Julian Dorey Podcast - #288 - MS-13 Hunter Exposes Most Disturbing Syndicate Infiltrating America | Dan Brunner

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

SPONSORS: 1) Now’s the time to take action and get educated on alternative investments like gold and silver. Call my Sponsor LEAR CAPITAL today at 855-271-1871 or go to https://trylear.com/juliandorey and get your FREE gold and silver Wealth Protection Kit. And, as a special offer, if you make a qualified purchase you’ll also get up to $15,000 in bonus coins 2) VERSO: Get 15% off “Morning Being” using Code “JULIAN” at checkout: https://morning.ver.so/julian (***TIMESTAMPS in description below) ~ Daniel Brunner is a former FBI Latino Gang Investigator. Prior to the FBI, he served in the US Navy. PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY: INSTAGRAM (Podcast): https://www.instagram.com/juliandoreypodcast/ INSTAGRAM (Personal): https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/ X: https://twitter.com/julianddorey DANIEL BRUNNER'S LINKS: - WEBSITE: https://brunnersierragroup.com/ - X: https://x.com/BrunnerSierraG - SUBSTACK: https://brunnersierragroup.substack.com/p/brunner-sierra-group-intelbriefs?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web ****TIMESTAMPS**** 00:00 - Tr3n De Aragua & M$-13 American Invasion 07:49 - Difference Between Cartels vs MS-13 & Other Gangs 15:38 - 2 Ways to Infiltrate a Spanish Speaking Gang 25:29 - DEI Affected 10 Most Wanted, Kash Patel 33:47 - MS-13 Pennsylvania Gang Member Who Escaped 41:26 - Trump Mar Lago Investigation & Using ‘Deadly Force’ Policy 48:44 - What Kash Patel Needs to Do 57:20 - M$-13 Gang Setup in America 01:08:23 - Designating Cartels as Terrorist 01:15:39 - Venezuela’s Disastrous Election in 2024 01:22:23 - “The Pink Wave” 01:34:47 - USAID Failure & Marco Rubio Handling It, Black Rock 01:44:03 - China’s Hacking (Scattered Spider) Hacking Las Vegas 01:51:03 - Hong Kong Meeting Hack Story AI 02:00:14 - How Did Cartels REALLY Get into USA 02:12:09 - Gathering Informants in M$-13 in America 02:18:20 - Steps to Eliminate TDA (Tr3n de Aragua), Leaving FBI 02:28:33 - M$-13 Changed Leadership in 2013, El Salvador’s Bukele 02:44:15 - Dan's work on Substack CREDITS: - Host & Producer: Julian D. Dorey - In-Studio Producer & Editor: Alessi Allaman - https://www.youtube.com/@alessiallaman Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 288 - Daniel Brunner Music by Artlist.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There's never been a due respect to Hispanic organized crime. And the problem was finding Spanish-speaking investigators. That's how I was recruited in 2003 to join the Bureau, because of my language ability. Not until I got in did I realize how bad the Bureau is about having agents that speak Spanish. That's crazy. It's like the biggest demographic. That's exactly what I thought. MS may get the flashy violence and butchering, but they're smart. They stay under the radar and conduct the criminal activity.

So they're doing more damage to our community than every corporation has a bad office. Right. Bad people. Then there's a lot of good people. And the problem is all it takes is a few bad people to pull down the reputations of everyone else, especially when people aren't there to see it. There are a lot of people at the FBI who do amazing work. The problem is that there are people that have been involved in some of these investigations, including on President Trump. And objectively, whether you like Trump or not, those cases were bulls**t. Like, you're going through his wife's s**t drawer? Like, are you f** you kidding me? All right, so I hear there are gangs from Venezuela invading America.

What the hell is going on here, bro? Yeah, there's a little bit of a problem here in this country so hopefully you know i've been one of my things i like to do is i have conversations with with guys like you and and other individuals i've been on other podcasts because for such a long time and you know i've been i was doing this i've been chasing these hispanic gang members for 15 years of my 20-year career with a bureau there's never been a due respect to Hispanic organized crime. The only respect that let's put it this way. It is always considered second tier of like gang work and criminal work. The Hispanic organized crime elements in the gang units in the FBI at the HSI, DEA, ATF. DEA, that's their focus. They focus on the cartels.

Sure. But at the FBI, and like I said, I was doing this for 15 years in my 20-year career, that they look at a Hispanic kind of like, Hispanic organized crime, okay, MS-13, Tren de Aragua, Trinitarios. Well, all right, let's focus on the Bloods, the Crips, English speaking. It was always considered that would be primary. What about the Mexican cartels? You didn't mention them. I don't know if that's the same. Well, there was a group on... So I'm speaking from, like I said, FBI in Newark here in Jersey.

There's a squad there that works organized crime enforcement task force. So they go after cartels. That's their focus. But on the gang side, in the gang unit, which I was a part of for, like I said, most of my career, that gang unit is always was if, and the problem was finding Spanish speaking investigators. I speak Spanish fluently. It's my first language. I grew up in my home speaking Spanish. My mother's from Chile. My dad's from Argentina. So I grew up speaking Spanish.

Your last name's Bruner? Yeah. So where was your grandfather in or around 1941 or 42? God damn it. We've got another one. My father, he escaped Belgium. He was nine years old at the time. He escaped Belgium after the Blitz.

And he escaped to Argentina when he was nine years old. So he's not going to be the group. He's clean. That's good. They escaped to get out of war-torn Europe. And my father grew up in Argentina where he met my mom. And then they came to the United States in the 60s. OK.

So we grew up speaking Spanish in the home, my sister and I. And that's how I was recruited in 2003 to join the Bureau because of my language ability. And you were coming – you told me you were coming from the Navy. Yeah. Is that right? I was in the Navy. What did you do in the Navy? So you ever see that like in the movies, the dark room and the big radar scopes?

Yeah. Those guys are called operations specialists. So I was an enlisted guy. So I did that for five years while I was on sea duty on the USS Stark, USS McInerney. So we did radar tracking, communications. We were the brains of the operation of the ship where we launched the missiles. We tracked the aircraft. We literally would tell the maverick and the gooses out there, hey, we need your aircraft to come over here.

And then they would get into the fight. Nice. So we did that. And then I spent three years at the Naval Academy as an instructor. OK. From, oh, 99 until 03 when I joined the Bureau. And then they plucked you really a lot of it had to do with your language ability, you're saying. Well, yeah.

So they came. It was post. And it was 2002 right after. And they came to the academy and I had just finished my bachelor's degree because I had spent – so I was – I went straight out of high school and here in Connecticut. I went straight to college. I went to Syracuse U. And after a year and a half, they – Syracuse kind of said, I think you need to go because I wasn't studying. I was just spending too much time. So I left Syracuse after a year and a half and then joined the Navy. And that's where I finished my education, finished my degree.

So I was looking, I was three years at the Naval Academy. They were talking to me about trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I was either going to re-enlist, I already had nine years in, re-enlist, do my 20, or get out with my bachelor's degree figure out what I wanted to do. I was either going to reenlist. I already had nine years in. Reenlist, do my 20, or get out with my bachelor's degree and see what I could do. And I was posting. And an FBI recruiter, special agent recruiter, came to the academy looking. And I was in a room full of Navy commanders, captains, Navy SEALs, pilots. And I was one enlisted guy in the room. And the recruiter was like, well, we need, you know, traditionally everybody thinks about the FBI as lawyers and CPAs and,

you know, people who are multiple degrees educated. And I was, you know, I wasn't any of those. And I was an enlisted guy. You were a bulldog. I was nothing. So I looked at it and I said, and they were going through, hey, these are the things we're looking for. Computer scientists, language, people who can speak Mandarin, you know, F Mandarin, Farsi, Urdu, and then Spanish. And I was like – Interesting. You really need people that speak Spanish. Not until I got in did I realize how bad the bureau is about having agents that speak Spanish.

That's crazy. It's like the biggest demographic. That's exactly what I thought. That's exactly what I thought. So I literally – when they said we're looking for people that speak Spanish. That's crazy. It's like the biggest demographic. That's exactly what I thought. That's exactly what I thought. So I literally, what they said, we're looking for people to speak Spanish. I was like, all right, I'll apply. But you know, and every step I was like, okay, here's phase one exam. That was September 11th, 2002. I took the phase one exam. And then every step of the way, they just said, okay, here, show up for this, show up for this, show up for this, show up for this. And then September 7th, way, they just said, OK, here, show up for this. Show up for this. Show up for this. Show up for this.

And then September 7, 2003, I reported to the academy for new agent training. In Quantico? In Quantico. And then 17 weeks completed that. And my first office was Newark. Never left. And were you put on a desk dealing with these gangs right away? Or did you start with something else?

And that's exactly why the Bureau is, you know, backwards when it thinks about that. I am a fluent Spanish speaker, was considered a level three Spanish speaker, which is more than, you know, typical. And I was put on a counter. Hmm. Which is, I said, okay, listen, you know,

the Bureau needs, the Bureau needs. And I say, I was going to go with the Bureau needs and they put me in a CT unit. Well, did they have you looking at them trying to bring in guys through the border in Mexico or something? No, no. I was working. So it was just, hey, we need – yeah. So they didn't look at it.

And again, I wasn't part of the decision-making. They just said we need a person here, but they didn't look at it. OK, let's put this guy on the gang unit because we need a Spanish speaker over there. Let's put – for me, it wasn't what I was utilized for. So I had to cut my teeth and earn my way. And finally, once I had earned enough time, I was able to say I'd like to go over there. I want to work. I want to speak Spanish.

I want to use this for my ability. And I was transferred over finally to the gang unit in 2012. So, because you made this distinction a few minutes ago about cartels and then gangs from South America. But maybe this is way too much of a simplified way of me looking at it. But obviously the cartels are pumping the most and they're most organized at that level and they're like the suppliers, if you will. Yep. But the way I've always thought of it is a lot of these gangs, they're most organized at that level and they're like the suppliers if you will yep but the way i've always thought of it is a lot of these gangs they're making their businesses where

part of their business is also doing the same thing even if it's getting supplied by those very same people so why are the two why were they even separated like i would think that would all be under not to say like every investigator is working on all them together but i would think that would be under the same umbrella but it it sounds like it wasn't. No. So in Newark and I think in most divisions in New York, FBI Newark, they all have the different – the same construction where there's one group, which is the organized crime – OSDEF, Organized Crime Enforcement Task Force. They go after cartels. They go after the large-scale dealers.

I mean getting one kilo of Coke is, you know, small potatoes compared to what they really want to get. They want to get five, 10 kilos here, five, 10 kilos down in Texas. That's small potatoes to them down in Texas. They're, you know, I've talked to FBI agents and they're like, yeah, five kilos is, you know, that's lightweight compared to what we normally try and get. Yeah. Texas A&M is a good time. Right. So, so the other squad is the gang unit and they're going after Bloods, Crips and that's where it is. The also has, the MS-13, the Trinitarios. What is amazing to me is – I chased MS-13 most of my career. But what I found here in New York, New Jersey,

you don't see these. You see the Trinitarios, which is a Dominican gang. You see them in Florida and New York, New Jersey. They're huge here. It's originating out of the city. Is that they are much worse, much worse to this country than MS-13. By far. Really?

By far. All right. On what basis? Here's why. Interesting. MS-13 may get the By far. All right. On what basis? Here's why. Interesting. MS-13 may get the flashy violence and butchering, but Trinitarios, they're smart. They stay under the radar and conduct the criminal activity, sell drugs, do the scams, do the grandma scam.

They're scamming people out of thousands, tens of thousands of dollars. So they're doing more damage to our community by doing all these things than MS-13 does. MS-13 is not organized to have a structured, okay, we're going to do organized scams and grandma scam. So for me, Trinitarios are much more dangerous. Financially. Financially. Barbarically, would you still say the same thing? Barbarically, yes.

MS-13 is – no. Right. Yeah, because the trainees don't do that. I mean they're your traditional gang as far as – but they're transnational because they get a lot of their communications from the DR. I don't want to de-emphasize those types of crimes and stuff because that's horrible and obviously like there it sounds like they they were unfortunately really good at it but don't communities get way more up in arms when they see like three decapitated heads in the neighborhood versus like three grandmas that got scammed of course but because why because it's in the media if it bleeds it leads yeah if it bleeds it leads i mean how many tens of thousands of dollars are getting stolen and how many are

being sold to our kids and those kids are ODing or things like that. And that never gets any publicity. So people get up in arms based upon what is put in front of them by the media. Yes, three decapitated. The quadruple homicide in Long Island, that was horrible. Absolutely. And there are other incidents of, you know, in D.C. and in Boston of homicides. Yes, absolutely.

Those are each one of those are equally horrible, but those get media coverage. Yeah. And it's a lot of the crimes that people don't even know about because a lot of these elderly people are getting scammed out of 10, 20, 40, $50,000 and they're never even reporting it. What's like the, let's start with the Trinitarios. What's their organization structure? Like we think about the Italian mob.

People can say, well, they got a family. They got a boss. They got another boss, a consul Gary, some capos, whatever. How do they work here in the US and how much of that power structure reports directly back to country of origin as well? Well, the country of origin is the DR. And I spent maybe a year really, you know, investigating them. So we really didn't get into the nitty gritty dirty, you know, get my hands dirty on them. So that would be a little bit difficult. I know that

they have a lot of command and control structure and communications with the DR. They get a lot of the scams come out of the DR. They'll make the calls. And then once they have a hook here in New Jersey, they'll call New York and then New York will task somebody in New Jersey. So there is a triangle communication. Got it. So the Trinnies here in New York City, they're the big dogs. New Jersey is a close second. Oh, damn it. And- We're behind. Yeah. Well, I mean, we're the red dogs. New Jersey is a close second. Oh, damn it. We're behind?

Yeah. Well, I mean we're the redheaded stepchildren of everything in Jersey. Hey, don't do that. I love it. Don't do that. I love being the redheaded stepchild. Just because you don't live here anymore doesn't mean you can make fun of us. We're the alphas here.

There's three things I miss out of Jersey. The food is the pizza and bagels and Dunkin' Donuts, D&D. Right now, the U.S. is helping fund wars in Ukraine as well as Israel and God knows what other places where war may or may not break out sometime soon. What these wars have required is for us to print money, which, you know, creates more debt and leads to the devaluation of the United States dollar. Is your bank account prepared to fight back against inflation? Well, not to worry. That's why today's sponsor, Lear Capital, is here to help. Lear Capital specializes in helping people like me and you protect and grow our wealth with gold. Did you know that during Trump's last presidency, gold rose 65% to a record high? If it happens again, that puts gold at $4,200 per ounce in Trump's next term.

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You don't have Dunkin' Donuts in Montana? There's no Dunkin' Donuts. That's a crime. It's absolutely a crime. I've been talking. I'm trying to find out how to franchise and open some D&D up in Bozeman. They don't have a big Indian population there? So where's the Dunkin' Donuts then?

Wrong Indian population. Wrong Indian. No, no. I'm talking about the Indian, like the actual Indian population, not the Native American population. That's what I'm saying. No, there is – Because we call them the wrong thing. There's nothing.

That's not what they're called. There's two communities up there. Huge Hispanic community. Yeah. Huge Hispanic community because – and this goes back to what I was talking about. Sinaloa cartel, CJNG, and Trenada Aragua, TDA. They're blossoming up in Montana. In Montana? In Montana.

Have you come across them? Construction. Yes. Do you tell them what's up? No. I stay away from them. But I've seen them because I know what to look for. I know certain vehicles and how they drive around town.

But here's the thing is I know how to spot them. The problem in Montana is this. There's so much construction going on. A lot of the migrants over the last four years, those 15, 16 million people that came across the border, a lot of them went up to Montana for the construction. And when you get a gang like Trinidad, MS-13 or TDA, they'll go where there's communities. And there's three communities up in Montana. You have El Salvador – no, excuse me.

You have Hondurans, Venezuelans, and Mexicans. Those are the three big Hispanic communities. And there's a huge Hispanic community up in Montana because of the construction. So what comes up behind them is TDA. CJNG and Sinaloa are there because, hey, listen, there's profit to be made. And it's the northern border. So I have a feeling that there's a lot of product coming down from Canada. Yes. I had Kat Schultz here. She was talking about that. She's been to some of their places

in Canada. Yeah. And the fact of Justin Trudeau saying, well, less than 1%, listen, that's what you think. Okay. That's what you think because that's what was caught. I think there's a lot more coming across the border. And now with such a strong front at the southern border, I think a lot of them are going to shift. Listen, crime is like a river. It's going to flow no matter what. Even if you put up a wall, that river is going to go in other directions. And it's going through Canada right now. And CJNG and Sinaloa are up there. And the problem is this. And I've been working with people and talking to them and saying, listen, there's three things that you need to properly investigate and to dismantle

a criminal organization, Hispanic criminal organization. And yes, I'm all for the ICE raids, but that's not taking care of the problem. You're just taking care of certain individuals. To get into the root of an organization, you need three things. Hispanic organization organization is one, you need a Spanish-speaking investigator. You can't have two and three without number one. Number one has to be a Spanish-speaking investigator. You're never going to get flip a source. You're never going to talk to somebody from the community and you're never going to have someone trust you to say and inform it and say, okay, without being able to speak their language. It's never going to happen. And on top of it, sitting across from somebody you've just arrested, you're never going

to get them to flip when you're talking through a translator. Not going to happen. I've had it. I've done it. It never works. So number one. Number two, you got to have an investigator who knows the crew, knows how they work, their structure. You don't need to know everything about them, but you need to know, hey, in MS-13, it's called a click. You have the first word, the second word, and how it's built. You have a program manager that's down in Mexico, the East Coast program. A program manager. It's like official. Correct. So they have a program manager who deals with, so for example, New Jersey falls under the East Coast program. I don't know what it is now, but I knew that during my time from 2015 to 2023, it was called the East – and before 15.

But it was called New Jersey fell under the East Coast program. New Jersey, Massachusetts, North Carolina, they all fell under a command structure. They keep this in like an Excel spreadsheet? Yeah. Come on. No, it's all very structured. MS-13, as crazy as a street gang as they were, they were very detailed and keeping things. And you did not do something without asking for permission.

And you had to – if you wanted to commit a homicide, you had to ask permission. Yeah. You had to go up the chain of command. So you have to have somebody who understands how to work an investigation. And working important here is a RICO, a racketeering case. Yes. They have to know how to put together a RICO case. How do you do that from the bottom up?

Because we always hear this thrown around. Obviously, we know it's Ben and G, Robert Blakey to go after the Italian mob, and it can get to the boss or whatever. But if you're starting day one and you're like, we're not going to get to the top guy. The only way we can do this is Rico. Where do you start? You find a loose thread, find a loose thread and you start pulling on it. So you find the crying. So, and I'll use an example of a Rico case we did here in New Jersey. And I think it was 2015, in June of 2015, there was a homicide right up the street here in Union City. Oh, no. It was a young man who was shot in the head.

And we had an individual who provided us information about this, and we started looking into it. So it literally is starting to pick apart at the investigation, looking at the entirety of it. And, you know, whether it be the homicide. Now, RICO is, for those who may not know, you have to prove that you've committed a crime for the good of the organization. Right. The good of the organization. And you have to show two predicate acts. So in other words, you have to have committed two different acts for the good of the organization, not just for the good of you. If you're walking down the street and you randomly shoot somebody

because you wanted their walkman, that's not for the good of the group. But if that shooting was to get yourself a tattoo, that's for the good of the group because you're showing your strength of MS-13 or TDA. So that could be a racketeering act. So you have to show proof. And it literally is finding someone who's willing to talk and then flip. And that's just interviews. Interviews and talking and working with. And that's just interviews, interviews and

talking and working with the US Attorney's Office and getting information together. So in 2015 was a homicide. We did not do a superseding indictment until 2018. Well, it takes a long time to build this stuff, right? It takes a long time to gather evidence because the US Attorney's Office is different from states and locals. I love the states and locals. I love working with them. But from the federal, from the U.S. attorney side is they're not going to indict until they have a rock solid case and they're saying, hey, we've got enough to go to trial right now, this day when we're going to indict. So we can win.

So we can win. And we're not going to go indict until we have every T crossed, every I dotted. And that's, you know, I worked with some great people at the U.S. Attorney's Office here in DNJ in New Jersey. So it's making sure everything is done right. Everything is, all the evidence is logged. It's boom, boom, boom, boom. And that's why I think that percentage is like 89% of federal cases never see a day in court. Because when it's presented to the defendants, they're like, whew pretty overwhelming. And they, they, they'll take a plea. Right. They'll take a plea. Yeah. It's like 97, 98% conviction rate. Right. Which I have some mixed feelings on some of that, but yeah. But so, but a lot of these guys, so in, in racketeering, if you commit murder in the

aid of racketeering, there's only one sentence. It's mandatory mandatory life if you're if you're convicted in court in trial so a lot of them a lot of plea deals for people that are facing you know murder rico is 25 30 years so they are you know they're looking at they're like you know well screw it i mean let me go to trial so and then they end up losing so we did a trial in 2016 for plainfield new jersey uh we took eight individuals of m-13 in Plainfield to court. All of them were convicted. Of murder. I believe five out of the eight were part of murder.

So the five out of the eight got mandatory life. In 2021, I went on Union City MS-13 and three of them went to trial. All three were convicted. So they're facing – they're awaiting sentencing I believe right now even for a 2021 trial. It just takes – because of COVID, it just backed up everything. So they're sitting in jail. They're going to – they were convicted though. So it takes time. So you need to have an agent who understands how to do RICO and how to put together the 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

Yeah. And the last piece is – you have to have these three. The last piece is the Department of Justice. The U.S. Attorney's Office needs – you have to have a USA that's willing to put in the time to saying, hey, I'll be in this for the next two to three years. And if I'm not here, the office is supporting this, the U.S. attorney. The problem here is one of the problems with the way life is now, and I had this problem with the bureau and as far as the DOJ is too, is that a lot of people, when they get to that level, they don't care about the case anymore.

They care about the promotion. That's right. So they don't want to, they don't want, they want the short hits. They want to be able to do the stats. Hey, I did 20 arrests, 20 others. blah, blah, blah, because they've got to be like, wait on a Tuesday in November. Exactly. And when I, whether it be promotion to the next level and they, at the USA's office, or if it's a promotion at the FBI headquarters, I found at the bureau side, the further people are getting away from being an agent in the field, the more they're forgetting why they're here. 100%.

Why they're here and then they become politicians and they're going, OK, this is what I need to do. And I was a street agent for 20 years. Never took a desk. There were a couple of opportunities where I looked at a desk and there were certain reasons why I didn't take them. But the opportunity and – I loved being a street agent. I loved working the streets. You get it. You're down on the level.

Right. Yeah. But when you get up, people forget. And countless times I've had – I ran into Roblox and that's one of the reasons why I was very happy to hang it up in 23 was that i'd put in for certain approvals that you know because a lot of my cases were had international ramifications one individual who was you know i had was uh i was hunting was a fugitive down in mexico um we for a gang for ms-13 okay i can't get into details because it's under seal but i can talk about the general investigation. I had him targeted. I found him.

We were working on him. I was able to identify his location. I was able to identify his house. We had a team down in Mexico working with the Mexican authorities, working with Mexican immigration. And it was a – with a group called Joint Task Force Vulcan. So as one of the founding members where I was picked by A.G. Barr under the Trump administration to go after the senior most leadership in MS-13. I had this guy, he was indicted in the United States.

We found him at the house. Teams, we're not gonna get into details, but the Mexican authorities kind of botched the hit and he escaped. He was able to escape. Excellent relationship though, pretty good. Really? You sure?

No, listen. They sound real good at their jobs. The team that did that hit that day wasn't four stars on the Yelp, okay? Yeah. The team that was supposed to be there was four stars. But the team that got there, so it was a swing and a miss. Conveniently they weren't there. So he escaped.

So in 2016, I captured a 10 Most Wanted. So I knew what needed to be done to get an individual put on 10 Most Wanted. So I said, this is a great candidate. This is a great candidate. What do you mean what needs to be – so there's like a system to get on there? Wait, there's like a back office like lottery system at the FBI? Like I think my guy should be on there. It's an application.

You literally – they want to see – the FBI wants to see that. Is he catchable? Do we have any information? Is it newsworthy? Can we get a lot of people to watching the coverage? Will it gain clicks obviously in today's world? FBI is thinking about their Instagram. We need clout.

So I tried to make argument as to why and there were certain people that – at the Department of Justice that said no. And I've been told it was reasons that they didn't want another Hispanic male. This was during the Biden administration, that they didn't want another Hispanic male on the 10 Most Wanted. That's not why we're here. Listen, I presented to them and fortunately, I went back to the drawing board. So basically like DEI, FBI, most wanted. That's kind of where we're at here. Well, not now. God, we're so fucked.

Not now. Now it's being – now it's getting good. Now they're all Hispanic. I ended up catching them. How did you catch him? Just getting back to work, putting my knuckles down and just doing just street agent work. Well, that's the most boring answer of all time. How did you really catch him?

It was really – so again, can't really talk about it too much. But Task Force Vulcan was one of the great task forces that are out there. Right now, they are the lead dog. They've got the tip of the spear and they've got a lot of support from the administration. And DOJ, the executive branch president, I know that they have a lot of support. So I worked with CBP, HSI, ATF, DEA, and we were able to localize him and capture him, and he is in custody here in the United States now. That's good. Glad to hear that. That's nice.

No, he's in custody, and he's facing the justice that he deserved. Good. Well, it's also – because you didn't leave long ago. You got out in summer of 23. Correct. So it's been less than two years leaving the bureau so you've been a part of what we call the modern day bureau yeah in every way so and i know you got a lot of friends over there and stuff and it's interesting how things are used as a

political football but the the point that you make to start on the first thread about the department of justice and the stats you know i had said a few minutes ago I got mixed emotions on that 97%, 98% conviction rate because two reasons. Number one, it's very similar to the conviction rate you see in China and Russia, which we don't want to be compared to. And on that note, I want justice to happen. So if someone's guilty, I hope they're fucking found guilty, and I hope we have the right lawyers and the right FBI team that's able to get them in there. But one guy I've cited as a real piece of shit on this podcast throughout hundreds of episodes – well, not mentioned on hundreds of episodes but since probably episode 87 – is Preet Bharara because this guy literally was just a media whore and would parade himself around on his record he liked to say i'm like 88 and 0 against people and insider trading to make it seem like he was going after wall street as in what people on main street thought was the wall street that did like 08 and really he went after

zero those people because all he wanted was to win a case and so actually a friend of mine is someone that based on the way that this guy raj rajaratnam, based on the way that Preet litigated in the media his case back when I followed it when I was in high school, I thought the guy was guilty as hell. And then I actually reviewed the case and I'm like, son of a bitch, this isn't a popular opinion. He's a fucking billionaire hedge fund guy. But this case is actually crazy. The judge ends up getting a huge job afterwards, opening up his own law firm to do the same exact kind of law that he oversaw here. The fucking defense or the prosecutor, same thing, goes to defend insider trading people. They all write a paper 10 years later where they say this law is actually fucked. We shouldn't be putting – and you see this and yet all these people win because it's not even just for them it's like they get to that they're incentivized if i'm going to actually defend them for a second they're incentivized to do this record-keeping thing because the people who you know are running for governor or running for mayor are using their numbers on their ads for the tuesday in november and so if

they don't make those people happy because it's just a stat, then, you know, we run into a problem. And so is there a way that this system can be fixed or is it always cynically just going to kind of be like, it's going to be stats? That's, that's, that's a, that's, that's a world where I did not want to be. We ingest a credit cards worth of microplastics every week, tiny particles in our food, water, and air. They don't just pass through either. They build up in our organs, disrupt our hormones, and are linked to fertility issues, neurological disorders, and heart disease. In early 2024, human brain samples contained 0.5% plastic by weight, with higher levels tied to Alzheimer's and neurodegenerative disorders.

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The PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard, the card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. That's why I stayed on the streets. That's, you know, for other people to say if we're ever going to change that, you know, that environment. I think that no matter, it doesn't matter if it's red, blue, left, right, we're going to have that. I mean, you know, whether it's, you know, certain side of the groups, you know, favoring and doing something like that. I think that's – and it's not just DOJ. I think that's a society thing of people worried about themselves and getting the Instagram and getting the attention in the media. So I think that that's a general society issue

and it's not just an FBI. I speak from experience on the FBI side because I was there for 20 years. So I agree 100 percent. And I don't know Preet and those cases he speaks about. So I can't speak from a position of knowledge. And so I take your word for it. And it's – but it doesn't surprise me. It doesn't surprise me. There are very good AUSAs out there.

There are great U.S. attorneys who are the head of these head of these US attorneys. And then there are very good FBI guys. There's the assistant director in charge of the New York division, Jim Dennehy, was recently forced to resign by FBI leadership where I agree with a lot of things that Director Patel is doing. I agree with it. Oh, you do? I do. Yeah. I think that he's making some good movements. Why do you say that? Because I think there's a lot of FBI leadership that, again, what we just talked about, that their only thought is politically driven, and they've gotten away from being a street agent. There are certain people that are in the media these days that speak from a position of knowledge, and they were FBI leadership for 15 of their 20 years. They were a supervisor. But they're speaking on TV. Hey, I know how this investigation – how do you know?

You don't know anything. You're not doing it. You don't know anything about that investigation. There's a certain individual, I'm not going to name him, that he talked about Tren de Aragua. And he gave a comment to his network and they wrote it in an article. And in the article, he made a comment of saying, Tren de Aragua – he said, most gang experts agree that Tren de Aragua is not a sophisticated gang. As soon as I saw it, I texted him because I have his phone number.

I said, how can you say this? Well, and this is where you're going to – this is where you understand why his response was his response. He said, well, I got this from – and he got a little front, he got up in my face via text message, but he said, well, did you work TDA? I said, yes, I did. Yes, I did for the last year of my career. I worked TDA. He goes, well, my people at headquarters are telling me differently and that's where I get my information from. And I said, that's why you're wrong. That's why you're wrong. I still talk to the guys that why you're wrong. I still talk to the guys that are in the streets. I still talk to guys who are conducting these investigations.

When I was conducting these investigations, we knew the truth, the reality. When it's written into a paper and then it gets up to those levels of headquarters, it's filtered, it's cleaned. They're not going to see the nitty gritty dirt under the nails. It's not in their backyard. No. So yeah, of course, you're going to get somebody – well, they're not sophisticated. Again, they're not getting the Hispanic organized crime. It's not getting the respect that it should of like, hey, this is a threat. TDA is a threat.

They're sophisticated. They're money laundering. They've got gold mines in Venezuela that they're mining and using that gold to re, you know, selling it. And then they're taking those funds. The, the Maduro organ, the Maduro leadership in Venezuela has given them these allegedly given them these mines and said, here, you can mine these, use the money at your, at your, at your pleasure. He's a great delegator. Right. Exactly. So, you know, I texted him and said, how can you do it? Well, he goes, he goes, well, my contacts at FBI headquarters think differently. He goes, we can agree to disagree.

I'm like, no, you're wrong. You're wrong. And I said – and that's right there as an example of why I think that there's – and it's no joke. It's no secret. I go on CNN, Fox News. I've been interviewed multiple times, different agencies, when something happens. And a lot of these networks come to me because I've told them, I said, listen, I'll tell you how it is. I'll tell you why that guy is, you know, being photographed as he's walking into the barricade.

So there was a fugitive in Pennsylvania two years ago that he, you know, he crawled out of the prison in Pennsylvania. He was on the loose in the woods of Pennsylvania. And, you know, he had been captured and they're walking him into the barricade and they were cutting the t-shirt off the back of his shirt and they were taking pictures of his back. And an FBI expert was on a network and, excuse me, it wasn't FBI, it was another agency. He was an expert, but he was like, I'm an expert.

And the news commentator says to him, says, well, what are they doing here? Well, they're taking pictures of him because they want to identify him from his tattoos. I said, no, they're not. They're documenting any injuries that he has before he runs into the Bearcat. They've got him in cuffs. They've identified him. They know who he is. They look at any picture and going that's our fugitive but they're taking pictures so that they document all his injuries

before he gets in the barricade so he can't say well these this injury this bruise was because they roughed me up so it's just knowledge so these you know networks i've told them i said listen i'll tell you why they're doing something i know about wiretaps i know about you know whatsapp investigations i know about this because i was just there. I was doing it. Obviously, time goes on. Now there's new investigative. So the further I get away from it, the more dated it is. And I'm pulling back from it a little bit from now to focus more on my career now, my company with Christine, my wife. But it's the whole point of saying, listen, your executives, you've gotten away from these investigations. You don't know what it is. You're

worried about your career. You're worried about this. And that's where I was saying is, you know, Jim Dennehy was a good, he was my SAC my last two years at Newark. You know, he was a good mix where he was part politician, part agent. This is the guy that- That was just asked to retire from Newark. He was a good mix where he was part politician, part agent. This is the guy that... That was just asked to retire from New York. And for whatever reason, I don't know, but he was asked, he was told, you need to retire.

And that was one of the mistakes, I believe, that happened. Yeah. Yeah, this guy. Jim Denny. So I retired under his command. He was a good, good agent. You don't know why he was asked to resign? Again, it's – my information is names of every single individual at the FBI that investigated January 6th. And he pushed back a little bit in saying, hold on.

Again, I don't know what was said. I don't know what was – but he just pushed back and he said we will stand together basically. Paraphrasing here. Jim Denny, he said to the FBI New York people, we're going to stand together. Whether it be a front, whether it be just like we're going to stand as a family. Meaning we'll all take responsibility for being a part of that investigation. I don't know. Again, you'd have to look up exactly the words he said and I believe that that was probably why he was dismissed or asked to resign.

There were a couple – I, again, agree with some things that Director Patel is doing and asking certain people to resign and saying, hey, you got to go. Do you see why – and I want to be careful here too with you because I know you have friends there and everything and I don't want you to say stuff on the record that you don't want to say and stuff like that. But do you see why the trust in the FBI is at an all-time low right now with people and why someone like this, when he takes a stance like that, would be asked to step aside because of those people who sit in the offices specifically that you just outlined? No, absolutely. I absolutely can see why, you know, the trust in the FBI is at an all-time low, but I think a lot of it is misplaced. A lot of it is misguided. There is a general perception, I think, out there that people saying that the FBI is corrupt to the core. There are certain people say the FBI is corrupt to the core. And I vehemently disagree with that. Now, I can speak only from the agent's perspective because I was a street agent for 20 years.

And to say that the street agents are rotten to the core is absolutely false. Yeah, it's unfair. Unfair and false. When it goes up, that's a different story. I can only speak from experience of me with certain individuals. And I can say exactly, it goes back to, yes, that there are problems. They're politically driven people, individuals. But do I believe that there are individuals at the FBI who are saying, we need to target this group, we need to target that group because of my personal beliefs. I don't believe that. I don't believe – Not even at that high level though because we've seen that happen.

Well, what I believe is that there are certain individuals – yes, and it looks like working with Hispanic organized crime. I believe that they're going to say, hey, let's focus looking at this group, OK? Listen, there's nothing wrong with looking at a group, OK, whether they open. And here's the important word, probable cause. Yes. If they have probable cause to believe that any group, religious based, it doesn't matter, you know, whether ethnically, religiously, if they believe, you know, that that group is violating a federal crime, that group, they can open up a federal investigation because they have probable cause. So if they believe that that group is committing

a crime, hey, listen, investigate them, collect the evidence, go before a judge and then prove it and say, hey, listen, but just opening up a case against somebody because i don't like you're targeting them that's targeting that's absolutely wrong and i don't believe that that is happening and again i'm saying that i don't believe because i don't speak i don't i wasn't in 50 other divisions for 35 000 employees i can't speak for 35 000 right but is there probably you know just like any other company in this United States, are there bad people in the FBI? Of course there are. Every corporation like even ones that let's – for the sake of argument here, talk about ones that do things mostly the right way or whatever.

Every corporation has a bad office. Right. It has bad people. Yeah. And then there's a lot of good people. And the problem is all it takes is a few bad people to pull down the reputations of everyone else, especially when people aren't there to see it. So I do agree with you, by the way, and it seems unpopular to say this, but I'll stand by this. There are a lot of people at the FBI who do amazing work and are doing their job the right way and are really trying to seek justice it's the problem is that there are people that have been involved in some of these investigations including on

president trump that it's like this is such like you're going through his wife's panties drawer like are you fucking kidding me right like it's it there's nothing and and and objectively whether you like trump or not those cases were bullshit there's nothing to to say that anything that was handled there or even how they handled some of the people that were just walking around on january 6th not some of the people like actually breaking windows and shit like that it's like you see stuff like this and you're like guys that this this is a little too much and not to give the fbi an out here however i would be remiss to say you know as someone who doesn't who doesn't work in there and doesn't know how it works

specifically, I would imagine there's also pressure coming from above them in some cases that then comes down and forces them to look bad sometimes. Well, here, I'll give you an example of how one little piece was taken and flipped over and just, it was a situation that was created for the masses and it was tweeted and retweeted and everyone talked about it for two weeks and just got up in arms regarding the Trump investigation. I was not involved in the Trump investigation, so I don't know anything about it. But there was one time when certain people on the right side took a hold of the deadly force policy that was utilized during the search warrant, whether you agree with the search warrant or not, and the search warrant was executed at Mar-a-Lago. Inside the search warrant, every single search warrant, there's the deadly force policy.

And it clearly states, and for every individual, deadly force is not authorized Unless certain criteria Are lifted Well certain people on the right side Took that and said Oh there was a list in there To assassinate Trump They went in there looking to assassinate It's literally the same thing as every Right and that caught wind

And it was a story for two weeks And then it moved on But the fact of the matter is People heard that story in that two-week window and they believed it. They believed that there was – that operation at Mar-a-Lago was a search with an attempted assassination. Right. Which is completely ludicrous because when you stop and talked about it at the end of the two weeks, they're like, oh, okay, let's move on to the next story. And that's what we've become these days. It's just as quick. Hey, let's take a story, blow it up to something it's not. And then let's be smirch. And that's how the FBI works. Yes. That's how it works. Yeah. And that's the world we live

in today. And that's, and then I try to come on here and say, listen, the FBI is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Can it be improved? Absolutely. Do I hope Director Patel improves it? Absolutely. I would love to see a much better and, you know, stronger and streamlined FBI. But to say that it's rotten to the core? Absolutely not. Yeah, I always talk about this. I cited it on so many podcasts in different contexts. I never get sick of it because it's so true. But like the universal physics law for every action, there's an equal opposite reaction to create equilibrium in the middle. When your pendulums are like this, you can live with that, right? Because it's nice and smooth. When your pendulums get out here and they do this, they're creating that middle with the extremes.

Right. But this pendulum right here, that doesn't get the clicks. That doesn't get the bleeds. If it bleeds, it leads. It's got to be out here that gets the whoo you know i need it more extreme how can stream can i get it and the truth doesn't really matter anymore because right doesn't this is what matters this is what gets the people the clicks the links the the discussion and having the conversations and listen listen, I know there are people who are watching this who are not going to agree with me. And I'm fine with that. I'm fine with

that. Listen, let's have a discussion. Let's talk about it. Yes. Hey, let's talk about it. And that's fine. Hey, guys, if you haven't already subscribed, please hit that subscribe button. It's a huge, huge help. Thank you. Listen, I am not a politician. I never was a politician and that's probably why I wasn't selected to be a supervisor and move up the chain of command. Listen, I know plenty of supervisors and I know plenty of leadership at the FBI who are phenomenal people. I was just not of that breed. I just liked staying on the streets. No one – well, excuse me. I stand for it. There are a few people that could sit down and – how should I put this? Listen, I'm pretty good at what I did. Pretty good at what I did.

OK? There are some great people that are still working it and there are great people that worked behind me. And there will always be great people working Hispanic organized crime, gangs, transnational criminal organizations. And listen, you want to criticize how I worked? That's fine. I'm always open to criticism. Listen, during my trial, I spent two days on the – being cross-examined during my trial in 2020. In 2021, correct.

I spent two days – MS-13 in Union City? Correct. I spent two days committing MS-13 in Union City? Correct. I spent two days committing – we went up against three guys because they had three attorneys. So I spent – and they criticized and that's their job. Defense attorneys are saying, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do this?

That's their job. But – and I was criticized when I made certain decisions. What was the decision they criticized, for example? Jeez. I'd have to go back. I'd have to go back and look at the transcript. I mean, like I said, that was something in the past. I'd have to go back and remember.

But it was just – that's their job. And like I said, I'm more than happy to sit in front of somebody. But the important thing is – and we're getting away from this in societies, having discussions, having conversations, saying, listen, you agree with what your side, I agree with what my decisions are. Hey, let's have a conversation. Why do you think that? Why do I think this? That's right. And not say, hey, you're evil because you think that.

That's right. And I'm evil. You're evil. So that's where I think we're getting away from. I think a lot more people out there, and they're not the ones who go into comment sections, for example, or who tweet the posts to get the most likes and stuff like that. But I think a lot more people than we realize do – like listening right now in fact do have nuance in these scenarios. Maybe they lean left or they lean right on certain things, but like they can – they like to listen to conversations like this because they like to hear the things that they can think about more and decide for themselves. The problem is exactly what you said. You couldn't put it any better, which is that unfortunately like you used the it bleeds, it leads line that you guys had within the agency.

But that's exactly what it is on social media. If I go out and I say something that is hardcore on the left or hardcore on the right, I'm going to incite mass agreement and mass disagreement at the same time. And it's going to go straight up to the algorithm. If I say something that says, well, I can see this or not see that, it doesn't do it as much for people because it's like, all right, well, who's – all right, moving on to the next one. They want to feel that feeling of like team or like you know what and and and like i said i'll be straight up and i we talked about this before i'm not of that world i'm not of that world that's going to give you know the sound bite i don't like that i'm you know i don't you know listen i have my opinions you know i have my political leanings and, you know, I live in Montana for a reason. Big old Democrat?

It's a beautiful state. It's a beautiful state of Montana. Let's just say that. So, you know, and I want my kids raised in a certain, you know, environment, in a certain world. And I like, you know, Montana is... With no Dunkin' Donuts, that's bad parenting. No Dunkin' Donuts. Damn it.

Seriously. I mean, it's... If Dunkin' Donuts is listening, please reach out to me. I would love to talk about opening franchises up there. But I have... So there's a company called City Brew.

He wants to franchise them. I will listen. I will help set them up. Now, I may end up being like 500 pounds here in a couple of years. But D&D, so yeah, their stock prices and their – whenever we come back here to New Jersey, they could see their revenues probably go up through their roof because we're just at D&D every day. Yeah. Gotcha. Well, what is the thing you're most looking for if we're sitting here three years from now and Kash Patel was in charge of the FBI during that whole time?

What kinds of things would you like to see that you think would be like a win for the FBI's brand moving forward? I think that moving forward, it's going to continue going down the road where they're going right now and improve it and streamline it. Again, I don't think that the bureau is – leans one way or the other. I don't believe that the bureau is hard left. I don't believe the bureau is hard right. The street agents. I'm talking about the street agents. Yeah, that's an important distinction. And that's an important distinction.

I'm not going to speak of a position where FBI headquarters. FBI headquarters needs to be improved. They need to be streamlined. I think it's gotten a little too fat. And I think Director Patel's decision to move out a thousand agents back into the field, I think is a great decision. Get them back into the field. Do I think that FBI headquarters is, you know, the, what was the words he used? The deep state, the headquarters of the deep state. I don't believe that.

So that's just, again, but I'm not, I don't believe it because I've never spent time at headquarters other than some short stints. I'd like to see more attention to real crime and them focusing on things that are the threats to national security. The terrorism branch, the CT branch, the criminal branch, they're doing a great job. I mean they've been – there are so many wins and you were talking about the conviction rate. There are so many cases that the public never hears about because they don't get the news.

I mean there are certain ones that are bigger ones that there's publicity put out on them. But it's not – like you said, it's not the wins that we're – the bureau is – it's the losses, the misses. For sure. Even as a street agent though, I'm curious your mentality on this. It's a weird question to ask because like your job is to go find the bad guys and when you get your eyes on the bad guys, make the case and bring it to justice. Yes. But removing the politics of like a record of like, oh, I've won X number of cases versus only this number of losses. If we get those people out, then yes,

I think a lot more, we'll get a lot more work done. But even on the street level for guys like you who were working the cases and actually building them, if you built a case where obviously you've now brought it to the prosecutor, because you think that whoever, you know, the person you built it against, say it's one guy, is guilty of what they did. And you think that from an honest perspective and because you did your best on the case, like looking yourself in the mirror, there was no confirmation bias, stuff like that. You built a case and you're like, yeah, I think this guy did this. And then it got to trial and it became very clear or perhaps even slightly – Let me interrupt you for a second here on something you just said. I never would bring a case to the US attorney's office where I think they did it.

I never would because that's what the evidence is for. I would bring a case to the US attorneys because I know they did it. I have the physical evidence. OK. I have the statements. I have tickets. I have photographs. And I can't – I would find it very, very hard to believe that an FBI agent would bring a case and I'd have a very difficult time believing a U.S. attorney would bring a case that they think he did it.

Let's go with your language then. You know he did it. You know they did it. You know he did it. And then it gets to court and not just because they have some like sick Johnny Cochran level attorney who's like really good at his job, but literally because new evidence comes out in court where you're like, wait a minute. Yep. I knew he did this, and now I'm thinking he didn't. Would you be – would you view it as like a victory for the United States if therefore he were found not guilty because of something that you, through no fault of your own, didn't come across in your investigation, and now you don't get the win on it?

I didn't care about getting the win. I wanted to make sure that the bad people were put in jail. If I collected all this evidence showing that these individuals did what they did and there was evidence showing that that person wasn't there at the scene, I want the correct judgment. I don't care if it's not guilty. That correct judgment. I don't care if it's a not guilty. That's fine. I don't care about that. I want to make sure if he did such and such things, he needs to go to jail. For me, I didn't care about the stats.

And if he didn't, he shouldn't go to jail. Got it. A hundred percent. I like that. No, no, no, no, no. I never would want somebody who didn't do something, even if they were a hardened gang member and I know they're just sick and a danger to the community. If I'm there to say, hey, listen, this is all the work I did

to show that they did this. If there's something to say that, then I wouldn't want them in jail at all. No. Yeah. The other thing with a lot of these cases that I see it from both sides, because it's so hard. It's like when you have to build a complicated case like especially a rico case or something like that i don't see how you build that case without having informants right you have to have informants correct right which means you also have to have people that you catch being guilty of something whatever it is and then they turn state's witness because you're trying to get up above them, right? I agree. I think that's how you have to build the case. The other side of it that

I've seen in cases that frustrates me is that sometimes this is taken advantage of though, because you'll get someone who's now in Senate, who's already a criminal, they'll lie for anything and they're incentivized to say whatever you want them to say. Correct. And I would never want somebody who's going to lie and give me something just to get – so a lot of the incentives we had in MS-13 cases was – so either to get a reduced sentence if they were part of the click, part of the crime, they get reduced sentence. Or if we had informants, they'd get incentives towards immigration status. And so they may be an illegal immigrant in the country and we'd give them a certain visa that they could stay here in the country throughout it and could afford them the ability to apply. So they'd get an incentive to stay here temporarily and then they would get a pathway to citizenship.

So it never was guaranteed. Nothing was ever, ever, ever guaranteed to any of my informants. I never said to them, I guarantee you I will get you this. My always statement was, I'm going to work my hardest. I'm going to do my best. I'm going to do my best. They walk out, you're like. Because ultimately, ultimately, the people who decide is the Department of Justice.

As an FBI agent, I can never guarantee, and I never guaranteed anything to anybody. That's good. I just said I will try my best to get you this immigration status so that you can get a pathway to citizenship because you've cooperated. It's like that Cheruski one where he's like, got good news and bad news. Good news is we got your payment. Bad news is

they gave you life. Sayonara. You're like, I tried. So, you like, I tried. So I always wanted to work with the informants and get the information, the right information there. And sometimes it worked out and sometimes it don't. You know, working with informants and, like you said, people that you bring them forward and you present them the evidence you've collected. And then they see it and they're like, okay, if I go to trial, I could be facing 20 to 30 years. Or if I testify, I could get a reduced sentence. And again, the Department of Justice would never guarantee you because it ultimately was the decision of

the judge what the sentencing was. But they would say what was called a 5K letter. They would see it and they'd be like, OK, this person testified on the such and such date and provided this, this, this, this, and they'd get a list of all the cooperation. And then the judge would make a sentence based upon what it – their decision. Right. And the judge usually, like in a lot of these cases I follow, they're generally within the ballpark in those types of situations. Correct. Yes. OK.

So the US attorney's office would make their recommendation and say, hey, listen, based upon his cooperation, we believe a sentence between certain window. And then the judge would look at that, what they're recommending versus what crime they've committed and why they're there and then the cooperation. So that three – and I'm sure there's other factors that the judges take into consideration and then they make a sentencing. So I knew we had a lot of people who would rather provide information than spend 30 years in jail. For sure. And now they're doing 10 to 15.

Now, here's the thing is a lot of these guys, these MS-13 members, they're illegal immigrants. So even though they cooperated, they're reduced sentence. Tom Homan's getting them. Tom Homan's getting them. At the end of their 10 years, Tom Homan's getting them. He's outside the prison like, come with me. Let's go.

I got a flight for you. So, yeah. All right. Well, it's better than being in prison, I guess, getting deported. Yeah. Yeah. yeah all right well it's better than being in prison i guess getting deported yeah yeah i wonder how they're dealt with though back at home if they ratted that's the thing that's a good question yeah i don't know maybe it is better to be in prison maybe they should have thought about that maybe anyway not your problem but back to back to the actual gangs we got on a good long tangent there i like that but we were we started talking about the trinitarios and and

you were initially talking about like their structure and how they have what'd you say a program manager at ms13 that was ms13 ms13's got right right so and then we were getting into ms13's like setup so you said ms13 has a program manager and they have like a, like, you know, an East Coast group, West Coast group and all that. Like how many MS-13 members do we estimate are operational in the U.S. at any one time? That's a good question these days. I mean, the numbers fluctuated because one of the things that really motivates, you know, members of joining a group is how popular they are on the TV. What's the popular group right now? TDA. So I believe that those numbers are, are, are booming right now because

especially with the, you know, the illegal migrant community that's in this country now, they see that who is the group that everybody's talking about. And there's a, so, you know, we want to, you to – those – they gravitate towards those people. So I believe their recruiting numbers are way up. I think that there are thousands of like legit TDA members and then thousands of lower tier 12, 13, 14-year-old kids. 12, 13, 14-year-old kids they're getting for this. You'll see two years ago in Times Square, you had – out of the Roosevelt Hotel, you had 12, 13, 14-year-olds that were being recruited into TDA. How would they recruit them?

Hey, we're TDA. What do you – you want to make money? Like in the migrant center, they go in there? If you look up the Roosevelt Hotel, they were doing that. So you'd have 12, 13, 14-year-olds going out into Times Square, and they were pickpocketing, stealing from people. And NYPD would get them, but they're 12 years old. So what they would do is just slap on the wrist, and they'd be back at the Roosevelt

Hotel that night. So yeah, so right there, those are good photos right there. They're all children in Times Square. And they're thrown up because, hey, TDA is now the cool group. So and it's always Venezuelans in it, right? As far as I know, yes. MS-13 has Hondurans, Guatemalans, El Salvadorians. And I think that, you know, generally, I would say it's Venezuelans are TDA. When did when did TDA first come across your desk?

So TDA came across my desk in – let's see. I retired in 23 – in September. the FBI at a multinational conference where a lot of the countries from South America and Central America were there to discuss a new gang called Teren de Aragua. And they were there to discuss it. And so Chile has really taken the brunt of it. Chile has taken a lot of the brunt of the TDA activity. A lot of Venezuelans in Chile, huh? They've moved south. Yeah, they moved through Peru into Chile. And then there's a lot because it's a very affluent communities in Chile. When you say they move, are they literally, I mean, that's a long way. They're not like

walking in caravans, are they? Or they finding more? Cars. I mean, you just drive from one country to the next. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes.

Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. And you can do that down there pretty easily? Yeah. Like that? Even if you're those guys? Yeah, even if you're those guys.

So they go down there via their communities, via their transit system and how they get down there. And they're just going to chile and um so a lot of the crimes you're seeing like an aurora el paso a lot of things that are getting the media attention these days that then that agua is doing they've been doing it for years in chile they've been doing it for years the the building the apartment takeover they did that for years in in in chile so they've been doing that in chile they just like going and say this is like captain phillips this is ours now yep this is like Captain Phillips. This is ours now. Yep. It's as simple as that.

This is our building now. In Aurora – so I knew about Aurora about three or four months before it actually hit the press. Yeah. Why were people trying to say like they didn't do that or like, well, it was only one building? Like what the fuck? Because it's politically motivated. It was all politics. It was all 100 percent. Aurora was absolute bullshit because it was all all politics it was all 100 aurora was absolute bullshit because it was all

politics oh no there's nothing and i always joke about it and then and you know the movie there's back in the 1900s a movie called the naked gun right and there's a guy standing in front of a burning building nothing to see here the fireworks going off in the background nothing to see that's exactly what happened in aur. It was crap. So I knew about Aurora about three months before it hit the media. And I was talking to building management and saying, don't do anything. Don't shut it down. Oh, you were talking with the actual building management of the apartments?

I was trying to help them out. I was trying to help them out, yeah. Whoa. They reached out to me because they found out what I did and that I was retired. So I was talking to building management and I was like, listen, this is a great RICO case. Don't shut – because they were planning on shutting the building down. And if you shut the building down, all the members are going to scatter. So I was like, don't do anything.

Just let them run it. Just let them – let the FBI or HSI do their investigation. You've got a great RICO case here. You want to disrupt it. But the ball was already in motion to shut the buildings down. So there's nothing I can do about it. And then it hit the media and then it was done. All those members scattered.

So once that woman released the video of the guys walking down in the hallways with the long guns, that was done. All those members left. So, you know, right in the aftermath of that, so there was an acting police chief in Aurora, which was a, I believe it's a Republican mayor, but a Democrat city, you know, the city council, everything like that. And the, of course, law enforcement wants to be like, oh, there's nothing to see here. We're fine. Democratic governor saying absolutely no, there's no gang problem. This is it's an isolated incident.

Well, there was a video that's out there. The deputy was the acting chief of police of Aurora. So it was a was a before him right before him. It was a it was a female. So she does. Yes, that's the video right there. So she's acting right out that building. Right.

What's not known about this is that video camera. She's making it look like she's talking to the media. That camera was the office of public – Oh, it was her PR division. It was her PR people videotaping this. Now she's standing in front of a building, which you – that's not one of the three buildings TDA took over. And on top of that, so she's saying, yeah, there's nothing – there's no problems here. And then on top of that, she's got her officers.

They've got video of them knocking on doors and saying, do you have a problem here? Is there a gang problem in this building? While the camera is pointed, of course the people are going to be like, no, there's nothing to see here. There's nothing to see here. We're totally fine. And then, but here's really what's not told. These buildings right here were swept by SWAT right before they showed up. So of course, there's not going to be any gang members walking around here with guns. I mean, this is such a setup. This was such crap setup of saying, oh, we've got nothing here.

This is fine. That's not even one of the buildings that was taken over by TDA. But that's the complex, but not one of the buildings. And this lady got fired? No, no, no, no. She did. I don't know what happened to her

because there was no controversy. There was never anybody discussed. I mean, I've heard about this story right here, but I don't think it ever – anybody got in trouble for it. How did you hear about the actual details behind the scenes like that? So I talked to the former ICE director in Colorado, John Fabricatore. John is a great guy. So he is – he ran for Congress in Colorado. Didn't win, but he works with the Heritage Group. He helps out the foundation and the Trump administration with their immigration issues as an advisor.

And I've spoken to him and he told me and Danielle Jurinsky, who is a politician. This is her – Aurora is her district in colorado i've spoken to her um so you hear the stories but like i said it's not going to get reported so and it's it's yesterday's news so yeah really doesn't matter anymore but that the the current police chief i believe he is doing a a good job from what i am when i understand i see that they're they're cracking down. So there's no more buildings that are run by those guys right now? I don't know about that.

I don't think that they're there because those are all scattered. So here's the crazy thing is Montana has got a big problem with TDA and cartels up there. In northeastern Montana near the Canadian border, there were three individuals that were arrested. And four – it was drug-related offense. One of the three is from Aurora, Colorado. It was a Venezuelan. So – Small world.

Yeah. When the light gets shined, the cockroaches go in different directions. And I've spoken about this and I'm saying, listen, I'm glad ISIS has taken out six TDA members that were in Bozeman. There are six TDA members in Bozeman, in town in Montana. And those three in Northeastern Montana, great. I'm glad ISIS is taking them out. But those aren't the six that I'm worried about. I'm worried about the 15, 20 others that are still there that no one knows about. There's a reason the 15, 20 others that are still there that no one knows about. There's a reason why those six moved there, okay? Because there's a network already built up.

There's already a safe haven for them. And that's the criminal element where I was talking about earlier, that you need those three things. Until you get those three things, getting rid of six members, that's just a temporary fix. It's a good fix, but it's just temporary. Yeah. What does their network look like in the United States? Like what's their command structure? I think that's yet to be determined. I think a lot of people, they have communications to Venezuela.

There is definite, they're using social media. They're using WhatsApp groups. They're using Telegram. They're using Signal to communicate with one another. And we know that there is clear command and instruction. So kidnappings may be done in South America where the ransom is being collected in the United States. So they're communicating. Whether there's a concerted effort by all TDA members across the country, I don't think it's there. I think that you have a lot of pockets of TDA members, but they're all, you know, there's, you may have-

They're almost like subsidiaries then. Correct. Okay. They're almost a franchised. Yeah. So, and you have one or two members who are hardcore, you know, members that were trained in Venezuela, and then they'll have like 30 members, you know, who are 12, 13, 14 year olds who are in that district, that region.

Now, whether that one individual is getting orders, I think that's yet still being worked out. I mean that's still being investigated by the Bureau of HSI and determine the exact elements of it because it really is a new – and again, I try and stay away from calling them a gang, especially now that President Trump has designated them a terrorist organization. Oh, they are too. I think it's six cartels, MS-13 and TDA have been designated terrorist organizations. So – which I like. You like that. I do.

I do like it because it opens up up totally new type of abilities for the investigators that, again, I'm a little bit jealous of them going a whole branch, the national security branch, which was going after ISIS and al-Qaeda. All those tools and all those elements that they can use towards their investigation, now the guys that were working – they're working in the scanty TDA now is at their investigation. Now the guys that were working, you know, they're working in the scanning TDA now is at their disposal. So they can use those tools to investigate TDA, MS-13 and things like that in the cartels. And hopefully I see, you know, a great promise with Mexico. I see that, you know, they brought us 29, including Rafael Caro Quintero. They brought him, RCQ, and 28 other, you know, cartel members that were wanted here in the United States. That's great. Now, whether we go kinetic and send troops into Mexico? I don't know.

That's loaded. I think that we would be better off – hopefully we work with the Mexican authorities and whether it be kind of like, hey, we have Green Berets or SEALs that are embedded in those units and providing them intelligence, providing them hard intelligence like aircraft, drones. I think that would be a much better start. But just, you know, going all out and just, you know, sending SEAL Team 6 into an area where I think that's dangerous. I think that's a dangerous road we're going down. Yeah, I just had Ed Calderon in here and he was actually calling this years ago that this would probably happen. And since the second Trump administration came in obviously that upped the chances and then it did but he he seemed to have like what would you say like mixed feelings on it lessee fair to say yeah so when you declare something a terrorist organization like are you gonna go at them with drone warfare like we do in in the middle east

with with certain ones of these organizations and then you know how it was when any al-qaeda guys or isis cells were were even slightly spotted in the united states like it was like a full-blown you know forget SWAT team like fucking 12 levels above that think about how ingrained like 12 13 and 14 year olds who were just like running into a pickpocket in the United States are. It's like how do you litigate that? But it is a group that's committing an act of violence on behalf of their ideology, religious – whatever their ideology is. It's in an effort to create terror in the victims, right? So right now you're looking at it as, OK, are the cartels doing that?

Are they just a business selling drugs, which is killing our youth, our people? Yes. Are they doing that here in the United States, committing acts of violence? I don't know if I would go that far. Is TDA doing that? Again, I don't know. Do we have the capacity to go there? Absolutely. And that's the dangerous part is like if we go kinetic into Mexico, I think the cartels have such a structure that they could go in that – that they start conducting attacks as retaliation for Mexico, acts in Mexico.

We're not seeing car bombs that the cartel like they used to do in Colombia when – what's his name? In Medellin cartel, Pablo Escobar was doing car bombs and blowing up planes. That's terrorism, right? That's straight up terrorism. We're not seeing that. And maybe I'm not seeing something. And again, I don't – I never worked the cartels. But I think that's a dangerous route we're going down.

But that's the world we have and I wouldn't be opposed. I'm not saying, oh, we can't – peace. No. We need to – these guys respond to – they're going to treat us with violence if we have to. We have to respond with violence and take them out. I think that there's, again, a dangerous route because it could be a lot of innocent people that are – they embed themselves in their communities. Whereas these guys don't wear uniforms. I mean CJNG, they do wear uniforms.

A lot of their elite units do wear uniforms. But let's say we attack a village where we know is a large drug stock. I mean how do we know who is cartel versus who is – again. It gets weird. Right. It gets weird. And this is a conversation I'm totally open to having saying, listen, convince me and your other guests. Show me the different ways.

Again, I wouldn't understand the different ways. So it's a different world that we're dealing with now. And TDA, we know that they've conducted acts of terror in Chile. So about a year ago, I want to say it's about a year ago, there's a lieutenant in the Venezuelan army who fled Venezuela. He was opposed to the Maduro administration. He fled Venezuela, went to Chile, was hiding out there. TDA found him, kidnapped him, tortured him, and killed him. Oh, so they're like real Maduro guys.

Right. That's what I'm saying is they are an arm of the Maduro administration, the TDA, the entire TDA branch. And that's why I think TDA is so dangerous, that with a flip of a switch, he could turn them on and become, you know, initiate something. We know he's done that. Now, whether the TDA members in Chile directly received orders, I think that's what the investigation is still going on. But it got publicity in Chile. But he was against Maduro. He ends up getting kidnapped by TDA and tortured and killed. Put one and one together. I mean it's obvious.

So they are a terrorist organization. They've – MS-13 is a terrorist organization in other countries. El Salvador has designated them a terrorist organization. We've charged MS-13 members here in the United States with terrorist charges. And TDA is – they've done acts of terror in other countries. So I mean it's – I'm glad that they've done this designation because – especially with the cartels. But now my question is, my next question is, what about the other cartels?

There's tons of cartels out there. Oh, yeah. Colombian, Venezuelan, you know, where is the line? Should we just do all cartels? Who's the clicks? What's that? Who's the clicks? Who's going to get the clicks?

And that's why, that's what it sounds like. They pick the ones that the average person hears about. They pick the main Mexican cartels. They pick ms13 they pick trender yes and it's like because they can get attention on that whereas like people when you say colombian cartel like oh yeah fucking 40 years ago yeah nobody's nobody's right you know there's a there's a there's a cartel in venezuela cartel del sol cartel of the sun great name i know it's very good. Good branding.

Excellent. They're a big-name cartel. Why aren't they designated? Why aren't they a terrorist organization? Do they work with Maduro? I wouldn't – I don't know. I'm assuming they do. Because that was interesting. I did a YouTube live last year when the whole Venezuela thing came down where there was like the election crisis and all that.

Which, funny, you haven't heard anything since then. Yeah. But Maduro is obviously – I think – I want to say that the guy who won, who's now in Spain, the guy who ended up winning, I want to say that there's an active arrest warrant that he issued, Maduro issued, and that they're hunting him, the winner. And they've charged him with all kinds of crimes. But sorry, go ahead. Yeah. So basically though, he holds onto power and the sanctions go through the roof as well from the United States. So it's a tough spot for the United States to be in because they're hostile to us and everything. But it seems like the timing of Trend Aragua really popping off here lines up with that.

I had Jorge Ventura in here. We recorded towards the end of July 2024. And then I put out the episode like three weeks later in August. But literally he was sounding the alarm on trend argoa right i was like oh wow first i'm hearing about this and then aurora happened like two weeks later yeah and it's like that's also right around the time the election thing happens and it does feel like you keep making it sound like it's almost like his activated sleeper cell in a way certainly feels that way no we listen the conversation the conversation in – I'm glad a lot – I talked to a lot of these guys that the conversation of Tren de Aragua is being had.

But it needs to continue being had in past the 15 minutes. This is a real threat. The Hispanic organized crime element is a real threat to this country. They're here. And we need to get investigators who speak Spanish to, you know, to come on board. Are they dropping bodies a lot? I mean, MS-13 I know is like we've seen that. But do we see Trend Aragua dropping bodies in different communities in America? I haven't heard many of them. And I think they're going. See see here's why tda is is dangerous because they're they've

learned what doesn't work what doesn't work and that's why they're they're ms 13 2.0 a lot of people have been calling them ms 13 2.0 because they've learned from the mistakes of the past trinitarios are smart and have learned from the they stay under the radar they don't they don't cause the you know they don't cause the, you know, they don't bring the attention upon themselves. They don't bring, do a butchering and murdering. And then what happens after that? Because the media gets the attention.

And what happens after media gets attention? The police and law enforcement. So they're not gonna do things that are gonna rock the, you know, rock the ship. They're gonna, you know, create the waves. And that's why a great example is you don't have investigators poking, poking, poking, poking, poking, poking. And again, I am not involved in Montana law enforcement. But in my opinion, there is not a emphasis being conducted in law enforcement in Montana into these groups because they don't know how to investigate these groups because they don't have the Hispanic investigators up there.

They've never had the reason to learn how to do – how to learn how cartels and Trinidad Agua and MS-13, all these groups, the structure. They don't have the experienced agents, whether it be officers or FBI because that's not what's been the normal up in Montana. Here in New Jersey, I know three or four different FBI agents here in the state of New Jersey that are working that because there's a need for it here. There's never been a need for that up there. So now they're flourishing up there, the Hispanic organized crime elements, because they're doing the smart thing. They're staying under the radar.

They're not creating the waves, which will draw the attention. So they're getting – they're able to sell their narcotics. They're able to – but they're not doing the things like the butchering, the shootings and things like that because that will bring the attention. I mean look at the attention that Aurora got. As soon as that got into the media, boom, everybody paid attention to Aurora. So like their business is to be able to create income for themselves. You mentioned earlier like they'll literally do things as low as having the 12, 13, 14-year-olds go pickpocket and stuff like that. You also mentioned that they'll run scams and be at Trentario's, Trend Aragua where maybe they're – I'm filling in words here. Maybe they're even using AI and stuff like that to do that kind of thing now.

But from a narcotics perspective, how much of their business do you think is that and what's the supply line look like there? Is it their own kind of cartel they're setting up or are they getting supplied from the cartels in Mexico? How's that working? So from what I've understood is they're working with Sinaloa and CJNG. There's a – I wouldn't say an alliance. Can you say what CJNG is? So CJNG is the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Cartel Jalisco de Nueva Generación, CJNG.

So they are pretty much sort of the tip of the spear right now of cartels. They've grown an army. They literally have, you know, uniformed members. They have armored vehicles. They've got the top notch, you know, armor of weapons. And, you know, they're... It's crazy. It's crazy to look at this. And that's what's the most amazing thing is this. The lack of attention that we as a society in the United States, I'm talking about DOJ and talking about media, everything, the whole nine yards. The lack of attention that we've paid to South America is absolutely mind-boggling. And not just Hispanic organized crime, just the lack of attention. China has moved

in to south america central america yes and the caribbean too that they were in the caribbean where did i just read that there was a uh they've moved into the caribbean in certain islands can we type in china moving into caribbean we already did it look at that yeah so uh the belton road becoming chinese lake that's it chinese lake correct that's the article that's just a week The Caribbean. You already did it. Yeah, so the Belt and Road. The Caribbean becoming Chinese Lake. That's it. Chinese Lake. Correct. That's the article. That's just a week ago. All right. Let me read this real fast for everyone out there. Go down. Go down. Go down. Okay. On December 2nd, 1823. Wow, we're going back. President James Monroe gave his seventh State of the Union address before Congress, using the occasion to advance what would later be known as the Monroe Doctrine.

After a string of former Spanish colonies in Americas declared their independence, Monroe said the United States would oppose further predation in the region from the European empires to preserve the newly emancipated states. As American power exploded during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Monroe Doctrine evolved and increasingly came to mean Washington's opposition to any potentially hostile foreign power establishing itself in the Americas. With this and a variety of more mercantile motives in mind, the U.S. made a series of military interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, the past few decades have seen a dramatic increase in Chinese economic and diplomatic influence across the region, with one foreign policy expert telling Newsweek that Beijing wants to, quote, turn the Caribbean Sea into a Chinese lake, unquote. Let's go down. There are also concerns that cuts the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, imposed by President Donald Trump's administration since it took over in January could weaken American influence in the Caribbean. One regional expert described the move to Newsweek as a huge gift to Beijing. Newsweek reached out to Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the U.S. State Department for comment. OK, so go ahead.

So what it is is this is just a small – the Chinese have been moving into South America and it's called the pink wave. The pink wave. The pink wave was – it's been going on for like 20 years. Very progressive. So if you look at a lot of the administrations in South America, a lot of them are very socialist, socialist leaning. And a lot of it is saying because of the Chinese influence. They were coming in. It's called the Belt and Road Project.

Yes. They do it through financial influence, soft power. Exactly. And they influence and they support certain elected officials and get those people into position. It's a long game from China. They're playing the long game. influence and they support certain elected officials and get those people into position. It's a long game from China. They're playing the long game. They recently bought in Peru a seaport.

I want to say it was $2 billion. They bought a port in Peru where major ships can pull in, including Chinese warships. This goes along the lines- Warships. Sorry. Correct. I don't understand. Yeah, I don't understand either. Chinese warships. This goes along the lines- Warships. Correct. Yeah, I don't understand either. Chinese warships?

Chinese warships, which in other words, which it has the capability, the size, this port to have Chinese warships pull up. That's it right there, that port right there. So they just bought that for like $2 billion. That's one of a number of different ports that they've bought along the Pacific Rim where if they wanted to, a Chinese ship could do a port visit. Also, if we ever got into a conflict, that could be used to replenish their ships. So the Chinese – and I think President Trump's move to, hey, we need to take Panama Canal back is absolutely the right move here because –

You do. Absolutely. Because if the Chinese take over the Panama Canal, we are in trouble because they have been slowly – we know they've moved into our networks, into Verizon network. We know that they're hacking into our systems. We know that they've prepositioned themselves. We know that they've pre-positioned themselves. I look at it as this way. USA is – US and US interests are the frog. We're in a lake. They've been boiling the water around us. That's right. And we're not paying attention. We have not been paying attention, whether that's because it's the

media, either – again, I'm not saying one side, one media network or the other, but we're not paying attention to the South America, to the south of us. And the Chinese have been moving in and setting up their influence to possibly an invasion of Taiwan. If they do an invasion of Taiwan in 27 or 28, I think those are the windows that I was told were – the windows where there's – Who told you that? It's on multiple – like they have – because they need to get their systems and get their shipping, their – the naval up to speed and their personnel troops. They're amassing their – all their tokens, their positions if they wanted to do an invasion. I think it's 27 or 28.

I think there was a couple of windows. there was going to say you'd have to, but you'd have to wait till after Trump's out of there. Cause he also doesn't have to win another election at this point. And it's like, if they go in or God help them, they do that. Right. So that's the thing is they've got so many fingers into everything,

into different positions that the pink wave that they've been doing for 20 years like i said chile was very socialist uh very for a number of years now they've started to swing back argentina obviously when melee he's come back so they've swung the argentina back towards you know towards to the right side you know uh and uh brazil has swung left and right so you've got a lot of these countries, Peru, socialist, went into socialist. A lot of these – 20 years ago, now they're starting to swing back. So there was recently a power failing in Chile. A power failure – I want to say it was like about three weeks ago.

Took out 90 percent of the country. Lost power and internet in the whole – in the entire country. 90 percent. 90 percent of Chile. Like the grids went chile went down everything everything for how long uh i want to say it was a couple i want to say 16 18 hours let's click that holy shit yeah the 2025 chile blackout was a major power outage that occurred on february 25th 2025 affecting over 90 of the population of ch Chile and causing widespread disruptions to critical infrastructure services, industries across the country. In response, President Gabriel Boric declared a state emergency, imposed overnight curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. on the following day.

All right, let's go down to, I want to see like damage. What about, what did the death toll look like from this? Go down. I don't think there was a death toll. That's interesting. So it was down for six – the grids were down for 16 hours and we didn't see a major death toll. I don't think so. Yeah, because I don't think – I think internet – here's the thing that made me go, wait a minute.

There's something else here because the internet went down too. The power went out. Listen, you lose power, at least you get internet. You still have internet. But – How do you have the internet without – They lost – well, if your cell phones. Oh, right, because it's not – OK.

Yeah, yeah. So they went – you lost power and internet. So there was no – my question is this. So you go back. China controls over 91 percent of chilean power grid hey guys if you haven't already subscribed please hit that subscribe button it's a huge huge help thank you chinese companies what do you mean they control it chinese companies have have purchased over the last five years it went from like five percent twenty percent eighty percent ninety 91% of the power grid belongs to Chinese companies.

Somewhere Sean Ryan's going, I told you. 91%, right? The Chilean government has historically in the last year pushed back against Chinese influence saying, was this a Chinese blackout? Did they send a message to Chile and say, hey, listen, don't fuck with us. Did they push back against Chile? Was it, and I wrote an article about this on my Substack, I said, was this a Chinese attack on Chile saying, stop pushing back against us? Or was this a test run for a much bigger event? So there was a – I've cited this a lot before.

I actually had this guy Andy Greenberg on the podcast a couple of times, but great author and reporter over at Wired. He wrote a book called Sandworm back in like 2018, 2019 about specifically the GRU 77445 team that does all this hacking and stuff and one of the things that really still to this day sticks out to me especially in light of what's happened since is that in 2015 that team was running test runs in kiev in ukraine to shut down their power grids and they were able to successfully do it which i haven't heard a lot of reporting on that type of stuff within this war i should look into that more but the connotation there for me

was they because they were able to do it it's like oh they can right and now you're telling me that china who all due respect to russia is a way bigger problem because china's worth 20 times what russia is you know they're owning entire grids that like owning entire grids themselves in other sovereign nations, not even close to them. Right. Where they could potentially literally hit a button. They don't even have to hack into it.

Right. They own it. Exactly. That's what I'm saying is, is, is, and that's where it's, it's when you have 91,

one company and listen, these companies are Chinese companies, but we know who,, but we know who is giving them their marching orders. It's the Chinese. Correct. So if Chilean government has gotten to the position where 91 percent is owned by the Chinese, what's that say about other countries? So that's happened over the last 20 years. That water has been boiling, and now it's getting to a tipping point. You know, what other – just we see Chile.

You know, is Peru like this? Is Colombia like this? You know, and the fact of that they own these ports on the Pacific Rim, they're pre-positioning their chess pieces in advance of if there is a conflict, whether it be a cyber war or an actual conventional war, they're positioning their chips all along the Pacific Rim so that they could control it in case they get into a conflict over in Taiwan. They could have a forward presence against any US forces coming to Taiwan's aid. So in it all, whether Chile was a test run to see, hey, can we shut down an infrastructure? Can we shut down internet and power? I don't know. I know that we haven't gotten a clear answer. I know that there was one story that came out. Oh, well, it was a substation in northern Chile that burned.

How is one substation going to take out an entire country? So I've never heard – and again, I haven't read up on it in the last week to see whether the investigation has moved forward. Again, I don't believe – being having been on my side of the coin i don't necessarily believe you know what is put out oh for sure all the time and it's like what's being fed through too because correct china's soft power is incredibly well done you know they they not even to get too stereotypical here but like they'll finance movies in hollywood and stuff and fucking john cena's got to apologize for offending China and fucking Mandarin. You know what I mean?

You remember when Red Dawn was remade. So the movie Red Dawn was an 80s movie. And they remade that, which was a horrible remake. I didn't even know they did that, actually. Oh, it's atrocious. I was thinking of another one. Atrocious remake with Liam Helmsworth, yes. And it was a horrible remake.

Well, when they filmed it the opposing force the op for was chinese they had chinese flags they went and they they got such backlash before it was released they went back and redid all the flags and removed them because hollywood was like whoa we we can't we won't be able to release this in China. Oh my God. Yeah. That was, so this was absolutely.

So I, I've watched this one time and I just couldn't, I couldn't stomach. It was so bad. The original is awesome. The original red Dom is awesome. But this remake, they went back and redid all the flags to be,

uh, there you go. That's the original. Patrick Swayze. Charlie Sheen. That was awesome. Yeah. So – and this is where you potentially could piss a lot of people off here listening because I, like a lot of people out there, was floored. And by the way, unless you leave that article too, I want to come back to that.

That's a good find you got right there. But I was floored at the waste and the corruption that you hear about through USAID. Like, you know, the stuff the guy Mike Benz has been going through. It's like...

Oh, it's horrific. Yeah, it's horrific. It's horrific. Absolutely horrific. And it's clearly like some, you know, backdoor like for the worst parts of CIA to do stupid shit.

That said, maybe not USAID, but some sort of fucking government organization like that. The one part – and this is where I pull it back to the middle. The one part where I go, all right, obviously not like this, not like we're doing it. But the one part where I'm like something like that probably should exist. Yes. like we're doing it but the one part where i'm like something like that probably should exist yes not to buy fucking you know trans in venezuela yeah but maybe to get some actual real soft power to combat shit like this around the world i could trump's move to put whatever is usa id whatever's like put it in the state department under rubio i think is the absolute best is awesome decision interesting 100 i think is you need absolutely

what you're saying there needs to be a focus it doesn't mean an organization which is just literally and that's literally what it was created was and they're just putting out blank checks to all these horrible horrible things that they do crazy things i mean we're buying like ten thousand dollars worth of stuff too like what does that even do why are you supporting a play in Guatemala for people who are trans? Listen, you do you. You be you. I don't care. But why am I paying for that?

It's just absolutely absurd. I think that there needs to be – because the Chinese have been doing this, the Belt and Road, there needs to be an element of that here because, listen we can't just not do something there has to be but having it under the state department in rubio i think that's absolutely the right move and say listen something's broken here okay clearly this is not working because it's you know we're spending usa id was just money was just going out everywhere okay let's stop that let's rebuild it and let's make it more streamlined smaller faster you know whether a six million dollar man type of thing so let's just make it smarter and faster and let's make sure it's directed towards things that help us yeah help this country and our interest overseas um yeah usaid was you know complete disaster the setup ah it's horrible so it's

nice that it's come i'm very happy that's all coming out so maybe they can set it up like that that could be cool agreed but alessi had pulled up this article this is based on what you were talking about but to a whole nother level what is that title like china blasts spineless plan to sell panama canal ports to blackrock god it's like watching the Cowboys and the Giants play each other. I haven't seen this. I'm rooting for the Asteroid. Whoa. I mean, come on. Black Rock versus China?

I have been a Giants fan since I was like a little bit. I'm an Eagles guy. Sorry. No, listen, you know what? And here's the thing is I was rooting. I did not want to see either team win the Super Bowl this year because I'm a Giants fan. You were rooting for the Asteroid. No, I was rooting for um uh saquon i want to say one okay all right i want to say

to win the trophy that's the ultimate when i came down as you were rooting for us thank you no on the record here i am not supporting the eagles on the record giants yankees rangers well basically for me this would be like the cowboys playing the record, Giants, Yankees, Rangers. Well, basically for me, this would be like the Cowboys playing the Giants right here where we're talking about China and BlackRock. But yes. All right. So China has sharply criticized a proposal to sell ports in the Panama Canal to American asset management giant BlackRock, attacking the deal of spineless groveling and a betrayal of the Chinese people. A commentary published by the state owned Tak Kung Pao, you know what?

I'm not going to make a joke right there because we're going to get a newspaper and reposted on the website of China's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Thursday, sent shares in C.K. Hutchinson, the Hong Kong-based owner of the ports, plummeting by more than 6% on Friday. Observers say it was a sign that some investors are concerned the deal may not ultimately go through if Beijing objects. I'm not aware of any approval from Chinese regulators is required given CKH is retaining all of its existing Chinese ports. Of course, there is some chance the other influences may be brought to bear on the company that might put the

deal at risk. The market seems to be pricing in some chance of this. So. Truck month is on at Chevrolet. Get zero percent financing for up to 72 months on a 2025 Silverado 1500 custom blackout or custom trail boss with custom trail bosses available. Class exclusive Duramax three liter diesel engine and Z71 off road package with a two inch factory suspension lift. You get both on-road confidence and off-road capability. Dirt road ahead? Let's go! Truck month is awesome! Ask your Chevrolet dealer for details. Last week, a group of investors led by BlackRock said it would spend $22.8 billion,

which, you know, it's like a Tuesday for them, to buy the ports of Balboa and Cristobal on either end of the canal from C.K. Hutchinson. The consortium also agreed to buy C.K. Hutchinson's controlling interest in 43 other ports comprising 199 berths in 23 countries. They said the deal is agreement in principle. I think this is, you know, because this is BlackRock, this is the USAID right here. This is like this is the U.S. using BlackRock as USAID. That's what this smells like to me. here this is like this is the us using black rock as usaid that's what this smells like to me yeah when was this when was this article posted march 14th 2025 yesterday recently yeah uh two days ago yeah i haven't i hadn't seen this

that's interesting but don't tell me you know like this is a this is, I think that – listen. I think that if BlackRock is behind this, I think President Trump is supporting it for them to make the purchase. So Trump's in bed with BlackRock. I wouldn't go that far. I'm sure that President Trump is – listen. This is more beneficial than actually putting troops on the ground in Panama, which I am also supportive of. You're supportive of putting troops on the ground in Panama? If it gets to that point, yes.

To stop China? Yes. I would be supportive. Because China doesn't have troops on the ground there, right? They just bought the ports. So they have people there, but they don't have like – do they? Listen, I don't know. I don't know, but –

I don't like that look listen i would not be surprised if there is a is there's chinese units in the in the embassy right there i would not be surprised element members we talking you know how many do you need i don't know this seal team a seal team a seal team six you know four-man element is – they could take on a huge – I mean listen, all that Sean speaks to that because I don't know. But I'll tell you what. Like I said, I would not be surprised. And again, I do not know this, but I would not be surprised to see if there was Chinese troops already in Panama, maybe stuck up in a hotel or something ready to go to take over the port if needed, if needed. Like in other words, if they saw the threat to the port. So that's why

I'm saying is, again, I would not be opposed to US troops being deployed there. Now, I would hope that it would be in cooperation with the Panamanian government saying, hey, we're going to send the 10th Mountain. we're going to send the 10th Mountain. We're going to send the 10th Mountain there to help you guys out. Are you guys okay with that? You guys to help you guys. No, we're going to do this. So you're going to cooperate, right?

Of course you are. So I hope that that would have to – but we cannot let the Panama Canal fall into the Chinese hands. I don't disagree with that. That would be a huge – I mean locationally, it's the crossroads. Yeah. So like that would be a huge, huge problem. It's just, you know, people get nervous about what that could blow up into. Of course it would.

I mean, I would be – let's put it this way. There's, you know, invading Greenland, invading Canada. I don't think we need to be doing that. I don't think we need to be invading Greenland or Canada, become the 51st and the 52nd states. But Panama Canal – and I'm saying this and I don't want violence. I don't want encounters. I don't want there to be contact between military units. That's the last thing I want.

I don't want war. But looking at what China has done over the last 20 years with the Pink Lake, China Lake and the Pink Wave, listen, they've already got their chips in our position. So we need to protect ourselves. And I'm sure President Trump would rather let BlackRock buy these ports so that BlackRock controls them. Now, whether he is in bed with BlackRock, I don't know. I have no idea. There's a lot of people sweating out there right now hearing you talk.

They're like, wait a minute. I couldn't even begin to speak from, I'm just basing, listen, this is, I'm seeing this article for the first time right now. So. That's interesting. It's interesting because if you see a lot of other you know a lot of companies i mean since the trump administration apple invested 500 billion dollars into the united states past after the inauguration uh apple invested made a 500 billion dollar investment into build i assume would be factories and factories and Apple assets in the United States. So if you had asked me a year ago, would Apple be investing into the United States and supporting – being at the inauguration, you had Tim Cook and Zuckerberg. Oh, they were all there.

Right. They were all there. So they clearly are – They flipped the switch real fast. What's that look? Hey, listen. What's that look? They know the winning team.'s that look they know the winning team they know they see the winning team and they're like hey this is good for business maybe black rock

they see what's good for business and black rock is as an opportunity to control these ports yeah hey you're saying a lot of quiet parts out loud today i appreciate that about you that's good but did you like remember remember the case because you kind of mentioned it where when you were talking about all this China investment, how they're doing some here too obviously. Like we talked about the farmland and stuff before. That's weird. I want to get to them with the border as well because that's in your territory. But you remember the Huawei thing too where they were like – The cell phones?

Yeah, where they were like buying up the cell towers and stuff. Yeah. Did you have any look through on any of those cases no yeah that wasn't that's totally out of your listen i understand all these this chinese thing all right i speak from a position of of you know because i you know i am you know by heritage south american so i know about the pink wave i've been studying i've been reading it about it and i know these things did i do any criminal investigations no i didn't do anything that wasn't my wheelhouse. There are other agents who did that. I'm sure there's departments in counterintelligence and they did this work. And I'm sure the agency was all over this. But we know that it's publicly known that the

Chinese hackers hacked into the Verizon networks. They've hacked into our Verizon networks. They've gone into the systems and they've gone into our – I don't know how deep it went, but they were in our cell phones. They were in all of our cell phones? I don't – again, this is just based on the – I'm on AT&T. Joke's on you guys, but still. I know they were in multiple networks. I don't – again, this is just based on the – I'm on AT&T. Joke's on you guys, but still.

I know they were in multiple networks, and I think there was a discussion that they were also inside the system that's utilized to conduct wiretaps in the United States. Law enforcement were able – the systems we've built to conduct wiretaps. And that was, again, the based on what I read in the media that, but the Chinese have, were inside the telephone system. Listen, you know, listen, the amount of, the amount of hacks that are being done out there, you know, that are, you know, groups like Scattered Spider, which is the number one cyber hacking team, you know, elements here in the United States is, I mean, they, they hacked in Las Vegas, the, the site, the scattered spider team allegedly attacked MGM grand, the MGM and took them. They lost after, after it took them the MGM to counteract the attack, they lost $150 million. So yeah, there you go scattered spider

and they use their their elite i mean these are the guys either can you hit that wikipedia let's see what the cia has to say about this all right scattered spider also referred to as unc3944 is a hacking group mostly made up of teen and young adults, believed to be primarily made up of avarice based in the United States and the United Kingdom. The group gained notoriety for their involvement in the hacking and extortion of Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts. Scattered Spiders has also targeted Visa, PNC Financial, Transamerica, New York Life, Synchrony Financial, and Truist Bank and Twilio. Most recently, members of Scattered Spider have been connected to hacks against Snowflake customers. Okay. Never heard that.

So they attacked Caesars and MGM Resorts at the same time. Caesars – and they held – they inserted a malware into the system. And Caesars – and they asked them. They said $15 dollars and we'll release your system caesar said here you go they paid him the 15 million dollar ransom mgm said no they ended up losing 150 million yeah you gotta make that investment early man right so and it's it's crazy how they got in and they what they did was they studied so you never attack you know cyber attacks never attacking directly at the,

it's, it's, it's always an end around. They, they went after, they targeted an individual that works at MGM. They studied that person. They found out everything they knew about the person. And eventually when they were ready to strike, what they did is they called IT support at MGM and said, Hey, this is whatever. My name is Anthony. How you doing? I just lost my password. Can you reset it, please? Sure. What's your dog's name? What's your mother? Things that they had already identified. And this was a US American individual pretending to me. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Here's your reset password. Here's just enter this. He entered it. Boom, they were in. He reset the password for this employee, was able to enter, and they inserted the malware. That's how they got in. Simple, that simple.

There's another scam one of my clients told me about, and this was – it wasn't a scam. It was a robbery. So – and it was social engineering. So he was on a plane. He was landing in Miami, got off the plane. And you know how when you're logging in, it says, please enter this six-digit code that we'll send to your email. And he got a list, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, Google code, Facebook code, multiple different ones. And each one of them – so immediately he thought he's like, I'm being attacked. One of them was for his crypto bank and – but multiple other – Google this, Facebook that. And then – but nothing else happened so it looked like he was like okay someone's attacking me but they weren't able to get in any of the systems the crypto company called him and said hey sir we see some suspicious

activity is this you and based upon what had just happened to me he goes yeah that i saw the same thing he's like okay well let's let's let's lock it down. Let's put two-person. Let's answer these questions. And it was the hackers. He lost $800,000 in crypto in one shot. He didn't know. It was social engineering. They had set him up.

You know, they had left hook, left hook, left hook, left hook. And all of a sudden, he just came in with a right hook. And they took him for $800,000. So that's, for me, it was a robbery. It wasn't in with a right hook and they took him for 800 000 so that's for me it was a robbery wasn't a scam you know they they targeted him so these guys know what they're doing and i mean it's that's not the only one i've heard of so um and these guys are good these guys are very good and they've teamed up supposedly with the i don't know if it was the vegas but supposedly they teamed up with black Hat, which is a Russian hacking unit. So the Scattered Spider is how I understood it were all young guys. They're all young American, young, know how to get into system.

Black Hat are Russian. It's a Russian hacking unit who have the knowledge of how to hack a system, of like how to make an – how to make an you know how to conduct an attack they did so the experience of the young kids in the united states and black hat and russian and the working together i mean they're i mean some of the you know the most elitist groups out there you know they're joining forces now that's crazy i know exactly so um but i think mgm lost about $150 million that day. And now with AI, we were talking off camera before we got started. Like there's so many – it's getting so good that you can be vulnerable at any one moment because you could be thinking – what was the one story you told me? The guy thought he was like going into a meeting. It was all real people but they were all AI?

So it was in – I believe it was Hong Kong where an individual was in the finance element for a company. He gets called into a meeting and he sits down and he's in front of a television. And the board there is the finance board and there's a board of members there. And they tell him, they're like, okay, we need you to transfer $25 million. He's like, okay, because you're telling me. You're the CFO. You're the boss. It turns out he was talking to a room full of AI.

Oh, my God. $25 million. And that's not the only story I've heard of, like AI scams where they're just – you're talking to. And now with the type of voice AI systems that are out there, you can could it takes two to three seconds i believe it is on on like social media all they do i mean this conversation right now it's going to be posted like the other podcasts i've did so somebody could take my voice and you know pretend to be me and my mom would be convinced yeah it's getting really scary yeah how how much better it's getting every single day like when it first started it's's like, all right, if you really look, you can tell now some of it,

you really got to be looking at it and not be able to tell. What's tough for law enforcement these days, what's tough for law enforcement and I was talking to your producer, you know, before the cameras went on is that the bureaucracy and the, the difficultness of to, to purchase a system for law enforcement purposes. Okay. So you're the private industry creates the next advanced computer to hack a system to like this in law enforcement.

That's the next advanced computer. You're ahead of me. You're already ahead of me. You get the new, new one. And I want to get that, but to be able to get that system. So I, we could, we could counter battle each other and, could fight the hack, I have to go through systems and tests and this. By the time I have that computer, you've already moved on to the next one. That's right. So I'm already a step behind you. go over is that they're constantly chasing the criminals who are ahead of the game and have the next technology whereas law enforcement has to go through you know hey we got to test it how much we

got to pay for it what are the bids it's just that world moves so fast you can't do it they can't do it like that no i mean al i mean you you just as a consumer now these days you buy the next you buy a car you buy a laptop, in a week from now it's already outdated. It's obsolete. It's obsolete. Yeah. And it's already moved on. So they're already moving on.

AI's growth is exponential. Oh, it's insane. I mean it's insane. It's growing upon itself. And some of the stuff you see online and we know that there was a – I think it was Belarus. There was an election that was controlled or I want to say it was in Belarus. I think it was the country.

There was an election and about two days before the election, an audio tape was released where you supposedly hear the individual, the politician his voice saying oh yeah no i've done i've rigged previous elections and i'm paraphrasing here i've rigged previous elections don't worry about it you know this will be fine two days later he ends up losing the election i also wonder if it's going to get so rampant that no one's going to believe anything they do here that's real like like let's say someone had really said something like that and people just go, oh, it's just AI. Correct. It works both ways. It's crazy.

A hundred percent. That is going to be the defense and that may be the actual person to saying – having said that, but their defense could be, no, that's fake. Even if it's caught on video. Right. You're like, no, that's not me. That's AI.

Yeah. Tell me I'm wrong. So it goes – on video. Right. I'd be like, no, that's not me. That's AI. Yeah. Tell me I'm wrong. So it goes – absolutely goes both ways. Did you guys at FBI – because again, you didn't leave there that long ago. Did you do any – maybe not simulations, but did you guys have like imagination teams? I'm making up a term there, but here's what I mean by that. Teams whose job it was to task to their task was to try to determine what future warfare could look like with hypothetical enemies.

And if that happened, not only what it would look like, but what FBI's role might be in that type of scenario. Let's put it this way. I don't know for a fact that, but if there wasn't that type of office or that team, I'd be very upset. If there wasn't a group of – If there wasn't. If there was not. OK. Yeah, yeah. I don't know for a fact because that – again, that was my – my pipeline was gangs and that's all I need.

You didn't get right into that part of the deep state. Nope. Yeah. I didn't need to. I didn't need to know. I don't need to know and I was in the gang world and that's all I need to know. And listen, I had top secret SCI clearance. But there was never my world. Your world didn't cross with that. Didn't cross with that.

But your world like. But I'd be shocked and very disappointed if there wasn't an office of analysts. I don't think the agents, maybe one agent that would be involved in that. But I'd be shocked and surprised if there wasn't a group of people that are thinking exactly that for sure going okay let's think outside the box i mean and that was the failure of 9-11 is that they didn't think outside the box well also they didn't communication again again but that goes to thinking outside the box let's not think outside the box you know as investigative period, yeah, that was a failure. But as to not think outside the box and say, OK, let's think about what could – could the cartels launch an attack?

How would they do that? Listen, they do it in the military. We know that they do it in the military. Hey, if we want to invade Taiwan, if we wanted to invade China, I'm sure there are tons of different scenarios. If we get attacked by cyber, what is going to be our response? If we're going to do, if there's an attack from satellite space attacks, you know, because I believe some countries have, you know, weapons up in space. Oh, that's nice. I'm sure there is. I mean, I'd be ignorant not to think that that's probable up there. But to think exactly, you know exactly different scenarios and how we're going to respond, I would hope that there's an office in the FBI doing that.

OK. Well, within your gang investigations – because you brought up the China thing. That's why my tentacles were going off a little bit. We'll get to the cartels in a minute. But did you see Chinese involvement in any of these gangs or not even involvement but like peripheral type actions that might line up not in the gangs but based on what i've read you know when i'm reading when i read is you know the chinese influence into you know methamphetamines and and um fentanyl distribution yeah they're they're they work with from what i understand they're working

with the cartels is because oh yeah yeah so i i can't say for certain i mean i never saw it in the gang world yeah i never saw in the gang i mean it's a reverse opium war and and ed was talking a lot about that too off camera and i think on camera as well i called around and we've had some all the all the cartel people we've had and talk about that and it's like it's so crazy how accessible they've made it i've told this story before on the podcast but this dude ben westoff who i've been talking with we'll get him in here at some point he he wrote this book called fentanyl ink maybe like six seven years ago something like that and he had done a joe rogan podcast back in the day that really opened my eyes where he explained how he even fell into this

story so he was like a culture reporter wrote about music you know movies and stuff like that and he's doing some random story in the music industry and somewhere in the story like he's interviewing some guy and the guy mentions an offhand comment about fentanyl and he had heard it, but he started asking the guy more and they got really curious because he was like, whoa, got surprised. And so ends up going down this rabbit hole writing this book called Fentanyl Inc. While he's writing the book, just a regular author did something pretty savage. He's like, well, fuck it. I'll go to China. Flies to China.

He's like, let's see how easily I could get this. And he gets into a lab and they're like, all right, so do you want the deluxe special or the supreme? And he's like, holy shit. And so that's just a regular citizen going over there to do it. But these guys, you mentioned all the resources they're putting into South America and everything. Well, you get this port in Peru. They're controlling this port right now. You could literally have a ship full of fentanyl just drive right up to Peru and say, all right,

boys, here we go. We got carrot. We got by the case, by the tonnage. What do you want? And that's distribution straight up in the vein into the United States from Peru to Central America into Mexico. I mean this is – it's a port that they control now, which like I said, theoretically has – the docks are big enough to have Chinese warships. Yeah.

I mean one-on-one. What's your take on within your career dealing with these groups and how they were able to get here? Like was it strictly due to a border problem or was it deeper than that? Oh, TDA is 100 percent border problem. OK. 100 percent. This would not – TDA problem we have today, I 100 percent put it on Biden's administration because of the open border policy of how many millions came across during his four years. TDA came to creation – I think it was in 2018 is when they were created.

But they really – but they started cutting their teeth in Chile and South America and Peru. But they really didn't start coming to the United States until 23 at the earliest. When I went to that meeting in South America, where they were talking about that, they were a little bit into Texas and South Florida. Okay. And that was in spring of 23. One year later, we're talking about this spread across this country. What is it? 16, 19 different states there's TDA presence, that doesn't happen normally. I've seen firsthand how a gang, how a transnational criminal organization expands their presence. If we had, what do you call it? Obviously not today where there's zero border crossings. But if you say pre-Biden, pre-2020, during the Trump administration or Bush

or Obama or anything, where there was thousands, there was people coming across, even that, there never would have been the amount of TDA members that there are now. That happened in the four years during the Biden administration, 100%. That happened not naturally. It just, it spread so quickly because they were able to come across the border. Now, here's the stand is, OK, there are millions of people that came across the border. Yes. Right. That we know of.

Kind of know of. Correct. It was an estimate. Right. I mean, very clear. 90% of those people that came across the border are good people. For sure. Just looking for a better opportunity to work here.

Now, they committed a crime entering the country. There's no doubt about that. They legally immigrated to the United States. I know what you're saying. Right. But for me, it's the 10%. It's the 10% of 15 million. It's called a Trojan horse.

Right. So you have not just Hispanic, not TDA, not just cartel. You have Chinese, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas. They all came in with a wide open door. So you have that element. And that's what, you know, Holman is going after. And I fully applaud them. And they're working their butts off.

And I've talked to a couple of guys who they're like, yeah, we're working six days a week, you know, constantly, but they're never going to – it's just so much. You can't swat every fly. They're not going to get them. I mean they're going to try and get them, but we just don't have the manpower to keep up with that speed. So I've heard stories that there's – Eric Prince has put in for a contract for $25 billion to start up the whole private industry. The we going to find you industry right exactly so there's there's there's got to be a solution here there's got to be a solution but that element that's that 10 that came in during the four years

that's how tda grew so fast what at fbi you know you guys are working cases, whether it be you or other agents working different types of things that somehow, someway touch the border or touch things that happen as it relates to the border. What were you guys saying and thinking while this just got so out of control? Absolutely insane. Absolutely insane. I would talk to deportation officers. They were on the border. They would talk to them, and I knew them. And they would tell me – they were like, yeah, we just – people would just come up,

go, I'm claiming asylum. It's not even like the traditional – Sounds good. Go ahead. Right there. That's pretty much what it is. They take a note. They'd be like, here's – where are you going to go?

I'm going to go to Elizabeth, New Jersey. OK? All right. You're going to Elizabeth, New Jersey. Name? Fingerprint? I think they took one fingerprint and they just said, OK, here's a court date report in nine years. In nine years?

Yeah. An OTA, which is an order to appear. There was so much backlog. You'd be looking at six to nine years and that person was expected to show up in court whatever it was nine years from now. Well, here – all right. So let's bring this back around on something, this is something Ed was talking about. Now you've declared cartel organizations terrorist organizations. Yeah. Can any Mexican now claim asylum?

That's a good question. That's a good question. I wouldn't know these State Department rules, but yeah, if somebody wanted to come across and they said, listen, if they have – yeah, so a lot of El Salvadorians would come to this country saying I'm being pursued by MS-13 and I fear for my safety. And so to be able to claim asylum, I believe someone had to show – display to the court that their life was in danger being in that original country. So whether – I think rules were different for like Cubans and other countries and Venezuelans where there's – it's a hostile government and that people fear for their lives.

I think it's the same thing for like MS-13. A lot of El Salvadorians would come to this country going, I fear for my life. If I get sent back, I would die. And then that's what the judge would make a decision upon. They had to prove to the court that if they were sent back, they would die. How do you even prove that though? I don't know. I guess you have to show documentation via your attorney.

That's a tough spot for judges to be in. I got to admit. I'm not jealous of that. That's a really tough spot. Because you're making – yeah. And I know countless times where people have argued that they would die if they were sent back. And I know a lot of hardcore gang members, people that are tatted up, they would be like, yeah, no, if I get sent back, I'll get killed by my own gang. Oh, by my own gang.

Yeah. Now that's where I'm like, well, that's – Hey. That's your problem, buddy. The thing of the herd. Yeah, yeah. All right, so you were saying, though, I was asking you about what FBI thought of this

and they were thinking it was insane. It was absolutely, in the street agent perspective, it was absolutely, I just sit there and there were like thousands. And this was,

this was during the Biden administration and before. Yeah. There was just the number of people that were coming across the border and all they were doing is just saying, all right, have a nice day.

Have a nice day. Welcome to the United States. Welcome to the United States. Welcome to the United States. And it was just absolutely insane. Did you have ways to get intel through working with some of these other countries, crime-fighting organizations to know guys before they came here? Not knowingly, No, I never got intelligence. So I worked with the El Salvador. So in a lot of these countries, we have FBI agents.

So I know there were in El Salvador, there's, there's a unit, uh, there are two agents now, three agents that are in El Salvador and their, their job. Well, they're there. Here's the thing is their job is not to do investigations. Their job is to create the liaison between the El Salvadorian law enforcement and the U.S. law enforcement. So there are elements in the El Salvadorian law enforcement that they conduct the investigations down there and they just bridge – they bring the two together. And I know for a fact that there would be our FBI counterparts in El Salvador. I worked with them all the time. In El Salvadorian government, I would work to them all the time.

And, you know, they would be running wiretaps and they would pass intelligence onto us. And we would, you know, I, you know, interceded in, you know, a couple, you know, incidents that were here in the United States where they caught something on a wiretap down in El Salvador. They notified their counterpart and kind of literally would call me directly at like one in the morning and said, Hey, this is about to happen. Right. And I would, and I zipped out and I stopped a shooting at one point. Whoa. Yeah.

Yeah. How do you stop? Like, well, hold up your badge and say, everyone clear out. No, no, no, no. So I would, I was, you know, like I said, some of my best friends were local law enforcement and I had, we had gotten word that there may be a shooting here in New Jersey that was being planned by MS-13. Hi there, I'm Ryan Reynolds, and I have a list of things I like to have on set. It's just little things like two freshly cracked eggs scrambled with crispy hash brown, sausage crumble, and creamy chipotle sauce from Tim Hortons.

From my rider to Tim's menu, try my new scrambled eggs loaded breakfast box. So we were kind of like on a standby and I had already contacted these two law enforcement agencies and said, hey, just to give you a heads up, you know, coordinate, hey, who should I call? Who should I, who could I coordinate with? We want to give you a heads up. If I get the intelligence, I'm going to contact you guys directly. And it came in and it actually did occur. It was in the process. So I literally was, you know, in my, jumped in my car to get to the scene, but I was already on the phone with the local law enforcement saying, Hey, it's about to happen. I need you guys, you know, and then they set up, you know, in the area of the shooting, uh, they, these guys were supposedly going to shoot out the

windows of a restaurant, uh, because that person wasn't paying, uh, extortion dues. So they were, they, they were taking, they were sending a were sending a signal to the restaurant owner saying – and they were going to shoot out the windows. I contacted local law enforcement. They were able to set up in the area while I was en route and I literally was like a few minutes away and they were already interceding with a young kid. With a young kid?

Yeah. 15 years old I believe it was. 15 years old. They were already interceding with a young kid. With a young kid? Yep. 15 years old, I believe it was. 15 years old. Jesus Christ. I believe he got – he ended up getting deported. This was 2015, 2016. This wasn't in Hoboken, was it? No.

All right. That's good. No. It was in Hoboken. But yeah, so we were able to – and I – for me, like I said, my best friends, my best relationships were with local – state and local in New Jersey here. I worked great with them. So I couldn't – could not do my job without them. But if you basically though – because you couldn't really get any hard data in many cases from the border because not everyone is stopping by and filling out their fingerprint and whatever.

You're constantly just seeing dudes pop up.'re like oh i wonder how he got here oh absolutely absolutely all the time there was guys i mean you've seen it in the news now i mean there's guys that were arrested here recently in this in these latest roundups in the last month that i'm like wait i know him i know him he was supposed to have left the country you know he left the country two years ago all of a sudden like oh look at you you're back in new jersey yeah oh yeah no happens all the time there's guys that were you know multiple times um you know deported and would either attempt to cross and i would do that often i would do that and say you know i've had somebody who would be deported and i'd put an alert so i'd get flagged if he ever recrossed the border or if he got

captured crossing the border. And I had a couple of incidents like that where they – MS-13 members would come across the border. They get captured. Hey, we got this guy down here at the border. You want us to give him – you want us to talk to him? And I would say yes, interview him, see if he's willing to talk. And then they would interview him, probably nothing, and then he'd just get deported. He'd get thrown back out. There were opportunities to charge somebody federally for multiple reentries. And then I believe you could serve up to a maximum

of one day short of a year, so 364 days. So that was an option some US attorneys could use as a leveraging tool for them to talk. If not, they were just deported back. Now, did you – I guess Trend to Aragua popped up so late in your career that there probably wouldn't have been time for this. But maybe with MS-13, did you flip guys who went undercover for you with them yeah i would have so the careful word is undercover so undercover is an agent not yeah i'm sorry i don't mean it that way i mean an informant yes you know would wear a wire oh yeah no I had informants that wore wires for me, yes. Who were purported to, or literally were in MS-13. Yes.

No, we did that. It was quite often. Wow. Oh yeah. No, no, we would, in whatever way, I would find somebody who was willing to work with me, whether I build a relationship, and that's where getting, being able to speak the language, you're never going to get that relationship.

But you, it was always cause you caught them doing something else, obviously. Not necessarily. No. No. So sometimes you, all right. So sometimes it's just developing the relationship that they were like, Hey, you know what? I want to do the right thing.

Whoa. Oh yeah. Sometimes. Including someone who's here illegally. Yes. You know, they want it. How would you do that? Well, a lot of times you know

believe it or not it's when they get into a relationship with somebody and have a kid they're just like you know what i don't want to have that gang life anymore or and but since they're here illegally you know i target them i would interview them i target and talk to them and it's always when they have children that they're just like, you know, maybe I shouldn't be a gang member anymore. Or, you know, I have something, I have a reason to stay here in the country. So it's not necessarily always, you know, having, you know, having a criminal past. Most of the times it was, but there was a couple of times where it's just somebody who, you know, who, you know, was a, you know, either was, did serve time. And now once they stay here or someone that I just was able to, you know, develop because I knew that they didn't want that gang life anymore.

But, you know, I knew that it was like, hey, the whole point of things. Listen, you want to stay here in the country? You know, you want you have to earn it. We're not just going to give you a temporary visa here just because, you know, we feel like it. Right. It's kind of crazy. You have to earn it. We're not just going to give you temporary visa here just because we feel like it. Right. It's kind of crazy. You have to earn it. They're a member.

They're changing their mind now. That's great. I'm happy for them. But they're a member of like this extremely violent gang and not from here and yet they might in the future be a citizen.

It's like the question was going to be MS-13 is viewed as the blood, guts, and gore one. They're the ones that are bodies in the street and stuff.'s like you know obviously some of these guys still somehow have some humanity i guess like deep in there a little there is a percentage there is a percentage not all of them i mean there's some there's some like 40 50 60 year old guys who are just like you'd be like you know they're they're members they, 60-year-old guys who are just like – they're members.

But those are the guys who are like Mexican mafia members, black hand. Those are the guys that are for life. And then you have your small percentage of guys who are just – they were doing that when they were 16, 17, 18-year-old because they didn't have any other opportunities. They just wanted to be a gang member. They wanted to do shootings. They wanted to be part of a larger organization. Once they meet somebody, maybe when they're 22, 23, 24 years old, they haven't been caught so far. Or they haven't done something completely horrible like a butchering or a murder because those are – I mean those people are just out there.

So this is just – it's finding that middle ground of somebody who's not a butcher and someone who is not like a young kid. It's finding that person. And then that's the informant. You know, not everyone is an informant. Not everyone's going to flip. For sure. So it's finding that middle ground. Hey guys, if you haven't already subscribed, please hit that subscribe button.

It's a huge, huge help. Thank you. But I think about this a lot, like with anything, your environment and where you grow up and who you grow up around or what your home is like and you know who the people you gravitate towards are like i had a guy sitting in your seat a few weeks ago red shea who you know at a very young age was like the number four guy under whitey bulger at one point he's the only one that never ratted did his full prison sentence the whole bit and he reminds everyone they never ratted but you know you hear about his childhood and you know the type of situation he grew up in and no dad in the house and no money and some certainly very interesting relationships dynamics

with his sisters and then you know the way the streets were and and how he got he he was a prize fighter who his fucking boxing trainer recruited him into being a fucking cocaine distributor and i i keep looking at this i'm like how the fuck what i would have ended up the same way right you know and so looking at these ms-13 guys where many of them grow up in in some of these other countries in abject poverty and maybe their father died because he was in it too or whatever and then they're pulled in at like eight nine ten you know by these father figure type people cool guys wearing tattoos who have some power and a little bit of money yep and like then they go along the way but maybe there's that moment like

you said they have a kid or something like that and it's almost like they come to right you know and they're like maybe what i'm getting at is maybe some of these guys, most of them are, it just is what it is. They're violent gang members, but some of them maybe actually aren't that guy. Correct. And that's what you were looking for. Yep. I was actually looking for that one person who, and not every single time, these people that, you know, see the other, you know, you were talking about this guy who just, you know, in Bulger's team who didn't flip and say, okay, you're not going to find it.

But it's just poking, just poking, poking, poking, keep finding. And then until you find that, boop, and then you find that person and then you work them. I had lots of informants who worked for me who never created a big case, but they were just giving me intelligence. And it's just listening, listening, listening, turning over rocks. That's all I did was turning over rocks and listening to intelligence and what's happening here in New Jersey and then eventually both internationally. And it's just listening for intelligence, listening for learning, learning, learning. And then eventually, if enough showed up and there was probable cause to open up an investigation, then I would open up the investigation into whatever it be,

MS-13 in Union City or MS-13 in Plainfield or somewhere else. There were a couple strongholds here in New Jersey. For sure. All right, so trend to Aragua and now it's like in the news and they're declared a terrorist organization because it's different than the cartels. What are the next steps there if they're so tied in with maduro too that that kind of makes it a little weird now yeah i think it's it's utilizing is having the communication working with you know other federal agencies to listen and it's let fbi HSI work their RICO investigations, their large-scale

racketeering investigations. Let them do that. But yet at the same time, keep an ear out for intelligence that whether it goes back to Venezuela or Mexico or something along the lines because all there's influence there. There's TDA, you know, communication, all these countries. So it's keeping an ear out and having the open line of communication to make sure that we're thinking outside the box and saying, listen, let's not let TDA get to that point. We could definitely dismantle TDA. We definitely could cause enough problems, but just like MS-13. So it's, it's never going to go away. It's never going to go away. We took out MS-13 in Plainfield in 2013. And this is why RICO works. In 2013, Plainfield Loco Salvatrucha was a PLS, was a crew in Plainfield, doing homicides, drug dealing, all of that. Took them to trial. They've never

recovered. They never recovered Plainfield, Locos, Salvatrucha, Nevergurt. Now there are two other cliques from someone I understand is they're back in, they're in Plainfield, but that's two separate, that's two other cliques. PLS never recovered from that. And there are still members that are PLS, but they never got back to their power. So that's proof, right? That's proof that they works. So that's how you dismantle an organization. Letting federal authorities do these RICO investigations, work these cases, and get into the root of the evil, that's how we're going to do it. Getting these temporary – these ICE deportations, I don't know if that's – that'll be – that's a temporary fix. But hopefully we will get into it. Portations, I don't know if that's – that will be – that's a temporary fix.

But hopefully we will get into it. But talking what you talk about, working with Maduro, that's how it's going to be. Working with interagency cooperation and making sure that intelligence flows in two directions. What are their financial networks like? Are they like utilizing a lot of crypto? Like how do they launder money throughout the United States? That is a – well, two things. One, if I knew how they do it, I wouldn't comment on it because if – so anything that I comment on is going to – I wouldn't want to expose any federal investigations. So in other words, because if whatever I say here, obviously

I assume the bad guys are going to hear it. So, for example, I've seen vehicles driving around Bozeman, which I can look at and I can identify and going, okay, that's a cartel member. They drive Toyotas? No.

No. No, it's not that easy. But I know it's not that easy but i know she's got a prius because who knows i don't want to all of a sudden now they hear it and they're gonna okay well let's let's change that up yeah so i've yeah from what i understand yes they're in crypto they are money laundering and obviously they know that they're they're owning the gold mines in venezuela um from what i understand they're taking the gold they're selling it in the united states and in europe and then returning those funds back into their operations um they are doing the crypto they're doing the the money laundering how they're doing it i personally don't know like i said that would be a deep investigation and that actually was after my time um so i wouldn't even begin to know how

they're doing the the money laundering um but they are doing it i mean that's that's not a secret part like leaving in 2023 obviously you had been in the military for nine years and then 20 years in fbi so it's a long career and i i would imagine it's pretty exhausting work time to go but is there a party that's also like something like that's coming on the table hardcore you're a high up kind of guy working this where you're like i don't fuck should i leave right now yeah no it was it was the work i loved it and i didn't want to leave i didn't want to leave because of the work your wife didn't she was 100 she's christine is it was is an absolute rock star she wanted she was going to support me either decision i made she worked good she is she's brilliant she worked in manhattan in new york city for 16 years for a family fund uh family office uh oh she's she worked for them

for like 16 years she's brilliant she became head of trading operations in charge of like eight ten billion dollars so she's like i'm like way overshot my shot here so she's she's totally out of my league um some reason she she decided she said yes to me we have our we have our kids now um. And that's why I started our company with her. She is the CEO. So I'm the CEO. Oh, you report to her. I 100% report to her.

Tough. I know. We are a female, small-owned business. Just in case any day we want to go to the government for a contract. Small-owned business, small female-owned business. But no, she's brilliant. So she was – but I left the bureau. My main motivating factor is like, listen, there's two things that influenced me to leave the bureau.

One, 29 years in the government. So I knew my pension was pretty good. So if I stayed on 50, 51, 52, I wasn't going to make that much more money to get the pension so much higher. I'm marketable at 50 years old. So what I can earn in the private sector plus my pension will be so much more than what I would get paid in the government. Yeah, kind of double dip. Right. So I was like, okay, that would be my number one reason. Number two was I was so exhausted of what we talked about earlier, of fighting with the upper management.

So tired of fighting with, whether it be an ASAC, which is an assistant special agent in charge, fighting with them or fighting with somebody and just trying to get the job done and trying to do things. And it was, so I know of a story that happened recently, and this was a great example. And it was two, so each, there are 56 divisions in this country, right? FBI.

FBI divisions, correct. So there's divisions in most states. With some states, their home office covers multiple states. For example, Montana doesn't have a division. Salt Lake City covers it. But in a lot of states here in the northeast, there's division, maybe multiple divisions in one state. Pennsylvania has two divisions I think. New York has three, Buffalo, Albany, New York. So it all depends on the state. I know that there's two states where the story is there

was a fugitive in one state. The neighboring state had the case. It was a murder investigation and they were supporting local law enforcement. They had a fugitive. They have a warrant out for this fugitive. He was a Trinitario. So he was across the borderline in another state. But yet they were to arrest it because they wanted the glory. So you had an ASAC in this neighboring state going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're going to do this. But you're the case team. Yeah, you can be the case, but we're going to do the hit. We want the press. Is that really what it's getting down to? That's what it's getting down to. Fortunately, the case team did the hit. They got the arrest. They got the, because they did the work. They were doing the work for years. So it's that exactly what you just did. Roll your eyes going, that exhaustion. It's basic, more like ball sack.

It wasn't, right. It wasn't worth it. I wasn't, so it was exhausted. So when Christina and I decided, we decided in 2019 that I was going to retire in 2023. So we knew for years that I was out in 2023. So that's why we purchased our house in Montana so we knew for years that i was out in 2020 so that's why we purchased our house in montana back in 2020 so that we would you know like i'm out i'm oh wow you bought it all the way back yeah no we bought years ago knowing that i was going to retire so there was no like well maybe maybe i'll stick around for it was like i knew i was gone i knew i was gone and just everything that happened in the last in during the biden administration where we were told hey everything takes a back seat everything

is you know slow down so you were told everything takes a back seat like on your team specifically everything slowed down yes everything so when i was on joint task force vulcan during the trump administration we were go go, go, go, go, go. During the Biden administration, everything was like, well, let's think about it. Let's talk about it. It was a definite different direction that the Biden administration wanted to take on Hispanic organized crime. So it was definitely – we were definitely slowed – I would say slowed down. Nobody ordered me, hey, you need to stop doing an investigation. Nobody ever ordered me that.

But there wasn't – there's a support from Department of Justice. Were you able to do any cases? Like you said it was – you were covering mostly the gangs. Like that was the team you were on. But did you have any cases before you left run into where you're working on the cartels as well touching them at all not not if not directly i mean we knew that there was like there's other i know that there's other other case agents who are working this that there were clear cartel connections but none of my cases ever crossed you know had a clear cross with any cartel. But we knew that there was cooperation.

Yeah, because obviously the cartels also had the whole system at the border where they're coyotes bringing people across, but they're coyotes were also probably bringing your guys across too. And from what I understand is you don't bring product, whether it be human, guns, drugs, across a territory, the Sinaloa, CJNG. That's right. Without paying homage and paying dues to the cartel, they'll take you out. Yeah.

So they were working. They were literally, you know, okay. So MS-13, the rank structure that MS-13 had changed in 2015. So the program managers and the MS-13 leadership were always based in El Salvador. And a lot of the program managers also moved to the United States in pre-2015. So you'd have a lot of leadership here in the United States. They were getting so much heat that they decided to move the middle management to Mexico. So there was a large MS-13 presence in Mexico. And the cartel, obviously the cartels invited that.

They were okay with that. Correct. It was in cooperation with the cartels. So you'd see- Because they're going to do stuff for them. They'd do the dirty work, exactly. So MS-13 would do the dirty work. And then the cartels were just benefiting from it.

To the middle management and the stuff like that, I would imagine it's more the stereotypical things I'm thinking of, the guys with tats all over their face and and and that kind of thing but like the program managers are these the kind of guys you would never guess are on ms-13 maybe they roll around with a suit and have an have an office somewhere not that not not that i encountered so they were all they were all like your traditional yeah your traditional tattooed members up you know so those are the those were the middle management. So what you see online, you Google search it and you see all tats and everything like that. So yeah.

Did you ever bump into stuff where you realized there were intelligence operations occurring, United States sponsored in anything you were looking at? No. OK. So you didn't encounter that. No. I never had a blue on blue situation where i was so i never had i never had a situation where i was investigating all of a sudden i'm like wait an agency's involved or something like that no i never had that and

that's why i'm like jealous now of all the guys because now the agency and you know national security branch they're involved now wait what do you security branch, they're involved now. Wait. What do you mean? Because they're a terrorist organization. Oh, yeah. Because that opens up a whole new set of tools. I like how they've been involved in other ways.

Yes. You're right. But now it's like – you understand this. From the case agent perspective, there are certain tools that I did not have – that were not in my disposal. Yeah, I know. I know. Those tools. I know.

Now, what they do, that's of course – like you said, like you were saying, of course they were involved. Yeah, I had Matthew Hedger on the podcast. I just recorded with him another time. He was sitting in that seat and he was a knock for cia and he infiltrated the cartels nice one of their chief nice he's one of their chief money launderers and like he's sitting there talking about how he would get top five top ten guys at like major international banks to flip and you know basically like cover for the cartels and shit because his job was to keep and this is where the moral quandary comes in fuck if i can solve all this but like his job was to you know support the operations

because it gave him access to do other cia work that had nothing to do with them and it gets weird because i would imagine you know and it comes it came up with him as well you run into organizations like fbi and and some other law enforcement organizations who are trying to take this stuff down. And then they bump into a case and they find out that like, fuck, you guys are in the middle of it. I never did.

I've heard stories that there are, that have been situations like that. Yeah. But I've never been involved in that. None of my cases had ever, I never ran into another agency. Do you think the El Mayo case might have had something like that? Which one?

The El Mayo case. Oh. Listen. Everything was crazy about that one. Yeah. Everything was absolutely crazy about that one. Absolutely. I think that one is absolutely was who you know who was talking to who

and backdoor deals and absolutely yeah but i never i never ran into anybody who was from another agency um i mean i only ran into hsi but um we typically worked with them you know there was there was always a cooperation with them what do you think of that guy Bukele down in El Salvador? Because like he came in, I don't know, like five, six years ago, something like that. And one of his big things

is like cracking down on MS-13. That said, you know, he's kind of a dictator. What? I was like, what did you say earlier?

You know, I'm saying a lot of things by not saying things. Yeah. Just saying. I think that Bukele is clearly – the stats are showing that El Salvador is one of the safest countries. I'm doing air quotes here. You're doing air quotes.

Yes. Safest countries. And I believe that's true. Again, I'm believing – I'm just looking at statistics and news stories. So those are lightly held air quotes? Maybe. I don't know. OK.

Maybe. I don't know. My question is what you just said. He's done sweeping arrests. OK? There's a lot of people that are getting swept up here. I can't imagine. And I have nothing to – I never investigated Bukele or the administration.

El Salvador never did. Allegedly. No, I never did. I believe you. Okay. You can tell me. No one is listening. I just think that it would be very surprising.

In previous El Salvadorian administrations, we knew that they were working with MS-13. They were working with MS-13. They were working with MS-13. I don't think this guy – I'll give him that. It doesn't look like he is. I agree. I don't think he is. I don't think he's working with MS-13. But something has to have changed for all of a sudden – for there to go from 100 to zero.

Yeah. And something has changed right there. Just the sweeping arrests is not going to do it alone either that if that's the truth they're scooping up entire villages and people

there's got to be innocent people there's got to be innocent people so is is that worth it? it's a valid question i mean and that's where i'm saying is when i'm saying like you know when i'm putting the air quotes and saying allegedly that's to me is the is are the innocent people being arrested yeah you're getting the bad elements off at what cost at what cost yeah it's like i i don't want to sit here and

defend like the worst ms-13 guys and and the type of shit they do these are terrible people who should absolutely be behind bars and know it shouldn't be a holiday and but i don't i don't love that ccot thing because like you said there there are some people in there who maybe are only lightly affiliated or some that could even be innocent and these people are thrown and that is they're breaking every geneva convention yeah type thing that exists there and and when i see i'm just saying i understand when people are are very angry at horrible groups like that i mean you spent your whole career fighting these guys and i'm with you but you can't throw the baby out with the bath water and it's not our country but i'm looking at that because you know he's marketing he's a great marketer he's marketing this shit around

the world and i'm like that is not a trend i want to see take violent elements in any country off the street put them in prison. Not like that. Yeah. No, I agree. And it's a dangerous road to go down. And hopefully other countries don't follow that blueprint. But I could see some other countries going, oh, that worked for him. Maybe I could do it here.

That's right. And hopefully because you're going to have innocent people who are going get scooped up and you know something you were talking about earlier about you know the conviction rate of you know innocent people getting ending up in court and just saying and but how many of those people never even saw a day in court they're just going you're going to you know well that's what it is yeah just scoop some exactly they're scooping up and thrown in jails and they just disappear from the village gone and they're gone. And they're gone. Now, yeah, you're taking care of the bad elements, but you're also scooping up some innocent people. Yeah. So I don't know.

I'm hearing a lot of things between your words there too, which is interesting. Yeah, there it is again. Okay. I just – like I said, I hope that there's good solutions and then there's bad solutions. Hopefully we find good solutions to take care of problems in this country. Fair enough. Dan, this has been awesome, man. You got some great analysis on a lot of different things.

We touched some stuff I didn't think we were even going to touch today, which was really cool. Cool. But I'm glad that it sounds like there's some good trends in some of that department now where some of these different groups, whether it be the cartels or some of these gangs, are being taken seriously. And hopefully we don't see the proliferation that we seem to see in the last few years around America. I hope that there needs to be a stronger attention pointed to South America, to everything from Mexico, from the border, all the way down to Argentina. We need to turn attention to it and why we've ignored it. I don't know why you got the Chinese thing, the Hispanic organized crime.

We need to pay more attention to that, to the south of the border, not just cartels, but it's all of it. It's really – it's a danger to this country. It's a national security issue. Absolutely. That's right on our doorstep. Yeah. And it's Chinese, Hispanic organized crime. It's all of it.

It's right here. And we always – in this country, we have the liberty and the protection of two big oceans to our left and to our right. Nobody from Europe. Nobody – this is right here. Yeah. And no one is paying attention to it. and to our right. Nobody from Europe, nobody... This is right here, and no one is paying attention to it. I mean, listen, no, I stand corrected. People are paying attention to it, but people aren't paying the proper attention to it. I mean, there are people that I know are, hey, we need to focus on this, but it just seems to be like, let's look at the next TikTok, let's look at the next Instagram.

All right, well, we're gonna have the next TikTok. Let's look at the next Instagram. All right. Well, we're going to have the link to your sub stack down below. So if people want to hear analysis like you've heard today from Dan, you can get that on a sub stack. So make sure you go sign up over there. But thanks for doing this, man. I appreciate it. It's been a blast. All right.

Cool. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace. Thank you guys for watching the episode. If you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button and smash that like button on the video. They're both a huge, huge help. And if you would like to follow me on Instagram and X, those links are in my description below.