first hour on the ground, no filming your first hour. You're just involved. So, like, if the protesters are doing the all cops are bastards, all cops are bastards, we're in there with, you know, black bandanas. All cops are bastards. All cops are bastards. And then, we're in there with you know black bandanas all cops are bastards all cops are bastards and then like people will talk to you be like hey man where you from oh i'm from like i'm from california man like f these cops bro like we're about we're

gonna burn the system down burn these pigs like george floyd and people like all right yeah so every keyword every keyword hit them all so we would start to do that and then Richie's the one that came up with the, because I remember we were in Chaz, and then so we're getting ready, right? We're putting the all black clothing on, all the disguises. Richie goes, hey, let's go. He's like, I have an idea. Let's go to the liquor store.

I'm like, why? He's like, let's just carry around a 30 pack of White Claws and cigarettes and joints and just basically be acting like them. He's like, by doing that, they'll let let their guard down they'll never think we're reporters and i'm like wait what he's like i was like yeah he's like trust me it'll work like magic and then we're at some white and then uh and then yeah i'm an intern bro so if i'm over here like well if my boss is telling me to get a little drunk on the job i'm not gonna like not do it so like we would go with it with these groups and just be like man f cops smashing white claws hey you guys want one yeah yeah here's a white claw bro

yeah yeah yeah yeah and richie you know would have like a joint in his ear yo you want a joint and then these guys would all bring their guard down bro that we would be getting all crazy info we would be able to film when like we we couldn't now how would you do that how would you commence the filming because now it's like wait hold it right there yeah from the we call it from the hip so we shoot we do the shooting from the hip and they don't see that no no and the thing is a lot of time is like once you bring the guard down they're kind of like they they'll just like kind of let you by with a lot of stuff let me see your phone real quick so you're you're like this like yeah uh-huh and you don't they're not noticing no because just like that because after that brother guards down and the thing is we're telling getting drunk with them

you know like we're drinking with them we're smoking with me you're probably shaking it a little yeah yeah so they they're not worried or like if something crazy with the cop is happening we act like we're filming the cops and that then like oh get this get this cop on camera man get this cop on camera what's your badge number you know I think we're gonna you know like like reporter so we we developed these tactics early so we were the first reporter group out of all the all these media companies to do that and then we were the first ones to cover the riots from the real angle like yeah that makes sense like now it's four or five years later it's safe to say like oh blm they burned building now yeah

it's safe to say it now it wasn't safe to say burned building now. Yeah, it's safe to say it now. It wasn't safe to say it when we did it. Yeah, it's crazy. So we were the first reporters that – and then – because basically we're like – as an intern, I'm learning quick of like how things are working. So it's like we were the first reporters to develop this and then also how to beat the mainstream. So one thing we had to rely on was great video, straight to Twitter. Great video, straight to Twitter. Great video, straight to Twitter. So anything we would get burning buildings or business owners assaulted, that happened in Seattle. We filmed a lot of that.

We got it before. We got it to video. And then we started to change. I don't want to say change, but we played a narrative into how Black Lives Matter protests were being viewed early on. At that time, they had all the media app apparatus i remember cnn was sending the reporter and the cnn guy would do the uh the hits of like mostly peaceful yeah he like in front of a burning fucking bill that's what i'm saying like you didn't really have to beat them because like they beat themselves were beating themselves bro so um that that was key bro because we played a huge role into another narrative of how BLM protesters were being viewed early on.

And that started to shape the public's view of like, wait a minute, this is not what it was. And then the thing is, as a Hispanic, I'm always looking for like the Latino angle. And one thing that I noticed when I was in Atlanta or Seattle is like, it'd be like Latino business owners who'd be like, hey, man, I'm from Mexico. I've saved up like 15 years and I opened up my own bakery, me and my son. Why did they burn my building down? I don't even care for this. And then so we started sharing those stories. And little by little, dude, we started to combat the mainstream apparatus.

Because I remember watching mainstream coverage is MSNBC and CNN on purpose. What they'll do is they'll send a guy in in the daytime. So at 2 p.m. when it's the peaceful chance, the guy would come out there and shoot his live shot real quick. Hey, guys, everything's fine. There's nothing wrong here. And then by 3.30. The camera goes off. He's like, get the fuck out.

And then by 3.30, he's already at the Marriott. He's already sipping cocktails. While we were out there like showing showing that so uh so early on man the the riot reporting kind of played a huge role into what i was called like the narrative shifting in in these kind of major subjects that were happening in our country but i mean it the country was torn it was headed in this weird way and um well well you were you were in chas was insane like that was yeah you know as you described it was the autonomous zone created in seattle at the time with no cops what could possibly go wrong and so you're in the

middle of that and it's funny some of it listening to you know you talk about just shouting every keyword at a protest to sound like you're in in the group i actually had a friend who was not a journalist and just did that for fun to see what it would be like. And he said, dude, it's so easy. You just say keywords and they're like, yeah! Yeah. You have to say like comrade. Like, hey, what's going on, comrade? And like, that was a new one.

I'm a big bro guy. I can say bro all the time. But then I had to switch it up. Comrade, comrade, say comrade. Comrade, that's it. So I guess my question is like obviously you are getting a lot of people on video who are not the best and brightest that this country has to offer for sure. And you're getting some people who are genuinely there to – I guess they got bored on their couch from the pandemic and want to feel like they're a part of something. Also for sure. some of the people that you either blatantly caught them in a lie that that was the tell or in some way were able to determine that they were quite literally some sort of like

dark organization paid crisis like creator kind of thing so one thing that we noticed early on and maybe because of the covid payments might have played a role but one thing that we noticed early on man is like let's say we'll be in a riot in uh atlanta let's say the next week we had to be in seattle then maybe the next week we're in portland same people we would see some of the same groups and then um so we don't know you know so that that's you know there could be a you know one of the reasons could be at that time everyone was getting paid to sit at home whatever so we start to see what we call it like the traveling writers if you want whatever chaos characters um but every protest or riot started having the same trend where like in the daytime was normal like chance walking on the

street whatever and then when that sun would come down little little by little, it would start to turn, start to turn, start to turn. And it turns into the madness that it is. If you guys remember during 2020, Portland went over for 100 days. I don't know if you guys remember that. Portland what? Portland rioted for over 100 days. It would be like day 70. That's where my buddy went undercover.

Okay. Just for fun. No cameras. I don't know if this would be up on the internet, bro, but this is just like a funny thing. and they you know and um that's where my buddy went undercover okay just for fun no cameras i don't i don't know if this would be up on the internet bro but uh this is just like a funny thing but like um you you would love my my former boss dude richard mcginnis he's like a just a character but um we would be in front of the the portland uh federal courthouse right it's it was a rioting they do it for 100 nights but the thing is all these like non-profits and go funds were sending these guys money so they had like a in park, they kind of had like a station set up.

So like they have a bunch of shields and like weapons for like people to grab. And then they also had a kitchen. And the kitchen, they would make – they call them like a riot hot dogs. They call them riot dogs. But the thing is they taste bad because like every five to ten minutes, Portland PD would come out and then shoot, like, you know, gas or whatever. And, like, all that stuff would just fall on the,

on the hot dogs. And my boss, dude, would just, would, like, film vlogs of, like, hey, dude, I'm gonna go film, I'm gonna go eat a riot doggy. And then he would go get, like,

this, this, like, hot dog with, like, gas canister, every fucking thing, you know, riot munitions and just, like, eat it on camera.

Just, like, all types of stuff, dude. And, um and um but dude yeah it was it was great for the daily during that time bro it was me and then my boss was richard mcginnis and then our female co-worker who was shelby telco i think her and only one other female savannah hernandez were the two females that covered the riots the whole the whole time but it was us three for the daily caller all of a sudden man it was like you guys are are going to be like the like we're just going to send you guys into the mayhem with no security no nothing and little by little dude we played this massive massive role that that that see that's some of our coverage um port just i mean just a six night night 56 um oh my god yeah this was just man this feels like decades ago but this was not long ago it feels yeah yeah and then um you know just like i mean i remember all this stuff i mean just like the rice the shields this is my camera i filmed this one of this guy uh he ends up getting uh getting assaulted they had to put up obviously all the gates but that went over people forget that went

over a hundred days that cost the city so many small businesses closed because of the how long the riots went there oh yeah um and a lot of them burned down a lot of them burned down and um so we had one night i forgot the guy's last name i know the suspect's last name is love but we had one night. I forgot the guy's last name. I know the suspect's last name is Love. But we had one night, and it was down the street from this, where there was a Trump supporter guy. He was getting beat up, assaulted by a group of Black Lives Matter supporters. It was getting really bad. And then the guy makes it into his truck. Oh, I remember that. And then we followed the truck because he was driving wobbly.

The group kept following him. Yep. And he ends up, you've seen it, right? He crashes into the tree. They then drag him out, and then they do that nasty kick to the face. Yeah, the kick on the face. So we filmed that ends up, you've seen it, right? He crashes into the tree. They then drag him out and then they do that nasty kick to the face. So we filmed that.

Oh, that was you. That was me. So I filmed that and then as soon as I filmed that, one of the protesters goes, if you're filming this or whatever, we're going to come get you. And I remember I was standing

with another reporter who was my friend. He was also documented too. His name was Kalen. He was with Scriber News at the time. And I look at kalen i go dude i'm out of here he's like we left and then we uh ended up uploading that the guys ended up getting arrested and serving time yeah we we can't show that alessi yeah we cannot show that on here what it'll get demonetized we we cannot show yeah don't show that it's not important they fucking

soccer punt his head so that goes on for 100 days bro we're covering it and um you guys just context here i'm i'm an intern so i'm this is like i'm learning everything but it's like um all of our stories now dude at this point and making it to fox news national so we're getting national headlines we're changing the narrative of how people view view that you know because everyone still thinks it's peaceful and then everyone um so obviously this is going on all summer i'm traveling around i'm doing right i'm really all i'm doing is being a riot reporter so just to kind of break it down what a riot reporter is guys it's just you you're carrying a bunch of supplies um helmets you have a gas mask

you have a bulletproof vest you have a backpack with your supplies and you're basically every riot or protest you're covering you're you're trekking at least around i would say 10 to 13 miles per day because because because of the riots there's no ubers so you're you're trekking all over the city you're documenting you obviously have you know portable batteries you're you're trekking you're not eating either because of the riots. All the stores are closed. So you're basically dependent on vending machines. So like vending machine is where you're getting dinner.

Oh, nice. So that was kind of like the lifestyle we were living at that time. And then eventually, then there was that one night where I forgot. I think it was like in August where I'm on Twitter. And the riots reach a little town that we never heard of called Kenosha. So the first night, Kenosha burns, like burns bad.

It got crazy. And I had a reporter friend, two reporter friends who were in Chicago drinking and then Kenosha broke out and they went straight from the bar because I think Kenosha is about an hour from Chicago. They went over to Kenosha and, you know, Curtis, I'm watching their coverage.

This was Rittenhouse, right? Rittenhouse. So then I call Richie McGinnis, who was my boss. I said, hey, Rich, get on Twitter. Look at Kenosha. You know, the word that we always say, it's popping. It's popping. It's popping.

Like, we should book flights. First flight from D.C. to Kenosha. Richie checks it out, approves. Yep. You, me, Shelby, let's get down there. So then we take the flight. We get to Kenosha on day two. And on day two, they shut down the city at that time.

Because obviously, it's already been one night of rioting. And so on day two, they shut down the city. So just finding a hotel was a challenge. Finding even a restaurant to eat before going out that night was a challenge. But we figured it out. Check in the hotel. We get ready. I got my black hoodie.

I got my bulletproof vest under. I got my helmet, gas mask. The ordealdeal richie's packed up shelby's packed up and now we're out for um out for uh night two night two is crazy like they're burning down a hole like um like they've used car lot cells all the crazy stuff like you know so we're filming all that you know crazy stuff um all the all the action and then uh so then we come we get ready now it action. So then we get ready. Now it's night three. So we get out for night three of these rides in Kenosha. Now night three is when the Rittenhouse crew came

because that crew has been watching the news for two nights now. That's when Rittenhouse comes down and wants to serve as like a medic. And then I don't know if we could even find this, but like Richie McGinnis interview with Rittenhouse or like McGinnis or Daily Caller Rittenhouse. But about two to three hours before the shooting, Richie gets a one-on-one interview with Rittenhouse because what catches Rittenhouse. Yeah. And what catches Richie's eye is that Rittenhouse is like the 17-year-old kid.

He has like medic stuff. He's armed. So Richie's like, you're going to help people? He's like, yeah. You know, I'm like a life card or whatever a life so they do this interview because for you know rich is always good at like catching little odd things like that he was just caught that like this this 17 year old as of right now doesn't take any political sides wants to be there for his community or or or um i think we should be fine bro because it's not gonna show it's just gonna be an interview don't

put it on the screen yet let Let's just see what it is. Yeah. Okay. So that's the one-on-one interview that McGinnis gets with Rittenhouse. This is night of shooting. So this is night of shooting, and obviously we don't know what's going to unfold. Oh, I've seen this. Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah.

So Richie does an interview with them. Normal interview. We don't think. Oh, now I'll get it off – Now I'll get it off. Now I'll get it off. So – Make sure that's not on there on the post edit. Sorry.

So finishes the interview. Then that night, obviously it's another night of chaos. It's riots. It's burning buildings. It's chaotic. But there was more, I would say, gunfire because before the Rittenhouse shooting, there was actually shots fired before. And I remember this because we heard the shots. And it was – you guys, I'm trying to put it in the viewer's mind.

You got to remember, guys. We're in Kenosha. It's a small town in the middle of the night. It's like 1 a.m. And the whole town is in chaos. So even if you just hear some gunshots, it sounds like a war zone. It sounds like the whole city is being shot at. So there was gunshots before Rittenhouse war zone it sounds like the whole city's being shot at so there was gunshots before rent house so it sounded already crazy and um so so the night

goes on and then i'm about two or three blocks away from rent house shooting so when the shooting occurs i'm three blocks away i don't know what's going on i just hear shots and people start running towards me and then they started screaming get into a hotel get into a hotel people are doing drive-bys like whatever and i'm like what so i run into a hotel, get into a hotel. People are doing drive-bys, like whatever. And I'm like, what? So I run into a hotel because it's chaotic. The whole town's crazy. People are running all over the place.

People are telling me like stuff that's not even true. People are saying that people are in SUVs shooting at, you know, I don't know what's going on. So I get back to the hotel. And what I don't know is that my boss, Richie McGinnis, and I find out this later, but during this time I'm in the room, I didn't know this, but Richie McGinnis is right there at our car source, and he's right in front of the guy named Rosenbaum. So Rosenbaum, if you guys remember, when Red House shoots, Rosenbaum gets shot in the head. So my boss, Richie, is in front of Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum, if I remember the story correctly from Richie, is Rosenbaum gets shot in the head, he drops. Richie's mind goes to fight or flight. So he takes off his shirt,

wraps it around this guy's head who's bleeding and then picks him up and then Richie runs to the middle of the street and then this is where like a random pickup truck comes and then they get Rosenbaum and Richie get in the back of this pickup truck and then this is what I found out when Richie testified in court a year later

that Richie looks over to Rosenbaum and this guy's breathing weird you know and that richie looks at him and says hey man like you're gonna make it you're gonna make it we're gonna have a beer about this one day we'll laugh about this one day so they get to um they get to kenosha hospital and um this is where richie calls me i don't know what's going on at this point because i'm still thinking like people are shooting at people it's just you know it's chaos so richie calls me. I don't know what's going on at this point because I'm still thinking like people are shooting at people. It's just, you know, it's chaos. So Richie calls me and explains what happened. Rittenhouse shot. I'm at the hospital and he goes, this is what's going to happen

man. I'm not going to talk to you for like 12 hours. The police are about to interview me about the shooting and they're about to take away, they're going to take my phone to see if I got any video of the shooting. And then he goes, I just looked in the mirror right now. His brain is on my shoulder.

And I'm like, what? He's like, dude, my shirt's off. His brain is on my shoulder. He's like, I got to talk to you later, dude. And this was like 1.30, 2 in the morning. And we're like, what the heck? So the next day we wake up, and we haven't heard from Richie. And as you can imagine, the news is insane.

Like the Red House shooting was a massive deal. And then because of the Red House shooting, the riots stopped. Like it was after that, like they stopped in Kenosha. There was no more civil unrest. So the next morning we wake up, we're trying to get on the phone with Richie. We don't know what's going on with Richie.

I find Shelby, make sure Shelby's okay. I find out that Shelby was like a little bit closer to the shooting than I was. And it was just like a crazy thing. And then we basically had to get flights to D.C. And we meet up with Richie later. And then Richie, after this, bro, was no longer the same human being. As you can imagine. Already a lot was happening in our lives bro

because we were like already in the forefront of like this chaotic turn in history you know the riots the amount of violence we kept seeing every night the stuff that we endured just as like reporters and then it just happened in this like this one moment it was like so much and then um i could just tell him like looking at him like he was just not the same like he was some some some type of trauma like had endured and then I remember like two weeks later there was another riot and normally man as a great reporters we get hype now because like we love this stuff like we get hype like yeah you know like booked at the tickets or like whatever and I remember I forgot there was like another riot and we had to like you know get in the car and like

go go go go get the helmet. And I remember Richie like comes down and says, he's like, he's like, I'm not going. I'm like, why dude?

He's like, there's another one. He's like, dude, he's like, he's like, I'm done with this stuff, man.

After like, yeah, yeah. He's like, he's like, you and Shelby go. He's like, I don't,

I don't, I don't want to go. And then, and then basically we went and then like a year, a year goes by. And then in this year, Richie's going to come out with it actually soon. I'm thinking at the end of this year.

But he's writing a book about all this stuff. But basically, a year goes by. And we don't think anything of it. Like we kind of all move on with our lives. And then you kind of forget that like there's going to have to be a trial. So then the trial comes, bro. And it was like this whole ordeal because the whole nation is on it.

Every media company was covering it. And then at that time, I was actually living with Richie in DC. I lived with him during my time at Daily Caller. So I kind of lived with him. And then, so I was with him when he got technically like subpoenaed or whatever. Got like the court order that he had to testify.

So he had to get with lawyers. There was this ordeal relive it then we got then we then we got the real moment so then in um so then trial happened dude i remember like so like obviously richie goes and then um and then during this time like all fox news i think was like wanted to really interview richie and um richie didn't want to do interviews with anyone man he's like dude i don't have nothing to gain you know people were like looking to get all this clout off him dude he's like I don't want any of that you know and then um it didn't like the the trial happened dude and it was like dude all eyes and then the way that it was set up just because like I was there in Kenosha and the way just everything has set up as a reporter the evidence was true that like

Rittenhouse did defend himself, whatever. But I just thought because of the media apparelis, because of the narrative, Rittenhouse is going to be found guilty. Yeah, I actually did. I got COVID when this trial was going on. So it was a week where I couldn't bring anyone in. This was back in November 2021. So episode 75, I had to do a solo episode and I did it on this right after the verdict. And, you know, the case obviously,

it came out, in my opinion, legally correct. Like he was within his rights to do that. It felt like a situation though. And I still feel the same exact way as I did back then. I was like, no one really won here. You had a 17 year old kid who definitely wasn't smart enough to know that he wasn't breaking the law taking a rifle like that across state lines

right he was being a fucking idiot trying to be a hero putting himself in a situation where he might have to use the weapon and kill people he also killed people like the guy he killed was like not a good dude still killed a dude But also the guy was attacking him. And he was at that point within his rights to use self-defense. But again, we talked about the politics earlier. We either had people saying, throw this kid in prison for 60 years for stupidly going to an event and then technically using his rights to do exactly what he did. So it's not murder in that case.

And then you had the other side like, he's a goddamn hero. And it's like, no. Dude, that's so cringe. All of it is so fucking cringe. Like I'm glad that someone wasn't found guilty of something that they should have been found guilty of. Don't make them a hero. Move on with life.

How hard is this? I view it like there's no winners in this story. Richie had a key testimony because he was the one where I don't know if we could just type it really quick. We have Richie there. Richie does the...

That's my colleague Shelby down there. She did the riots with us too. That's us right there, Julia. That's our like riot reporter picture right behind us is the uh the portland uh federal uh courthouse there we have rich uh shelby in the middle of the female what's up comrades so yeah so richie richie had a key one i forgot exactly the words or the sentence but it was like where the guy charged at rittenhouse a gun and then um

obviously guys we all know what happened uh you know Rittenhouse is found not guilty it's an explosion uh on on on the media the reason why Julian I wanted to bring this particular case obviously we were there it's tied to the riots but um for me personally there was a huge media lesson in here and the media lesson was the night of the Kenosha shooting there was a few reporters on the ground so it it was Julio Rosas, who was with Town Hall Media, which is basically the same as us, digital media, cell phone guy. Shelby Telcott is with us, Daily Call. She's a cell phone girl. Richie, cell phone.

Me, cell phone. There's a guy named BG on the scene, cell phone. And then our boy, Drew Hernandez, cell phone. So the seven reporters that were on the ground are all digital media a so we're not connected to the big mainstreamers none of the tv corporations we're all on cell phones so we're you know we have no backing the evidence of cell phones beat the billion dollar media apparelis that was there to find renhardt's guilty no matter what because msnbc cnn they didn't give an f bro they went all in on this kid yeah you know and they lost um and Glenn Greenwald got to talk about it he's like

they basically lost to in this is like one of the first trials where independent media went against corporate and the cell phones won and so for me that was a huge lesson because I you know after after a trial like this you know media companies blow you up right because they want to interview you you were there. And obviously, I talked about the trial and the verdict and all that stuff, but I wanted to make it clear

to even them, you guys lost to independent media. Like, you guys lost because you care about a narrative and not just showing people what kind of happened.

So, this was key and I want just, you know, people to remember that, like, you know, the only,

you know, Rittenhouse is free because of the power of what independent media, and we put ourselves in that situation. And that was a trend of all the riots, but that kind of just capped it off of the beautiful battle that we had with corporate media that summoned us against them and them against us. Yeah, I think it's to, to buttress that the inflection point for this, because people, you know, they were remote, they were at home,

there's shit going on in the streets. They can go outside and we all have this, you know, camera that's better than they used in the movies 20 years ago on our, on our, at our fingertips. And, you know,

part of me says as well that the eventual balancing a little bit that happened with social media in the last four years has also contributed to that now what you're talking about with written house is before elon buys okay but then elon buys twitter and i'm like okay he's moving it to the right. Probably not the worst thing considering the other platforms are left. Now you got Zuckerberg 2.0, Chad Zuck going on, you know, who's like suddenly like red pill Zuck or whatever. So you're seeing some loosening there on, I guess, the Instagram.

I don't know about Facebook. I have no idea what goes on there, but like at least on the instagram side or whatever and it's like that is it's helping what you're talking about but it starts with the fact that the veil got lifted in 2020 and then obviously through cases like this where it's like holy shit we can't just it's not as easy to it's not nearly as easy to just cover shit up or sweep it under the rug as it used to be because there's going to be too many people who, no matter how much suppressing you do, it's going to get out. We all got phones.

We can all text each other. It's going to go. And Twitter, dude, played just a massive role in this. But yeah, it was crazy. But Richie, man, I'm really excited for him. He's going to put, he's almost done with the book of everything that happened in 2020 to us and these kind of inner stories that I think people are really going to kind of enjoy and not kind of know just how crazy stuff was.

But yeah, Richie played a key testimony. And look, that impacted him until this day, man. He hasn't he hasn't been the same um you know and a bunch of like conservative outlets after that like hit him up and like wanted him to do speaker gigs and he was like he just was like dude people died yeah yeah like no one like i'm i want to hear you bro like no one won people try to make it seem like he was uh like i don't know he was a hero i went to uh because i was it was that verdict it was like at the end of the year uh there's that group turning point usa they always have like a end of the year big politic event thing and they have it

in phoenix and i and i only went because i got a bunch of friends that went i just wanted to go go see them before like the new year and i and um i went and i didn't know that like the day that i went that they like invited rent house to do like to speak and um rent house comes into the convention dude and i was joking with a friend about it but like the whole convention just swarmed on i mean even like the celebrities and the conservative influencers and i like joke with a friend i'm like bro you would have thought like drake is in here. We got conservative Drake in here. And then I ended up getting backstage passes. I ended up being backstage. And Rittenhouse is backstage.

He's getting ready to go speak. And I could tell, dude. Because no one else was reading. Because I'm just studying. Because I'm like, you know, this is like a human moment. And I'm like, because this kid's still 17 at this time. And then he's getting ready to to speak to like a crowd of like it was like 5 000 people and then everyone is bothering

them dude like people are like rent house can you sign this the girls will be on like on facetime say hi to my mom or and then like every influencer is like still wants a selfie and i could tell you that the kid was having a mental breakdown of like, this is way too much. I'm about to speak. What am I really being – like it was just a lot and I could just read it in his mind. Oh, yeah. This is not – We all saw him on the stand. Yeah, yeah.

I mean – It was brutal, dude. He's not – and I'm not saying that to rip him or anything. Like it's a traumatic thing he went through. It's a traumatic thing, dude. So it was just crazy, man, to see it. And then I got to be there just to at least see that. And yeah, you know it was just crazy man to see it and then you know i gotta be there just just at least see that and um yeah dude it's just yeah that's crazy you had a real baptism of fire that was i mean it's best and worst thing never happened you see some horrible

shit oh sorry is that fucking cap leaking my bad bro yeah you're good i'll get you a new one but you know you see you see the best of reporting yeah but the worst of humanity in a lot of ways too something the and the sad part is like some of the stuff is supposed to be rooted in something good but then it's just hijacked by like the dumbest people in the world which is what happens with mobs i mean i'm happy to live in a country where actual peaceful protests can happen. Not to say that that's exactly what went down here. But like protests themselves tend to attract not the best and brightest. No, I know. At least from someone who can think for themselves in either political direction.

And you got to see that in a way that none of us ever will. Like during that 2020 time, I imagine we all did. but like you had friends, right, that would be like, hey, Julian, how come you didn't post that black square, man? Or like what team are you on, man? You know, like I had friends switch up during that era, dude. Oh, yeah. People – there was a massive – there was a massive like social psychosis that was going on. And what's crazy is that was during – I launched this podcast publicly September 15, 2020. From March 13, 2020 until then, I was building it 24-7 around the clock in silence.

Wasn't telling anyone about it. None of my friends even knew I was launching this thing. Doing God knows what, trying to figure out how to get this off the ground and teach myself how to do all this. And so it was weird because of course I'm following all this stuff on Twitter. I'm very attuned to the news because also that's going to be a part of my job coming up. But I was divorced from it in a way because I was on an island. I was in my parents' house back in the woods, building wasn't near this stuff or whatever and so there i i couldn't even appreciate it till later i remember exactly that moment when the black squares things was happening we woke up in the morning my cousin was staying over because we were we were we were recording

music in my studio for her for like three days at one point in there because it was also like it was a good thing for me to like be able to learn how to do all this and eq and it was like oh yeah everyone's posting black square square for george floyd or something i was like okay great sent and then never thought about it again and then it came up on an early podcast and i was like yeah what the fuck was that and so many people were like going around and checking if you had a black square and so then i was like well we gotta take this thing down that's fucking crazy like this is like a witch hunt or whatever but that i looking back on it was like wow even me who's like divorced from this

stuff it's like boom there was no there was zero thought that went into it it was was like, okay, all right, we're just going to do this. Like, why? What was, what was, like, it's like, Jules, what were you doing there? What was the, what was the logic in doing that? And I think it's, it's obviously an indictment on yourself, but it's also an indictment on the surroundings, on our surrounding society that like, oh, we're going to make a big fucking difference with a black square. Come on.

Do you remember that day just to piss off people, I put like a picture of like Conor McGregor punching somebody. that like oh we're gonna make a big fucking difference with a black square come on did i remember i think like that day just to piss off people i put like a picture of like conor mcgregor punching somebody i was like dude i'm not doing this and then um because i already knew what's up i'm seeing this in person as a reporter and i remember like the first thing i did is i called my little brother back in back in california because i'm like this dude is like 20 i don't want you know i i guarantee his friends are all mixed in this and i his name is luis i call him i'm like luis um if i see on your social media that you attend any of these protests i'm gonna fly back to california myself and kill you and uh he's just like he's like dude i just want to play xbox i don't care i was like all right all right i'll take that i'm like for him

yeah but i'm like bro don't get lost in the sauce um and then i lost dude i lost like real close friends like i went to high school with um they like stopped being friends with me over the coverage and then it was like like we're talking about friends where like i invited them to my house my mom has like oh that's stuff that's like that's the worst and then um then it's nice that like you know months later hey man sorry about that it's like dude you switched up come on bro yeah they go people would be like horny you you uh you're white supremacist you uh sold out and i'm like bro i did a bad job selling out i'm driving the same honda civic man i missed my white supremacist check when they revert to white supremacists or whatever and they and they call a guy who

is objectively not white that that's my favorite one ever it's like oh oh yeah he's i'm like oh you guys know my name is jorge right dude that time just broke people it sounds like a day chapelle episode what was it clayton big show us your face oh my god so you you had said this early on though because obviously like that's how you had the best like experience to get yourself into how to and and what to do here because you were operating in chaos but you'd said really early on in the podcast a lot of this border stuff got going with the initial documentaries but like was that how did you even when did you like if we can refresh on that when did you like get into it like oh this is now what i want to move to coverage to we've been doing these riots they're over for the summer

like let's go so basically what happened bro is um you know get the internship rights in the summer obviously rights don't last forever so when when the rights ended daily caller obviously comes up to me and goes we would love to give you a contract don't um are you going back to school and then so i i accept and i drop out of school and i become full-time daily caller employee so the the thing is bro now it's like where do i go from here right like i covered riots now they're done um so what happened instantly but right before the border just because like this this is this is kind of important this whole culture and stuff is um daily caller was like hey for the holidays go back home get some rest you almost died like 50 times

i also got arrested during the rise where like i had to go to i went to jail in louisville kentucky because they thought i was a rioter so that was a whole ordeal so they were just like hey man like because things are calm like go see mom and dad like let them know you're alive go you know recharge your batteries and then come back in the new year and be ready to you know just give some new ideas or whatever you want to work on because at that time i have earned so much trust with daily call they were just like you have the keys you you know but we want you to go see your family and come back so i flew back home and then um when i flew back home to la county it was around november december is um as soon as i landed la county was doing the um i think we were the only county to do this in all of the u.s they were doing the thing with the restaurants bro where they were only doing

uh takeout only so i'm pretty sure here in new jersey couldn't eat inside, but you could at least eat outside. California and LA County, they weren't even doing that. It was like, no, just take out. And then in my hometown particularly, bro, is we have a lot of mom and pop restaurants and local. And we grew up with these people. A lot of these people I went to high school with, they're family.

And so I knew they were all in really, really bad spots as businesses. And they were basically not going to make it. So I called Daily Caller. I was like, hey, man, I know I'm supposed to be on vacation. But I'm like, I think an interesting story that we could tell that media is not doing. Now they could do it because it's safe. Let's go up to these businesses, working class people, and, like, let's tell the stories of, like, surviving these business closures and, like, just real American storytelling.

Like, these guys are not about to make it. So we started, they gave me the green light again. They said, hey, man, go interview a bunch of restaurants. And if it goes good, we'll send you Sagnik and you guys can build a doc. Me and Sagnik did a mini documentary on the restaurants. We call it Takeout Only. So we went to a bunch of these restaurants, bro. And, you know, I was meeting them and, you know, I'm not thinking too much of these stores,

but they were instantly like the first restaurant we met, it was like an Italian restaurant. And the, the, the wife starts crying. Like, you know, we saved them 20 years. We opened up the restaurant. We love our employees. Um, and now that we're all takeout only we can't, cause we're close to Christmas too, bro. So it was like, now we can't pay our employees. They're not making any income. We're not making any income. And then the worst of it is like if someone even buys a meal, it's only on takeout. So it's like it doesn't – so we're about to go out of business. So we were telling a lot of like those heartbreaking stories of like these businesses losing everything, employees like not eating, making no income. So I started doing a lot of that.

And then I was interviewing like a server. And then one server was like, man, that's not even the worst of it that i'm making no income i'm like what do you mean because a lot of servers they're counter there are significant others a server so you had like basically married couples not making literally zero money for the household and i'm like what do you because i'm in my mind like what do you mean like you're not making any money you're about to lose everything what's like what's worse than that and then then the guy goes, when I come home, my daughter now has – we noticed that every time we come home, she's cutting her wrist because she wants to kill herself. And he goes – then he starts sharing more about her. She's like, hey, man, like I have a 10-year-old daughter.

She has like all A's, all-star in softball, the whole ordeal. And he goes four or five months down to the shutdown. She has all F's. She can't talk anymore, so she can't hold eye contact. So she lost her social skills. She doesn't play softball anymore. And then she's now borderline suicidal. And I go like, you know, as a reporter, dude, it just sparks an idea.

Because I'm going like, you know, obviously I've been focused on the business angle. And by this time, me and Sonic had already done it. We already put together a mini documentary called Take Out Only to help out these restaurants. So then boom, another light bulb will go. I'm like, are you okay if I interview you and your daughter about like this? Like, you know, we can start to share about what these kids are going through. He's like, no problem. So then little by little, bro, I started to, this is kind of a crazy time as a in my reporting kind of

career was um every day bro for like a little bit over a month i had three or four families i was interviewing every day about and this is the same trend i have an eight-year-old boy awesome in basketball has all these friends all a's now wants to kill himself suicidal we found a suicide note in his room or we found like a knife or like he's he now writes that like he can't wait for his life to end he doesn't want to associate just that was the trend so we were i'm putting all these stories but i'm doing all these interviews we're putting all these stories fox news is getting me on dude we're getting these stories out because now my whole deal too bro is to always challenge mainstream narratives so it's like my mind was like if i already did in the riots i'll do it i

did on the business closers and i'll do it on the on this with the kids you know because we totally because at that time bro the narrative in media was schools closed because if you want schools open you're a bad person because you know stuff could spread um so we started sharing these stories and one thing that was interesting about this bro was whether i was i'll be in south central like poor working class or lower middle class. And then I'll be in Malibu with like million dollar home mansions. And they all had the same issue. Same story.

Same story. And then the one that stood out and it was like the last one that we did, like right where I did before we switched was there was a family in Vancouver, Washington State that invited me up, the Brainy family. And the Brainy family invited me up. And I went up there. And their story was that they have a little kid. His name is Nicholas Brainy. And he was, like, I think 10 years old at this time. And it was on January 6th where the parents left the little boy with his grandpa.

And so the grandpa is taking care of the boy. And at this time now, the kids, like I said, same story. Suicidal, loves sports, doesn't play sports, doesn't talk to anyone now. And I guess the grandpa basically tells the kid, like, hey, I got to go to Walmart for like 20 minutes just to go pick up medicine. I'll be right back so he leaves and then um that kid basically goes into his grandpa's cabin grabs a he had like a pistol or something or you know some type of gun he puts it in his head and uh shoots himself in the mouth so the grandpa comes back to the scene um the thing is the grandpa took like 30 minutes so when he comes back he doesn't also know the time of when

his grandson shot himself he doesn't know if it just happened or if it happened 30 like there's no there's no timeline all he does is he comes back to his uh grandson with a pool of blood and he's making that like like that weird like the way that they like describe it to me so obviously his grandpa 9-1-1 and then obviously contacts his parents i don't know you know what happened whatever and they um so according to his parents this kid had like less than like a five percent chance to live the doctor saved his life and then he had like less than a three percent chance to get his like memory and his understanding back and he like got got that back so when i when i flew in to do this interview with the family the kid was still in uh in a icu so i couldn't even see him because also with covid the way the

hospital was like only like one person could be in the room yeah so i couldn't even see him because also with covid the way the hospital was like only like one person could be in the room yeah so they had it like obviously for the dad so um we go and do the interviews we did this interview with the parents and it was crazy like the parents were obviously heartbroken they were like they were also trying to be like we don't know what to do because like we try to find solutions like we try to call other parents and be like hey can we just organize like a play date our sons could get together they could play basketball at a park and whatever and then say that they would be like villainized by those parents and be like, hey, can we just organize like a play date? Our sons could get together. They could play basketball at a park and whatever. And they'd say that they would be like villainized by those parents. They'd be like, you guys want to meet up during COVID?

Like, how could you? And we could get sick. And then what about us? So they tried to do that. They said they tried to organize with other parents. That wouldn't work. They tried to connect the son with like other kids online. And that wasn't having much success.

But with Sad Bros, there was another girl that was suicidal on the East coast and she wrote a letter to this kid and i read it and she was like in the letter she like draws herself on the roof and how she was going to jump off the roof to kill herself and her dad like saved her last second and like now she like loves her life and she's like when i can i want to fly to washington and stay and be with you and just like to show you have friends and then um basically bro this kid they saved his life and he like got his re-understanding back he was like a big ufc fan so like i think like two months into his recovery like his dad was already watching pay-per-view fights with him and he like knew who was fighting and it was this crazy story and um

but like we put it together bro just so once i get to show hey like you know you turn on new york times or cnn at that time it was school shut school shut school shut and it's like well this is the other side of that but like this is also a part of the story too you know obviously well you could have this um but we're telling this this too man so um i finished my my reporting around this time it was early um 2021 we i kind of kind of finished this kind of angle of telling the story of school closures. You got to also imagine as a reporter, I'm done. Because I went 90 days of being other people's therapist for 90 days. Try to challenge yourself 90 days where you're sitting with three or four families who are

bawling. They also feel like they have no one else. You're the last line of anything. And you're just a reporter like you know you're not gonna like change policy that day so so i dealt with that and then um as soon as that chapter closed you know obviously as a reporter it's like well what's next now and then biden is technically in office and then around march is when that term border crisis first hits the news and it was um at that time abc news and cnn actually covered it for like the first two weeks of it. And then, I don't know, they kind of like dropped the ball.

But for the first two weeks, you heard that term border crisis, like border crisis. I remember you turn on the news and like CNN had like five reporters on the ground. ABC had like a team. And then, you know, we didn't think much of it. And then like another month went by border crisis border crisis and finally Richie contacts me and goes like hey Jorge like um we should get on top of this border thing they're like you speak Spanish like we know you haven't covered immigration but they're like let's see what we could get with the video stuff you know you normally we do a good job with the video let's just let's just see then my very first trip dude was like

March 2021 McAllen Texas my first night I saw. My first night, I saw a group of 300 migrants, which now is nothing. But at that time, I mean, it's still a lot of people. And then I remember just being caught off guard with the amount of bodies that we saw in the middle of the night. And then the kids, even seeing how they were looking for the agents. And then basically that kind of kicked off my border reporting. What I didn't know at the time, bro, this was obviously like – because I was so new to immigration that this was going to lead us to human trafficking, drugs, the children being smuggled in the middle of the night in Roma, Texas with the wristband. I started reporting on that, on how the cartels were using wristbands on the kids to see – Oh, my God. You know, I started reporting on that, on how the cartels use their wristbands on the kids to see, you know, so it's like, little did I know, bro, like back in March of 2021, this was going to open up this whole new, you know, and obviously we didn't know that immigration was going to be a big deal.

I mean, look, it's 2024. It's one of the biggest deals in the election. And then little by little, bro, just, you know, what it is, man, is just approaching every of these topics with a Gonzo style approach to journalism where it's like we want to lead with the video we want to tell powerful stories from the ground um we don't want to be like corporate media we want to show all sides um so that's how i kind of approach you know the border and then little by little the border is one of the subjects man we're like i mean a lot of subjects are like this is news but like it's really one of the ones where like you can't be in your manhattan

apartment and you know covering this stuff like you got to be on the ground getting getting your your hands dirty um that's why i think a lot of um corporate journalists don't like the border because it's one of those subjects where you got to be on the ground you got to learn routes you got to learn you know smugglers tactics they do this here they you know when people see my report they just see the sexy part of it, but they don't see us like in a smuggling route, seven hours in, nothing has happened. And then, you know, like learning those little things. So we started learning little things and tactics and then seeing how Mexican smugglers work

on the, and then little by little, dude. And now we're, we're kind of here and it's like a, it's turned into this massive story that now it's like, it has all these kinds of wormholes and who knows what it's going to lead us to now so you go down there you're still like 22 23 years old you get thrown into the middle of a narco human trafficking migrant crisis death zone with no sources to speak of like this is down in tex, you're from California, and you start reporting on this. How do you even begin there? Like, how do you cultivate sources beyond just like some of the local border patrol? So for me that I found success early, man, is around the end of 2021, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, around October, November of 2021, if you guys remember, is when we had the big story where 15,000 Haitians crossed into the U.S.

basically at the same time in Del Rio, Texas. And they have the kind of famous aerial images of, I don't know if we could bring that up, bro, the 15,000 Haitians in Del Rio during that time. It was insane. Essentially, we were down there covering it and I was speaking with some reporters in Fox News. I'm still early. I'm covering it. I'm still learning everything. One thing that they told me early on was that

they were not allowed to go into Mexico because Fox News thought it was too dangerous. As a guy who's competitive, the first thing that pops up in my mind was, I got to go to Mexico. That's going to be my only way to beat these guys. So little by little, I would be spending more time on the Mexican side of the border,

so Mexican border towns. So, for instance, if we would be reporting in Eagle Pass, Texas, I would cross over into Pérez Negres and then start reporting from there. And then by doing that, for instance, like we'll be in San Diego, we'll go to Tijuana here in Del Rio, across is the Suracuña. And by me spending so much time on the Mexican side, I got to build relations with contacts, journalists, and just kind of other important figures when it comes to like migration in Mexico. And then like little by little,

you're able to just have way more info because the the americans don't want to go into into mexico and little by little bro the mexicans just start giving you all the info on everything and just start like looking out for you so for me i thought obviously you're going to develop sources here in in the u.s right with law enforcement and all that stuff the ride ride-alongs. But for me, man, I found a lot of success going into Mexico, being in the trenches with the Mexican guys, and then they respect you. Then after that, they start leaking you a bunch of info

and then just start, you know, they have any respect for any American who's willing to spend a lot of time over there. So building my relations with the Mexicans has been super, super key, I'd say, in all this. And then it just has led us into some crazy stuff. I think I'm the only American journalist as of now that's gone into Tijuana, done an actual TV interview with the mayor of Tijuana as she's getting – she was getting cartel threats. So she was actually living in a military bunker. We were the only, so far, I think, American TV journalist to lock in a one-on-one interview with her to talk about the cartel threats and i think you know we got

that from the relationships of you know spending times with the mexicans um what's crazy that you're the first that's amazing yeah and the thing is with the uh with the with a with a mexican journalist man is we call them you probably might have heard the term julian is we call them fixers so like for instance if you're a reporter in u.S. and you want to go cover like right when the Ukraine war started most likely that American journalist got in touch with uh Ukrainian journalists and then hired them as a fixer so basically you would basically fly to Ukraine and because that that journalist knows Ukraine they could you know drive you around they know how to look for news they kind of help you for that so what I do too is is for my my my fixers that i hire in mexico i always

overpay them so i take care of these guys so if they charge me like 300 bucks for for for you know a day to be fixing with them i'll give them like 450 500 take care of these guys way more cash um every fixer that that i met so far likes to drink tequila so after after uh after a good reporting trip we'll hit the bar slam some don julio's and um it's fun man it's just all about relationships bro and and mexico is like they just operate different they're more wild cards they take bigger risk i have massive uh and i tell this almost every time i have massive amount of respect for mexican journalists i mean you i would i praise them to the ultimate high i i just because of first of all

we all know they put themselves in great risk and danger covering the cartel but the fact that like a lot of these guys man like they do it for like the literal love of the game like a lot of these guys still have regular jobs you know they'll be like a taxi driver or they'll you know they're still like a fisher then they stuff the they have to use that income for for journalism just because like they get paid that little and while like the journalists in mexico making like the million dollar contracts are like the mouthpiece for the government i mean kind of similar here in the u.s um so i have a huge amount of respect for those guys like i love working with those guys like i just love being in the trenches with with these guys and like just the adventures that they that we have with the

with these mexican fixer journalists it's like it's just a it's it's amazing man hopefully i could write a book about it one day with these guys i hope so did you did you have a lot of knowledge about the cartels before you went to do any this border reporting no no i mean basically i was like the maybe like with the average american or like you know whatever you find on find on google and then um obviously now being in this world it showed us another another kind of world of this. The one that we covered that was kind of big and also cartel related was last year. If you remember when the four Americans got kidnapped in Matamoros, Mexico. Four Americans.

Yes. So this was the original story. I don't know if you want to just bring it up, bro, the Americans that got kidnapped in Matamoros. But the original story is that they went in there for some type of surgery and um and they got they got kidnapped and they ended up like killing two of them and then two two survived so um i was actually in east palestine doing the uh the whole train to roman coverage i i fly to i fly to atlanta at that time my home base was atlanta for news nation so i fly to atlanta as soon as i fly to atlanta they're like don't even leave the airport uh book to uh i forgot brownsville texas because

you're gonna we're gonna have you go to montemoros so book to brownsville and um you know the thing is when you go into montemoros at a time like this like after a cartel killing and kidnap you got to go in with a really trusted fixer because that's when the cartel is looking to keep media out and you know eliminate anyone so we got a really good fixer soon as we crossed she was instantly was like don't talk to anyone don't talk about news don't jump in any any random taxi like and if someone's following us or anything or anything we got to keep moving any live shots that we did our reporting we could only be there for like 10 minutes max we had to keep moving keep moving keep moving. So we were in that kind of like cartel hot zone during that time to report on the Americans.

And then actually we found out that like there was probably more sketchier stuff involved. We're probably thinking they were there for drugs. They weren't there for any surgery or anything like that. But, you know, just learning just learning man and then just picking up all the info you can and it's just been fascinating like learning about all types of stuff with these guys like now now more now they're more into um i mean now humans obviously human smell is is is a big cash cow for cartels just because quick money is almost like an unlimited source these guys are doing a really good job of recruiting teenagers in houston and san antonio to drive down with their own cars pick up migrants um they're they're

becoming becoming more sophisticated um we did work on a case man this one uh was in um nuevo laredo i don't know if you want to type really quick man it would put like um like laredo um american kidnap we did we this was a an an area one that we did with the cartel. In that, basically, if you guys don't know, there's Laredo, Texas, and then the border town is Nuevo Laredo. Nuevo Laredo is maybe the sketchiest or right there, sketchiest border town all of Mexico. It's – we always say border towns are controlled by carts up but nuevo laredo is controlled at a different level like the surveillance is at a different level where like once you cross in they know who you are um put laredo as in uh take out that t put the d

put and put like laredo texas um or put like maybe man there it is fbi yeah we could go back oh that's that's one right there too yeah yeah all right so fbi kidnapped man bragged in laredo about stealing 50k from cartel and we'll scroll down so so so so should i should i read some of this real quick i'll give you guys just a breakdown okay um so basically so we did a story here it says there was there's an american man who was at a party in the U.S. side, Laredo. And he was bragging at a party to a female. And he was bragging that he sold $50,000 from the Cartel de Noreste, which is the

cartel of Nuevo Laredo. So he brags to her, hey, I sold $50,000. They can't touch me. Basically, within two hours, and we put this from court documents. So within two hours, this is on the American side. They touched him. An F-150 truck or like a truck, some kind comes, four men. They come and beat the guy up and they put him in the vehicle.

Now, what always catches your attention and how you could tell the cartel surveillance part is normally when you go back to cross into Mexico, as you guys know, you guys go through a port of entry. They're supposed to stop the vehicle, right? They stop the vehicle. They check for papers or whatever we were able to pull back that surveillance and notice that there was no stop at the port of entry so Mexican officials let the F-150 go basically right into Mexico right before the truck goes into Mexico the back door the left hand side opens and the guy the guy's name is Jonathan he tries to get out of the car and they pull him right right back in and then they go right into mexico that guy's dead now i mean

that's that's for sure then i mean he hasn't been found since um but that guy that was story was eerie because it shows you the power on the u.s side and the fact that they control that port yeah and they could the scary part is that port of entry because they let the vehicle go right through no mexican official stopped that vehicle. So it's just a completely different beast, man. And the amount of migrant women that I've interviewed that have been sexually assaulted, been kept in stash houses by these guys. The big one, man, like I said, we uncovered in Roma, Texas, was the unaccompanied children that were being smuggled in the middle of the night on boats. On these little boats and they had the wristbands. Yeah, you were talking about that. that yeah so like the colored wristbands to see which which migrants have paid which ones haven't um so we we you know

i love how they have wristbands like a fucking club and it's and it and it like a lot of time nick was talking about this kids will literally then sometimes and that's not necessarily this example you're talking about but you'll have kids trapped across the border by a cartel coyote who then are taken to the airport and sent alone to some predetermined place that they have no idea who's picking them up on the other end. I mean, this is how... I can't believe that happens in America. I mean, I guess I should believe it.

It's sad. And then there was some investigations that found that some of, like, three or four migrant children at one address. It's like, why do you need that? It's just, like, it's a sketchy underworld right now, man. say like where you have it the most or where you where you actively have it is all in these um not all but like involved in this in this uh in this marijuana black market stuff so yeah so according to like cow fishing game and some of the investigators i spoke with them and da i want to talk with that yeah they have they have an estimated around um 10 000 active members just in california operating in black market marijuana and we're talking about um cartel tessacino loa cartel jalisco new generation um but like i said right now we're talking about Cartel Ticino Loa,

Cartel Jalisco, New Generation. But like I said, right now we're seeing this new thing where they're letting the Asian and Chinese have the marijuana

and where the Mexicans will continue to operate in the fentanyl world. So it's been, I mean, like I said, right now they're making, I mean, 30 grand per Chinese. They're going to keep those coming.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Have you had any contact yourself now at this point directly in some ways in a journalistic capacity with guys inside the cartel? So March earlier this year, I worked with – you would love him. You've got to have him on. He's a great cartel journalist. He's Luis Chaparra out of Mexico. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Before you go on about that, I have been looking for a cartel journalist for a long time. And I love Luis' work. But he's on every podcast. I'm trying to find someone who hasn't been on stuff. It is fucking impossible, bro. I've wasted so much time trying to find someone. The only people I found don't speak a word of english like not one and and the thing is bro it's such a deep underworld only a few guys could really you know work it and um so the thing with luis is we worked on

stories together before in the past and um i i reached out to luis saying hey um you know i'm working on this tijuana story i'm seeing like the homicide rate jump and and you know, I'm working on this Tijuana story. I'm seeing like the homicide rate jump. And, you know, I was wondering if you could bring me into any contacts. So Luis actually helped me land an interview with cartel members for the Tijuana cartel. But these guys were strictly, their job is strictly drugs and guns. So bringing the guns in from the U.S. into Mexico and then fentanyl and any of those hardcore drugs into the U.S. So we got to meet with these guys, like, in Tijuana, in one of the more sketchiest neighborhoods.

And I did it with Luis. And I think because I went in with him, everything was good because, like, you know, they respect Luis. Luis covers the cartels, but from, like, a very, like, culture aspect, which I think these guys really respect. So we went on. I went in with Luis. And, dude, they were just armed to the t

weapons drugs um they also they they still they were still moving marijuana so they were like hey we a lot of the marijuana we like we we uh we dig it deep under so like the cops and all that stuff um so we talked about the weapons and how they were getting them and how they uh dismember them um and then at the end man i i can try to just keep it human as possible i was just like um i'm like how do you guys feel if like all these americans dying you know because of the fentanyl moving in and um you know for them it's it's strictly was strictly business what was interesting about my conversation with this particular guy who was running drugs is he knew that he can't do he couldn't do it for another five years he was basically saying that like i'm gonna get out the game soon because like because

it's like my kids can't be in this game that's what they all say that's what they all say though yeah yeah um so that's been my closest like one-on-one contact was with luis we landed up in tijuana um super crazy by the way like how he has to talk with these guys and how they like some of the shit they'll send him and trust him like he's amazing he's amazing yeah he went on danny jones's podcast way back he's been on there a few times like absolutely incredible reporting and and uh i mean just even like how we communicate with these guys because he was saying he's like hey if these guys request to meet we have to go so you know it's like so they don't say hey meet at 11 it's yes no boom you know so um so through luis we've been we've been able to to

actually encounter some drug traffickers in tijuana which is uh for folks who don't know tijuana is basically second most dangerous city in the world yeah average is close to 2 000 homicides it is chaos town um and we spent a lot of time there so we're right now hoping that we could do something else with these guys hopefully closer to to the marijuana aspect because of here in the U.S. The other aspect right now that we're trying to look into and hopefully go embedded with is a lot of these cartel guys are now kind of hiring their own or building out their own drone teams. Oh, shit. How does this work? So the drones have become a huge thing, too, where they recruit guys and they basically hire these guys to just completely be the drone operating team.

And then they're attaching bombs to these drones, so they're bombing law enforcement, bombing rivals, and there's still more. I don't know if we could Google it really quick, bro, just put, like, Mexican drone attacks cartel. So we're seeing more of that aspect. So hopefully in this next year we want to go embedded in Mexico with one of these guys, maybe on a drone training program,

and just to see how these guys are operating. But it's fascinating all this stuff and then we you know in that tijuana trip too you know we went embedded with um with the tijuana police because they basically have a new war with the with the cartel there yeah that's what i'm talking about this is crazy stuff dude yeah i'm saying that one has drugs but some of these a lot of these have bombs evade jammers um you said they're at war though the tijuana police and the cartels you want to in war though the tijuana police and the cartels particularly the tijuana cartel i guess i guess they had three corrupt cops steal a drug shipment from them and

it kicked off this new war back in like october and it like hasn't stopped so they've just been killing each other so we um i went to go talk to like the tijuana police and they were like dude we don't we don't know what to do because he was like saying an issue that they were having was that um these guys are placing cameras all over the city and watching the cops so he's like that's one thing but he's like but the other thing is that they convinced the residents to place cameras on their on the residency and what the cartel would do is be like hey we'll pay you guys as wi-fi for like the next five years or whatever but have this camera here um so it's really just a battle of surveillance that the tijuana police was telling me about and that they're getting guys killed left and right because they're being watched.

It's just – Tijuana is a crazy city. Like if people haven't been there, like I said, the rate of homicides, the fact that it is one of the craziest like party towns for Americans just adds like a little spice to it too. But yeah, Tijuana, dude, sketchy, sketchy town. Like I said, Tijuana police, they're getting murdered every day. Right now, like I said, they have the battle with them being surveilled all the time. So they got to like use drones too. And then, like I said, I was down there in the end of last year because we landed in a one-on-one interview with the Tijuana mayor.

She was getting, she's still getting cartel threats to the point where she has to live in a military bunker even a military bunker even when we went to go interview her because she starts off her day like you know like a normal like the normal mayor like she'll go meet in the like you know get her like agenda for the day so even when we went to go meet with her in her office just to get the day started to go like join her for her public events We were surrounded by Mexican National Guard, Mexican military, private security. These guys were armed to the T. I got to travel in an armored SUV with the mayor

and just communicate with her and just be like, how are you doing? How are you doing this? You get literally killed any day. So we got to talk about that. And we were the first American TV journalists to get that one-on-one go embedded in into tj um for that which is which is sketchy time yeah um but yeah man mexico is just it's like it you know like i said for as a border reporter i feel like it's essential like

you almost have to go and i'm a competitive guy so when i was at the daily caller you know our goal at the daily caller was to get on fox news to get on Fox News, we have to beat some of their own reporters at the border. Yeah. But when I heard that the guy was like, oh, we can't go into Mexico, dude, light bulb. I'm like, oh, it's over for you guys. I'm going to live over there. I'll dominate you guys and then building relationships with the fixers. Do you feel like, do you feel scared though sometimes?

Yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. But I don't know, man. I just, I enjoy, like, I think the thrill takes over the fear more than anything. Like, the adventure, the thrill. For people who don't know, Mexico is, like, literally the most dangerous country for a journalist. It's number one.

So it's like, I could be in Gaza right now. I'd be safer in Gaza than technically in Mexico. Now that's crazy. We talk about just the homicide rate of journalists. It's crazy to say. Have you had friends die? No, no. Thank God. That's good.

I have Mexican journalist friends who obviously cover this stuff. Nothing has happened to them. During the riots, a majority of my friends who were journalists in the riots got all, like, assaulted, but nothing, like, crazy. But, yeah, man, anytime I can, man. Huge shout-out for, like I said, just Mexican journalists. These guys are literally, I mean, for, like, the love of the game, risking their life. I remember I was speaking to one because we were covering a cartel thing, and then one thing he brought up to me was like, look, Jorge, for you, at the end of the day, this story ends for you.

You cross over the U.S., it's done. You'll be peaceful for us. This story never doesn't end. There's no line for me to cross over to be safe again. And then that kind of put some context once again. Do you take precautions before you before you cross the border like are there certain you don't have to if there's things you can't reveal don't reveal it but i mean the most of the things where i was like because it's mexico you really can't already do

much i mean you could you know you could um the literally the the most that i could do is on iphone bro just give give give a friend or a co-worker like hey this is my location i'll check in with you and then we kind of go from there. Even when Sonic and I were doing the marijuana stuff, we didn't, you can't have much security. It's kind of just us on our own. But I like the throw, man. I feel like they're important stories.

And then when I'm with these guys too, dude, it makes me appreciate them more. I'm like, oh, I'm the lucky one, man. I get to go back to the US and whatever. I'm like, these guys don't. And these guys are still working regular jobs. So I want to like, I don't know. I just want to do as much good by them as possible, if that makes sense.

And then for them too, they respect it. They see me out there hustling with them. They respect it. We freaking, it's fun, man. And then we'll go listen to some corridos after, go smash tequila. They got, you know, and then we wake up and we do it all over again. Like you said you don't have to be there yeah they gotta love that because there's not you know these basic reporters

here they're not doing that oh dude and it makes me even lose more respect for the you know for the folks here these folks are writing hit pieces they're in some manhattan apartment they're getting paid six figures the guys in mexico are getting paid dirt and they're the ones actually doing news. I always have huge respect for those guys. I always try to shout them out as much as I can. Yeah, man. If we can get you done there, Julian, we'll take you to a TG.

I would actually really like to do it. The thing that I think would be naturally a little fearful is if we crossed over the border into there oh yeah it's still something i'd like to do that's what tommy g tells me too he's like i'm scared about the crossing over part and that's that's scary so um no but i've been lucky man blessed we've had some some great uh adventures in in mexico um you know we've done fentanyl labs with the mexican military we've done fentanyl labs with the Mexican military. You've done fentanyl labs with the Mexican military? Mexican military up in TJ.

We were in the middle of a press conference with the mayor. And we had a source text us that they were raiding a fentanyl lab in the mountains. And then we got to go and check it in person just to see how it operates in Mexico. And then in that same story, we then interviewed um residents in tijuana that had bodies buried by the residency don't feel like the government is doing enough so we did that we interviewed you know mexican nationals whose kids been missing forever um the we were all recently did a story there where um because in mexico it's obviously quite common for people to go missing and then you got to like search for your own family members so there's this group where like a dad is searching for his son

he's been searching for his son for like seven years now and then um he by accident discovered four migrants that were murdered execution style so shot in the back of the head murder execution style so he calls us so we we go um do the story but that's like the type of stuff that that that mexico sees all the all the time man but um you know so we'll see and then obviously with the election like trump trump has a good chance of winning i would say the part that i don't see this working as a journalist and as like from every angle i just don't see is putting u.s troops on the ground to take on mexican mexican cartels i don't works? I just don't see it. That would be very extreme to have to do that.

I talked to Ed Calderon, who was the ex-former Mexican military guy and all that stuff. And one good point that he brought up that I was always thinking too, because obviously I cover immigration, was you put military on the ground. Technically, Mexican nationals then could claim asylum in the u.s so it makes this weird thing on immigration yeah um you know there's just so many things so like when it comes to like people always you know want to talk to me about the that part when we talk about cartels and i'm like i'm like i just don't see how this it's it's successful at all um first of all it would be a giant military operation operation against a country that is like kind of an ally.

Yeah. There's arguments there. But like they're on our border too. Yeah. Like once you ring that bell, bro. You can't go back. Oh, that's scary. Yeah.

So that's where – I don't see how that's going to play out. Unfortunately, I think the key here is cleaning it up on our end and and this is what sucks because like i want to be the world's humanitarian at all times right but i also know how shit works and like if you're the most powerful country in the world and you clean it up on on your end and that pushes all the all the cyclone of bullshit completely back into their end it forces their hand to have to do more it obviously there's enormous entrenched relationships between the cartel and politicians and law enforcement at every level but you would create far in my opinion far more white knights if like it was like yo it's us against the world because no one's going anywhere to help us.

There's always that opening of like, well, some of these problems pour over to America. I'll let it go. And you kind of have to have that in Mexico's case, that civil crisis, in my opinion, to actually fix it. I've never really seen a better argument than that. And what's crazy, dude, is the border obviously made it ten times worse. And then it started creating other issues. And the other issues now is now you have other gangs or other organized crime making their way into the U.S. that we've not seen before. And this stumbles into the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua prison gang.

Took the words right out of my mouth. Let's go. So basically, the border crisis starts in 2021. As reporters, we already know about Tren de Arango in Venezuela. We've been kind of watching this group develop. Crazy violent prison gang that originated in Venezuela, obviously. And, you know, criminals in every level. Sex trafficking, human trafficking.

They're in every kind of business. So little by little, I have contacts in South America start to say, hey, man, like, just want to let you know, in this Venezuelan migration that you're seeing, you're gonna get some of these guys that are gonna make that trip. And so, you know, that I'm getting that warrant early in 2021. But I'm not thinking much of it just just yet. And also, I'm getting caught up in other stuff. You know know i went in the marijuana stuff and the chinese i'm not thinking venezuelans and then um then 2023 happens and i'm getting a i'm sorry having these daily not daily but regular calls with an immigration attorney his name is rolando vasquez in florida who's like hey man i'm just letting you know like 90 of my clients are venezuelan and like a lot of

my venezuelan clients are being extorted by this gang called train de arangua i don't know much of it and little do i know that this attorney on his own starts to dig deeper and deeper and then basically he's finding out that his migrant his migrant clients are being extorted and being threatened um by this gang and that that gang is now moving into Florida. And then because this guy Rolando, this immigration attorney, was kind of getting involved in all this stuff, especially with his clients, that gang started to threaten him, started to send threats to him, to his wife, saying that they would kill him and his daughter. You know, just like saying, we know where you are in Florida and stuff. And they started kind of putting out the hits his his clients start to like get some threats and then like little by little

uh a few homicides in south florida kind of occur i don't know if we could type it in bro like south florida train that i want but some homicide starts to occur in south florida and then he starts to send me these local news reports he's like hey man you got to keep up with this stuff because something's happening with this train that i want gang. There's a lot of connections here. I know you've been following the Venezuelan migration and some of the crime. And then little by little, dude, this gang that was like not known at all, didn't even have presence in the United States, now is here. And like little by little, was going to start to now make the national headlines.

Not yet. First, they started coming into New York. So we have a lot of Trinidad and Aranjua in New York that's already embedded with the Venezuelan community there. And right now in Chicago. Those were the first two hotbeds. It's New York, Chicago, and now we have South Florida. So in here in New York, they've already basically kind of got embedded in community. So they're like Uber, you know, they could be Uber drivers, Uber Eats, you know, delivery.

But they're fully in New York. They've already been committing crimes. I've been speaking with some of the uh the local reporters in new york following train that i want train that i want that is in chicago and then now the other one here is uh south florida they've been committing some homicides um in south florida the the one that put it on the line bro is that one is the uh they alerted they alerted a woman uh to a miami date hotel and then murdered her and they found out that they were trained at Angua. Venezuela's vicious Tren de Aragua gang, known for its brutality and dominating narco-trafficking in black markets in an area of South America, is operating in South Florida, according to federal and local law enforcement. A recent murder in Miami-Dade County is evidence that members of the transnational criminal gang used women as a lure and worked out of hotels in medley and near the miami international airport according to police records

detectives gathered evidence at la quinta inn in suites by windham miami airport east just south of the miami river and at the south river suites in medley across the street from a canal that runs across okachopee road records show a homicide investigation related to the gang started late last year after a 43-year-old Venezuelan man who lived in Doral turned up dead in his car at about 9.50 a.m. on November 28th near the intersection of Northwest 28th Street and 37th Avenue.

Court records show women lured the victim at about 10.20 p.m. on November 27th to La Quinta Inn & Suites, where a group who was in a silver sedan kidnapped him robbed him burglarized his apartment frightened a victim at his apartment and took his life according to an arrest warrant then really quick bro because we're on this subject if you could open up another tab and this this is so the people know the train that i was so sophisticated in the human smuggling of bringing in other Venezuelans and other members of train that I want,

they finally got, um, train that I want, uh, put, uh, sanctioned us government. So now,

now they've been actually saying like, they basically brought in so much illegal immigration through human smuggling. They've now, they literally brought sanction earlier this month. This is on July 11th. They were, they finally been,

uh, hit. They finally got hit with a, with a sanction from the U S, uh. Department of Treasury's office, dude. About time. All right. So today, the U.S. Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Trend de Aragua, a Venezuela-based transnational criminal organization that is expanding throughout

the Western Hemisphere and engaging in diverse criminal activities such as human smuggling and trafficking, gender-based violence, money laundering, and illicit drug trafficking. Today's designation of Tren de Aragua is a significant transnational criminal organization, underscores the escalating threat it poses to American communities, said Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson. As part of the Biden-Harris administration's efforts to target transnational criminal organizations, we will deploy all tools and authorities against organizations like Tren de Aragua that prey on vulnerable populations to generate revenue engage in a range of criminal activities across borders and abuse the u.s financial system and then open up one more tab

dude and this is the one that put it on national um headlines and then um put the um forgot her last day put the the ge the Georgia nursing student murdered. Oh, yeah. What was it? Lock and Riley? There it is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

All right. So... So really quick, guys, because I want to break something down in this case. In this case, really quick. So let me... Some context here. Why this is really important and why that sanction is important. When it comes to training at Allen Venezuelans, bro, if a Venezuelan crosses illegally into Texas,

so these guys entered into like El Paso, right? They entered illegally. Border Patrol apprehends them. They run a background. Because Venezuela won't share anything, we don't know that they're gang members. Obviously, they don't have anything here. This is the first time here.

So then they get released into the country with an NTA. That's a notice to appear. So a lot of these guys get released into the u.s yep with a future court date but the thing is five years away five years away so then so you have that so this is what happened with with these guys bro the guy who who killed lincoln riley he entered the country illegally and he and he checked out he entered through el paso in april and he checked out his brother i believe goes goes into uh through eagle pass texas background checks out now now right right the guy commits a murder so what happened so obviously we're gonna go do an investigation so police went to go look for jose bar this is jose bar is the guy who killed lincoln riley when police and this is we have it from our sources to

uh confirming with this the headline so then when police go to, to go get Jose, they accidentally get his brother. So they start interviewing the brother and the brother presents, and the brother presents them a fake, a fake green card, a fraudulent. So then obviously, obviously they find out that it's fraudulent. And then they find out that he entered the country illegally and then that he, he was a member of Tren de Arama.

Both, both of these guys, both, both of these guys had the ties, had the, had the, the,

the tattoos, but they find out that, you know, they've used fraudulent documents and then like they, they both entered the country illegally through, through Texas

and were released by Border Patrol agents. So obviously guys, when the border story is happening in 2021, no one thinks this is going to end. You live in Ohio. These people are in Georgia. So you're like, oh, yeah, this is never going to impact me.

It's a Texas, Arizona, California thing. And guys like me always try to raise the alarm. No, no, no, it's coming. It's coming. No, it's just your problem. Now look at that, bro. His brother Diego was detained after police department to be showed the fake green card. Doom.

That's fucking insane. And now, for the first time, dude, Trina and I want to make national headlines. National. Now the whole country knows. Now CNN has to cover it. But it's also along party lines, too, in a way, which is so fucking stupid, which we have more to talk about. But I'm going to cut the episode there and we're going to do a Patreon or YouTube members only episode. I don't like having to do this, guys, but we've been getting demonetized left and right on YouTube.

It has affected our reach as well as the show. I cannot pay my bills. I've had to cut some of our editors and there's really no other way for me to do this. It is $5 a month. I would really appreciate your support. We have much more to talk about here, so there will be an episode over there for you guys to check out exclusively. We're going to have

all of your socials down below, so please go follow Jorge on all socials. Thank you so much for doing this episode, brother. We will definitely do this again for sure, but we're going to do a Patreon episode now and everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace. Thank you guys for watching the episode. Before you leave, please be sure to hit that subscribe button and smash that like button on the video. It's a huge help. And also if you're over on Instagram, be sure to follow the show at Julian Dory podcast,

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