Julian Dorey Podcast - #264 - Inside the Most Dangerous Cartel Territory on Earth | Cartel Journalist, Kat Szulc

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

SPONSORS: 1) Get 15% off with code JULIAN at oneskin.co 2) Rocket Money: Go to www.rocketmoney.com/julian to start saving today! (***TIMESTAMPS in the description below) ~ Katarina Szulc is a Mexico-based freelance journalist focused on reporting on Cartel Activity. PATREON https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY INSTAGRAM (Podcast): https://www.instagram.com/juliandoreypodcast/ INSTAGRAM (Personal): https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/ X: https://twitter.com/julianddorey GUEST LINKS Substack: https://katarinaszulc.substack.com/?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web&r=3h3gxb X: https://x.com/katarinaszulc?lang=en YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@katarinaszulc/featured Instagram: https://katarinaszulc.substack.com/?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web&r=3h3gxb ****TIMESTAMPS**** 00:00 - Katarina Getting into Journalism, Mayor of Sinaloa & New Female President Controversial 16:11 - Katarina’s First Journalist Job, Reporting on Child Murders (Heavy Story) 25:09 - Moving to Mexico to Report on Cartels, 1st Time Reporting on Cartels 32:45 - First Female President (Cartel Associated) Story 38:14 - History of the Mexican Cartel, Mayo vs Chapitos Cartel Turf War 44:17 - Typical Day for a Cartel Journalist in Sinaloa Territory, Ruining Citizen's Lives 58:38 - Chapito’s Cartel (White Hat) Openly Corrupt Police/Military 01:01:33 - News Outlet Shot Up Story, Corrupt Politicians in Mexico Targeting Journalists 01:14:02 - Cartel Sensational Violence and Widespread Network, Canada’s Drug Issues 01:22:27 - Cartel Workers Who Leave (Why?), Source Who Knew El Mayo Was Done 01:29:03 - Cartel Entering Canada & Current Canadian Border Crisis, Investigating Trap 01:38:14 - Canadian Dr&g Mule Controversy, Matt Cox & Threshold for Crime, Luis Navia Greatest 01:52:07 - Recruiting Cartel Smugglers, Fentanyl Ink Book, Chinese Influence in America/Canada 02:01:06 - Most Desirable Dr&gs on the Market, Cartel’s Pushing this Drug!, Carl Hart 02:11:13 - Who Was El Mayo 02:22:03 - Leaf Lets Cartel Story (Hotline Number), CIA Connection 02:32:41 - Atrocities of Border Smuggling & Multiple Bodies, The Future of the Cartel Business 02:39:41 - Katarina’s Future Journalist Work CREDITS: - Host, Producer, and Editor: Julian Dorey - In-Studio Producer: Alessi Allaman - https://www.instagram.com/allaman.docyou/ Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 264 - Katarina Szulc Music by Artlist.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Katarina that is a hell of a way to spell the last name Schultz I didn't choose it like has anyone ever spelled that right in your life like not in North America see that's where we are. That's the problem. Okay. Well, you know what? Sometimes we have to adapt. Where do they spell it? Right. Bangladesh. What the? Yeah. I feel like that's exactly where I belong. Right? No, no. You belong right where you are. You're doing some crazy and it's highly interesting to me. So thank you for coming in here from california like last minute notice too thanks for having me of course of course and shout out to our mutual friend

jorge ventura for making this possible when jorge is given like a huge compliment about someone's reporting on the ground i know it's got to be pretty goddamn i appreciate that a lot of journalists have been really good about supporting cartel girl you thought i just had that mug out there i did i thought you i was like you i can't believe you ordered that so quick like i just got here what was that like amazon overnight holy shit no i just been since episode one i just write something on the mug right before we start whatever comes to mind that one felt like it hit pretty good it's so good i was able to order one yeah you know what? Well, maybe we'll stick that on our mug sales online. That's when the next one's up.

We have like a couple of them for sale. I think this will be your best seller. It might be. It's not hard. I think we sold four of the other two. So just get a few family members to buy it. You're number one. But you are only 23 years old.

Yes, sir. And you've been living down in Mexico for basically like the last two years or so. What the hell is wrong with you? I don't think it's what's wrong with me. I think it's like it's something good. But it's – I get it a lot. You have big balls, whatever. You do.

But I love the action and I love telling these kinds of stories. Like from the beginning of my career, well, from the beginning that I wanted to become a journalist, I knew that I did, I wanted to do hard hitting stories. Like I knew my beat wouldn't be simple. And obviously like I started out with sort of like the daily breaking news beat. It was great. I was with CBC. In Canada. Yeah, the national broadcaster. And that was like my dream job at the start of my career because I was like, okay, I want to become the best journalist I could possibly be. But all of my favorite journalists, first of all, they were all like women except Anthony Bourdain. But Anthony Bourdain never considered himself a journalist. But like –

He was though. He was great. And also just one of the best people ever. So – and actually like one of his episodes when he went on Parts Unknown to Mexico City, he sat down with Annabelle Hernandez who is like – and was one of – she is the biggest like cartel organized crime reporter. She now lives in California in exile because of you know the danger that she has incurred over the years of her career but that was like very formative for me and i was like you know what get spanish is easy i'm gonna learn how to speak spanish so you didn't speak any spanish no i'm i i'm not i'm not latina or hispanic yeah you just learned it a

couple years ago i downloaded on duolingo when I was 12. Yeah, and I just did it every single day. Oh, when you were 12? Yeah. Wait, you were thinking about covering the cartels when you were 12? Well, that's when the Parts Unknown episode came out. Did things go wrong in your childhood? Okay, it's not that they went wrong.

They were just like formative experiences. Like it depends how you look at it right but i always like the action i always like the storytelling and i used to get into a lot of trouble as a kid because people would be like oh like katerina like why are you opening like you got a big mouth like what blah blah blah but that's been like my greatest asset now because I just talk to anyone about anything and I don't judge anyone. Like tell me literally the worst thing you've done, the best thing you've done and I don't care. Like it's just like open arms. Like just lay it on me. I don't care.

But I'm super curious. So like I knew that that was what I wanted to do but I knew that I would have to go international and I wanted to go international. And I love Mexico and I love Mexican people because like I tell people this all the time. I'm a very resilient person and hardworking and Mexican people are very resilient people. So like, of course, I wanted to live and work in an environment where I identified with the people living there. It's just unfortunate that they go through a lot of shit i mean of course it keeps me employed but they go through a lot of shit like never ending and there would always be a story somewhere else too you you want to see some sort of like happy ending to things like this and and again to be cynical as as you are similar to me in that respect, I guess in that way, it's like, how long has this been going on? You know, forever, forever, literally since like the

beginning of time. Yeah. And they're so, it's very hard for us to grasp in America, you know, where we have all our own problems and our own government and stuff, but like, there's an order to business. Like, you know who's fucking around when someone's fucking around. For the most part. For the most part, right? Just for the law of averages here, let's say we understand it. Down there, it's like those guys run the governments. They pay them off. Well, I always say this, that like the Mexican government is the biggest functioning cartel in Mexico.

I think that's a good take. And like being in Sinaloa, it was so fucking obvious because like the governor of Sinaloa, I think that's a good take. and she's now the president of mexico with the morena party her predecessor andres manuel lopez obrador also morena and you know it was found out that he took around two million dollars in payments from the sinaloa cartel now rocha moya is like the governor of sinaloa he's with the morena like everything is connected and everyone feeds everyone and there's – it's really hard to trust anyone too, whether it's like your own government, law enforcement. Yeah. You don't know who the fucking bad guys are at any point in time. And sometimes that scares the shit out of me.

Like despite the whole like cartel girl, big balls. Sometimes I'm like, okay, if I find myself in a bad situation, which I have before, like, who do I call? What do I do? Like there has been like two moments in my life where I've texted my dad at like a really shitty time of night or something and be like, if I don't text you or call you by certain time, call the Canadian embassy. Yeah. And I tweeted that one time and people were like, don't get Canada involved. I'm like, that's no, it's cause I'm Canadian jackass. Like I, I'm not trying to like call in the troops. Like, I'm focused on my security. Like I'm also a still person. Okay. What do your parents think of what you do? Okay. is dead but my dad um he okay he loves it i think i think

he's scared inside but we don't really talk about his fears but we have a deal where like i i've told him first of all he has a number that i've given to him for a certain um like special forces person in mexico where i'm like if something happens to me or if i like disappear if you do if you don't see me active on whatsapp for like three days straight then call this number or text it it's not dale comstock is it that's that's our guy okay okay sorry um and like message this number and just be like i'm'm Katerina's dad. Like something's wrong and we'll figure it out. And I know he doesn't like to think of it, but he knows that I've always done this. And I've told him like, if I die or something happens to me, you cannot feel guilty.

Like just know that I died doing what I love, which sounds so dramatic when I say it out loud. Especially when I say it in English. I've never told anyone that in English. That sounds really dramatic. But I don't want him to feel guilty because it's like, I would not do anything else. How many siblings do you have?

I have three. All right. So he's got a few left that are up here going. He can move on. Yeah, he can move on. It's fine. Yeah, I mean,

I would imagine he's got to be proud because it's in all seriousness, like we joke about it, but it's incredibly brave and it's important work too because a lot of people don't – like there's not a ton of people who are doing it. I know like I had been trying, and Alessi knows about this, for so long to find like my own cartel guys to bring in here as far as like people reporting on it and the only people are either fully americanized and here all the time and never really there or they're fully mexican and don't speak i like english which you know doesn't help me for this and it's amazing reporting and it's like it's because

the repercussions for doing this job and maybe stepping on the wrong toes are exactly what everyone else out there is thinking right now you know it's like but like these guys don't give a fuck they don't give a fuck like i have seen such a disregard for human life it's next level like some see and like you asked me like you know how does your dad feel whatever like he understands the level of it because also like when i was a kid and i'm like this is what i'm gonna do he was the first person to pull up and be like okay watch this guy get his head chopped off how do you feel now yeah we used to like family no i can't say this but i guess like my one time my dad was like okay you like you want to do this crazy shit there's like this website it's called run the gauntlet and yeah you know you know what that is alessi yeah it's for sociopaths it's it's crazy

and it's on it you basically like go through different levels of watching extremely violent acts like but real life like it's the dark web oh i was gonna say this is the dark yes it's the dark web why do you know about this alessi it's our generation hey wait a minute wait a minute that was in middle school. One of the things was they say run the gauntlet because it's like how much can you take? That's essentially what it is because it starts very basic and then it goes to the most extreme things you can imagine.

Like murder and on camera. It's very bad. No kidding. But he would know because it's kind of our generation thing. I never heard that. The thing is it's kind of our, like, generation thing. I never heard that. The thing is, it's, like, it's very, it's demented. Like, you're not supposed to watch that. And I didn't, we didn't do it in a way, like, in all seriousness.

It wasn't, like, oh, my God, like, look at this woman get stabbed 20 times by her boyfriend. It wasn't, oh, my God, that's crazy. It was, like, my dad's, like, okay, honestly, like, is this really what you want to do? Being realistic, like not discouraging me, not, it was completely like in a way like that you're going to see shit like this. And in all truth, I have like on a daily basis, I'm in group chats on WhatsApp. I have certain people or depending where I'm at. And it like dead bodies heads chopped off like women completely battered kids do you feel anything when you see it not in the moment but afterwards yes like in the moment I get into like like work mode and it's like okay someone's dead and I don't know this person I don't know exactly what happened. My job here is to be the messenger and find out as much as I can and tell the story as fairly as I can

and talk to as many people as I can. But there are moments, depending on the case, because I've seen it so much, obviously I undoubtedly get a level of, like I become desensitized as anyone would. But there are certain cases, depending on the details or who it is, like if it's a little girl or any kid, someone who's really vulnerable. Yeah, it fucks me up.

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Once again, that's OneSkin.co to get 15% off using code Julian. After you purchase, OneSkin's going to ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show by telling them you heard it from Julian Dory Podcast. Now go on over and invest in the health and longevity of your skin with OneSkin. Your future self will thank you. Yeah, you say desensitized, but I've had guys in here talk about the hard drive in your mind, and you can't wipe it. No, you don't.

It's there. It doesn't reset yeah how old were you when your dad was showing you run the gauntlet way too young i don't even want to say because i feel like someone's gonna be like her dad turned her into a sociopath like i've had people say that before and it's like no over under 12 under 12? Under. Key. Oh, my God. My dad's going to watch this, too. Wow. So you were into dark shit when you were young. Oh, like I was seven years old when I watched Scarface.

I was like nine. Yeah, okay. Black Hawk Down. Yeah, I was probably about nine or ten. Okay, so what's the big difference? I guess that's fiction yeah it's a movie that's ketchup you know i'm not seeing someone get hacked to death with a fucking rock and it wasn't real yeah but it was very much like i was so he knew that this is what i wanted to do i knew that this is what i wanted to do and so did like my teachers um and everyone I think this is why I was able to actually get into this line of work and dedicate myself to actually be trying to be

as good as I can possibly be at it is because everyone was like are you sure this is what you want and I was ready to I didn't step into this naive like i wasn't like whoa like when i saw my first ever like murdered body i wasn't like holy fuck no it was like okay like this is part of the job yeah there's also like a thing and it's very real and i'm sure you're aware of this but like you look at for example the true crime genre. Yeah. It's like 85% women. Yeah. Like y'all are into that shit. What is that? But there's a difference, okay?

Because I've had people talk to me about this before. And for like that whole true crime and watching like there's a lot of people on YouTube who will like do a makeup tutorial as they're talking about this gruesome murder. And it's sensationalizing it, right? And that's something that i never try to like i always stray away from i don't do makeup tutorials while you're talking about the cartel with fucking hector behind you imagine if i did oh my god hey guys so first of all for my lip liner today let's talk about the sonoma cartel oh my god so you knew at 12 when you watched bourdain do that interview that you wanted to be a journalist specifically covering this stuff 100 and you never wavered

on that no i didn't and and it just kept growing like i loved clarissa ward with cnn still do um she's the chief foreign correspondent with them and she goes and covers some really hard hitting stories. And then Lydia Cacho, she's another really good Mexican journalist and like human rights activist. There were a lot of really significant women who just went all out and told like hard hitting stories, human trafficking, organized crime, drug trade, etc. And I was like, okay, these stories matter. But of course, a lot of people are scared to tell them or tell them to the full extent. I'm willing to just put myself out there and tell it because I'm so curious.

And when I hear people's stories, when I talk to the people that are like most impacted, I'm like, okay, this is worth it because these people deserve to have a voice, a platform to have their voice heard. So you got your first job with CBC, you said? No, I was with like the shittiest little private radio station in the world for my first job. That's good. It builds character.

It did. Yeah. Started smoking. Uh-oh. Yeah, really built character, you know yeah that's that's a different kind of character um yeah leslie texted me said yeah we had to stop for cigarettes i was like i was unaware you were a marlboro man he's like no not for me he was like definitely not for me yeah i know disgusting people are gonna hate on me for that, especially in America. Yeah, you got time to quit.

Anyways, so it was like a shitty radio station. I was doing like little random stories. And then it was like COVID. So people would like in Canada, because this was in Vancouver. So you're like 18, 19 at this job. Yeah, I was really young because I didn't go to university. I just did like little you just went right out well i graduated high school did like a little journalism program and then it was like but i don't have journalism i did two a two-year hands-on broadcast program but i don't have a degree like i did it it yeah so i don't think the cartel guys are checking for your degree i think no actually you'd be surprised like um wait i'm joking can we actually see your resume katarina yeah so you start at the at the little old radio station and then you get to cbc and then i get to cbc yeah and um i did a year at cbc and like it was great and it it taught me a lot especially like how to really dig deep

and get quality journalism but by the time that year was coming up i was fucking itching to to get to this to really like dive deep into that international organized crime beat and so what were you covering in cbc like everything but, so I was like a daily breaking news reporter. So it kind of just depended what was going on. But it kind of just happened that I ended up doing a lot of like child murders or child deaths. Yeah, because I could... I'm not laughing at that. I know.

I understand. I have like similar visceral reactions like that that are like they look inappropriate but anyways um i there was like one case so i i was doing everything there was whatever uh this crazy car accident or like um really like colored women in craft beer women of color and in craft beer and taking over that i couldn't do fluff stories like that like i understand it that there's a group of people in a demographic that cares about that but i always wanted to do like the crimey i wanted to do international okay no not like not entirely murder um but then i started doing like a lot of kids stories that were really sad.

And it was because I could just talk to the families. And I got it, you know, like my mom died when I was young. So I could just call someone up and be like, I can't even imagine what's going on. Can you just tell me something about it? You know, like, how do you want this person to be remembered at the very least? But there was like one case when it actually like really bothered me there was this little eight-year-old girl and she was staying with her stepmom while her dad was in jail and her stepmom beat her so bad that she killed her and i went to the apartment

so we didn't really do like crazy like go to to the scene of the crime and figure out what's going on. But that was always in my nature. So I was like, one day I begged the producer. I'm like, just please send me with like a camera guy. Like, I just want to go to the apartment and see like what the fuck went on here. I want to talk to a neighbor. Like, did they know she was getting abused? What is going on?

Because at this point i had spoken to her whole family and her whole family was like or certain family members they were like um she was such a bright girl but we didn't know this was going on we lost contact with her for a few months the stepmom like kept her away and that started to piss me off because i was like okay if that was my kid or like my niece i would have been like i would have pulled up and right where the fuck is the kid right um anyways so we go to the apartment and it's like everything is taped off whatever but investigation is seemingly done and i'm trying to get into this apartment but i can't so i'm outside and i'm smoking and i'm trying to get into this apartment, but I can't, so I'm outside, and I'm smoking, and I'm

like, oh, my camera guy's like, let's go, like, he was, like, done his shift, and I'm like, I need to get in, and the groundskeeper, like, the, like, the main property manager, whatever, he walks out, and I'm like, hey, like, I heard there's a murder, he's like, no, like, no press, and as soon as he said that, I'm like, oh, speak polish so i'm like in polish i'm like just just walk inside like i'm like you actually must like you know whatever he's like you speak fluent polish it's so shit but i i i can make it work i can make it work okay it's not like my spanish or my english but i'm like listen just do me a solid just walk into the building and then i'm'm just going to walk right behind you. Just don't turn around.

Act like you had no idea that someone followed you through that door. He's, doobie, like, good, done. Okay. We do it. He walks in. I go in. He goes into his office. I go upstairs.

And I see the door. It's all fingerprinted. There's tape around it. And I had heard a rumor that one of the neighbors heard the girl screaming when the mom was murdering her and went in because the stepmom and this neighbor allegedly did drugs together oh boy and so uh this is allegedly and like i have to say that because i also like reported on this officially so allegedly he went in and uh the little girl is like laying on the floor. There's a hole in the wall because allegedly the stepmom bashed her head so hard into the wall that the hole led into the other room.

Oh, my God. And, you know, this kid was like so cute. And I can't say her name, but like it's such a beautiful name. It's one of my best friend's name. Like it's the name that I would name my daughter if I had one. So when I – You saw that. that yeah it was like i personalized it not that i had to in order to feel like how terrible this was but it was a lot and so um i yeah i heard that the neighbor walked in and basically told the stepmother allegedly like she's gonna die like

you can't catch a murder charge and so then she apparently got a bike pump and shoved it down her throat and like started. And like that's how they knew that there was a murder in this apartment because there was blood splatter everywhere. She put a bike pump down her throat? Allegedly. Which would be like extremely heinous. Yeah, that's not beating at that point. I mean that's straight up like. Torture.

Torture. That's like cartel shit yeah yeah and so when i got there i i'm like banging on this neighbor's door like banging and i knew that like my polish buddy downstairs he wasn't gonna say shit to me like he was we were cool at that point and i heard the tv and i'm like i know you know so and so like come and talk to me come and talk like yeah, like probably not the most professional thing. But at this point, I'm like, what the fuck happened? And why does nobody know? And like, how did nobody advocate for this kid? So TV like goes silent.

No one comes out. Different guy comes out of a different apartment from across the hall because he hears me banging and he was like a little eccentric to say the least and he's just like I know what happened and I'm like you don't know what happened you're just coming out here I'm like but what did you hear and he's like no I I promise like one time I saw her the the stepmother, walking out with the kids because she also had kids of her own. And the little girl was just like bruised and not in good shape. And it's not my job to tell someone, why the fuck didn't you do anything? But I would have liked to in that moment.

Oh, yeah. but i would have liked to in that moment oh yeah so after that and dealing with all that and going to the court and there was this whole issue because the girl's dad uh is in jail i think it was a murder charge too like it was just it was so chaotic this girl was so alone and that started to like really eat me up because i was like oh oh my God, like I was here and existing and like in a same, like radius of this area. And she was being tortured and murdered at like, what, like, why couldn't we have crossed paths? And so I started to really internalize it. So then it's like, okay, you need to talk to a psychologist. And then the psychologist is like, you need to take a step back. So I'm like, this is my time i'm gonna go to mexico and start covering

cartels let's let's that's what did it yeah psychologist tells you to take a chill pill you're like go to mexico yeah so i went to mexico and my dad was pissed he's like how are you going to quit like this amazing job and go and freelance in mexico do you think you were running from it a little bit 100 for sure so have you ever dealt with that i mean you were running from it a little bit? 100% for sure. So have you ever dealt with that? I mean, you're talking about it now, but like, have you ever like taken time to yourself and dealt with what you saw and what you can't unsee there? Well, I talk about it all the time and I like, I still write about it, like, and I've published some stuff about it. Um, but I just think that there are some things that are just too heavy for someone to

deal with and i know we live in this age especially with tiktok where it's like go to therapy and deal with this and do your due diligence and it's like you know what there's just some shit that you're never gonna unsee and that's never going to stop bothering you and if that means like okay i will always remember this girl that i didn't know fondly and with a lot of love so be it like she suffered a lot more than i had to telling her story so it it is what it is um but going to mexico it was like i started off kind of slow and i was quit your job right yeah i quit yeah i quit and my dad was like, I started off kind of slow and I was quit your job. Right. Yeah. I quit. Yeah. I quit. And my dad was like, I told my dad, I was like, I need, uh, you to help me move to Mexico in freelance. Cause I'm not going to have like a job and stuff like that. And then my dad was like,

no, like this is your choice and I don't support it so then I sold the Rolex that he got me for my high school graduation and dad got your Rolex for high school graduation yeah it was like a big deal nice dad um please don't rob me I don't have it anymore I actually don't have anything nice anymore like I live in Mexico so um that was like great because then I got like a head start to be able to like go in freelance and not be making any money for a while but still trying to find and tell stories that I thought mattered how so day one how do you start first of all where'd you go I went to Jalisco I went to Guadalajara but I was also going to like Puerto Vallarta yeah because well I like the beach but these are some hot spots they are some hot spots because of the jalisco nueva generacion cartel yes so i was trying to

do a lot of those stories and i was working on a story about how they were monopolizing the avocado farms in like smaller towns and how'd you get to that so wait from day one to that how did you get to that story like Like avocado farms, cartels? Well, so this was always on my radar, right? Like even when I was working my day job, like I would go home and still be like always reading shit and still super invested in this because it still was like my passion. Did you ever reach out to people through social like on the ground yeah and like facebook and it's so not my generation but facebook is like for my job it's amazing because people are so way too open on facebook first of all which is great but second of all there's like a ton of groups and people are super active on it um and i tend to have pretty good luck with that so i was like going into these facebook groups

about anything and everything. And then I like hit this golden nugget where it's like, is anyone else, it was in Spanish, but it's like, is anyone else, you know, what are you, what are we doing? Where are we moving when these guys are coming and taking our land? And I'm like, what, what is he talking about? Because it was written so sort of like inconspicuously, like he was very just like, you wouldn't really know what to think. But if you're looking at it with the lens

that I have on for this job, you know that something is fishy. That's right. So I'm like, this is crazy. So I reach out to him and I reach out to like everyone who liked the post and everyone who commented the post and everyone like, whatever, whoever interacted whoever interacted right and come to find out like we knew this was

going on but not i guess not to the extent that it was especially in like highly populated touristic areas close to touristic areas let's say where um the cartel would go in pull up at someone's farm go up to the farmer and be like okay so here's the deal either give me seventy thousand dollars or you have three days vacate your farm don't take any of the cars don't take any of the furniture don't take anything just get the hell out and this is ours and like people were struck like people were fully and are losing their livelihoods like these are avocado farms do you know how fucking long it takes to grow an avocado tree i think it's a tree in spanish it's like a huerta i don't know actually i eat two avocados every day and i have no idea how long

it's crazy i think you should search it up but but it's like a crazy, I think it's like seven years or something. It's like, don't quote me on that. Like, let's figure it out for real. How long does it take to grow an avocado tree? I knew this when I was doing the story. I believe you. Three to four years.

That's a long ass time. That's a long ass time. Yeah. So imagine like a huge like- May wait 13 years or more too. I should add that. And usually they fail. So like in these group chats that I was in, people were like, look at my Haas avocado tree.

Like it's failing and I've already had it for like five years. And people are like, you got to restart. Like that thing's a goner. So like imagine you spent like generations building this. You have a farm. Your family's taken care of you have like two trucks you know you're doing well like this is your livelihood you're doing it right you're doing it right that's the thing you're not growing poppy you're not like you are doing it right

and then five armed guys pull up in like a decked out truck and they're like okay you've got three days either get fucking lost or give me a shit ton of cash that these people don't have like and so that was a really big story so i'm pitching this story and a lot of outlets are interested in this story all right tell me if this sounds familiar you sign up for something you forget about it after the trial period ends, and then you're charged month after month after month. The subscription's there, but you're not using it. And worst of all, you don't even realize it.

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Ask your Chevrolet dealer for details. I just started freelancing, and I was like was like what 21 or 22 at the time like in Mexico by myself like young girl who I didn't really do stories of this nature especially not on my own and they're like Katerina this is great and we've seen your previous reporting but we're not gonna send you there and we're like we can't this is too dangerous and we don't want to assume responsibility for your safety and we don't know how you act in like a hostile environment and i was like don't worry like i have my hostile environment training but but like obviously like gun to your head like hostile environment training like out the door right so what kind of places were you reaching out to for this like can you name companies or yeah like um cbc mbc bbc

and now like i work with those i work with so it's it's great um but at the beginning it was so hard because i didn't realize that i was gonna have to build up slowly and like slowly get into the dangerous stuff. Like I would have to start on a smaller scale, which for someone like me was very hard because I'm like, I'm very like all or nothing. Like we're fucking doing this or just don't even bother. But I did that. Like I did my due diligence. I was doing stories for them, built it up to the point where it was like, then i covered mexican elections which was also very significant for me early on in my career because it's like first female president in mexico also what's her name again claudia sheenbaum yeah yeah and like lots of controversy around it because like i was saying it's you know a lot of people associate this party with the

cartel and taking funds from the cartel so that was can you actually expand upon that while we're on it like what happened here because it was a big story it kind of got lost in the shuffle a little bit i can't say i came out this year yeah i can't say that i follow mexican politics closely or whatever but like a lot of people who i think know a lot more than me were like she kind of came out of nowhere, it seemed like. Well, she didn't come out of nowhere, but – To be president, I mean. um the previous president amlo endorsed her so heavily and she started her campaign uh before she was legally allowed to start campaigning um but like she never got any trouble for that because why why did she start campaigning or why didn't she get in why didn't

she get in trouble well because the acting president was the guy basically telling everyone vote for her she won with the greatest landslide victory ever in mexico mexican history really yeah like so now she like and and people who didn't vote for her are just like devastated because they're like this is way too much power for someone who we feel like doesn't represent us i mean like as in any democratic government oh is it also oh so it's not like weighted by vote meaning she doesn't get more she doesn't get to control more i don't know how it works below them but like she doesn't get to control more seats as a result of getting 60 of the vote versus 55 you understand what i'm saying no so like it's totally different in the

united states like they're separate elections but like in this case i don't know much about this if the if the mexican president wins it's not like if they win with 60 of the votes they get to place 60 of people in whatever this may be here a house or a congress or something like that versus if it's 55 they get to place 55 see what i'm saying it's not like that right we'll have to google it because i don't know but i know it is it's it's a republic it's it's the same like type of government as the united states the thing is like because she won with such a landslide victory she obviously like she's doing this whole judicial reform thing right now we don't need to get into that and it's it's like super convoluted but

it's caused a lot of controversy in mexico but going back to like what i said about you know it being like the biggest cartel in the country yeah is that this year it was revealed that the previous president amlo took around two million dollars in funds from the sinaloa cartel it wasn't you know directly funneled to him. It was given to his driver slash personal aid. And then it went to his campaign in 2006. And for a long time, people were saying and other journalists were saying like, this guy is on the payroll. He's on the payroll. And, you just like sheen bomb he had a lot of support and he also had a significant victory um and so people his supporters were like no way and how did the

story come out like what was the source uh who i can't remember if it was the new york times or if it was propublica i i don't remember it It was one of the two. I'm like 90. So they had anonymous sources that were giving them proof of this. Yeah. Yeah, they figured it out. And so they did like a whole investigation. And it was really significant because the reason why this party has so much support is because of their social programs and the pension plan that never really existed before um paid time off uh in mexico typically the work week

and for like a minimum wage worker uh is six days a week it's's not like here in Canada where it's five days a week and minimum wage is just like, it's very low. And typically if you're working a minimum wage job in Mexico, you are working a job that is supplemented with tips. So, you know, it's constantly changing whatever you're making. Anyways, the supporters like this because a lot of the supporters are lower class, lower middle class. And so they felt like they were seeing benefits from the policy. On the other hand, people who didn't support them were like, this is a very corrupt party these are very corrupt individuals and we need to look at how this impacts the long run and i'm not saying like personally i'm not on

either side and i'm not even mexican but we're we kind of are seeing long-term effects at this point like what's going on in sinaloa with this turf war and the governor being you know a morena party member is like these are the long-term effects of when your government has such deep-rooted corruption that now regular people are dying and getting caught in the crossfire how well do you know like the history of the cartel over the past 40 years, 40, 50 years? I don't know. Like I know, I guess, how well? Yeah, like breaking down, almost like if you were going to break down

the five families in New York and kind of just timeline of how things built and who was around. I guess good. Pretty good. Yeah. All right. I want to go back there just to start a little bit

with some context here to build up to where we are then so for people out there who aren't for you know everyone's heard the mexican cartels everyone knows they're what they do and whatever but when when did they start to have serious serious influence and who were like the godfathers of that in say like the 70s and 80s the 70s and 80s i could not tell you but what i know like the main godfathers of you know this sort of time of when we hear about this and we're on social media um and you know we have like narcos like okay so narcos goes into that yes the second season i season, I think, is Narcos Mexico or whatever. Narcos Mexico, that's right.

It really goes into that, the history and the depth of it. But I have been so hyper-focused on what's going on now because also, okay, this is another thing, right? We'll get into the history stuff for sure. But to add, for me, there are a lot of journalists who are focused on this. You have Cartelel girl whatever but i try my best to not to get into like the gossipy nitty-gritty because sometimes i feel like a lot of people who are on this beat get lost in the sauce and are focusing on things that they're so bureaucratic within the cartels that you're almost like losing the focus of like, okay, but like how do we dismantle this as a whole? And like who is actually being affected on the ground?

And like what is going on? And like let's look at this as a bigger picture, honestly. Because sometimes we're getting so into it. And it's like even with the Narcos Mexico show, right? Like it's a glamorized way to tell this story. And I try not to get into that. And it can be very addicting. I understand because even when I'm getting into that, sometimes I stop myself and I'm like, this, how much does this really matter if I know this? Or if I'm like, I can analyze this. Because what I want to talk about and focus on is like, who is dying?

How does that stop? What is happening in court? Like what, what role does the government, the governments play in this? So, yeah. But the main people right now that like we're always hearing about is El Mayo, which is obviously like the faction of Sinaloa Cartel, El Chapo, his sons, the Chapitos, and El Mencho, which is the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, who's very low key to an extent.

And then there's so many different cartels and like there's like Cetas, Viagras, the Gulf cartel, and there's so many throughout. But at the end of the day, what we see is that the Sinaloa cartel has its roots so deep within the country and within organized crime and cartel infrastructure in a way that I would find it very hard to believe that they just don't run everything behind the scenes and we've seen that happen just recently because during this turf war um the new generation cartel who was who's notoriously like violent and like just with their own backed the chapitos so that was like a significant development to have it's like why did they back them um because they took their side instead of

mayo's side for this sinaloa cartel turf war and that's it was that part of what led to mayo's capture no this happened this just this just happened like I want to say like a few days ago where they announced that like they formed an alliance and that would be a fucking powerhouse. in like this business, I would call it, it's more peaceful for everyday people because no one's fighting over turf. Yeah. They always say when the governments make their big case and cut off the head of the snake, start slithering like fucking crazy. Yeah. And you see way more violence because it sucks.

But sometimes the devil you know is a lot better than the devil you don't 100 and that was the thing too that i was um thinking about especially when i was in culiacan is that okay so you know you've got chapel you've now got mayo you know there's there's you know the sons are next and the next leaders whatever but there's always gonna be a bigger and badder guy that comes out of the woodworks and I mean you want to get the bad guy but how badly do you want to see what's gonna come out next especially the amount of suffering that i saw when i was there was just like when you were where in culiacan in sinaloa i was there like

about two weeks ago um and it's just ridiculous like people have no quality of life right now um what's it so what's on a day-to-day obviously they're they're all killing each other but like can we i'll give you color commentary yes i'll paint you a picture is that okay so let's say uh i wake up at 6 a.m uh i check the the group chats or a fellow journalist tells me hey cat let's we got to go here on the side of the highway there's like three dead bodies that were dumped um and military presence is there they're waiting for the fiscalia the like investigators to get there so we drive down it's 7 a.m at this point there's three bodies completely battered and murdered bloodied and always like naked like they it's like a shame thing a humiliation um to leave them

in a very public display and in the nude so they're there people are walking their kids to school walking by and you know like for the most part they're not batting an eye because they know the crime's already done they know that they're not going to get caught in the crossfire. You know, National Guard is already there. And these guys are laying there. Sometimes National Guard will throw like a tarp over them. But you know, the head is like still out, you know, you see everything, there's blood everywhere. So first, you get that early morning murder call that happened probably at around like two or three and because you know you can kind of smell it too and like the flies are there so and it's fucking hot in kuliakan like it's when i got off the plane i was sweating bullets and i was like oh my god dead bodies in this weather like it's just a recipe for disaster so you see that and you see families walking by

and you know people kind of walk out of their house but no one will talk to you no one will say they saw anything everyone is like an inter a woman i interviewed she said everyone in this city is just blind deaf and mute like they didn't see anything they don't know anything this example you're giving me right now were these people who were in the life or were these citizens citizens and regular citizens who just happen to walk out of their house to go to work that morning and there's fucking dead bodies outside of no i mean the dead bodies oh they're of course it's it's presumed that they're involved like this is yeah um but that's like a whole other another can of worms

too about like you see these dead bodies and people just don't really bat an eye because you automatically assume that they're bad so it's like well but they aren't always right they aren't always and also it's like i don't know it's still a human life right like there's and and there's a significant loss of a sense of humanity in this region but anyways so you see that and then it's like okay now um we're gonna go to the highway because there's a blockade a narco blockade this is really common uh and there's like three big rigs blocking like the masatlan kulyakan highway like a major highway that connects the capital city and then like the beach city. So then we're like driving there. We have to get out way before the blockade even starts and there it's like flames.

And then we're running. And then typically there's already bodies because the military, by the time journalists get there, like I'm not going to go there if it's, you know, the narco blockade is active because especially like a journalist pulls up. I don't want to find out what their reaction would be, especially as a woman, too. So we pull up and it's like.

There's you needed to be somewhere that day. Too bad. Go home like the major highway is closed. It's there's no chance um and then they bring military brings in their tow vehicles they're getting these trucks out of the way and then business is normal and then they'll take the bodies away okay whatever and then fast forward as soon as it starts getting dark like everyone's having dinner at like 4 p.m now um 4 p.m yes because like you can't go out like you you literally cannot go out

at night not only does everything close so like even if you wanted to go out but nobody wants to go out so and everything is shut down as soon as it's dark it's a ghost town and this is a major city and it's a ghost town so people are having their dinner 4 p.m it gets dark boom literally as soon as it gets dark it's like we got a call there was a confrontation okay i pull up there's a bunch of military and also because i'm not mexican they're like who the hell are you and show me your press pass and i'm'm just like, it's complicated. And then the last name thing. Oh, my God.

It's like, they're like, this is fake. And I'm like, just like, Google me. Just Google me. Like, I can't deal with it. Google me, bitch. Google me, bitch. Like, I should be asking the questions here. It's my job. These fucking military guys are

probably in the cartel themselves yeah you're looking that's not reassuring that look right there oh boy and i could actually tell a good story about that yeah please do um but let me tell you finish my day in the life so it's like uh there's what's really common and i did a reel about this is basically uh if there is like a confrontation, like a fight between the factions or whatever, someone's trying to kill someone, they will provoke a car accident, kill those people, bomb, bomb, bomb. There's, you know, shells and gunshot holes, and then take those guys or not kill them, kidnap them, take them, and then those are the guys that we'll find the next day in the morning on the side of the highway. So this is the day in the life in Culiacan and it doesn't end. And some nights are worse than others. Some nights it's literally like all you hear is like, and you'll see smoke and you see it's like fucking fireworks, but it's not fireworks. And no one, no one leaves. It's so so funny too because like on one of my last nights

when i was there at the hotel there was like also no one at the hotel because like no one is going there for vacation right now the only people that were there were like women going to get like bbls and stuff like when i would be outside the lobby smoking like i just see like i'd see like some girl go in with no ass and then walk out just like all bandaged with like a fatty yeah yeah it was some fucking valley girl from california just got no clue what's going on around literally i'm like you know you're i'm here for my pbl in a war zone it's so beautiful out here but there's no one here i wonder why yeah literally or like people who are from certain countries like balkan countries or whatever trying to get into the united states without a visa um yeah so that's happening a lot

yeah i met some people um but anyways so on one of those nights like one of the hotel workers like i was sitting working in the lobby because internet sucks too and he's like i always see you here working and alone and what are you doing here and sometimes i'm like i don't know if i should tell people because what if i tell the wrong person so typically i will i won't lie but i'll just kind of like avoid the question or just kind of like play my like, oh, my God, no, I'm just like trying to get some work done. Because I don't look like my job, which kind of works in my favor sometimes. Right. Anyways, but he was cool. And I was like, I'm actually like covering this.

And he's like, no way. This is you need a beer. So then we end up like having a few drinks together he was super cool like super nice um and he's like you don't understand like life sucks here like it's always like this we just can't go out we can't do anything and i know like there's there's nothing you you like you can't pull up to Culiacan right now for a work trip and be like, you know what? Let me just hop on Tinder and like just see if I can go. No way. Like it's – I was work mode like it's hotel, out to work, hotel, out to work.

And when I'm going out to work, like I'm seeing the worst of the worst shit. And everyone's lives are impacted by this. It's horrible. Yeah. You know, it's an overused cliche phrase obviously, but I can't imagine. Because like all the little things we can take for granted just, you know, to have the freedom to do our day. They live under a constant war threat where it's not a geopolitical war.

It's like an enemy within that just says they're going to run. This is our country now. This is what we're doing. And if you say a word, we're going to slit your throat and your whole family. Literally. And this is exactly like you want to go grocery shopping? Good luck. We pull up one day to a Soriana.

Like, I also posted this reel, and it's – Soriana is like a supermarket. Because a guy ran in screaming for help, apparently, because he was getting chased by armed men because they had misidentified him as someone who he wasn't. And he's like, call the military. And I feel like if he was lying, he wouldn't have been,, like hid in the bathroom and asked them to call the National Guard. So poor guy, if that was really the case, like that's terrifying. Oh, they didn't do it. And then he got caught. No, they the military pulled right the fuck up because that's good.

Right now, there's no municipal police. Like they took all their guns away and made them stay in the police department because there's corruption. Oh. And so the only – well. They give them a hip whistle? They have like a baton. Yeah, it's a country run by cartel members and the baton is going to do a lot. Like, right?

But anyways, it's because the fear like, that these guys are involved. Anyways, and I'm, I'm, like, shooting this reel outside, and I'm, like, okay, military is here because this guy was apparently hiding in the bathroom saying that he was gonna get fucking murdered for being someone who he's not. And as I'm filming this, literally, it was perfect timing. I'm, like, as you can see, like, everyday life, and as I'm saying that, I see this, like, family of four walk up behind me. And they're just looking like, fuck.

Like, they came to grocery shop, right? And they turn to me and they're like, podemos entrar? Like, can we go in? I'm like, no. Not today. Like, yeah, no. Like, this is not going to happen. And they're just like, fuck me.

And I get it because imagine you're just trying to do regular shit. Yes. And you can't get anything done. And even if you go, you're literally taking a risk leaving your house. Like, I just posted a video. There was a crazy shootout the other day. And this dad is, like, filming on his phone. And you can hear the kid.

You can't see them. But they're laying on the ground. And I think it's, like, they're in a food place. And the kid is, like, buh-bye. Like, I'm scared. a food place. And the kid is like, Papa, like, I'm scared. I'm scared. Those are gunshots. Those are gunshots. I'm scared.

And the dad's like, are we, we're going to be okay. The kid's like, are we going to be okay? Just tell me we're going to be okay. And it's like a little kid. You can tell. And growing up with that, that's not normal. No, no. See, again, it goes back to what you said about like being desensitized.

They're desensitized to it. but it changes who they are as a person. And you think about this because it's very similar like when you look at different places that are like terrorist hotspots around the world. If that's what they grow up knowing and those are the tough guys in the neighborhood – That's what you become and right and then by the way all these other dudes from other countries are dropping bombs on you try catch them all the time you don't know the difference between that you just you just take on what your environment does that the concept of being a product of your environment is probably one of the truest things about humanity ever stated and then get this if you see the guys who are supposed to be good doing the same bad

things like you have a cop coming up to your dad's corner store saying you're gonna pay me fucking five thousand dollars if you want to keep running this business or we're gonna burn it down then who is the good guy like who is your superman here like there's no fucking it's not like batman and joker it's like joker and joker 2.0 that's right that's a great point because those the examples you see everything the lines are totally blurred everywhere you go and it all ends with the same thing and you become i could imagine i would imagine like as what's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door.

A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions totally numb to that. And you're like, okay, power. Who has power? They do. That's what I'll do then.

Yeah, exactly. And then people watch these videos and they're like, how are these guys cutting off these people's heads? Well, probably because they've seen extreme levels of violence their whole life. Absolutely. It's normal. And speaking of, you know, the Joker and Joker 2.0, this is what I was going to tell you about, like the military guys, right? Yeah.

How deep does this go? It's really bad there's like a lot of footage too on twitter right now where uh you'll see like military vehicles or um soldiers whatever with their they have like so the the hat like the sombrero like the white hat it represents the chapitos right um that pizza pull that up chapitos white hat yeah and there's a really there's a photo on my twitter of five bodies that were dumped um outside like a fucking water park for kids with the with the hats on it and like it's a it's a really striking photo we can't show that one obviously yes yeah um but so you'll see military vehicles there's like photos of it where like this one military vehicle apparently has like the white hat like on the dashboard. And that's not it. No, it's not.

You're going to have to search up like white, like search up chapitos sombrero, I think. That could work. All right. I don't have my glasses images good like that first one what old videos were in there yeah like that one and you'll see they'll have like little

versions of that or they'll pop those types of hats on people when they kill them yeah what was the one you were just starting to say when we looked at that not the water park one it was right after that the military cars yeah yeah so like is that what you wanted to hear yeah so like there's you know like some military guys who obviously are you know in this um and they'll wear it or like they'll have it on the dashboard of their car which it really goes to show like damn like you're supposed to be the good guy and you're repping openly a bad guy openly

and it was crazy too this is like a side note but this also like really stood out to me was when i was reporting over there um i was with other another journalist like uh local journalist there jose he was really great he's a really good journalist shout out um and he helped me a lot and also it was really good just because like to not be alone and also it was like my first time going there and i'm going there during like this fucking yeah so but there were moments where i did go alone and i was like filming myself talking about something one time and like the military vehicle pulls up and the guys are all like sitting in the back and like two of them start like waving and whistling and blowing kisses yeah and i have it on video and

i'm like so i need glasses but i i lost my glasses so like i can't properly see shit sometimes and um and also when i film i take off my glasses which is how i lost them so i'm like not wearing my glasses and then i'm like no way so i look behind me because i'm like no they're probably fucking with someone right yeah no and and they're like hey and i'm like you're joking right now like to me and i put on my glass and i'm just in authority in someone who, like, has way more power than me. Because they know who you are, too. They know what you're doing. They know what I'm doing.

Yeah. They know I'm, like, young woman and there's, like, a group of men who have arms. And it's, like, you pull some shit like that like any other day fuck you up but the power imbalance there like yeah we could not go band for band because no no no you can't be dumb too because like you said some of them wear this openly yeah that they're paid off by these guys i mean that's stunning to me i mean mean, I guess it shouldn't be, but still. And it's funny because I told one of my girlfriends about this, and she's like, that's a story.

And I was like, no, because also as a journalist, you don't want to become the story. You want to tell the story of what's going on. But a moment like that, it's like, why do you feel so comfortable doing that to a journalist there? And then shit went crazy too because they shot up, not the military, a news outlet got shot up while I was there. A news outlet got shot up.

Yeah, I posted on the gram. The cars out front, all the tires were popped. There was bullet holes everywhere. All right, real quick. I just got to go to the bathroom, but I want to hear this who do i all right we'll be right back oh my god all right we're back that was a longer break than expected sorry about that thank you for your patience no it's no problem if anyone out there understands why the lacy recording into our ATEM mini ISO does not get read on a fucking Mac, sometimes randomly, please help.

I've been working on this problem for the whole year. It's been such a pain in the ass for Alessi and me. And I had the help of one of the fans, Marcus Winsness, to build a PC into my Mac that I then have to go go in there and pull the files and luckily it just works so we have the files from what we just did but been a pain oh you thought they were gone yeah i knew we'd be able to get it now because this is my first time to the rodeo but like last week it happened with john kiryaku and that basically cost us it cost me five six hours one day sitting on with with marcus trying to get it luckily this

time i didn't have to get him on and i got it but it's still like there's always something there's always part of the process it's like we just adapt but like danny jones has the same fucking equipment we do down to the hard drives and we and we've bought several of these it's not any one of them and he never has this problem ever maybe human error that's what i'm saying but like we haven't alessi and i like we're anal we watch the fucking red button right here and it never goes off so if that doesn't go on and then the data is always there it just doesn't show up on mac it's so weird so if anyone can help with that please shoot me a dm at julian d Dory on Instagram.

Help. And on Twitter if you're there too. But anyway, sorry. So you were telling a story about a news outlet that got shot up. What happened? So basically like one night, all hell broke loose. Nobody could leave. This was the night when I had a few with um the hotel receptionist as i was working in the lobby and um the next day it was like uh a news outlet was shot up and what i kind of figured was that it was kind of like killing two birds with one stone shooting up

that news outlet because they shot that news outlet up to send a message a as like hey whatever there was something that they reported on or they were sticking their nose somewhere that whoever shot them up didn't want them to be doing and b it was also a great distraction from whatever else they were trying to do at the same time or whatever else was going on they knew that like that top story was going to be that the news outlet got shot up right because you attack press it's like you're attacking speech you're attacking so many um components of like democracy generally anyways uh fast forward a few days later one of the newspaper delivery men for that news outlet was kidnapped and he's still missing. Yeah.

Oh, he's gone. Sorry. No, it's really sad. That's very sad. Yeah. Like his daughter like just put out a plea being like, I want my father back alive. This is horrible. i know yeah i like i i laugh because i mean it's okay it really gets kidnapped but that's horrible it's so bad because

it's directly attacking press and so like and when what a lot of people don't understand or at least i feel like a lot of people don't understand is when you're attacking the press like you're not it's not just like oh like shut up journalist no it's like these are the people who are literally going out to get information for the public and to tell the stories that impact you guys so if they're being attacked and if they're working under the the you know like this realm of fear how the fuck are they supposed how are we supposed to be able to do our jobs unless you are just like this um like some crazy bitch cartel girl who doesn't get scared and is like whatever but for the most part you don't want to die and especially not doing your job. Of course. That threat shouldn't exist for a job that is clean.

Also, you might feel differently too in the future if you have like a husband and kids. 100%. Yeah. That's the thing. Like I could be recruited to the fucking CIA right now because I'm just like it's me and nothing else, right? Don't say that out loud too much.

People might think a thing or two, but. I don't think I would joke about it. That's what they say. I've actually had people in Mexico be like, you're a spy. And I'm like, no. Like people have checked my passport because it sounds ridiculous. Like at least to me, I'm like, I called my dad and I'm like, so-and-so like thought I was a spy. Like for real

yeah and i i would be a shitty spy if you think that i am one so clearly not but anyways back to this that same day that that um news outlet got shot up uh i managed to catch the governor in a scrum you know a scrum is like when all the journalists yeah so did you have this on instagram yeah yeah i think i saw this the guy with the glasses yes and like all the comments on that post are like he's so corrupt corrupt corrupt yes yeah and so like when i caught him in the scrum i was like how do you expect to maintain a freedom of press in sinaloa when journalists are constantly under attack i mean i just got a notification that like this journalist was just killed in michoacan um and he was like gave this super long-winded answer that basically

alluded to nothing like it doesn't it doesn't give me a peace of mind someone who's not even seeking peace of mind so imagine folks who are there and living this daily and it's like i could become a target and it's like a newspaper delivery guy like for from what i know like he wasn't even writing the stories. Yeah, that seems like a low blow. It's a message. Yeah, exactly. It's a message. They're going after someone who's completely innocent in that case.

Basically, they say the people who in their eyes aren't innocent but are literally just doing their job, by the way. You know, like, ooh, we'll go after this guy. What do you think we'll do to you? And like this has always been an issue in Mexico. Actually, Mexico is the most dangerous place in the world for journalists. It has the highest rate of murders of journalists. And then add onto that being a woman where Mexico literally has a femicide protocol, where if a woman is murdered, it's not investigated as a homicide. It's investigated as a femicide because they literally have an epidemic of,

of violence against women, of female murders. A femicide? Yes. Femicide is, is a, uh, like murdering a woman homicide,

but woman, I've never heard that before. So I didn't know that had like a gender. Yeah. Femicide. It's, it's an international thing. Um,

but particularly in Mexico, they've literally implemented a femicide protocol, which is like the specific investigative unit that goes to investigate a homicide against a woman. Wow. want to tell stories you want to find the truth you you know you want to be on the ground and showing exactly what's happening and like that's my goal here is i don't want to just be like in the comfort of my home like i love to be in the comfort of my home but be in the comfort of your home and it's like okay i'm talking to people on zoom i'm writing about it and i'm posting it fuck that if i'm going there and i can literally show you look this is what's happening and i've had people like message me and they're like you know katerina like you'd have way more followers or traction if you used a better camera or whatever i'm like this is real like i'm i go

there with my phone and my dslr and i'm like look right behind me this man was just killed yeah i think the quality is fine. I'm happy with it. For me, I just care about keeping it real. Yes, agreed. Not to cut you off, but I've been seeing all these, because they're at the very end of these campaigns now, and I see all these different campaigns using 8K cameras now to try to capture stuff, it just feels fake it feels like a movie yeah it's yeah exactly yeah exactly they're shooting it with like 23 frames per second shutter speed 20 i'm sorry 24 frames per second it's it's something about it just feels off it's it it's too overly

produced and i think when you're telling stories that are so raw you have to tell it in a raw way because otherwise like an audience is looking at a screen and sure they could be seeing the same content like through a great like you know 24 frames whatever your phone it doesn't go pro but if it's real and you're showing what's going on especially when it's something like this where people are dying people have a terrible quality of life and there's like constant violence it needs to be real and so i don't know how i got to that point but well you were saying about the journalists being killed and and how in particularly in the country there's something called femicide because and they have there's investigations that are called this because there's so much violence against women.

And I see what you're saying in the sense that, like, you know, people need to feel, when tragedy is occurring, people need to feel like it's their backyard. If it's not, which in most situations, it's not your backyard where something may be happening, like you have to make them feel like, ooh, that could be my daughter or that could be my sister or something like that or I could be right there. And this is hard. I mean one of my friends, Paul Rosalie, and my other friend, Ryan Tate, they do a lot of work in the Amazon and Africa with wildlife. It's hard to show people and get them to totally care at all times like people are very interested in it but

it's hard to show them the tragedy of trees burning or elephants being massacred massacred you know to somebody in fucking massachusetts it's a tough battle for you you know you're down in mexico and this is this is humans now like where where you're seeing people getting killed but how much can can the people here relate to that kind of violence at all times completely in the area there's a lot of people in this country that can't that's the thing and i think that like when everyone is going through their own shit they're like why should i care and a lot of the people who are interested in watching this is like they want something sensationalized and i've actually had people be

like katerina you showing the actual dead bodies um that's bad it's sensationalizing it and i'm like i'm not doing it in a sensational way the way and my goal of showing it raw is being like look how bad this is this is why you should care and this is how people are suffering i'm not like boom look at this body isn't that fucking crazy yeah it is but the the point it should not get lost in the sauce here the point is that okay like for americans for example right like americans mexico you guys share a border and And like – I didn't know that. Especially like with elections, with so much of what goes on here, Mexico and America are so intertwined. And when something like this is going on south of the border, it will always spill over like no matter what and whether that's like with the fentanyl

crisis or like the blues and the teas like all of this shit that we're seeing with the drugs but with this cartel violence like do you really not think that there's guys who have cartel um connections right probably down the street oh 100 there a hundred percent there are. Yeah. Yeah. And like all of that is connected. When I did my interview with the Sinaloa cartel guy who is based out of my home city in Vancouver, BC, and they're like running the fentanyl labs. It's just crazy to me because like that, we don't share a border with Mexico. Canada is not right. So the fact that this is so widespread, it's like a virus and there's they're they're seeing this in in western europe now too all of this is connected and this war that's happening

in mexico and particularly in sinaloa in other areas as well these casualties are not are not specific to mexico yes i think that's a great point now did this sinaloa guy you sat down yeah do you have you have that on your instagram i do can we pull that up real quick and see some of that i think it's from august right so his it's on instagram so his you had his identity yeah i covered his identity i changed his voice and I just, I shot him in a silhouette. Got it. I'll let Alessi go find that. But before he does, how did you get this guy? Okay. So basically I had heard that the Sinaloa cartel was running operations in Canada. They were no longer producing fentanyl in Mexico. They were doing it in Canada?

Yeah. And they're and they're sending it um south into the united states from canada so like fentanyl is not being really produced at all in mexico anymore because too many people were dying and it caught too much attention so they moved it to canada yeah and the reason why this was like working too was because the visa requirement for Mexicans to get into Canada for the longest time, it only just recently changed, was a lot easier than for them to get in the United States. Also, it was so unsuspecting. It's in August, by the way, Alessi. But yeah, go ahead. It was so unsuspecting.

It was so unsuspecting. I can show it to him yeah actually let's let's help him out yeah it's him that's it okay you want to watch this real quick yeah we can watch this all right let me and then i can explain it to you more all right you got it officially made british columbia canada ground zero for domestic fentanyl production i spoke to a sinaloa cartel member who is running major labs across the country. I pick up things when they are sent to me. I make sure everything is okay. I am disturbed, so to speak. I'm a distributor. I don't see retail just for wholesale.

The issue is getting a little dangerous because they're making pills here now that attracts more government they send people from sinaloa to do it here closer to the states that they want to reach and the asians get the chemicals here yeah okay all right that's good thank you leslie so i knew nothing about that with canada yeah so and when i was reaching out to law enforcement in canada it was very much like if fentanyl was being produced here and like by the cartels we would know about it and it's like okay well i'm fucking talking to this guy tomorrow so like he's gonna take me to the lab so get your lab coat um but also like a problem in canada too and i hate this is that um in canada if like police

summit like they want your source like you have an anonymous illegal source uh there's a supreme court precedent that was set because of like this case with like an isis source that now if they take you to court you you do have to reveal the source oh that's crazy it totally fucks it up yeah i mean that that's because that the whole separation it's the fourth estate it's supposed to be its own thing like its own and some people could run with this the wrong way but its own form of governance in its way yes that's supposed in an ideal world supposed to represent the people and if that ever happened to me like and i tell my sources this like i would fight tooth and nail and i i'd like delete everything

afterwards because i'm like no way if you're gonna try to get me like be so fucking for real right now yeah but anyways like i'm not a cop what what do i have to do with this yeah so anyways i was told uh early this year that like fentanyl was really not being produced at all in Mexico. And I'm like, okay, well, so then what's happening? Because fentanyl is a huge problem in the United States and Canada. And like, particularly in Canada, in Vancouver, like more people died of overdoses from, from opiates, from fentanyl than COVID during COVID. It was like a huge deal. Our provincial health officer, um, cried about it in one of her pressers about COVID and she's, it was like, she got choked up. She's like, so many people are dying from these drug

overdoses. It was so bad. Um, and it's always been a problem, especially in Vancouver, but the fentanyl like really exacerbated the problem. Anyways, I find this out. I asked someone like, do you know, like, is there any way we can get a source who's doing it? What kind of person are you asking that? Someone who has really good sources and there was a good chance that he could find me someone that's in this because he's, he finds a lot of sources and he's a trusted person. And also he knew how to tell these people that I'm a trusted person,

that I'm not a rat. So, because sometimes also like going into something like this, if they don't know me, like I've had actually very good luck getting getting sources and like uh we were just talking about this that i i uh like i don't judge and i'm not i'm not gonna go and like yeah it's just the way that i roll anyways so i'm like is there anyone whatever and he's like okay actually this guy reached out to me telling me that he is with Sinaloa cartel and running operations for them.

But he's going to end it soon. Like he's going to go back to Mexico. Like he's done because shit's heating up because of the pills. Oh, and the operations. Like he's not going to be involved in it anymore. It's still happening. But this guy was like willing to talk about it. Why do you think he was willing to talk about it why do you think he was

willing to talk about it i think that there's like sometimes a level of guilt and because like mexico is a very catholic country so i could be dead no no i mean this is what i've observed it's just funny is that when you you know a lot of people will really do anything for money especially if it's a lot of money especially if it's fast money but that doesn't mean that these people's conscious don't catch up to them because especially if they've grown up in like this very religious way and they're seeing people dying constantly i mean one thing is to kill the guy who's like in your you know your rival cartel another thing is to be like i'm making drugs that are killing thousands of people like on a monthly basis that's crazy right yeah so i i

think that was part of it i also think that he just knew this information was strong and he was going to be getting out of it soon like he was was going back to Mexico and I was looking for this information. So anyways, we start talking on like one of the apps and, um, what's that conversation like? Like, Hey,

fellow Sinaloa friends. It's actually pretty chill. I'm like, I usually, I'm not like, hello, how are you? This is Katarina Schultz.

Like I'm with CBC. Yeah, no, I'm usually like, hello, how are you? This is Katarina Schultz. I'm with CBC. Yeah, no, I'm usually like, hey, compa, que rollo? Like, what's up? I heard you're doing some shit. You want to tell me about it? Like, it's really just, I try to keep it super cash. And they're like, yeah, actually. And then it's like a fucking 12-minute voice note of what they're doing.

You just take out the recorder. Boop, boop, boop. No, literally. I love going in person, though. Yeah. But, yeah, it's literally like, okay, so blah, blah, blah. And, like, this source had actually sent this voice note, like, in spring, talking about how, you know, the Sinaloa cartel needs money because they're going to grab the Theo, they called him, which is El Mayo.

They're like, they're going to take him away. Whoa, whoa, whoa. He was telling you El Mayo's about to go on the chopping block. Months before it happened. What? Yeah. I'm not smiling because it's good. I'm just, it's like, yeah, I was crazy.

You didn't run with that? I couldn't. Like, how am I supposed to fucking verify that? I'm telling you. I mean, you're looking at me like, I know, I don't know. I'm just saying, that's like, I mean. But after that happened, I was like, wow, this source is legit. Because he literally said in Spanish, he's like,

I have the voice note, but he was like, Oh, it was in a voice note. I can't play it though. I know you can't play it. It's just funny it was in a voice note. Yeah, right? Crazy. Fucking guy couldn't text it. We could at least have a screenshot right now. And also, the way people from Sinaloa talk,

I have trouble sometimes understanding because it's very much like that. So I'm like, fuck. And so I'm like listening to it over and over again. You're like, did he just say what I think he said? Yeah, basically. And it's like, yeah, so they're doing the pills and everything now because they need to generate money because they're going to grab the uncle. And they know they need money because in order to do this type of war that's

going on right now you need money you need to hire a shit ton of people who are lookouts who are sicarios um who are like runners for and like just you need you literally need an army right yeah so they needed money and he's like they're gonna grab the uncle and blah blah i was like yeah right yeah okay buddy i was kind of like okay because everything else he told me added up right and that's why i like i ran with it anonymously because typically i won't do anonymous shit but because you know what i can smell bullshit from a mile away so if if i felt like his information didn't didn't add up i would never have run with it and especially not anonymously. But what he was saying, it was just, yep, yep.

And so I did my due diligence too. I went on the street like – there's a street, East Hastings. It's like our version of Skid Row where it's like a lot of drugs, a lot of illegal stuff, a lot of homelessness. And I was like asking around and people are like, yep, yep. And I'm like, okay, but like are you seeing these types of pills and are you seeing these types of guys? I thought you were asking around if they knew anything about El Mayo being taken. Oh, my God. Yeah, totally, man.

That would be so bad. I can't believe you think like that yeah i verified it through some homeless people thanks you really hold me in high regard that's great i'm just fucking with you it's all good no i went to kind of check out like what the drug trade was looking like and there and there are some people there they've been there for so long and they're such high functioning addicts that like you can go and be like, hey, is, you know, is this going on in this building across the blah, blah, blah. And they'll be like, listen, like this is what I know, you know. And because I've actually been I've been involved in that community reporting for so long. Well, in my terms and like I was really involved.

There's quite a few people there that like they'll tell me, you know, and that it's good. And they know that I'm not going to do anything stupid with whatever they tell me. Yeah. You don't trust. Yeah, of course. So anyways, then this guy is telling me, you know, we've got this going on. And because like I said, it was a lot easier to send guys to canada than it was to the states because of the visa wild though and because of refugee status so like a ton of these

guys that are running the operations they're on refugee status and get this some of them have even got thrown in the bin like they've been in jail for like drugs yeah and they're still there oh my god and some of them for violent charges oh my god yeah makes me feel less bad about america i'll say that oh god damn no like one thing about like the canadian judicial system and like all like it's like honestly yeah i shouldn't even say it well now you gotta say it you said you shouldn't so now you have to you know sometimes fuck you know if like sometimes my girlfriends are like my boyfriend is such an asshole i'm like you know really if he really ever does you dirty you could just kill him you'd

probably be two years you'd probably get two years and like probation it's never that's not advice it's a hypothetical youtube don't demonetize us oh can that happen with that you have no idea okay i'm joking yes this is a total joke, YouTube. Thank you. Yeah, no, don't do that. Yeah, don't ever do that. Never, ever. Bad. I mean, it depends what he does. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

I'm kidding. No, no, no. I'm joking. So you guys got a fucked up legal system. It's just a way that I can kind of paint the picture of what it's like. And, like, it's really unfortunate. How were they getting there? Were they flying in, I assume?

Yep. Yeah, because it's not just like crossing were they getting there? Were they flying in, I assume? Yep. Yeah, because it's not just like crossing America just to cross into Canada. No, it wouldn't make sense. They're flying in, and the funniest part is when I went to Canada this summer to do this story, and I hadn't been back for a while. I was in Mexico.

I got pulled into secondary for the first time ever, but it was because I had my cat with me and she goes everywhere with me. What's secondary? Oh, like when they do like the second check, like they check you and like what you've got, what have you been doing? Like the customs thing, I guess, like security. No, I'm not familiar with the term. Oh, like when they pull you aside and wand you kind of thing no so like it's when you get into the country and then it's like you pass you talk to the border agent and then they like flag

your your you and you have to go inside a room and they'll like look through your stuff they'll ask you a lot of invasive questions because they yeah it's it's either must be my wife privilege i've never had that uh yeah actually probably yeah sometimes it's random but sometimes it's like we think you're suspicious right so i've never had that happen but it was because i had my cat with me so you they like want to like make sure she has her rabies vaccine essentially right so we go in i go into secondary with her and the guy's like what were you doing in mexico and like you were there for a long time. And I was like,

funny that you ask, because there's so many people here that are doing really bad things that have come from Mexico. And it doesn't seem like you as them shit, because you're asking I'm Canadian, bro. Like I'm coming home. Like a little like,

welcome back. Right. And he thought it was funny. And then, yeah, that was just kind of demented. And he thought it was funny and then yeah that was just kind of demented and he tried to give me his number i was you're on the customs guy was hitting on you yeah you gotta love that you you don't love that like at all i was like get a grip um but on the sicario next time pal yeah god like do you know who i know no no i'm kidding um but so a lot of people are coming in with refugee status and they're that's insane

and then there's like a lot of people that are going there that actually need refugee status and they're not getting it i did a lot of stories like that actually when i was back there what what are they because if a lot of them it's one or two, if a lot of them are getting this, like what are they like the most charismatic dude in the airport? That's, that's funny. But I think there's, there seems to be a system in place that I found in Mexico where there's like people running a sort of business where they can curate threats against you and like make it look really legit so you can file for your refugee status and it like it all looks legit. Wow. Yeah.

And like you pay a certain amount and this person will like make it look like you are in danger so you can't go back. So then you basically automatically get granted your refugee status. So did you get to go to one of these labs though? Not as a refugee, obviously, because you didn't get that. Yeah, I did go to one of the fentanyl labs. Yeah. What was that like? Well, first of all, I was like, I don't want to overdose because if you come into contact with fentanyl, Yeah. What was that like? though was not the guy that I interviewed his lab it was a different

lab and it's it looks like like a science lab like it's a very like industrial and the precursors that they have they're like they're very easy to get you can even just get them from the United States and they were telling me that get what the precursors like the ingredients to make the drug essentially. Like fentanyl is not hard to make. I feel like you could get demonetized. Yeah, let's not tell people how to make it. But yeah. Yeah.

No, it's it's it's I'm just saying like for all educational purposes is like. She's good. She's really good. Excellent. It's not like this crazy like you would think for how lucrative it is and how addictive it is, it would be like this crazy like Walter White thing. But it's not. Like really if you have basic chemistry knowledge, you could probably make fentanyl and if you like have access to the precursors. I believe it.

So it was quite interesting to see and it was like gross. It was dirty like i don't know why maybe this is very naive but i was expecting to go into like like i like a lab like where you know gloves and like yeah you know vials i don't know why i anticipated that it wasn't and obviously like i've seen you know how they make cocaine and heroin and whatever and it's obviously you know they're doing it like in these big vats and it's not clean but and it's clandestine so i don't know why i had assumed that it would be i guess i assumed that it would be because like we went into someone's house like it wasn't it it was far it was like further out of vancouver so basically it's like a trap house

it is a trap house yeah wow but it's not like one of those trap houses where you just go and like smoke weed and you guys are hanging out. It's like a trap house where like there's a full on – Very big business. Yes. Yeah. Big business. That's why I like my trap houses. A legit trap house.

Yes. I need them focused on making money. You know what? Make it a chain. That's right. So yeah, it was a full-on lab. There's, like, no really regard. The guys making it, so the way they learned how to make it was basically they brought in chefs from China who didn't even speak Spanish or English.

And they came in, like, on the cargo boats because Vancouver is also a port city. Hop off. They stayed with them like six months um and it was literally it's literally like i'm not talking to you you're not talking to me watch me cook and then you're gonna try a batch we're gonna put it out on the streets if it works goodbye i'm back off and you guys keep it going which is also why i think like this is my personal opinion is that there were there's some periods in time where the fentanyl, the drugs become so much more toxic than other times. It's because either like someone's learning or someone like fucks it up because it's not like, you know, you're making your grandma's cookie recipe like it's right in front of you. It's fucking fentanyl. Yeah.

Now, when you go in there are you just like hi don't mind me or what what's do you really picture me going in there hey guys like what do you do are you standing there like taking notes like what what's you just like standing there watching asking questions yeah i i kind of just talk to them as like as if like they're my but like pals i guess like i'm like, okay, and so then how do you guys get that? Oh, how did he learn how to do that? Because I wouldn't know how to do that. And they're not hesitant talking to you

because they're told ahead of time, I guess. Yeah, and also just because I think I go in there with the vibe of I'm not here to be like, hmm, what is going on? I go in very much like, I know this is happening. And you guys have already told me. So let's just keep it rolling. How do they get it out of there? Because they're cooking it in Canada, but now they're putting it all over the United States.

Yeah, people drive it across the border. Right across the Canadian US border. Yeah. And there's like Canadian people who are doing it. Oh, actual Canadian. the canadian u.s border yeah and there's like canadian people who are doing it oh actual can yeah like the mules are like it's it'll be like like a housewife well not maybe like yeah just like a regular shmegular person who's getting a pretty good cut from it have you talked to any sources that have done that no and like the mules are the hard ones for me to talk to i find because those people are really just doing it for the money and it you know you're crossing the border on a regular basis you don't want to screw up your whatever rapport you've built with this

x y border agent or your the way that you do it rapport you built with border agents it happens there are people here's can you can control what border agent you go by i'm really naive on this for sure yeah okay there are people you have to understand too like vancouver borders with washington right so there are people who are who live in vancouver and work across the border or vice versa i literally worked with someone like that so it's really common for people to constantly be crossing and like then you'll kind of you get to know them or a lot of canadians have we can't order everything on amazon or whatever to canada so like a lot of people have uh p.o boxes over there so there's people regularly crossing and there's a lot of people that just generally look inconspicuous and they're doing it for extra money now this is

what i was told by the guys that i went with um and i i asked of course i'm like okay well put me in touch with a mule right but those people won't talk and those people are canadian yeah and and those people typically have a lot more to lose it's like they they're doing it because like they have kids or like they have something going on but they're taking fentanyl like that's what I'm saying like okay you have kids you got to make money it's a lot of ways to make money in this world you're taking a drug that on air contact can kill other kids and is killing millions of people every year right now yeah i'm not saying it's right yeah no i know you're not but i'm also not saying it's wrong i mean people like because

i you know everyone at the end of the day everyone a lot of people want to get rich and they want to get rich quick or they need money and they need it quick and fast money usually isn't legal money i mean we see it all the time. Yeah, but like, I'm always strapped for cash around here. I don't go selling fucking coke at night. You know what I mean? Like, there is, there is a, I mean, maybe I should, like, there is a right or wrong. I don't because I'm like, why would I do that? You know, it's not even, you understand, like, it's not even a moral thought to me. I'm not in college anymore. Yeah. I mean, I think sometimes you also have to like really put yourself in these people's shoes and i'm i'm not like defending or whatever but uh there's a lot of people i met who

like they they were strapped and they really needed it and they didn't really have the means to make it another way and i'm not saying it's right but i also like don't get into like a moral high ground about this i under yeah i actually understand that there's a lot of people it's like yeah i i don't know what the fuck i would do in your position i don't know if you could do your job as effectively as you do if you didn't remove a significant amount of morality from what you do yeah and that's in your defense like i yeah i i think you kind of have to it's like two uh like we're talking about tijuana right um off camera off camera yeah um because they ask, is Tijuana safe? And a side note from that is like, you go to Tijuana,

there's a lot of working girls there, right? Like sex workers. Yes. And we all know like sex work, oldest profession, fast money, not easy money. I talk about this all the time. Yeah. Because so many people are like, that's fucking disgusting. I talk about this all the time. Um, because so many people are like,

that's fucking disgusting. I could never do that. Or like how terrible. Well, first of all, a lot of them are trafficked. But second of all, um, you get to talking to some of them. Like if you really talk to them, like, it's not just like, you want a drink, come sit at my table, shake your ass. No. It's like, what brought you here? How is it that you're younger than me? You're 20 years old. You have two kids in this small town in Michoacan. So you came here and you're sending your money back. And now you're doing meth because you have to keep a certain weight to work at these clubs. And because you have to stay awake all the time and you're literally giving full service sex for like a hundred bucks that's crazy and then there's people saying when

like those girls get murdered or those girls overdose people saying well i mean it's wrong and you know well they should have known better like there was no possible way that they could have known better or perhaps done anything else unfortunately yeah i and and i think that's you know i asked you about the mule one because it's so overt like what you're driving across and what you're dumping right but when it comes to you know say the more like you're talking about more traditional where people will go for fast money for crime i i get it sometimes based on the environment i i i do understand that like you know let's call what it is i do understand the dude who who well now it's like not it's like pretty much legal but the dude who sells like a lot of weed to put himself by that's that that's

fine to me like i don't really care but that's faster money right that's that's sells like a lot of weed to put himself by, that's fine to me. Like I don't really care. But that's faster money. That's illegal in a lot of places still. But like weed wasn't killing people the way fentanyl kills people. That's exactly. Sex work isn't killing people and I understand that. That's right. But I think that at the end of the day, anyone who's willing to like risk their life to make money to do something illegal, especially if it's something that kind of scares them. It's like, what has brought you to this level of desperation? You know,

and I can't judge that. Yeah, I've never been in that position, thankfully, and hopefully never will. Yeah, my buddy Matt Cox, who's been on this show a bunch, he is reformed, but he was the greatest fraudster of all time yeah for about six years including like a long run from the fbi you know the guy was a savant of a mortgage fraudster and identity thief ended up doing 13 and a half in prison content guy now great dude but you know he always talks about the threshold for crime and he said you know everyone including the most moral person you know down to mother theresa has a threshold for crime and he said you know everyone including the most moral person you know down to mother theresa has a threshold for crime he said and he said mother theresa and he said what i

mean what i mean by that is there is you may be a mother and your infant's starving you're gonna go steal some bread he's like i would even argue that's okay, right? But that's a crime. What he realized is that his threshold is really low. And I think that when it comes to the scale of crime you do, you know, and you got to take in all the factors here, environment, financial situation, economic. I mean like the general economic situation in your environment around you, all that stuff. Like there is a threshold there. And the person that is going to drive fentanyl across a border, their threshold to do crazy shit is lower than a person who maybe is really on hard times as a single mother and goes into sex work. It's a different level. It is. But it's interesting that you bring that, you know, steal the bread for the starving

kid thing, because I kind of see it all as the same because it's like, well, fuck, you can only steal so much bread before you need to put the kid through school before you need to, you know, have a car to drive the kid to school before you need to pay the electricity to keep the heat on. So you stealing bread is not going to it's not going to give you money, right? It's just going to give you that bread. So then, oh, I can just make a trip across the border carry this stuff i never have to see it again i go back i get cash in my pocket it's a done deal right yeah are you thinking about all the hundreds of people that are that could possibly die from what your action just did or are you thinking about the what thinking about the problem that's right

in front of you and your personal problem? And it's like what we're talking about. It's like people aren't even concerned with that global problem of like what's going on in Mexico, for example, because they're so hyper-focused on what's going on within their own home. And they don't have to see it. They just a courier yep so they they get to be they get to be removed from it like they're not even a dealer like dealers are seeing their clients die dealers are seeing their clients deteriorate yeah i mean that kind of reminds me like it wasn't fentanyl but that reminds me of luis a little bit too luis navia because he you know we had this guy in here who luis nav for – he was in the cartels for 25 years and the last 15 to 20 of those years he was like the guy globally for smuggling the drugs.

He never sold it. He never had the guys on the street. That wasn't his job. His job was to get, as he would call it, product from point A to point B. And I call him like – he's a friend, really fascinating dude, but he's like the most amoral guy i've ever met in my life it's not like i think you kind of have to know him i don't i don't know how much people got from those podcasts just seeing him on camera but when you really talk with him it's not like wrong but it's not like right to him it just is it just is it just is. It just is. It just is. And I can understand how people view it like that.

I can too. It doesn't make it any easier for an emotional person like me to grapple with that though. Totally. And also like – listen, I have the luxury of having not grown up in astute poverty or whatever the term is like total poverty yeah you know or where everyone around me is getting shot and frankly most of the people listening right now can say the same thing so it's hard like i always say this when you use the phrase if i were blank then i would blank that is a very dangerous thing to say because you don't fucking know like you think you might be 99 sure sure you would do this thing, but you're not 100. You don't know for sure until you're in that situation. It's facing you and you react. Yeah. And like so many

people find themselves in situations where it's so completely out of their control. And also like, I don't know if you've ever felt like this when you're just in a really high stress situation and you need to find the solution. Sometimes your brain, it switches. It's not the regular you brain, right? And you're going for that solution. And some people will kill for that fucking solution it's just it it kind of is how a lot of people operate and if you are growing up seeing trappers and scammers and you know and they're bawling out why would you not do the same i was actually literally just having this conversation of how so many um guys who are kind of starting like the juniors like in in the cartel like they kind of want to get involved it's not like how it was um a decade

ago even uh where back then like we had this idea that like well you grew up poor you saw your older cousin trapping so then you got in and he got you the connect and now you're you're you're kind of in the cartel or you're a lookout now it's like guys or people who actually grow up pretty privileged they have money but they like the idea of that and like they listen to that music they've seen those shows um and they want to get into that glamorized lifestyle and it's changing and that is very different than someone who's just like i need that quick money i need to find that solution absolutely absolutely and that's like more like sociopath like those are people who like probably have disorders because how are you willingly getting yourself into a situation

where you could be responsible for deaths or you know violence when you don't even really need to be there in the fucking yeah yeah when i i was telling you before camera i had the swim team in the the drivers in new york and like they don't commit any other crimes rather than just driving fast. But they're driving fucking 160, 180 in the New York City area, you know. And I will say that they're extremely skilled. They're like the best drivers I've ever seen. But all it takes is one person making an innocent mistake on their end. You know, someone going 60 doesn't use a blinker right very small mistake they usually wouldn't cause a problem but they've decided to go 180 so they

hit him and kill everybody yeah and it's like when when i and to their credit they were answering the questions about this in here but i'm like do you understand why someone like me who doesn't do these things would look at that and say you have have to have some sort of screws and they volunteer it. They're like, there's absolutely, I think, I think float was saying like, there should be psychological studies done on this because there is definitely something in our brains. That's why are just a little differently that makes us do this. And what I would say is they're not full blown sociopaths. i didn't get that right but there's there's enough there of like that some level of narcissism gene that they're like i can do it yeah it's some sort of personality disorder or something that's some chemical imbalance that's it reduces your regard

for human life absolutely and. And empathy generally. How do, going back to the labs though, how do the Sinaloa guys who are all coming from Mexico, how do they recruit mules, Canadian mules? Like, do you know anything about that? So what I gathered from speaking with them, it's basically just, you know, these guys like- Monster.com. Oh my God. You know, they actually just put Monster.com? Oh, my God.

You know, they actually just put it up on Craigslist. Come on. I'm just kidding. I'm fucking with you. Okay, fuck. You have a really good, like, I'm not fucking with you face. You really do. I don't think so.

I feel like I'm, like, outwardly facetious about it, but... No, no. Maybe it's... I'm still getting over being sick today, so I'm a little slower, but still. It's a pretty good face. I think... So, what I gathered is basically, like like these guys, they'll party and stuff like that. And like a lot of them have like Canadian girlfriends and stuff. So it'll be like knowing someone through someone.

Oh, and hey, my aunt, she needs money. And like, what can we do? Because I always see you have a ton of cash and I always see you balling out at the club. So literally that's how it starts. And then it's like, all right, I'll give her five grand if my neighbor, like he's like down with like on money and you know what? He's an alcoholic and he needs this and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like it's from what I gathered from what they were telling me, there usually seems to be kind of like a sob story behind it. Like there is, it is someone who is just down on their luck or is having a hard time um and so that's i think it's through connection it's like the network they should like make a linkedin for these people seriously make the fbi's job easier but you said that some of these i think you call them cooks

right you said they're bringing them in from as from Asia and they come in for like six months and they teach them. I presume a lot of that's probably China. Yeah, it's all China. Yeah. So did you ever hear the book Fentanyl Inc. by Ben Westhoff? Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. So this guy, there was a Joe Rogan podcast with him about five, six years ago, I think it was 2019, where he explained the story of how he came into reporting on all this it was really quite amazing reporting he did and so he was like a culture reporter like a music reporter so nothing to do with fentanyl and something happened where he was assigned this feature story he's working on it totally about something else and one of the sources he's talking

with just offhand mentions about all the fentanyl is like, and he hadn't really heard much about it. He goes, Oh yeah, what's going on there? And the guy starts explaining it to him and he's like, Holy shit. And he keeps asking all these questions. And then he's like, Oh my God, like, this is a story. We got to do this. Long story short, it turns into this book, fentanyl ink. And this guy who is obviously a savage decides, you know what? No protection, no nothing. I'm going to fly over to Asia and see how easy it is to buy fennel. And he literally flew into China, went to, I don't know, one of the big labs or whatever, like companies doing this, and said, yeah, I'll take like 100 acres, whatever it is. I'll take 1,000 pounds, whatever.

And the guy is like, yeah. I told you. I'm feeling a little slow today. But like he's like yeah i told you i'm feeling a little slow today but like it's like a kilo perhaps it's like a hundred acres of fentanyl i'll take a few kilos and the guy's like yeah you want that in a package or you want me to mail it to you and it's wild because they've now partnered long since partnered obviously this is what you're reporting on but like with the cartel yeah yeah yeah and it's completely like localized the problem because now like the fentanyl doesn't come from china yeah it's being made here crazy crazy and it was it was crazy when um

but he was like literally telling me about, yeah, we didn't even talk. We didn't even talk. And he would like take his break. He'd go outside, smoke his cigarette, like eat whatever something he brought, and then he would go. Wow. Yeah, some of the stuff that like Jorge is reporting on with the border, I'll put a pin on it. But like with the China. I saw and like the people coming in with the fancy clothes, right?

They're coming in from China. They're crossing the Mexican border in Montclair and like. Yeah. It's crazy. Cozy. Very, very. And like the route they did, the organization of getting them here is wild. Yeah.

You know, it's impossible to say where it's coming from but it's also probable to say it's coming from the very top over there and there's espionage linked to it it's just very very scary i i i would not doubt it at all it's it it's almost too obvious to be critical about it like it's just you're telling me that like this cook is just coming in here and teaching people how to make this drug that kills thousands of people and then he's like all right goodbye on his own accord and then never see him again and then now no more fentanyl is coming from china and it's all being made here and it's all being dispersed through canada the United States. It's the opium war back on us at this point. And it's hard to deny that.

Way too many casualties. Oh, yeah. Now, down in Mexico, not in Canada, but in Mexico, have you come across any Chinese cartel presence? No. No. No. Do you think that's just because it's it's very well covered i think it's because if there is any sort of agenda with chinese bringing this in it's it's focused on the united states and canada yeah okay and the the mexican cartels like it's they don't want fentanyl in the streets anymore

it was killing too many people um and for certain local factions that makes them like kind of all their money so they don't want those clients to die there's actually like um when i was in tijuana there's this nurse and he goes around and he like provides like clean syringes and like medical care. Like people have wounds and condoms and STD tests and the cartel fully leaves him alone. Why? Because he is keeping their clientele alive and healthy and like there were people I saw I saw someone with literally like his whole skull

was out so like he had a wound like I don't know how he incurred it but it grew like and he would like pick at it and his whole skull was out like even like around like his brow bone like the whole bone and then he's shooting up with fucking puddle water like from the dirty ground oh god

it's worse than kensington it's so bad it's it is and then like the dichotomy of like you see that and then in Mexico like disappeared people is a huge problem. There's so many people who have disappeared. It's like you just go and then there's like a wall of like a hundred people. Have you seen me? And it's like men, women, young, old. And when we were down there reporting, actually, there was this woman and she starts walking down the street. She comes walking down the street and she's wearing her jacket and it's

like early in the morning. And you can tell she looks kind of nervous. She's kind of bundled up and she's looking around and she makes eye contact with me because obviously I look like an outsider there. And she comes up and she's like, hey, are you not like, is it safe to be here? And I'm like an outsider there and she comes up and she's like, uh, Hey, are you not like, is it safe to be here? And I'm like, look, like I'm okay. And I've been here a bit, but like, what is your goal being down here? Like, what do you mean? Like, it was just so out of the blue. She just comes up to me, but she just seemed kind of scared. And she's like, it's cause my brother is missing. So I thought I'd just come down here to look for him and just and look around my daughter thinks that she may have saw him so i just thought you know i'd come look man that shit just it was so fucking sad oh it's heartbreaking like one thing

is your your brother gets murdered and you find the body whatever but you just don't know you don't know you live in that unknown i mean we make and righteously so we make huge stories about some of those in america but it's like so specific who it's so specific who down there it's like you know you walk down the street and go like this and wait for the wind and people are going to walk out and they all have the same story. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Now, do we have any idea like what ballpark? I don't expect you to know this even if we do have an idea. But like what percentage of revenue fentanyl represents for the cartels these days on a broad basis? I mean obviously it's significant i think

fentanyl and cocaine it's like it that's the whole thing yeah yeah because right now like okay so there's like heroin doesn't exist anymore and like that's done meth yes but like it's mostly people want fentanyl and benzos. And like that's the main thing. And obviously cocaine, there will always be a crazy appetite for cocaine. I'm surprised cocaine isn't legal. Yeah. Yeah.

It's crazy to me that it – like we legalize weed but not coke. That's crazy. Like everyone does coke. Because it could – it's more – it's rare but coke can kill you that's the difference yeah but so can other prescription medications absolutely yeah you're right you're right and if people are like there's so many cocaine overdose um i like i've seen it in front of me all the time and in different uh in in very different environments too right like i've seen an overdose happen where it's like that typical you know like on the street someone is like injecting with this and this and this and then it's like he's a goner but then i've seen

like uh i like a after party like at a club, at a nightclub. Yeah. Yeah. And the other problem is like now people are getting Coke laced with fentanyl and they don't know it. Yes. It's happening all the time. Well, in that end of that reel, I literally said, if you've done Coke in Canada, you've done fentanyl. Yeah. And I stand by that term. I think it's that widespread.

It's so widespread. So there's, um, drug testing, free drug testing in Canada available. And you can either mail in your drugs or you like walk in and there's one that's run by the government, but it takes like three to four days to get your drugs back. There's a private one and you go and they'll give it back to you in like two hours. They'll test it right there. Your actual illegal drugs. Yeah. Yes. Yes. That's how bad the overdose deaths are. I'm just giving it right back to you. Yeah. Well, the thing is, like, for the government one, you'll just send, like, a sample. Right? You'll, like, mail it in.

Yeah. So you're not like, hey, I'm going to send you my baggie. Please don't lose it or anything. And so. That is a drug I'm so glad i never tried cocaine it looks awesome i've never tried cocaine because uh i know that i'd probably love it yeah yeah it looks incredible never saw a dude on coke i saw some dudes who took way too much and that was like okay pipe down obviously but if you never saw a dude who wasn't I saw some dudes who took way too much and I was like, okay, pipe down, obviously. But if you're like –

Never saw a dude who wasn't having a good time on this stuff. Yeah. Like if you're like, I don't know, like six vodka sodas deep and you rail a line, those people look like they're living their best lives. They do. They really do. This is so going to get demonetized. Oh, my God. We'll be bleeping out a lot on this one.

It's all right. I'm sorry. But no, no. Listen, it's usually me. Okay. It's been me today, so we're all good. And I know like for certain subject matters, like we're going to have to do more editing when it comes in. It's just how it works.

But, yeah, I mean there's not really – it's not like they're putting balance sheets on what they're doing with the drugs, but it does seem to layman. I'm glad to get it confirmed that those are like the two that they're focused on. And when I – so the problem is too, right? A lot of stuff now is also laced with benzos. And so we all know about like the – I don't know what we call it here. Narcan, naloxone? Yes. It's the same thing.

Saves you, yeah. Yeah. That doesn't naloxone. Yes. It's the same thing. Saves you, yeah. Yeah. That doesn't work with benzos. So if you have an overdose from benzo and someone gives you narcan, it's not going to work. Do you understand the science there? Because I don't. I have no idea. From what I know, the enzyme, it only counteracts with the opioid, like with the fent opioid like with the feds it won't do it with the down like it's yeah okay so they're pushing a lot of benzos

too yeah and the the thing is now with the drugs and when i've talked to a lot of people from the streets or like people who work the street beat a lot like like ex-cops or whatever. People who are regular drug users are deteriorating at a way faster rate now than they were like 10, even like seven years ago. Yeah, makes sense. Like you'll see someone now and we all see like the hunch, right? Yeah. Like you're hunched over because it destroys your bones and like. Yeah. So that wasn't really happening before. Like you didn't really see people hinged over like that at the rate that you do now at least or at least for what I've seen.

It's the potency. The potency of what they're taking. It's too strong. And now also people are building a lot of people that I spoke with. They have such a high tolerance. They're like, I would like some people I spoke with were literally like, Katarina, I would love to go back to being a heroin user, but I can't. Like it's fentanyl or nothing now imagine that like imagine hearing that like you'd rather be able to be addicted to fentanyl and like this one like

gentleman i spoke with he was like you know i was a weekend warrior like i was i would do really hard drugs on the weekends but like during the week i would live my regular life um and i i would drink but i didn't do hard drugs and i would do heroin and then he's like and then they introduced fentanyl he's like i do drugs all the time now like i'm there's no such thing as weekend warrior and i thought that was like a really interesting term that he used because it's like yeah people at a certain point were able to like hide their addiction to really hard drugs but now it's too strong it's too strong and they get laced on it there's some old podcasts on multiple big podcasts i think lex friedman did one joe rogan did one

and a few other guys with this dude dr carl hart and I will admit to this day, I've never been able to get myself to listen to it. I have not. So I have to preface that with this. But he's a professor at Columbia. There's no doubt. He's obviously like a brilliant guy. But his whole thing is that he takes a little bit of heroin like every day.

And he tries to say, it's been packaged all wrong. It's actually really good for you. Here's the benefits. And again, I've never heard him out. So maybe I'm really missing something there. But when I hear stuff like this, and then you look at every data point that's available to us through everything we're talking about today. And that I could talk about with a bunch of other people on a bunch of other topics where drugs gets tied into it and what it's done.

It's like, what the fuck are we doing that like that shit there's a reason why it's like the devil's elixir or whatever the hell they call it like you're not supposed to fucking take that it's so simple we just had kurt angle in here who you know broke his neck five times docs put him on painkillers couldn't get off him no yeah you know and that's the case for a lot of people it's so sad you know and uh another thing too is like a lot of people who um are regular drug users and they're they're on the streets um a lot of them have cte like what the football players get the really yeah because they incur so uh so many injuries over the course of the time that they're addicted like not only

from the drugs damaging their brain matter but also because from falling over or getting to into a fight uh confrontation um and so then you so you already have an addictive personality right and you're already addicted and then now you tie cte into the mix wow i never thought about that it is called cte yeah that's exactly right i just i'm like um then how do you ever expect to get off of that but the thing is like for the cartels and then for like okay uh that the top of whoever is teaching how to cook or whoever is profiting off of this that's great news it's like it's like if you um work at nordstrom selling prada shoes and you find out that all your clients get their credit card limit increased that's literally what that's like there's a greater threshold of of how much you're gonna

make now yep shit gets more but i don't want to stay on that all day though because it's just yeah no it's fucking brutal but it's it's it's just, it's fucking brutal. But it's good to, it's important to talk about. It's important to have people in here like you who have to see this up close all the time from both ends, by the way. You're seeing it from the people who are at the top supplying it and you're seeing the people on the street who are, you know, getting addicted to it and people you know you talk about like the guy with his with his skeleton showing like we got to hear that stuff for sure it drives it drives it home you know but el mayo we've been talking about him a bunch today and obviously like that's a huge huge story that you know this is right in in your wheelhouse and in your world so you had said that obviously this brilliant Sinaloa source, like that's pretty amazing, was telling you went back in April. Yeah, in April. That this was going to happen.

And I believe this happened at the beginning of August. End of August. Okay. Happened end of August. And then second week of September, like September 7th, it just shit hit the fan in Culiacan. That's when the faction war broke out. Right. Okay okay so for people

at home you've said a little bit about omar today but let's just like rehash here can you just explain who he is and what you know what his style was and what cartel he ran and then we'll get to what happened to him yeah so um ismael el mayo zambada was, or is, I guess, it's hard to say now, right? The head of, one of the heads of the Sinaloa cartel. So when El Chapo got taken away, El Chapo and El Mayo, they ran the Sinaloa cartel together. And their styles are very different. You know, we knew a lot for a long time about El Chapo, about his lifestyle, about Sean Penn and Kate del Castillo going there to make a documentary with him and that he had beautiful houses and cars and haciendas, the whole nine yards of what you picture

this drug lord lifestyle. Whereas El Mayo was lot more low-key and he was from what i mean i never met the guy but from what i was just there last week but if you want to meet link is in the bio anyways uh he um he was more low-key he's a very like typical norteño like northern like sinaloa man you know like he was into his you know the barbecues the ranch not ranch sauce like a ranch um a lot of cocaine i'm not that uncultured sorry but no for other people for other people i don't want them to think especially because you have a lot of americans listening and you guys like a lot of ranch on shit. Oh, that's what you think of us. Okay. It's all coming through now.

It's okay. Anyways, so he and El Chapo run that together. Now, El Chapo, obviously. Opposite. Opposite. And he's out of the picture. So El Mayo became the head of the Sinaloa cartel and so did El Chapo's sons, the Chapitos. So they took over, just so I'm understanding, the sons took over what was El Chapo's faction.

Yes. And El Mayo had his faction. So it's almost like it's a two-family system. Exactly. And that's what it was to my knowledge. That's what it was. Okay. And then the problem is though, you know know everyone wants a bigger piece of the pie

like it's never enough and so when el chapo's sons started getting arrested and there's like these manhunts for them you know they get obidio they they go into his house they destroy his house they take everything of value in his house right because that's that's what happens in mexico unfortunately you know the military goes in to raid to get a guy but then all of a sudden the rolex watches are missing too you know the shoes even like the silk bed sheets like everything is gone listen they deserve that it's hard work no comment that's a crazy thing to say. I'm fucking with you. Anyways, so that goes down.

And then this year, Mayo gets captured. what I'm seeing is that this was El Chapo's plan to have El Mayo kidnapped and arrested so that they could bargain and make a deal for his sons, at least, to be free, or his resentencing to be different. And we also have to keep in mind, like, despite all of this crazy shit that we hear about el chapo and el mayo and you know like so many people involved very closely with these men are are living freely and have a lot of leverage with even the american government like a lot of deals are being made i would love to be a fly on the wall in some of these rooms like el chapo's wife, Emma Coronel, she just walked in Paris Fashion Week. Because she did her time. She was out.

I know. And that, like, crazy, right? I mean, she's hot. I don't know. They hired her. Imagine being Kate Moss and you're walking out and then it's next to you. It's El Chapo's wife. That's crazy.

Yeah, there's some weird shit going on for sure so anyways there's there's a lot of rhetoric around how did this happen how did el mayo a guy who who played it really low key for the most part end up on a plane like on the tarmac even and end up in the United States in a wheelchair in federal court. And now, why are El Chapo's sons, the juniors, you know, being moved around like this? There's so much. Between prisons. Yes.

And then discussing plea deals and a lot of the different details. And the thing is, I could speculate about this all day but i really try not to that exists all over twitter and all over the internet and from some really good sources actually who have a lot to say about this but i i try because you you really from early morning workouts that need a boost to late night drives that need vibes a good playlist Because you really... You never know. And as much as you think you have this source and that source and you read this document and you know what's going on. Right. You don't.

You don't. You don't know. But you're saying that El Chapo orchestrated this from Florence Supermax Prison in Colorado, meaning he, because you can't, there's no Sicario's going to visit him there. Like, obviously, it's orchestrated completely 100% with some suit in the United States government sitting in a cell with him, and him saying, all right, if I delivered El Mayo, you're going to help me out with old video and what's the other one chris chris christiano or something yeah he has like six of them and there's like the thing is i'm not i'm not exactly saying that it's like he's sitting there in his prison cell no because el chapo has so many connections and so many people who continue to run his faction in sinaloa in the united states

you know outside of this that they would know what he wanted they would know obviously his agenda and they were wanting to keep that going so even now i mean the guy's been in prison for seven eight years or whatever yeah but you know he created such a legacy within you know narco culture obviously and in the sinaloa cartel that people still it's it's some stuff you don't want to say yeah okay um because here's the thing too when i was in sinaloa uh a lot of people have critical things to say about both factions the thing is it's it's hard to say make a comment or make a criticism or make your opinion about what's going on with either the maestas or the chapitos and someone not get pissed off. It's so hot there right now.

Like anything, your last name could put a target on your back. The business that you run, you know, who you have in the contacts on your phone they're going for anyone and everyone because they yes they want a complete takeover each side each side okay each side and i've seen comments on on twitter of people being like just let them kill each other between each other but it's not that simple it's not that simple. It's not that simple. And especially now that the New Generation cartel backs the Chapitos, like that's crazy. So El Mayo, though, when he got caught, they tricked him. They thought he was like going to a meeting.

Allegedly, yeah. So he was told that he was going to a meeting and they were going to sort stuff out. With who? I don't know. Like someone on the other side. Yeah. It was, you know, it's whatever their bureaucracy is.

And then he ends up with like a bag over his head, his hands and ankles. There's a photo of it, I think, actually, on a plane to the United States. Yeah, can we get el mayo bag on head plane so and he put out a statement about it too it was like a private it was like a private chat or something took him to texas and he he says in his statement that um he was kidnapped yeah so but again it's it's it's very hard to know and there are people who who say and people close to this story who say no like he wasn't kidnapped this is like they're they're using him as a pawn because he's aging and um he he could have been someone. Yeah, there we go. I can't even see.

Yeah, everything's, like, blurred out. Yeah. Yeah, that was the picture. We have the picture of him in the car right after they got him. See on the far left, Alessi with his actual face? Yeah, there we go. Yeah, that was when they, like, picked him up. Because he had had a lot of work done and stuff, too,

so they weren't sure what he completely looked like. And because he was under the radar, it wasn't like every now and then when Chapo was out, we'd get this unicorn photo of him. We never really got that with Mayo. But as I was saying, there were other people who also say this was him using himself as a pawn to start the war and to continue with their territory. To go into U.S. prison for the rest of his – that's crazy. There's a lot of different theories, and that's why I just – I don't take one and run with it. I don't pick a side, and sometimes I don't even bother with them because for us to truly know, we'd have to be there. And there are some people who like to

pretend that they know or like to say that they they know something and they don't it well not it's just so hard to know and there's everyone and so many people have an agenda when it comes to this because so many people are profiting off this cartel war so you really never like for example i did a story i just posted this how uh these leaflets were thrown out of a little plane that went over culiacan this happened twice over like the course of the past two months uh these leaflets get thrown out and it says it's from myos faction on the bottom and it basically it has a hotline so it says if you are facing the wrath of like the chapitos call this hotline and we will come to protect you we want to end this war yeah we want to end this war and we want to make sure that there's peace and like unity here and

like we know you can't trust anyone so trust us like we've come to save the day that's basically i'm paraphrasing but that's basically what it said. Like a hotline is crazy, right? So like I tried calling this hotline and it's disconnected. Like it doesn't work. And then people were saying that it's like, oh my God, like the Mayos faction has a hotline set up because, you know, they're trying to like catch whoever is on the other side of the chapos. But then I spoke to someone else who was like, you know, this is the chapos putting this out there so that they can see who's going to be willing to rat on their own people and call this hotline. But the hotline doesn't even work. And this is the second time that we've seen this hotline number been thrown out around the city on leaflets.

Absolutely absurd. Crazy that that could – And some people also think it's like the government doing it to see like who's involved, to see what's going on. Who's going to call? Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure the lead sicario is calling that number i mean come on guys but they went when when omayo got caught you know you talk about these different theories and i i like your approach i think you got to be careful with with what you run with but you know yes he was a lower-key guy. That said, he operated so freely for so long in Mexico, no problem, that when he got caught and it was completely unexpected, people looked at the different government agencies that were a part of that raid on the ground. You want to talk about the CIA?

Yeah, none of them. None of them. Obviously,'re from what we know there's no cia presence there or anything and he was a long rumored guy to be potentially involved with cia have you ever heard anything that links him to that because his father inherited the business uh from a cub CIA asset. What was that guy's name? Nico. How do we know that? It's like public record. Yeah, public record at this point? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, he was like close to Fidel and then he went, I think he went to Mexico from Cuba and then met Mayo's dad. They started something and then Mayo's dad he defected from fidel you're saying like he liked him and then didn't like him i don't know exactly okay and then i know nico went to la at some point um but mayo's father uh basically you know built that business and used that CIA link of Nico,

however he used it, and taught his son, the Ismael, the Mayo that we know, and his sister. So it could be, could not, but there's history. Yeah, that history exists. Yeah. Have you come across that with other guys? No. Down there? You haven't come across any of it?

No. Yeah, no, but that's like, that's like murky waters. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got this guy that I've been talking with since like August, who allegedly is going to come in here to do a podcast. We're like working on it. He's never in America, but long, long time CIA guy says he's out now. That's doubtful. I'd love for you to ask him about this. Oh yeah. And the reason that he'll be incredibly good to ask about it is because he

spent the first, I think the better part of the first 20 years of his career as the deepest undercover spy for CIA in Mexico with the cartels. And I won't provide details yet. I'll let this guy provide details. But he was brought in there by, at the time, like the highest guys, like platter brought in there. And that's why CIA saw that he had these connections innocently. Like it wasn't, he wasn't involved in drugs or anything,

but he was a young dude and they came to him and they said, yo, you have these connections. We want you to work for us. And he's like, doing what? And they're like, you know,

spying. He's like, no, no, I'm not, I'm not giving up. I'm not giving up people. I know they're like,

oh no, we don't want you to give them up. We want you to work with them. You know, there's a huge intelligence opportunity here for national security matters. And he's like, sign me up. And that's what he did. And, you know, 50 years later, he's still doing it. about this because of course too like it says something that every major drug lord these days is being extradited to the united states i mean obviously there was like a precedent that was set when like el chapo like built his tunnel you know it's like everyone's always escaping it seems in mexico um but going to the united states to face, I mean, I, I understand it's crimes against Americans too, right? What they're being charged with. And it's, but that's crazy work in my opinion.

It is, it is. I, I, it's a whole different, whole different ball game. And it, because of everything that's going on that we've already talked about with, you know, the reverse drug wars and everything, you said said it best earlier it all spills over to here so of course it feels really uncomfortable when you're talking about your own government agencies potentially being in the middle of this for some fucking important reason and it's like well how important is it if we're killing millions of americans as a result of the work that these guys are doing? And what's crazy is because of at least what I noticed when I was in Sinaloa is because of how violent this has become since in Mayo's capture.

The residents hate it. They are so fucking fed up. And of course, there are still some people who are like oh you know but when this faction was injured it was fine or it's you know it's these guys or it's these guys but for the most part and i spoke to a lot of people they're like just end this shit yeah like we don't want to have to deal with this this whole turf war right now. And especially because now it's spilling over it just like two days ago in Mazatlan. And Mazatlan is a huge tourist destination in Mexico, and it generates a lot of money for the state. So a lot of the time when that violence spills into a tourist area, it killed, it's like what happened in Acapulco right like it totally changed from what it used to be

um and that devastates a lot of jobs a lot of livelihoods and a lot of lives yeah when when you hear about it like it does seem to be like a two separate worlds thing still and when you look at a lot of these resort areas it's kind of like off limits yeah but when you look at a lot of these resort areas, it's kind of like off limits. Yeah. But when you hear about the aberrations sometimes where it does spill over and you've got your regular suburbia family coming down and there's 10 heads on a spike, I mean stuff like that doesn't serve you well long term if you're trying to get people to come there because these are the types of things that are going to do completely the opposite and get people scared. And their economy is already suffering. I don't know if I brought this up. No, you haven't. Their economy, like, and I'm not seeing a ton of reports on this, but I think it's so important because also when your economy suffers, then what do people need? They need money, right?

So then what do people go towards? Like, it's just a vicious life cycle. But their economy is so bad because everything closes early and Culiacán is a city with like a very vibrant nightlife I wrote about this um and banda like the type of music is super popular they're like popular across Mexico but like it is that's like Sinaloa like you have have like La Banda Sinaloense, like all that tierra sagrada. And so these bandas are playing on the side of the street for money because everything is closed, like they have no work. And the incredible thing.

So I stopped to talk to a lot of these guys. I want to post it up um they're like you know we're not making nearly as much as we made when we were playing but people are so supportive like when there's a red light they're like playing through the cars you know um and and then as soon as the light turns green they're like stuck in the between the cars and the lanes and but people are rolling down their windows and people are supporting because they know like this is a pillar of our culture and of our economy and it's dying and the crazy thing too is like a lot of these narcos have songs dedicated they have the corridos dedicated to them um and it's affecting these very people it Yeah. Yeah. Like the one guy, he's like, yeah, we would make like 2,500 pesos in a day. Now I'm lucky if I walk home with 400 pesos.

That's like an American, that's like 20 bucks. Yeah. Imagine in a day. Yeah. In a day. That's not even a meal here. And, you know, you talk about like the spillover, obviously, like there's a huge border crisis going on right now and it emanates from the US-Mexico border. And it's a humanitarian crisis. We talked about a bunch in here with different guests, be it same types of stories, which is that, you know, the results of not having our border strong has so many people coming and it's creating a giant business for the cartels.

And it's created massive, obviously it's a human trafficking business, but it's also created massive tragedy to go along with that where you know i i think maybe it was rocco told a story no no it was jorge told a story in like the third hour of when when we were talking in episode 229 where he's like i or no it's like the first hour where where he he was like i saw this well what was it unless he was like a It was like a frozen truck where you go inside and there were just bodies. Oh, like a deep freezer? Yeah, like out of Goodfellas almost. It's like I saw this with men, women, and children who had been trafficked across the border and then – I don't remember what it was – killed before they were put in there. Whatever it was, it's horrible to hear about and the cartel is at the dead center of it yeah exactly anyone who's

crossing the border illegally is paying a fee to a coyote who's part of the cartel and that's taking them across and along those routes like there's just human remains everywhere there's bones everywhere like we could probably go take a walk tomorrow and just like, you know, sift through and we would find bones for sure. So many people die there. And then so many people don't hear about what happened to them. Right. And like, if you're crossing, I know we all know this, but you get caught by like border patrol. Okay. Get your ass on back by like, there goes all that money that you saved to get across try again or worst case scenario you die and it's all cartel and they've been in that business for a long time now i forever forever forever yeah that's like drugs and immigration

are the illegal crossing is it's their bread and butter how do you fix this that's not my job i know it's not your job but i'm just like i wish i knew i waved a wand i i wish i knew i don't know there's always an appetite for cocaine there's um always going to be border policy that doesn't allow certain people or makes it harder for certain people to get to where they want to be. There's always going to be an appetite for sex. Like, I don't know. And it's insatiable. So. But you have a country where the government and the cartel, it's not a blurred line it's the same line yeah how do you undo that like crime is always going to exist bad things are always going to exist but how do you how do you

remove corruption the full cancer cell that has infested the constitution of mexico i don't know and i would love to say that it's like okay you you bring someone in who um who's who's not going to be corrupt who has their you know they're a politician who in an ideal world they have you know their their morals in the right spot but is that even the person that people are going to vote for? Probably not. Right? It's the person with the most, who can drive the most emotion out of you regardless of how they do it. It's like such a multifold problem. Like there's just, I don't know.

And I mean, I'm seeing and I'm like, yeah, I wish there was. But I think it's, again, and this sucks to say i feel like it's gonna get worse before it gets better because you're right especially right now seeing the level of violence and and uh what we're seeing like with the border it's like this is a catalyst for something so much worse in future generations seeing constant violence you know and and having it so accessible to freely cross the border illegally it's like it's bad yeah i don't think it's going in a direction to make this go away so you're you're here in america now for what like a couple weeks something like that how often do you come back to America or Canada?

It's very rare that I go back to Canada. I go only like when I need to. But America, you know, like every few weeks or every few months, I guess, I come here. Okay. There's like a lot of good stuff because I want to do more like long-term work so i'd love to do like a tv series or like something that really dives deep into the guts of what we're seeing happening do you worry about the repercussions of something like that though if you really went far because you're early right now like you, you've been doing this for two

years and you know, now hopefully through this, like you're really going to grow, but you worry about the blowback from that. Um, I think it depends how I do it. So like, if I have a team behind me, I like to tell myself that I'd probably be okay. Or at least I, you know, sometimes I think before something really bad happens or something really bad were to happen I would know like I would I would sense it and I think that's why like a lot of journalists live in exile or they know when to go somewhere else to cool down um I think I would probably get a warning and if that that's the case, okay, we see how I deal with that when I cross that bridge. But if something just happens, I mean, that's the nature of the work and I just have to accept the risk associated with it.

Yeah, you do seem to. That comes across talking with you on and off camera there are certain things that i will stray away from just because it's putting like an unnecessary putting unnecessary attention on me what kinds of things like certain talking about certain things about the cartel um and i don't think it's actually they're not things that i i need to necessarily talk about in order to get the message or the story across um but for the most part i like i i think i'm going to be okay and if not well maybe that means i did a good job sorry god damn that crazy yeah well look you you got passion for it that's for sure but what no shortage what what stories are you working

on right now can you talk about that at all yeah so actually um my girlfriend my my really good friend she's a journalist too in la carmen marquez she her and i are working on on a series about women in organized crime because it just so happened um that i managed so i i really wanted to focus on women doing bad things because a lot of the time when we think of like people who are doing heinous crimes we think of men yeah you sexist women please it's just the truth okay stats don't lie um don't worry guys like i'm not a man hater like i love my father and my brother like it's great okay i've got a lot of boyfriends kidding um so no the thing is i really wanted to focus on this because i also secured some sources uh south

of the border but like along the border who are doing some really heinous crimes. Women. Yeah. There's one woman who I spoke to who is trafficking young women from Argentina, Venezuela, bringing them to Mexico to work as prostitutes like she puts them up in like a place and she's basically pimping them out along the border um and she's willing to talk and so and then there's this other woman who is chopping up bodies for the cartel yeah chopping them up how'd you get her as a source because i met her and uh we started talking and it just so happened that how'd you meet you go to the bar like oh so what do you do no it was like in a nefarious environment so yeah and it was just

it just so happened that it came out but sometimes um so she just said like i chop up bodies we got to talking and then she showed me and yeah i went to this like area on my own whatever i started talking to people and then she's like yeah look i do this and i was like that's crazy um but the thing is and and i would love to do a series on this, women doing this organized crime, doing these like really dark things. And it's not for a wow factor. It's because, look, this is happening. And interestingly enough is a lot of these women that I've spoken to who I would love to have part of the series were victims once themselves and then they got into this position of power and they're profiting off of it and i think

that life cycle is really interesting i think it's a really important story to tell and i think that a lot of people um would be interested to hear it and i think it would be important um i agree because sometimes when i talk about things like this you know uh some people are like oh you just want like that crazy wow factor you know it's it's it's all sensationalism and no it's not um me talking to someone who's doing bad things isn't't giving this bad person a platform to, you know, spew whatever they want. Of course not because I'm a journalist and I'll always be critical and I'll always tell every side of the story and try to, you know, I will never leave a stone unturned when it comes to this, to the best of my ability. I believe you. it comes across so and i think it's interesting point blank it's like how can a woman who was trafficked as like a teenager and had to work you know have sex for money yep now do the same. And she's like stone cold.

But she wasn't like that before. So that's something I would really like to tell those stories. And I do feel like it's going to be really split. There's going to be 50% of people who are like, wow, this is great journalism and this is a really interesting story. This is horrible. And I think there's going to be another group of people who are going to be like, why the fuck would someone ever talk to this person or give them a platform or tell this story? Like this is not a story to be told. I don't think it will be 50-50.

I think you'll have a much more the former there. Because look, you're always going to have people who bitch and moan, who want things their way or whatever. But like so you want to just ignore problems that's the thing like the tragedy will always exist yes yes and i would love to you know there's there's a thing such thing as solutions based journalism where when you're you're telling a certain story especially when it's a tragedy you're you're kind of telling the story in a way that's leading up to how can we fix this or how can we better implement certain solutions we already have and that is something for this that i would like to consider because you even asked me yourself you're like so how do

we fix this and i think that's why people are so interested in these kinds of stories that are harrowing because we just want to know like okay how do we get rid of it or how do we make it better and there is no simple fucking solution and it's not like a all right let me lay it out for you from a to c but there are some ways that we can mitigate just how tragic it is yeah my buddy tommy g has a great quote i say all the time now because i love it he's like you can't boil the ocean but you can boil your pot right you can boil your pot right you can you can take care of your piece and try to leave something a little bit better than when you found it and i think when people are doing very brave reporting like you are you

know there's not a lot of people doing it for obvious reasons like it's it's not only impressive but it makes it even more important because you're telling these stories that otherwise wouldn't be heard. And then you're nice enough to come here and share it with all the people out there listening, which is great. I hope that type of thing doesn't put you in danger. But as you said, that's kind of the nature of the beast you're in. There's always potentially danger somewhere. So I hope you stay safe out there. I hope you keep telling these stories.

And I also hope that if those inklings came in, like you talked about a few minutes ago, like, shit, we're going to hit the fan, that you actually do follow through and get the fuck out of there. Because there will be, when you do it, as you've already demonstrated you've done it, you've set an example, and there will be other people to come do it. It when people don't try it at all and then no one does it then no one's you know what i mean like no one's going to do it so like you've already you've already accomplished

the job and hopefully you get to do it for a while longer but just you know be careful i'll be wary of the expiration date unless he's like god damn on that note thanks so much for sharing everything today and getting in here last minute i appreciate all your patience thank you for having me of course of course and we will have the links to your sub stack down below as well as your instagram and twitter anything else beautiful that's that's all you need all right let's go everybody else you know what it is give it a thought thought. Get back to me. Peace. Thank you guys for watching the episode.

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