Julian Dorey Podcast - #392 - “It’s all STAGED!” - Top Cartel Journalist EXPOSES El Mencho’s Assassination | Kat Szulc

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

SPONSORS: 1) MIZZEN & MAIN:mRight now, Mizzen & Main is offering our listeners 20% off your first purchase at https://mizzenandmain.com , promo code JULIAN20 2) GHOSTBED: my listeners and first-time customers get an extra 10% off—on top of already reduced prices. Just go to https://GhostBed.com/julian and use code JULIAN at checkout. 3) RAG & BONE: Upgrade your denim game with rag & bone! Get 20% off sitewide with code JULIAN at https://www.rag-bone.com #ragandbonepod PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDoreyCLIPPERS DISCORD: https://discord.gg/8QmWEKJ3BT WATCH KAT's PREVIOUS EPISODES: EPISODE #264: https://youtu.be/I6JUJCxKnDU EPISODE #313: https://youtu.be/WvX9-G5IYh0 EPISODE #336: https://youtu.be/E54bS9kFczQ (***TIMESTAMPS in Description Below) ~ Katarina Szulc is a Mexico-based freelance journalist focused on reporting on Cartel Activity. KATARINA's LINKS: Substack: https://katarinaszulc.substack.com/?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web&r=3h3gxb X: https://x.com/katarinaszulc?lang=en YT: https://www.youtube.com/@katarinaszulc/featured IG: https://www.instagram.com/katarinaszulc?igsh=eHViMnZnNWExNmk4 FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY INSTAGRAM (Podcast): https://www.instagram.com/juliandoreypodcast/ INSTAGRAM (Personal): https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/ X: https://twitter.com/julianddorey JULIAN YT CHANNELS - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@juliandoreyclips - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily - SUBSCRIBE to Best of JDP: https://www.youtube.com/@bestofJDP ****TIMESTAMPS**** 00:00 - Intro 00:37 – El Mencho Compound, Tapalpa Jalisco, National Guard Raid, La Diabla Scandal 09:04 – CJNG History, Rise of El Mencho, Los Cuinis Funding 19:18 – Cartel Expansion Strategy, Regional Alliances, El Tuli Killing 31:35 – Rosalinda Release, Cuinis Government Nexus, Cartel Families 40:02 – Compound Aftermath, Kingpin Strategy Failure, Suspicious Operation 49:32 – No Escape Route, Strange Evidence, Bullet Casings Mystery 01:00:43 – What Happened to Mencho?, Death Theories, Closed Casket 01:13:54 – Mexico–US Backdoor Deal?, Sheinbaum Policy Debate 01:26:02 – Mencho Death Rumors, Cartel Surveillance, Kat Tracked 01:34:53 – Media Narrative, Epstein Files Mention, CJNG Succession 01:42:45 – El Mayo Situation, Chapitos Allegations 01:54:50 – Compound Oddities, Missing Women Photos, Trafficking Evidence 02:08:12 – Border Trafficking, Drug Flow, Ryan Wedding Arrest 02:17:47 – Ryan Wedding Case, Government Pressure, Kash Patel Criticism 02:27:47 – Cocaine Lawyer, Cartel Networks, Colombia Fighters 02:38:46 – Ukraine War Cartel Nexus, Latin American Fighters 02:50:47 – Cartels & Global Conflict, POW Interviews, Ukraine War 02:59:04 – Kat's Work CREDITS: - Host, Editor & Producer: Julian Dorey - COO, Producer & Editor: Alessi Allaman - https://www.youtube.com/@UCyLKzv5fKxGmVQg3cMJJzyQ - In-Studio Producer: Joey Deef - https://www.instagram.com/joeydeef/ Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 392 - Katarina Szulc Music by Artlist.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five-star review. They're both a huge huge help. Thank you. So you're just getting back from El Mancho's compound? Yes, I was there for three days. How the fuck do you get onto El Mancho's compound right after? I mean, he was like the most one guy in the world. Yeah. How'd you get in there?

Well, it actually wasn't that complicated. So I got a lot of questions about this, but there was a lot of press there. It was wide open. So basically there's this compound. of cabins in Tapalpa, Halisco, which is a really common tourist destination. It's actually super nice there.

When I got there, I got there like a day and a half after the operation. And it was super calm. Really nice place. Like, I felt like I was on vacation. It was super safe, really nice. Looks beautiful. It is. It's a Pueblo Mexico. It's like a... How's it look when there are dead bodies all over the street?

There were not. And that place doesn't actually have that. They do not have crime like that. And the only really thing that was that stood out was like there was like a few oxos that were burned to the ground because like of the of the chaos that ensued following the operation. They were burning cars and businesses. But aside from that, it really wasn't that bad. We just had to go to like smaller local stores to get waters and whatever. But a lot of press was there. And this allegedly wasn't actually the place where he was captured or he was killed.

right because there's this compound with cabins their vacation rentals and in front of it there's this basically like foresty area it's kind of in within forest i guess and allegedly he escaped from this cabin compound through the forest to a country club which is right next door where he had a really big luxurious house and it's in a it's like a gated country club and that's where he's where he was found and then shot at, like according to the official records of his death, he had multiple gunshot wounds, like in his abdomen, and that's how he was killed. And during the operation, I think 25 National Guard members of Mexico's National Guard were killed. And then, yeah, that was a big hit, obviously. Yeah. And then there was, I think, around, I have a lot of numbers to

remember here. So I'm kind of just ballparking it. Yeah, but I think around 12 of El Mancho's guys were also murdered during this operation. And so I'm under the impression from being there at the cabins that his guys were staying at these cabins. And then I don't know if I guess during the operation he was there and then took off through the forest to the country club. So obviously, Having gone there is very different than just looking at pictures of it because, well, first of all, to get into this, I'm going to call this area where the cabins are just the compound for the rest of this episode. To get there, it's one narrowish road that goes from the highway. So you're along the highway. I actually should have shared you a really good map that I have, but it's along the highway,

you take a turn to this long, narrow road that takes you all the way up to this compound of cabins. Along that road, there's maybe like four or five really luxury homes there. And then you get to the cabins. When we got there, there was no National Guard, there were no police. Nothing. It was just us. It was just us. Yeah. It was literally me and my cameraman. And-

They took out Mexico's bin Laden and the place is completely ghost town two days later. Yeah. No, like, police tape, nothing. That, I don't know what that is. Oh, that's the town. Yeah, that's the city center. Oh, this is like some of the stuff you said where cars are burned. Yeah, they burned a lot of cars. But-

Kat, Kat, can we back up from me? Sorry. Yeah, you're going to have to help me out with this just because so much happened being there. I'm like still processing it. Yeah, there's a lot of people right now listening going on. What the fuck? Like she's on the side of this thing. But what's going on? Who is this guy? You've been here three times before this episode. We have discussed El Mancho and C.J. NG. And I called it on the past. You did fucking call it on that last one. I was shook. I forgot that I said that. And I saw the clip and I was like, actually my dad sent it to me. And he's like, what the fuck? Who are you working for? I was like, you know, because you kind of put, you put all the pieces together, you know, I have so much information and this is I live and breathe this. So then you get to a point where you can make a pretty informed hypothesis, I guess. Yeah, I kind of wonder when people are going to stop giving you shit when you report a story and say it's all made up and you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about because it's now

been several times where you've reported a really big one and people are like, she's full of shit. She has no idea what she's talking about. And a week later, it's like, ah, wait a minute. Is she massad? Oh, wow. I wasn't going to go there No, but I get that a lot. Are you?

I can't tell you. Fuck no. Oh my God. Now your viewers are going to literally Do I have to answer that seriously? Do you know what show you're on right now? I know. It's like everyone's going to be like, oh my God.

Yeah, we take this very seriously around here. Oh my God. You need to stop because since I got back from Ukraine, my whole shit is filled with Russian. In Ukraine. She's fucking tracking down all men's show. It's all adding up. But I will.

say in particularly in episode 336 when you broke the, I mean, I don't know what to call that, the baby trafficking story. Yeah. Of CJNG. That was the one that P, I mean, I got so many people reaching out like, you're an idiot. How could you ever, ever on about this? I'm like, I got all the risk. Oh yeah. People didn't believe you. I'm like, I got all. I said, I got, exactly. I said I got all the receipts on this before we did it. I called you the second you reported that. And I was like, are you fucking sure about this? How do you know? You told me.

And then a week later, they arrest La Diablo. Can we pull that up, Dief? La Diablo from C.G. Oh, I was in that house. From CJNG. But like they literally arrested the lady who was running this. The United States government helped with that. And the entire racket was exactly what you said.

And effectively what they were doing. It's absolutely disgusting. But CJNG started this new racket. Deaf's got it up right here. That's the psychotic bitch who was running it. Martha Alicia Menendez Aguilar, known as La Diablo. But what they were doing is they were abducting young pregnant women, vulnerable women from lower socioeconomic environments, bringing them to trap houses, forcing them to have sea sections,

leaving their dead bodies on the side of the road, packaging up the babies alive and maybe sometimes dead for Oregon harvesting, I don't know, but at least alive and would take them across the U.S. border and traffic them for thousands and thousands of dollars. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it was between CG and G LaLena, which is still not designated a foreign terrorist organization. Wait, why not? What's, can you explain Lalini to people? Yeah, it's the basically like Juarez cartel. It's the cartel that runs Chihuahua, you know, that border state. So why aren't they a terror group? I don't know. That FTO designation list, I thought it would expand shortly after they first published it last year and it hasn't. Interesting. And there's a lot that are missing on it, but I don't know how that works.

Well, let's do a recap for people that haven't listened to you, explain some of this before. And we'll go into more detail this time because we've never given it the full kind of treatment here. But everyone is seeing on the news, CJNG, these guys look fucking crazy. They're seeing in their social media feeds. Can you go through the history of them and who they are, where they operate? And some of the insane types of operations they do. I mean, these guys dress in full-blown special forces military gear. Yeah, they do.

And it's so funny because everyone who was monitored. during this fucking situation, kept reposting that old-ass video of like, you think that these are Mexican military? They're not. It's C. G&G. It's like, yeah, we know. Like, shut up. Oh, my God. It gets to a point where it's like, fucking get with the times, people. But basically, okay, so CG and G, the leader of CJ&G, El Mancho, he was from Mitzchakan, obviously, a green gold state. We've talked about the avocado trafficking before, you know, that monopoly. that organized crime has on agriculture in Mexico. He actually illegally migrated to the U.S.

He was then deported for like drug-related charges. He also like took the blame for like this murder that his brother did. And there was like a bunch of lore of his life in the U.S. at a certain point. He gets deported, goes back to Mexico, becomes a police officer. He eventually gets married to kind of the brains behind this all to Rosalinda Valencia. And she is from the notorious Valencia family who started the millennial cartel back in 1950s to 70s.

In the 50s. Oh yeah, they're like the OGs. I was going to say, that's way back. Yeah, they're the OGs. And they became the millennial cartel. They actually started with the agriculture stuff. They're from Michoakan, the avocado trafficking and stuff using those routes to then traffic like coke, opium, weed.

Right. Right. And then like the Kennedys of Mexico. They literally are. They are so extremely powerful. And then she has like almost fucking 20 siblings and they're known as Los Queenies. Like they are the, I would probably say the richest family in Mexico.

Los Queenies? What does that mean? Translated. I don't know. That's just, oh, it's just like a slang. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I don't think it has like a direct translation.

I don't know. My Spanish is good, but like sometimes there's shit. I'm like, I don't know. I'm not Mexican song. We'll pull up Duolingo or something. I don't think Duolingo will teach you that. Whatever. Anyways, they end up, it's like a blood alliance, right?

Because El Mencho starting his CG and G he gets with, and there was already nexus between Mencho's family and Los Quinis in a way. They get together. Los Quinis, the Valencia family, ends up funding CG and G and Mencho. Yeah. And so essentially they're like the financial stronghold, whereas CG and G is like that violent powerhouse trafficking, that kind of paramilitary stronghold, right? And which is why CG and G manages to become the most expansionist, powerful, and violent cartel across Mexico and have essentially power over almost every single Mexican state. because between the finances, between the brains, the historical power, these guys can obviously pop off, right?

They had, I mean, we knew this, but after documents were published of what was found in El Mancho's Country Clubhouse where he was killed, there's like lists of all of the politicians and all of the police that were on the payroll. Yeah. So they have like, okay, this police force, like the police. of Tuito, the police of Tomata, and how much they're making. And then the state police and then certain people on the federal police. And they referred to the federal police as Los Negros.

And then people saw that. Yeah, because you guys are fucking American and you guys saw that. And you're going. Oh, my God, C Ching is racist. It's not where I was going. I just want to know why they referred to me like that. Because federal police drive black police cars. And so that's how they would just know those Negro.

No, literally people were like, oh my God, they're racist. It's like, bro, this is Spanish. Okay. That shit pissed me off so bad. Well, at least they kept the nice documented list for the Mexican IRS so they could review it later and properly go through the balance sheet. I mean, that's, listen, I don't like cartels, but I do like my cartels to be organized financially. Well, it's called organized crime for a reason because- But organized financially, you know. Right? Because apparently in order to be an arco, you have to know how to use Excel.

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That link is in my description below. That's Mizan spelled M-I-Z-Z-E-N and Maine, M-A-I-N.com, promo code Julian 20 for 20% off. One more time for the road, Mizzen and Main.com, promo code Julian 20. Also, if you'd like to shop in person, you can find Miz and Maine in select states. But please use the link to support our show. Wait, they were doing this digitally? Yeah. No.

And you said that. I thought you meant like they were actually writing it down. No, no, no, no. It's like Excel spreadsheets, print it out. Yeah, I know. So. Microsoft should cut an ad about that. The cartels use it.

If it works for El Mancho, it'll work for you. Anything to get our mind off the Epstein files. Don't worry about Bill Gates. People keep saying that and it's pissing me off because you know what? Like multiple things can exist at once. That's true. And it's just Bill Gates is kind of, he's in some la Trouble. Whatever.

For fuck sakes. I knew you were going to eventually bring this up because this has like been your beat lately. And I'm like, this is so out of my spectrum of coverage. I mean, I guess. Yeah, we're going to stay on cartels today. Okay, good. I'm just saying that as a side comment because I don't like Bill Gates. That's all.

That's fair enough. I don't really think anyone should. But whatever. So basically, yeah. So CG and G has this stronghold. And they have a ton of politicians on their payroll, obviously law enforcement, national guard, military. And really, for them, like, obviously it's a lot of money. But then certain police and certain Sicario's like Hitman and stuff, if these spreadsheets are real, which I think that they are, they're not making a lot of money.

Like a Sicario is making $4,000 pesos a month. That's like in USDA, what is that? Like, $200. It's not a lot. I don't know what the translation is, but it's not a lot. Well, it's like what. Defe can check it. Either way.

I think like 20 pesos to a dollar. I would think they'd be making more than that. I mean. Yeah. You're putting your life on the line and killing for that much. It's crazy. But obviously this has to do. Yeah, 226 US dollars is a peso.

You were right there for 4,000 pesos. Yeah. So it's just, it really goes to show how CG and G managed to really infiltrate culture and society. as a whole, right? There's so much music. I've talked about this before. I get a lot of hate about this, about how they really became like a propaganda machine. And, you know, like narco-corridos, like narco-music, and movies and media has always existed, but CG&G managed to do it in such a way where they built a brand, okay? And like El Mencho, he loved cockfights, and he was known as El Senor de los Gallos,

the man of the... Roosters? Yeah. I mean, probably. Yeah. Pause. Sorry. Because I... It's okay.

I couldn't directly translate that. I'm proud of myself. I'm keeping a straight face. I cannot. I'm sorry. We'll bleep it out and then we'll cut this part right there. Okay. We'll do a bleep and cut it to me and we'll just have like a pause laugh.

Fuck. Okay. And I also knew this was going to be a problem because I've been speaking Spanish the whole time and I was... That's okay. Okay. All right. All right. Yeah.

So what were you saying? Hold on. What were you saying before that? He had a whole brand surrounding him. All right. So you finished laughing. So his brand honestly brought more notoriety and was like convincing for a lot of people. When I was over there, I actually went and met with someone who sings and writes really popular narcocorridos.

He wouldn't give me an interview, but his songs are very much in support of C.G and G. and like they have a great beat and like the lyrics are super catchy and he actually told me he was like you know what i don't like is how sometimes i get messages or me people who are like bro your music made me join cg and he doesn't like that no he said bro that's not how it's supposed to be this is fiction like this is not supposed to be convincing you but this is the problem right so a lot of this music it's like i've talked about this before it's like gangster rap like especially in the 90s where it really did, like, hype people up to join the gang life and stuff like that. Anyways, the point is, CG and G managed to build, like, this whole brand.

Like, if they were to have sold merch, it would have been amazing. No, for real. It would have. How is that funny? C.G. What? It was funny to me and D. Clearly, but I don't know why.

Imagine you just walk in here with, like, C.J. Yeah, no, I don't, I've heard a lot about, we've talked about it with other people too, about like the music influences and stuff. And it's interesting when you tie it to like gangster rap in America. But I think I was talking with Ed Calderone about this. To me, when you're actually saying the names, which they do in gangster rap sometimes too, by the way, when you're actually saying the names of the gang and like, in this case, the cartels and totally glorifying it. When in fact, also, let's be real, the cartels are what run the country. Yeah. You know, like gangs in America aren't good, but they don't run the country.

You know, what do you think is going to happen? There's not a lot of opportunity. A lot of people are going to be like, well, that sounds good to me. Yeah, it seems luxurious. It's like they're talking about how you get to fucking shoot a scar and have Rolex and G. G. Wagon or whatever. Like, it's really glorified. Anyways.

Yeah. So they built this massive empire. element big like size wise like it wears everywhere where they're operating they're the fifth largest employer in mexico okay geographically though do they spread into other regions that technically aren't theirs yes like crazy yeah and we saw honestly the perfect example of this and because i had been talking about how they were the most expansive cartel and i felt like they just had power everywhere because they're also masters of absorption so they would like go and align themselves with regional mafias or like fragmented cartels and then they would just absorb that region. But the perfect

example of this was how when the Sinaloa cartel fractured after they captured El Mayo and the Chapitos and Lamaisa were going at it against each other, CJ&G formed an alliance with Los Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa cartel and was like providing them with arms and stuff. Obviously that was in a bid to then eventually absorb Sinaloa. And I think that they were getting close to that. I mean, that's like kind of a dangerous thing to say, but to be honest, I think that they were starting to really push their way into Sinaloa. And that would have been crazy because they would have had absolute control over all of the Mexican states. So that didn't end up happening. Well, it will probably eventually end up happening because this is one thing that has stood out

to me is the fact that after, you know, the fall of El Mentiono, there has not been any, really in fighting in the CG and G, which just doesn't really make sense because there were super, there are super powerful second in command, third in command of CG and G that I was under the impression that after a few days, these guys would want to splinter off and start their own thing. And a lot of them have their own really loyal following. So when El Mancho was killed, everyone was like, who's going to be the leader? And I had, I was between El Cerro 3, which is El Mancho's stepson. And he's a Valencia, his wife, you know, part of the queenies.

Yeah. It was between him. It was between Hardinero, the guy who is basically heading the alliance between C.G and G and Los Chapitos. And it was between yogurt. And everyone who was monitoring the situation for the first time was like, it's yogurt. And I honestly think some people were just saying that because they thought the name was interesting. Yeah, that's Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez. Where was Nate do on this?

Who did he think it was? I think he thought it was zero-thres as well. Okay. Or I don't actually remember, but we talked about it. And this guy, El Cere's, he's an American citizen. He's born in American citizen? Yeah, he was born in the States. Yeah.

And then what happened? He went back. Yeah, because that's what you do, right? You go to the states, you learn. It's like, who else did that? Assad, right? No, Assad went to the U.K. You're talking about Syria?

Yeah, yeah, he went to the U.K. That happens a lot over there. All the time. Like where someone from the Middle East from Power family, we'll go get school in the UK and then you go back. I haven't heard, I mean, I'm sure obviously it happens. I haven't heard a ton of that. Well, Mencho was in the States.

But he wasn't born here. No, he wasn't. Right. But. But he came here to do some Traficante stuff, right? Yep. That's normal. I mean, I mean, it's not good, but like, that's what they do.

They set up all their fucking, I mean, we're the, we're the buyers of their product in this country. That makes sense. But this guy was born, was he born in, like, L.A. or something? He was born in Southern California or Orange County. Okay. And then when did he go back to Mexico? He's like 18 or? I actually don't know.

That's a good question. Yeah, let's look that up. That'd be interesting. Santa Ana. Yeah, California. In 84, yeah, he has dual citizenship. Interesting. I don't know when he went back.

I don't actually know if it's known. El Pellone, LR3, LJP, Trickey Tres, and O3. He's got some pretty hard nicknames. Yeah, he's known as L.O3 for the most part, El CERO3. 03? Yeah. Ahead of three. That's pretty hard. That's pretty hard. Okay. So that, oh, that's, that looks like the U.S. Department of State

indictment against him. The third one, Dief? I think he has a $5 million dollar bounty. Yeah, there it is. Okay. So this is him. Let's go down. Let's see what the government said about. Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez is one of the alleged leaders of the cartel de Helisco Nueva Hanaracianisianisus. It says to be the most violent drug trafficking organization currently operating in Mexico with the highest cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine trafficking capacity. Valencia Gonzalez's mother, Rosalinda Gonzalez, Valencia, as you pointed out, is married to C.J. NG. Nemecio, Rubin, Oscar,era. Not anymore. They've been divorced since like 2018. Okay. El Mancho making him Valencia Gonzalez's stepfather. El Mancho is also a designated target with a $10 million bounding on his head. Okay, so he's charged with all the regular stuff,

trafficking, conspiracy murder, all that. Okay. All right. So this was one of them. And then who were the other two again that they were wondering about? He's also from Michoacan. That's the El Chapito's guy. Yeah, running the alliance. And the thing about the Hardinero is he actually has, like, within CG and G his own very loyal following. So I have a, well, I don't know. But if anyone's going to splinter off and try to start their own thing, I think it could be Hardinero.

What does that look like if he tries to do that? A lot of infighting. Fight for power, trafficking routes. There's going to be a lot of CG and G retaliation against. him, but I don't know if that's gonna happen. He looks like a fucking Olmec statue. Stop, you always fucking judge their appearances when I come on this podcast. I'm just saying, look at the guy.

And I literally would get killed for something as simple as that. I'm saying it, not you. So I'll get killed for it. Yeah, I don't agree with that. Okay, on the record, you don't agree with that. He does look like a gardenum. But anyway, all right, so Hard and Arrow is another one. And then who's the third again?

El Yogur. El Yogur. Yeah. And what's his story? So he basically, oh, and there's also El Sapo, the frog. Yeah. And so basically all these guys are sort of running really lucrative areas within Mexico. And it's so because CG and G has such a widespread stronghold, they have to put people in charge of certain regions, right?

And so like, yeah, there you go. And he's trending. You know, there's not a lot known about yogurt the same way that we know about El Sapo or El Jardinoero. And El Jogur kind of like recently surfaced to public eye type of thing. But he's really high up there in those top five. And then El Sapo, I'm pretty sure he runs a lot of Sakatecas. It's like with Los Mettros, you know, like another group. So everyone has their role and everyone has their loyal following.

and is very powerful within their own rights. So what I thought was interesting was after Almencha was killed, the fact that there wasn't like this bid for power and infighting didn't happen immediately. Instead, what we saw happen was one day of chaos against the Mexican federal government. They were killing national guards. El Tully, one of the guys within CJ and G,

was, and he was up there with Mancho, told everyone you get 20,000 pesos for every national guard member that you kill. Then I think, like, make it like a day later, he was shot down by a mini gun from a helicopter in one of the CG and G stronghold regions in Halisco. Wait, the guy who put out the bounty was killed. Yeah, so does him right. Like, right after.

And it was actually quite interesting that he, like, this didn't make as much news because he, was a very powerful guy and very violent. But he wasn't one of the main three people were thinking would be a successor when he was Almencho's right hand? No. No. Why not? I don't know. He was more of a financial operator. And I think, you know, I honestly do think, though, that possibly him being like, okay, everyone gets 20,000 pesos for taking out the National Guard.

And he was the one who told everyone, fucking let's go against the Mexican government. All hell breaks loose. He sent those orders. I think that could have been him kind of trying to push for that power, but he was taken out basically immediately after he put those orders out. And of course, the Mexican government would go hard for that because their National Guard members were dying. I mean, I posted a video on Instagram of them laying on the side of the road

by the National Guard vehicle all shot up. I mean, I'm used to, because we covered a lot in here with people like you to come in and explain it and show us stuff, I'm used to seeing some pretty crazy imagery out of Mexico when the cartels get pissed off for this some type of war. But that was like, you know, I mean, I'm glad it stopped after a day or whatever, but you're looking at that during the first day where it's happening. And you're like, what the fuck?

Like, this is like the end times right here. I mean, I don't know what you're, you've seen a lot of shit. It looked really bad. And I honestly thought I was like, fuck, if this goes on, a lot of people are going to die and a lot of people are going to get caught up in the firefights, but it only happened, it only lasted a day. Now, let's go back to Mancho for a second because we've been talking about all the guys that would follow him up.

You talked about, obviously, he married into the royal family in Mexico. Yeah. He came back here after cutting his teeth, helping with the trafficking operations in America. But CJNG had this really fast rise. They did. They came out of nowhere. Especially for a pretty new cartel. Right.

Like it's a 2010 cartel or 2009. So. Now, is he the founder of it or was he? He's considered the founder of it. Yeah. Okay. But what I, but if he didn't have the Valencia family, Los Queenis backing them, I don't think it wouldn't have happened, especially not the way that it did. And this is another thing is like Rosalinda, she's free. She's out.

Like she was in Mexican custody for, I think it was money laundering. and when she was arrested they found like I think $12 million in her house and this was another thing that was weird to me when Almenjo was captured or killed they said that they found in the house 17 million pesos and like 900 and something thousand USD which to me just didn't make sense

because you would have way more money than that like at your disposal and I talked to a colleague I took to Joan Grillo about this. He covers this too. And he was like, well, you know, it's possible that they didn't like need that much like onhand cash. And we just agreed to disagree because I was like, I don't think that he would have under $10 million in cash at his disposal. You know?

At his compound, I would think it's even way more than that too. Me too. Me too. And like hidden and stuff like that. I'm under the impression that it's possible that a lot of money got pocketed during the operation. We've seen that happen a lot before where there's

like, you know, empty Rolex boxes. Right. You're brave enough to go in there. You gotta take your prize of it. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, even, yeah. You know the feeling. Hours of deep conversation, wild theories and hard questions. Then it's midnight and your brain's still in overdo. That's when having the right mattress makes all the difference because mental recovery needs physical recovery and if your bed isn't helping you sleep, it's slowing you down.

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promo code Julian to get 10% off sitewide with Ghostbed, the makers of the coolest beds in the world. So that was also odd to me. Anyways, Rosa Linda is free. She, I guess she was on like house arrest, but she's kind of nowhere to be found. And there's obviously a lot of nexus between her, her family. and the Mexican federal government. A lot of, she's been sanctioned by OFAC. A lot of her businesses have,

but there's still a lot of businesses that have not, that she runs that have not been sanctioned by OFAC and her daughter with Mentional, Leisha, she was actually pictured at the funeral yesterday. Her, she was living in. The daughter was. Yeah. She's the youngest daughter.

She was living in, I think, San Bernardino in like a $5 million house that was paid for in cash with her husband. and her husband was actually just arrested last year, I think was when I posted that last year or the year before. Cartel guy? Oh, yeah. And he had faked his death. So when he was arrested, people were like, oh, he was alive, right?

And like El Mento had previously faked his death so many times. And then there was also that rhetoric about like El Mentiono, like, his liver is failing and he has crazy dialysis, which I do believe that he had like cirrhosis and like, wait, is that liver failure? Yeah, yeah, that's liver failure. I think so. Yeah, it is. But I also didn't really believe it was maybe to the full extent that was being put out to the public to try to try to give this perception that he's weak and frail. Like the old mafia Don kind of PR thing. Yeah.

I got you. And so anyways, there's obviously clearly a lot of nexus between CG and G, the Queenies, and the U.S. And I lost my train of thought and I was going to say something very important. Well, we were talking about the compound, didn't have a lot of money in it. People were taking their cut and everything. Yeah, hold on. The wife had the money laundering charges, but she was let go. But the daughters lived in a $5 million mansion with a cartel guy who's dead but not dead.

Yeah. And then he gets arrested and she's back in Mexico. She was pictured at the funeral yesterday. It didn't look like her to me, but it is what it is. We're also the same age, which is like crazy to me. Yeah. But anyways, yeah, ask me something. Yeah, you forgot where that was.

No problem. Well, I'm sure we'll come back over it here because what I wanted to get out with Elmenschra, this is why I was asking you about it with like the Genesis. So he's like the founder, if you will. And they rise up quickly. He's able to build out obviously a fucking machine here of people. Would you say, I mean, I think this is kind of what? you're saying, I just want to make sure I understand. Literally because he was married to Valencia and had the

backing of all that money and that name brand, he was essentially allowed to start his own cartel, meaning the Chapitos or some of the other cartels at the time in the region weren't looking at some new cartels starting and saying, we're going to stop this before it starts. They backed off because of who he was with. It's quite possible. But the Sinolaua cartel and CG&G always had They were enemies there. And so that's why it was weird. Well, not weird, but it was really shocking when they kind of made that alliance with the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa cartel. They were not friends.

They were adversaries. But because of the amount of money and power that Mancho held, they were able to gain so much manpower and access that at that point it was like, well, these cartels are essentially coexisting. Right. That's like in very simple language. Right. But when they start up, they're bringing in guys who have been in the cartels their whole life, maybe just associated with other ones. And now essentially they're starting this.

It's like an expansion franchise in the NBA. So they have people that are experienced, meaning right from the jump, they already had networks all carved out in the United States. It's like they're starting day one. The business has a storefront. Exactly. Because you're talking about fucking marrying into a family that was basically heading the millennial cartel, which had nexus with Pablo Escobar's car, the Medellin cartel. So, and they were

trafficking at one point, I think they were trafficking like $30 million worth of cocaine every month, something like that. I mean, you can fact check me on that, but there was, it was just absurd. So yeah, there was, it was, it was, it ran very deep, the connection and, um, the access. So at what point did. Mencho because when he starts CG NG, CJNG, I always fuck up. I always say CJNG but everyone hears CG and G. I think it's just the way that I speak and people are like, you're a dumbass. You don't even know it's CJ and G.

No, I have like the dyslexia with it every time after I think about which one's the J and which one's the G because it's similar. Some right there with you. No, but I'm not getting it wrong. I say CG. I'm sure you're getting it right, but the commenters are going to say otherwise. Yeah, who the fuck cares. But he, at some point, though, they get a big enough name that they piss off the United States government.

They piss off everyone, even though they're buying off the Mexican government at the time, that he goes into hiding effectively. But at the beginning, he wasn't necessarily in hiding. He always kept a low profile. He really did always keep a low profile. This was a guy who was not like El Chapo in the sense where he was fucking trying to live at large and wanted the fame and the notoriety. I mean, there was like a level of, you know, wanting to be highly respected and he was kind of like this mythological creature. But he kept it very low key. I mean, he was like a typical Mexican like guy from like the rancho.

Like I said, he liked the cock fights. He was like this he would drink, you know. He was also like a family man in terms of he took care of the family very much. And a lot of narco corrido songs that refer to him talk about how at the end of the day he was like with the family. Right. So, yeah. Yeah, he, he was, I think that's why he was able to go undetected for so long. It was also came as a surprise to me when like this whole thing went down because he was super low key.

How long do you think they knew where he was? Because he was, the whole thing was that no one knows where the guy is. if you were guessing how long the government knew a couple years maybe i i don't know i mean okay so the way we're told is that uh the u.s collected all of the intelligence on this and then mexico was the one who did the boots on the ground opera and mexico was the one who did the boots on the ground operation now what i find odd about this well there's a lot of things i find out about well let's just start at the top what's the first thing um Okay, I'm going to go through like a couple hypothetical kind of situations with this.

And because I was there and I saw all the shit and I was like, this is like insulting my intelligence. So I could see. So the U.S. has been giving it since Trump's administration has been giving Mexico a list every couple of months of guys that they need gone. Okay. We went him gone. You could literally, right? You can hear it. Yeah. And Mexico sometimes would fulfill this list, sometimes not. And I think that also,

CG and G was at a point where they were becoming so powerful that the U.S. believed that unless they applied the kingpin strategy, there was nothing else that they could do to put a dent in this cartel. And as a review for people out there, the kingpin strategy is when you take out the kingpin. And that's it. That's just go right for the head. Yeah, you just go right for the head of it. Which I am a big proponent of hating the kingpin strategy. It's completely ineffective.

And it ends up, it's like a hydra. Like you chop off the head and two worse ones grow back. You should have told them before I ran. It seems to be what we do around the world. It is. U.S. loves the kingpin strategy. And I'm really just not sure why. I think it's just because it's like the easy get perhaps.

It's a headline. It is. It is. And it makes the U.S., especially for ill-informed people, it makes the administration look incredibly powerful. Like, we took him out. And it's like, okay, but it doesn't work. And it also typically will cause a lot of infighting,

like what we saw what happened in Sinaloa when they got Chapo and then they got Mayo, and it was like so many innocent people's lives were absolutely ruined or they were killed. So Kingpin's strategy just provokes more violence, more power, And almost like more of a will to be like, we're going to double down and we're going to make this stronger. Yeah. The more I watch things when you study history and then watch modern history as it happens around the world, the more I watch how things turn out with something like the Kingpin strategy, which is the way a lot of governments have thought throughout time, the more I'm like it's a really uncomfortable thing to say. but sometimes you have to deal with the devil you know because it will be it's like if I could have 40% of what I want and be pissed off about the 60 I don't I'd rather be in that situation than have

fucking 5% of what I want and be pissed off about the 95 and there's just something about the human ego and I understand this that's like that's unacceptable to me yep and then that's how a decision gets made and then you get these vacuums which again You laid this out last time. Yeah, we talked literally exactly. And we're watching it unfold right now in real time. Yeah.

And so I think that it got to a point where the U.S. probably told Mexico, you know what? We got to take out this kingpin. CJ&G is way too powerful. We've sanctioned them to the tits and it's not working. You guys are trying to get like lower level guys within the organization and it's not working. So we're going to take them out. And if you guys don't do it, we're going to pull a unilateral operation. and get our boots on the ground in Mexico

more than there already are. More than there already are. Yeah. And we're going to go and do it and we're going to take credit because Mexico cannot handle this crisis. So we're going to go in and we're going to make you guys embarrassed. And it's also important to keep in mind that President Claudia Shienbaum of Mexico

is a big proponent of a sovereign Mexico and no U.S. intervention. So if the U.S. gathered all of this intelligence, here's El Mancho. We know this why, because his girlfriend, who is allegedly this like Mexican heiress, is going to visit him. And through a secondary person who knows her and where she's going and who she's going with, we've tracked exactly where he's at it. Okay, Friday night, she goes to visit him.

Saturday she leaves. Two helicopters are flying around that compound for a couple hours. Who's helicopters? Mexico's. Sunday, Menchos captured and killed and dies in transportation. I don't believe that. I don't believe he died. That was the story.

Yeah, that was the story. Now, wait, so they had, they literally put their helicopters in eyesight right there above the compound flying around. Everyone I spoke to in the town and like only one guy was willing to go on the record because they're so scared to speak out about this. Fair enough. That was the same thing that happened when I worked in Sinaloa. Everyone heard and saw them. everyone. And he didn't leave.

No, he stayed. That's okay. I see. Keep going. Okay. I'm clocking. And so anyways, this is the story, right? And then there's a shootout. They pull him into the helicopter along with, I think it was like three other of his guys.

Also, the plane that they transported the men is like very small. I forget what it's called. They pulled his body. They pulled him into the helicopter. Well, apparently he. He, like, they brought him in because he was still alive at this point. So they, all right, so they land the helicopter. It's not like they're dropping down a ladder or something.

I don't know if it was a helicopter plane. I think it was, and I have the name of it, the aircraft on the tip of my tongue. But anyways, it's a small aircraft, essentially. They get it on the ground. They bring him in. Yeah. And then three of his guys, I think. And they all die in transport.

They might have been fucked up. And so that's essentially the story of how Alamancho was captured and killed a day after seeing these helicopters that everyone could see like a few hours yeah because it was like it happened on saturday and then i think it was like sunday early morning like so late saturday night sunday early morning and you said that let's go back into the mission though in the specifics because you said this oh yeah 25 Mexican military guys died National Guard guys died and 12 that we know of of his men of his men died does that include the three in the aircraft i think so Okay.

So what did, how did they, what is the story, at least, of how they assaulted the compound. Do we have any, are there, is there any drone footage of the compound that we could look at and might help people? Oh, and I have some. I could have brought, sorry. That's all right. We'll see if we can pull it up, but go ahead. Anyways, so that's the road actually right there to drive in to that compound. I actually saw the remnants of those vehicles.

Oh, you know what, Kat, I forgot to do this earlier. This would be helpful. Can we pull up, can you give Deif the name of the town again? so we can pull up the map so people can kind of get an idea let's do a topography map of it deep so people can see just like get bearings on where the location is how remote it might be it's a pain in the ass to get up there it's up in the foothills right yeah okay so all right so what we when we're looking at the where is it deep right there so we're yeah we're seeing the separation between like the mountains and the valley right there okay and then can you zoom all the way out

so we can get an idea just for people at home. So, you know, southwestern Mexico. Okay. And so... We were talking about the mission, yeah, and what they reportedly did. So this is what we're told that essentially the military

came through the forested area in front of all of these cabins that are on like this hilly region. Okay. Keep in mind, when I went there, okay, and we're told that El Meno ran from those cabins through a forest behind into the country club, I was fucking hoffing and puffing going from house to house. Okay? And like, I work out, and I'm 25. This guy's 59 years old.

Would you ever failure? Yeah, on dialysis. But apparently he's booking it through there. In the videos, and, you know, everyone will see the video of my whole tour of this area. I'm literally like I get to the top and I'm like, guys, give me a second. Like I taste blood because you're literally going, like it is a mountainous region. And so it's these winding roads between these cabins. So anyways, there's a forested area which now is all burned down to the ground.

It's all char because fire broke out from grenades and the shootout. And so firefighters couldn't get there. So it's just all basically black and charred. And so apparently from this main high. highway road, which by the way, you can fucking see every single car driving on this main highway road from the cabin compound. It's a very strategic location. The military came through the forest. All of the guys from the cabins start freaking out. They come down in the forest. There's this massive firefight. A bunch of people die. And to be fair, like I did see blood. I did see

remnants of grenades and bullets, shell casings. Like, yeah. It looked normal-ish. It looked like there was a firefight. Right. For sure. Meaning not, you weren't looking at it going, this looks staged. It looks like people were actually dying there.

It looked like, yeah, something happened. Did it look like the remnants of an operation to capture a mensho? No. Why do you say no? Because, like, I'm almost wondering, like, what would I expect it to look like? You know what I mean? I was expecting to see way more bullets and shell casings and... Blood?

Blood. But, I mean, there was a fire, so it's... And everything is burned. So it's hard to say what would be still lasting there. At one point, like, I found this one bullet and I go to pick it up and my cameraman's like, stop, like, it could be active. And it's like, some of the fire is still smoldering. Well, I don't know now.

But when I was there, like, it's still smoldering. So you're walking through and it's like smoking underneath you. But anyways, then apparently forces push through. They come up to the cabins. And El Meno allegedly takes off from the cabins through forest behind these cabins to get into the country club, which is where his main house was. Are you talking about like an actual golf course country club kind of deal? Yeah, literally.

And then in the forest where he tries to escape through is where he's shot at and they capture him. All right. One part I was thinking about here and I might be overthinking this because I've just seen too much cartel shit in the past. Guys lived out in the foothills for a long time. Like you said, he's got health problems as well. He's been the most powerful cartel person in Mexico for a while now. He's got this whole compound set up with all his soldiers there. He's got the second place where it's the country club where he's got a main residence that he can get to.

And it's foothills. So you can dig through shit. How the hell did he not have some sort of tunnel dug or something like that? Some sort of escape valve, if you will. I don't know. And I was actually trying to look for shit like that. Yeah. I went into every single house here and everything was wide open.

Actually, all the lights were on in all of the houses. Well, it was dark out when the firefights started. They had to see, right? So, I don't know. That's inside right there. Yeah, and I do have to say that some of these houses that had like broken windows or shell casings in them that did not smell like gunpowder, but I don't know, I got there two days after, I guess. They were not being inhabited. Like people weren't living there, okay?

And I'll tell you why, because I mean, I'm. I mean, you can fucking tell. Like, the, the curtains were, like, just covered in dust, but not, like, dust of, like, there was a firefight. But just, like, you know, when you go to, like, it's a, like, some place where no one's lived for a while and it's, like, a canvas curtain. And then all the white dust, like, is on you. That literally, I have that in, on the video. Can we pull up Katz Instagram that she put up? I don't know if I have, like, because I have it in video, the long form episode that's going on.

Right. But you at least put, like, some of the same. Okay, so, okay, wait, go back to that website you were on. No. So you were showing a house, go to a house that you showed? Right there. That one. So if this house, okay, is where I shot this video you guys are about to see.

So what this is in the compound, this is one of the soldiers' homes. Allegedly where some of his men were saying. So this video, yes, is in there. Okay. Let's get some volume on this bad boy. See what we got. Go ahead. Hide out houses and you can see these.

So these are 50 caliber shawls But there's absolutely no damage in this house At all I don't know It just looks kind of weird to me Like oh they were defending themselves And there was a massive shootout You walk through

All the windows were intact There's more casings over there There's not a single bullet hole There's not a zero shattered window And four of us spent hours trying to find something. We're in one of the hide-out houses and you can see the... This wasn't just like, oh, I just took a glance, okay?

I was fucking like, we were looking to disprove, you know, that there's no... No bullet holes in a place filled with bullet cases. And then go back to the photo of that house. So you see that little garage right there, bottom left? There's a white Jeep parked in there with the keys in there, by the way. I turned on the car. there's on that driveway there's a shit ton of 50 cal casings that car is there is not not a dent in that car not a dent and then the front license plate of the car is removed and so then at first glance

you're like oh that's a narco vehicle and one of the guys i was with was like look there's no license plate i go no look in the top left of the windshield there's a license plate right there all right let's let's play this out so to review lives up in the foothills There's helicopters reported by everyone who lives in the area the day before, two helicopters circling. That night or in the mid-morning the next morning, suddenly Mexican military comes up through the hills in the forest, if you will. Alarms obviously go off or, you know, they're signaled such that his men come down from the cabins and there's allegedly this firefight with bullets and grenades right there down in the forest slash on the road to get up into the compound. They try to get cirrhosis Almencho out of his place into the country club across. And you can see from this photo, do you see that hill, like how it's slanted like that?

It's all like steep hills to walk through there. So yeah, so cirrhosis Almencho was running through that. And by the way, actually, here's a good question while I go through this. Where is the, is his compound up to the right here? It'll be to the left. To the left. Now the smoke, what is that? That's part of the fire.

So obviously, so it's alleged that he ran through a path in that foresty area to get to the country club house. Okay. So they allege that when he was running on that path, they shot him and the men around him. And then the Mexican military during this firefight of which they lost 25 people. They were able to get him onto an aircraft and on that aircraft. His three men that they brought on there with him and him died. Yes. Okay. You go into this house though.

And it's littered with 50. shell casings but there's no bullet holes there's no bullet holes there's no damage to the car down below all of those windows i checked the wooden doors and you know people were saying to me they're like it's because you don't understand how houses are made in mexico you know they're not using shitty materials not to fucking withstand a 50 cow it's no it's what's it what no it's all good what's it a fucking metal house no it's not yeah exactly so so anyways that being said that being said in front of these cabins so between where the cabins start and where the forest ends, there's this big kind of open, kind of like a parking lot.

Okay? There, there was all of these personal belongings littered everywhere. Clothes, food remnants. There was like a little barbecue, a bunch of food stuff. Like everything was just littered there. There's a truck, a pickup truck parked there and a little motorcycle. That pickup truck and that motorcycle had no bullet holes on them. There was they were in perfect condition and you video this for your long form I did we can actually go to that video

I have it on my Instagram but then on that truck there's this little smear of blood which what which video that one no you can see the truck behind me some volume cool so this is that I have to the location in the palpa halisco where Almencho was captured a few days ago this is literally the house he was staying at I'm outside of it right now it wasn't this seems to be an area right in front of the house where his ponderos, his lookouts, were looking out. They were camping out here to keep an eye out. There's towels and food remnants, sheets, and then there's a truck here in a motorcycle

and you can see there's actually blood on this truck. So behind me right there is the forest area. It looks like the military came through kind of like this way. All of this forest in front of me is burned. Even some of it's still smoldering. But I'm seeing bullet shell casings everywhere. Obviously the blood.

and then remnants that shit really hit the fan here. One thing I'm seeing... This is me in that house. I've seen some blood here and there. A lot of 50 cow sholkeys. Yeah, yeah, someone else. Is there any? There's some right here.

You see the Jeep behind me. You guys can see there. Over here. There's a vehicle behind me. It doesn't have front plates, but the plates are still right there. It's also not an armored car by any means, not bulletproof.

there's absolutely no damage to this house but there are 50 caliber shell casings everywhere and yet all of the walls the windows the vehicles are completely intact I just arrived to the location all right so this is what I'm getting at that's the story we've been told you're clearly finding things that do not line up at all

and I'm not trying to be like conspiracy it just looks weird it's inarguable there's a bunch of bullet casings with no whole no blood and the house looks like it's on lift. So who were they shooting at? So what? They had the front door open and they were just boom, kill, boom, kill. Right.

What do you have a fucking sharpshooter in that house? So what do you think happened? I don't know, but let me go pee first. Then I'll give you my theories. All right, we'll be right back. When Deef and I were in Europe a couple months ago, we did a lot of walking. Ain't that right, Thief? Oh, yeah.

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Hit that down there. When Ragginbone asks you where you heard about them, please support our show and tell them I sent you. All right. So back to it. What, again, this is pure speculation. You were able to at least see the scene though. You've been there. You know things are out of line.

I agree with what you found. It's out of line. It looks weird, right? Whatever the story is, we know it's not what they're telling us. So just a guess, if you had to piece it together, what do you think might have actually happened to you? Okay, I'm going to run through various ideas of what could have possibly happened in certain theories. And I'm not saying, you know, like I 100% believe.

any of them and I'm also not like discrediting any of them this is just certain possibilities okay so first and something that could be very realistic is that yes this operation went down exactly the way the Mexican government is telling us and they captured and killed him but then they also wanted it to look more powerful and interesting than it really was and so they scattered some 50-Cal and made it look like, you know, they went through this fucking war to get him, which is why they then left this area wide open for the press to just walk on and completely contaminated and do whatever we wanted to there. That's a possibility.

A second possibility is that he, that nothing happened at this area that I was at, and it maybe all went down at the country club. And so why would they stage this area? What's the difference between it going down? So that the press could go in there and show people that the Mexican military did this huge operation without actually going to the real crime scene. So they didn't let people to the country club? No. So, oh, let me give you some context about that. So I tried to go to the country club twice.

So Reuters was able to get into that main house on the country club. And I'm pretty sure they were the only outlet that was able to get in there. That's sketchy. When I got to the country club entrance, there are basically like cassetas, like, what do you call that? Like, every time I come on your podcast, I feel like Hilaria Baldwin, like trying to. So long. I'm serious. It's so embarrassing.

I didn't see that coming. That was really good. But there's like the little, you know, like the boxes with the person in it and you like, you talk to them and you're like hey like uh can you it has like the arm like you know when you go through like a paid toll highway yes and you have to like hand the money to the woman in like the little box and then the arm lifts up yeah so they have that what do you call that in english that was fine i don't even know what you call that trail bridge i have no fucking idea anyways like the little so that they have deep but not just talking shit over here today but you're not paying to get into

this country anyways so it's basically like the security what do you guys fucking... I'm not. It's all him. He's just like, he's on one today. Anyway, the Hilaria Baldwin really got him for some reason. Yeah, that was good. Let's get Alec Baldwin on the podcast. I keep forgetting that one. I feel like that'd be fun. Yeah. I want to know what happened. Oh my God. That was a very sad story. It was very sad. Anyways, so they have a few of those boxes with like security and then the arms so you can't just drive right in.

When I pull up to it on the first day, uh, there's no one. in any of those boxes and all the arms are down. And you basically have to press on the intercom and someone will talk to you to let you in. But, and there were no police, no military there, but there were two, at least two very visible cartel lookouts that were right in front. Yeah.

And so one of the guys that I was with, because I had hired some people to come with me, I know like everyone always gives me shit for doing stuff alone. I did not do this assignment alone. Yeah. Thank God. It just, there was no way. By the way, a quick little side path.

Sorry to get you off. But when you go to do something like this, even if you hire a few people, aren't you worried that like if you go there and... Oh, I know that the people aren't like by any means a security blanket. It's just in terms of like the gathering and the workflow just makes it easier because I'm not doing everything alone and all. And it also just makes me more anxious being alone. So, yeah. And I was doing it alone a lot. But now I, you know, to gather all of this content, I need to have a team.

So you see the two cartel lookout guys. Yeah. And like one of the guys I'm with kind of starts panicking. And I'm like, don't worry. They're not going to do anything to us. Let's just drive up. And I drove for a lot of this trip. And you'll see that in the content, which is like not ideal for filming.

But I, you know, like woman on top. If I'm not doing it, like someone's going to do it wrong type of thing. Right. So I'm like, we can just drive up. We drive up. And the cartel lookouts don't say or do anything. But intercom is like, no, we have no press. is allowed in. It's an order from the government. You can't come in. Okay. We leave.

Go to the cabins. The next day, I'm like, let's try again. And the people I'm with are like, there's no way. When did the Reuters guys get in there? Was it the day before? Were you able to talk to anyone from their team who got in there? No. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. And so basically, the next day I take out cash and I'm like let's go in um it's Mexico it's Mexico I ate one in Mexico you know it's funny because when I first started in journalism they're like never pay never gift gifts it goes against like journalistic standard practices and I'm like well I don't think that really applies to covering cartels okay I think I agree with you yeah there's certain area where it's like I'm not interviewing the mayor of fucking small town

Virginia here. You got to give them a taste, you know? So we go back and there's a bunch of military blocking it off. The next day. Yeah. So. When you say a bunch of military, we're talking like 20, 30 guys? No, no, no.

But there was some elements of military and it was just, it was a no-go zone. And those guys are really stern on that and they don't like to be filmed and it's like a whole thing. So I was like, you know what? Let's not even try. Let's go. I also like, I like, I didn't have enough. cash to pay all of them. I'm being facetious, guys.

So, yeah. So anyways, we leave, and there was just no way for us to get into that country club. Now, another thing that could have happened, another theory, is that El Muncho has already been dead. And I interviewed a lot of people who, this is what they, belief in Mexico. El Mancho has been dead for a while. El Sero-3 has been in El Mancho's position for a while, which is also probably why infighting didn't break out. And in order to please the United States government so that they chill with their lists of people that they want,

CG&G came to an agreement with the Mexican government and said, look, you can get the U.S. off your back. Everyone will stay on our payroll. You let us continue operating as normal, but you guys can say that you took out menschle. But at the same time, what evidence or proof was given to the U.S. government then, if that was already the case, to believe that he was killed. Maybe he already died at the compound and CG and the Mexican government came to an agreement that, hey, he's dying. So as soon as he dies, you guys can take credit and take his body. we this is the first time really ever that we haven't seen a picture of the body uh it was closed casket which i mean if he was golden casket yeah isn't it just like him michael jackson and like an egyptian

like king that have had that yeah i was it can we pull that up the almancho's casket oh gold casket and also did you see the bouquet of roses in the shape of a rooster because he was the seigneur of the roosters he went out cockfighting all right do we have it yeah there it is look at what a waste You're fucking burying gold Listen aside from a waste I think for a lot of Mexican families and people who were victims of extreme violence

by the cartels This is just an additional slap in the face You know You have this really ostentatious Funeral service Super luxurious And there's so many missing And murdered people

That were obviously at the hands of the cartel And Yeah no, I agree That's exactly It's forced in a slap in the face Yeah But also, I mean, can the Mexican government even do anything about that? Because he's dead.

His family's technically allowed to do what they want. When I was in Tapalpa, it was during this time where there was this back and forth between, this is going to sound crazy, back and forth between CJ and G and the Mexican government because they wanted his body repatriated to the family. And so CJ&G requested formally to the Mexican government, like I think through a lawyer, I'm not even joking. I know. Fucking Abogato's got to go in there and say, give me the body.

So there was like this letter sent, and I'm pretty sure the president said that it was fake. Mexican president said it was fake, but... See, Mencho's family requested his body. They said that if they don't get the body by X date and time, that all hell was going to break loose. Mexico didn't give the body. But nothing really happened. and then eventually they did allegedly give the body back. I think the reason, I mean, the reasoning here was obviously they didn't want to give the body

because they didn't want like a shrine to be built for him at the cemetery. You know, you've seen those photos and videos of the massive. So basically a mansion for a tombstone. Yes. And, you know, people will go there and like, it's glorified. So they'll pay their respects and they'll do whatever the hell. But anyways, so that's another theory. is that he was already dead or he was dying and there was this agreement to get the U.S.

off the back. But there had to obviously have been some sort of evidence for the U.S. to be satisfied with this operation. Now, okay, there's a lot going on there. I know. On the surface, that makes sense. That's a very interesting theory. And at first, that makes sense. And I think it would make the most sense that he wasn't dead for a while.

It would make the most sense that they waited until he literally drew his last breath. And they're like, all right, let's go. Yeah. So then at least they would have a body. Right. and a fresh body, if you will. A couple issues. Just I'm trying to poke holes in this to see what else there could be on the table if we're missing something.

That he faked his death. I wasn't even going to go there yet, but let's put a bookmark in that because that's possible. Okay. The fact that there was so much bloodshed that affected right down to civilians the next day, you would think something like that would have been a greet first. Something like this where the Mexican government is going to the most dangerous cartel and saying, All right, we're going to make a little deal. You guys are going to be allowed to operate.

We're going to give a pound of flesh when your guy dies to the U.S. Trump's going to be happy. And then, you know, you go your way. We go our way. The fact that they would make that deal and a part of that deal would say, yeah, and, you know, there's going to be a lot of violence the next day, too, and you're going to kill a lot of civilians. But just make sure you cut it after day. That seems like a bridge too far.

That's actually unnecessary. Really? How else would you sell it? Also, I'm pretty sure one civilian died the rest of them were National Guard. So that was all. Everything we were seeing was just National Guard, even though they were shooting up all these public places. Yeah, yeah. Only one civilian died.

Yeah. That's actually somewhat impressive. Is that? That's true? Yeah. Can we check that? Yeah. That's crazy.

And then also. So they're sacrificing their own military guy like, yeah, we know you're going to have to come back at us and hit us. I mean, you know, maybe it went too far. Maybe that wasn't part of, you know, this is all hypothetical. Can we just say that? Because I don't want people to be like she sounds like fucking Candice Owen's talking about Charlie Kirk. So. Okay.

Based on reports following the death of Halisco, New Generation Cartel leader, El Meno, at least 73 people died in resulting violence and military, which was lower than I thought. While the total death toll exceeded 70, the majority of these fatalities were identified as cartel members and security forces. Initial reports from authorities and news outlets mention at least one confirmed civilian death. You're right. And that's another thing. Like, 73 bodies is a lot, by the way. I don't want to minimize that. It is.

It seemed a lot worse with the imagery we were seeing and here and about place, the airport being shut down. Isn't that kind of the point? Isn't that kind of the point? Yeah. Oh my God. Right. I see what you're saying.

Get a good angle. Send it to the U.S. I got you. Okay. And I think that, fuck, I'm going to get so canceled for this, but I mean. It's all right. The president is so, like, really standing down on

we are a Mexico is a sovereign nation Shine bomb yeah that yeah we'll do whatever it takes so that US doesn't launch a unilateral operation yeah this this gets into

other recent events too there's kind of some overlap here so maybe we should bring this in you had a Delta Force mission to extract the leader of a sovereign country on January 2nd because of drugs

Okay, Venezuela moves drugs We know that Compared to Mexico They move three baggies And a fucking eight ball Yeah All right Like it's not even

It's nothing It's a drop But we've declared Terror organizations To our neighboring country That's even closer than Venezuela And we haven't

Invaded there to You know Go boom boom boom On all these guys Exactly It feels like You know Maybe I got a little

Timful of hat on here but it feels like there's some sort of tacit agreement to the PR campaign that that is, meaning a tacit agreement between Shinebaum and Trump, where it's like, we're going to say all this shit, we're going to declare them, terrorist organizations, whatever, you help us out, you know, maybe give us a bound of flesh once in a while so we can market it to the public. But like, we're not going to come in there. We're not going to actually do like what we did in Afghanistan or something like that. And I also think because logistically, like the proximity obviously of U.S. to

If there were U.S. boots on the ground, it obviously increases the chance that there's going to be some sort of retaliation against Americans. This was one thing that was really pissing me off. I'm not going to lie, when I was seeing how people in Puerto Vallada, people, you know, on vacation Americans and Canadians who were like, I'm in the middle of a war zone. And it's like, shut up and drink your piniacalata. They're not going to fucking kill you. Like, be so for real right now. Like, are you with the cartel? Are you with the Mexican government? You probably couldn't even name the fucking secretary of national security of Mexico. Nobody goes a fuck about you, John. Literally. And they're all like on Instagram. Like, oh my God. It's like, shut up.

Yeah. So anyways, that, and then President Sinnbaum's response was also just like really weird to me because as all of this was going on like the chaos, every morning she does her morning press conference. And this was probably like her most viewed one. ever i'm pretty sure um and she just gets up there and she's like everyone remained calm like we have control no need to panic it'll all be okay and he's gone like if i was shinbaum and i you know like i seriously stand by this i would have went up there and been like mencho died like a dog

you know like i'll like daddy i would have been like mencho died like a dog this is the future of a sovereign and liberated Mexico. This is war against the cartels. And we want all of you who hate the cartels. All of you who have missing and murdered family members. All of you who have been victims of these people banned together. We're fucking taking them on. And we have the support of the United States government.

This is going to be the new beginning, the end of drug cartels. If I could see it her way for one second, she'd be dead before she got off the stage if she did that. And they'd be like, okay, time for her to go. Like that's the shitty thing They have such inroads to every They are the ultimate parasite I know They have inroads

I mean you've done some amazing interviews With guys where it's so clear Like you're talking about like the governor of the region And it's like well he's on the fucking payroll Dude they're like they don't even hide it They don't even hide it So actually though actually you want to This is crazy

Oh please um when I was in I'm not gonna say exactly where I don't want to get in trouble but one of the regions that I was in when I was reporting on this, I went out one night just like kind of touring the town in the middle of the night to see what was going on. And there was a local politician and he was soliciting a hooker. That's it?

Yeah. That was news? Take that out. Fine. No, it was fine. It was good. We don't take those things out. It was a funny joke.

A politician getting a hooker. I know, it's common. Revolutionary. Okay, sorry. I'm going to get so much hate for that now. Can you get the, on Twitter, Dief, there's a video of Claudia Shinebaum talking about the human rights of the cartel.

Okay, but to be fair in her defense, unlike her predecessor, Amlo, I think that's a deep. Who he was always saying, like, Abbasosos, no ballasos, hugs, not bullets. She's never explicitly said, Abrazzas no ballazos. Okay.

All right. So if necessary, we'll mobilize. We don't want taxes on reminiscent. No, no. I'm sorry, not that one. But I think that's the right press conference. Do Shinebomb... Oh, wait, wait.

What does that one say? Oh, no. She's talking about electoral reform. Okay. Here it is. Yes. Yes. Here we go.

Yeah, where she's talking about going to... Oh, she goes. We got mad that this was getting shared after the Almencho thing because she said things change and this was in the past. Oh, this was before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this wasn't following. Everyone was sharing it like it was following. Well, then you know what? Let's not do that.

If this was before and she's changed her tune on that, then. Yeah, this was before. And she was basically what she was saying was, you know, we don't want to go to war. It wasn't hugs, not bullets, but it was a similar kind of cringe. Yeah, it was like they have rights to. You can't just go after them. And actually, if I could steal man that for a second, it's just a little weird to talk about it in Mexico because it's like, oh, suddenly we care about individual rights, right? Yeah.

But what she's saying is because they are technically citizens of Mexico, they deserve a fair trial. The argument against that is they own the fucking courts. They own the cops. They own the government. There's no such thing as a fair. Like, you have to, the U.S. declared them terror groups, easy for us to do because it's. It's not our country, right? You may need to do something like that internally and put language in such a declaration that

does not set precedence such that you can do it to lesser people in the future. Many people that aren't cartel just because you don't like them. Like criminals you want to go after, you just anytime you see a criminal eventually, you could be like he's a terrorist, therefore they have no rights. I understand the precedent. But like, when you have such a strong, long demonstrated history of these groups wreaking havoc across your country and on every environment and community they're around, you might need to do something a little different than like, hey, you know, let's just let the courts handle it.

Another way her policy contradicts itself is that when she's saying the human rights stuff and going by, you know, legalities over the course of the last year, there have been, I think, like four, maybe five at this point, expulsions of Mexican few. to the United States and it was not done under the extradition treaty, which was the policy outlined so that when these fugitives, like for example, when El Chapo was extradited to the U.S., he cannot face the death penalty under the policy of the extradition treaty. Whereas over the last couple of year, over the last year, when these, the same thing happened, these fugitives were expelled from Mexico to the U.S. to face Mexican justice system. It was not done under the extradition. treaty so they were at risk i guess of facing the death penalty how's that legal uh they're they're internationally wanted fugitives and so they committed crimes against americans so america has the right to request for them to face court an american court um and so the paperwork was done in order to send them to the u.s but it was not they were not extradited they were expelled and and

transferred to the u.s none of them got the death penalty not even Caro Quintero who was responsible for the death of DEA and Kiki Kamarena. But a lot of people believed, oh, he's going to get, you know, he's going to get the death penalty. Oh, that's where I was thinking of earlier. One of the five guys, you showed me the last guy, the younger-looking one with the long hair. Literally looks like the dude who played Caro Cantaro. Oh, really? In Narcos.

I didn't notice that. I'm like, I feel like we already got the actor for Narco Season 3. I think Narcos Season 3 is going to be crazy. Yeah, listen, you know like fucking the Netflix execs. And the Narcos production team was watching this. And it was like the scene in the office for the like, everyone remain calm. It's happening. Like, let's fucking do it.

For sure. But they should. It would be different if they're doing something as it's unfolding. Yeah. Right. So they do a season that's covering like all this shit that just happened. And then like shit's continue. I mean, I'm not rooting for violence and everything.

But obviously like it's kind of chaos a little bit. Yeah. There may be more chaos to come probably. Hope there's not. Probably will be. Hope there's not too. And then like season two can be like, yo, they're writing it while they're watching the new.

It was like, oh shit. Yeah, because it's not like back in the day where they were like talking about fucking Amado Carriyo and stuff like that. Yeah. You know, that's already done. But it's happening in real time now. All right. So our possible theory is that he was dying or already dead. And this was a pound of flesh for, you know, some underground, you know, handshake agreement to be like, you do your thing.

We do ours. Everyone's happy. Let's move on. What about the other theory? brought up, which is that he faked his own death. Is there anything to that? The thing is, I think really what's to that is that he's done it so many times before. His son-in-law did it. Um, he's been known to fake his own death. Uh, and that's part of him being the type of guy who lays under, you know, lays under the radar. Chapo never faked his death that I know of. Um, and so,

and sometimes it was very believable. Um, we've seen people literally go on the record and be like, years ago and be like, yeah, he's he's dead. I think he's dead. I was actually up until probably just maybe eight months ago was still getting messages of people being like, do you think he's dead or alive? When you say people like sources in the cartel? No, no, random people. People in the cartel, yeah, no. Well, I know because I know sometimes you do talk to people, doesn't mean they're in the room with them or anything, but like I'd be curious to know if there were rumors among actual Sikarios or guys like that who might have been saying even from other factions like from the Chapitos or something like yeah I think he might be dead that'd be pretty interesting so the rumors that I've heard

from certain sources within the cartels and especially in this region were that he was dying I feel like that person in those movies where it's like you know you're like all strung out and you have all the pictures on the wall with like um threads connecting it's like the Charlie from always sunny meme yeah he's like yeah exactly Exactly. That's what I feel like, but I'm, I don't want it to sound like I'm crazy. It's just that after being there and considering the context of everything I know surrounding this, it's weird. And the fact that that chaos broke out, you know, it only happened for one day. I know it's obviously not great. But when I saw this news, when it broke, I was like, oh, fuck, so many people are going to die and so many people are going to lose their livelihoods. Like, it's going to be like what happened in Sinola. And then it stopped. And there was nothing. Right.

Now, what was that stuff? Because you were flying in, like when it was stopping, I guess. What was that stoppage like? Like, they had shut down a lot of shit. As you laid out earlier, it was pretty much just cartel and military guys killing each other. It wasn't as much civilians, but people were still spooked in these areas. When it stopped, it was it like cockroaches just scattering off the street? And then everyone's like, oh, we're back to normal now?

Yeah. Like, there was no more burning buses in the middle. of the streets and narco blockades. And so it was difficult for me because like, obviously on the day the chaos broke out, I couldn't get from Mexico City to Guadalajara to Halisco because there were narco blockades all across the highways and the airports were closed in Halisco. So I was reaching out to people and I had people like, thank you to some of the subscribers that were like, I have a small aircraft I can try to get you in. But it was just I didn't know. what to expect from the situation.

And then all of a sudden, everything opened up like normal. I got there. And all I saw was remnants of the burned buses all along the highways. But there were no more burning buses. There were no more narco blockades. I mean, sure, there were punteros, cartel lookouts everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. And do they know, do a lot of them know who you are?

I would hope not. I mean, because I report in English, I feel like that I have a little bit of, what's the word? Anonymity? Yeah, I guess. I don't know, though, because now you've broken some serious stories. You know, you've been on Sean Ryan show. Like, I don't know if I would assume that. I do know that I am tracked in Mexico.

By them? God knows who. What do you mean, tracked? A lot of people know where I'm at, know what flights I'm taking. Um, and, but I don't know if like down to the very bottom of like a cartel lookout who's really not making that much money and is like on their motorcycle just the person who's like alerting if, you know, there's some sort of military action or whatever, I don't think those guys recognize me. Um, and they saw me because like I was driving through and I'm going up the windy roads to like cartel strongholds to see what it's like. And they're like looking at you in the car. Like she's back. No, I just said they're, oh, pretty girl.

Like, that's it. Like, what's what is she doing here, you know? Okay. I don't think, I think if I did stuff in Spanish and, like, more frequently, then, yeah, then it would be a problem. But I'm always, like, with, like, American outlets and stuff. I just thought of something. What?

From a couple of minutes ago. I don't know why I just started this was what you were saying. So, just to go back for a minute. He said there's three options. It's either he's dead and it just didn't go down as they said. He's dead, but he was. really dying and it was just a deal made with the government or he faked his death what about the fourth door what if it was a quiet overthrow you mentioned that in the literally excel spreadsheets

you can see the cicarius are basically paid in like fucking you know they're being given like a box of trojans that's it you know so what if what if enough people quietly got together and said, you know, one of the three guys we were talking about, we'll get behind you. Let's fucking give this guy up quietly to the government and act like we didn't, by the way. I don't know. I don't know. And it would have had to have the agreement with the Valencia family, Los Queenies. It would have had to have that. Yeah, it would have had to have that. But I mean, you never know. Maybe because what's set, what we're told is that he was tracked through this woman that he was seeing.

Yeah. Was she actually like an only fan's mind? or something? No, oh my God. That was like fake news, right? No, dude, that was stressing me out because all the images were AI. But people were fully going viral for posting random Mexican only fan girls and they were like going on live crying being like, I don't know him like I wasn't fucking him. And that's, dude, they were putting targets on those girls' backs. Like that was very dangerous. And I was talking with someone about then. They're like, well, who cares? And I was like, well, how could you not? What if someone did that to me?

What if someone it was like, oh, well, actually, Katerina Schultz was going, that would. Yeah. Oh, my God. Absolutely not. That's crazy. So, no, it wasn't. From what we can tell, it was actually a very age appropriate woman who was seeing him and she came from a very rich family. I mean, Menthal clearly had something where he could just date really rich women.

But that's, again, that's based on the story they're telling us. Oh, yeah. We tracked them here or there. And that's coming from the U.S. side on the intelligence op. Wait, explain that. Because the U.S. gathered all of the intelligence and handed it to Mexico in a silver platter and said, all right, now go get them. Yeah, that's something, I agree with you. Something's, even without talking about the scene itself, which we know something's off there.

Well, so I'm always like when I go into these things, like I'm a very critical person. You know this, right? So it's like, that's time I'm a journalist. Ask all the questions. doesn't add up, whatever. And I try to be really logical and rational about these things and not to get, you know, in over my head. And you've noticed that because even when I talk on your podcast, like sometimes if I do say

something that may sound crazy to some people, it typically ends up being right because I do try to rationalize. With this, you know, I was trying to do that, whatever. And I went in, honestly under the impression that, yeah, the operation happened and he was killed. But I still had these questions in the back of my mind. And we weren't getting any answers. And I thought it was weird that we never saw the body.

I thought it was weird that there was no infighting. And then I got there and I'm like, something doesn't add up, like, at all. It is so weird. And the first person I fucking talked to when I got to Tapalpa was like, yeah, we all were kind of freaking out something was weird because on Saturday of all the plane like the two planes flying above. Yeah. It's also and this is where because I do all different types of content here, right? And I'm always looking at all these different places where it's like you right now are very focused on that area of the world and cartels and stuff and you're doing your job covering. What is a major story? But I'm, I've always been obsessed with news cycles and how they're used for political purposes. Dude, and this news cycle has been just demented. these with these Epstein file things that

happened the latest drop is the one that happened on January 30th and that was the fucking boogeyman one that people will not let go righteously so because it's some of the worst shit I've ever seen and this is such a problem for the whole government huge problem huge distraction they're freaking out about it

and in a span of three days we saw the reports coming out including on this podcast from John Kyriaku straight from the White House, which he turned out to be right about. He's about three days ahead. But we saw reports coming out that they're going to start the war with Iran, which is not our war. We saw the night before that, that Thursday, the 19th, Trump come out and announced that he wants the Pentagon to redact the UFO files. They're literally giving us fucking aliens, like to try to get our mind off this stuff. And then we see El Mancho

taken out on Sunday with U.S. intelligence. And I'm like, to me, if that is how it went down, even if it's not how it went down on the actual final like boom boom boom shooting that happened it's like they knew where he was forever and they had that in the back pocket and they're like yeah well we really need to change the story oh cartels look violence crazy look at the pictures you know get people's minds off it to distract from other things and i cannot help but think this is one small pebble in that fucking skip on the on on on the top of of the water to just try to get people to watch that instead of look over here and see what's really going wrong I don't know. I don't know if I agree with that.

I think that a lot of things can happen at once. It's pretty interesting that three major things would happen. I've been getting a lot of comments, like what you're saying right now. But I think that there's just a lot going on. It could be. It could be. Also, like in terms of the Epstein thing, I think it's just enough that they just have been releasing it in small doses, microdosing the public. And everyone kind of just at a certain point gets really desensitized to stuff like that.

and it gets brushed under the rug no matter what. I don't even think they need to drop some big thing in order for the public to just not really do it. I would disagree after this last one. And again, I'm more in it. But like... You are more in it than me. This last one, these documents are some of the worst shit

I've ever seen in my life. And it... The volume of righteously so, public outrage after this latest drop on January 30th went up by a scale of 20x. People are going to hate me for this, but like that's, I can't look at that stuff. I like, you know, I saw like bits and pieces and then there was like one thing that I was like, okay, anytime I see something related to these files, I can't. What was that?

It was like a, it was just really violent and just really bad. That type of stuff really bugs me. And I think I've said this on your podcast before. Like, I would rather be murdered than raped. And like, there's so much like rape. and kids and stuff. Yeah. And I hate to be that person.

Like I've always been like, I'm not ignorant, you know? And even if it's painful, you have to look at it. You have to be informed. But some of it is so vile. Like I, I just can't Julian. No, I understand. And that also says a lot that you're like, I can't with this. Like that should say a lot of bad shit.

And like, you see awful shit. Like first person. First person. Like in front of me. Yeah. Yeah. But I can. And you're making my point for me.

Like this is how visceral. That latest one is. Yeah. I mean, it's just, I've said this, but it's such a red line for me. Like, I mean, it was a red line already before this. But now that you have some proof or at least hardcore smoke around the fire at the very least, needing some of the most monstrous shit, there's something about, sorry, I'm choking on water right. I can see that.

But this news cycle has been crazy. I mean, like what January alone felt like I literally alone felt like I, lived like 30 years because I went from fucking Colombia, Venezuela to Ukraine, to the northern border, to Mexico. Like, I was just like a hooker's panties. Like, I was just everywhere. And it was following the news cycle. And then now people are like, are you going to Iran?

And I'm like, guys, I, there's a fucking line. And you know what? I haven't slept. Yeah. Like, there's only, you can stay away from Iran. And I don't, yeah, there's. I don't think you'd do well there. Why?

because I'm a woman? Also, you're not American, you're Canadian, but you know what I mean? You're coming from this part of the world and it's... And they don't know... There's rockets going in there right now. And a lot of the parts of like the world, they don't know the difference between Canadian and American and impossible, basically, to identify yourself. Exactly.

But let's... I want to talk about some of the things you've been doing, which is pretty wild. But before we get there, I want to make sure we get through the whole CJ and G stuff. So we got our theories on what it could be. there is a power vacuum right now, but based on what we're thinking it could just be for show. And they already have someone who's very clearly in charge. Have we seen since the violence died down between the military and the CJNG factions the day after, have we had major reports of serious violence from within the cartel world?

Yeah, but adversarial cartels, not from within CG and G. So they're not shooting at each other. No. That tells me they've had it figuring out. Exactly. Okay. And you don't figure that out one night to the next. No, you don't.

Come on. Now, did El Mancho, is there evidence that El Mancho? He handpicked who was it going to be. We do know that. Yeah. And which, do we know who he handpicked? It's El Cereux, the stepson. Okay.

And I'm sure that that was also upon the recommendation of his ex-wife, Rosalinda. Right. So no one's going to fuck with that choice. You got the Mexican Kennedy's behind it. You got the guy who found it the whole thing and was dead behind it. That's where the money is. That's where the money is. He's been on both sides of the border.

Okay. He's a very strategic choice for sure. Now, what is the deal with the Chapitos and CGNG? God damn it. You said it right. You did. You said CG and G. All right, whatever.

You get the point. What is the deal in the wake of El Mancho between those two? Oh, that alliance stays alive. It's... So they're not hitting each other. Okay. from what I've seen so far over the course of this week

nothing has really changed Yeah, it's an inside job It just doesn't It doesn't add up like I know cartels Like this is what I study Yeah And the fact that the leader is taken out We should see fucking three different guys

Vying for power There should be a war in Sakatecas There should be a war in Veracruz There should be a war in a low Well there already is but you know what I mean There should be Michikan and Halisco right now And Colima Should just be balls to the wall

And they're not. No. Yeah. Yeah, that's a setup. But when I was in Colima, there was like, the day I got there, there was a narco banner put up. And there's obviously some sort of infighting going on in there between like, but I'm pretty sure it's it doesn't have to do with the CJ&G. It has. Where was this?

In Colima, which is the neighboring state with Halisco. There was a narco banner put up and they were naming, it named all of the politicians who are on the payroll. And that's a tactic of infighting because one group is funding those politicians. So the other group will name them to call out that group. Right. And they use them as like a proxy, right? Yeah, they know that that's not our guys, leave them out to burn. Yeah.

I got you. But it's certainly there's, there isn't anything right now that's indicating, oh my God, CGNG is up in flames. I mean, you remember I came here right after I was reporting in Sinaloa after Almayo was gone. It was a fucking war zone. It should show. Yeah. I literally got off the airport and we're driving. And it's just bodies and bodies and military just boom, boom.

Like at night no one's going out. There's a curfew. No, kids can't go to school a lot of the days. Every night I'm being alerted of shootouts and narco blockades and we're going to cover it. And then in the morning it's just like bodies upon bodies. That's infighting. Yes. And we're not seeing any of that right now. No.

Yeah. Man, I had one of the best, like, brunches of my life in Tapalpa. I was literally sitting on the patio smoking and eating my freaking chilequiles and just, I felt like I was on vacation. And Guadalajara is fine. Not fine. Okay. Like, I don't want to. I understand.

You know what I mean, though. But, like, considering the context. And I want people to keep that in mind because some of the listeners are not very critical sometimes where it's like, when I say, oh, it's all fine and dandy. It doesn't necessarily mean, oh, you know, you're in fucking Maui, but it just considering the context of the environment, right? Yes. You hate when I insult your. No, I think I think you're funny. Thanks.

Unintentionally sometimes, but that's pretty good. So you, but when you first went down there, like when you were first coming on the show back in 265, you know, you had gone down there to cover Sinolaa. And again, you're covering it like in the wake of, like you said, O'Mio having that whole very still by. He was still, by the way, actually, before I asked this, do we have updates on that? Yeah, it was it was set up by the Chapitos. They betrayed him, sold him out to the U.S. He was, they set him up, he was kidnapped and brought into the U.S. Was he CIA?

I don't know. Is it quite possible, though? I don't know. You asked me this about every single kingpin. It's so hard for me to say. He's such a prime target, though, for that. But aren't they all? They are, but he operated so quietly.

and so simply through all the ups and downs with El Chapo and everything and was really like the dude and El Chapo's like kind of more the public figure, if you will, for so long and he goes so far back. I think he went the longest without being captured, right? Yes. Another actually, glad you brought this up. I did read someone's kind of like opinion piece about how they think that the Chapitos actually sold out Mencho because since the alliance, they were privy to more information about him.

And because, you know, all the Chapitos essentially are in the U.S. at this point, except for Ivan Archibald, who, by the way, crazy that Ivan has outlasted everyone, okay? Outlasted wedding. Outlasted Mendoza. Like, man. Because Ivan has been like number one target and he's like always just in Sinolao and there have been so many failed operations where they, oh, we almost got him.

But there was like this hidden tunnel. And it's like every like it's literally happened like I think like three times now, which is crazy. Yeah, that's I just think it's crazy. But like what the fuck? But I don't know. But what? CIA? Yeah, with Amayo.

I just, it, the whole thing with him is very, very sketchy. You always asked me this. I don't know. And I don't want to like make an opinion because I'm not. Of course. No, I don't want you to do that. I think people actually appreciate that I don't do that. Yes, they do.

Don't make shit up. No, I never do. And if I'm wrong, I admit it. I actually, I was wrong about something this year. What was that? I said, I'll make you guys a bet. I don't think Ryan Wedding is ever going to see a cell. That was one thing.

We're going to come to that story. Hold that thought because there was, that's another one that's like kind of interesting. I know all the ins and outs of that story. Okay. I just not, I'm not entirely sure what I can say publicly about that. Okay. We'll go through it slow. But if people had known or were able to know what I know, yeah, whatever.

I got you. But like there's that guy I've told you about before who I got connected to a while ago through a cartel dude who's like definitely still in CIA. But like one of those 50 year guys who made his bones the first 20 some years of his career, he got into CIA as a knock in Mexico where they embedded him with the cartels with the Felix Ariano brothers. Yeah. Is that right? Arellano Felix. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, he's very cagey. I've been, we've, like, he wants to do the podcast and we've been talking about it for like a year and a half, but he's always going to some fucking third world country to overthrow

government. Like his company just shows up there. It's like him and like. But he's willing to do this with his face? Yeah. Yeah. No way. I call bullshit.

He's not in CIA anymore. He's, but he. I feel like you never actually leave the CIA. That's what I agree. Unless you're like John Kyriaku and they like throw you in prison. Like, I don't think you leave. And, like, it's just funny because he's got it. He's got a company.

Shut up, Brian. He's got a company with, like, three other ex-spooky people from CIA and all these other places. And in the words of Luis Navia is, like, they show up in some third world country and six months later, the whole fucking government's overthrown. Who would have thought it, right? Right. But, no, it wasn't even Venezuela. It's usually, like, Africa or, like, countries never heard of.

Africa's not a country. But you know what I mean. I meant the countries in Africa. Do you know that a lot of your viewers love when I do that to you? I know. But, you know, that guy, now I'd really be burning to get him on because we know CIA has used cartels for their own whatever, forever. And like it's the ultimate like deal with the devil. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. But back to, we'll come to Ryan Wedding because I do want to go through all that. That shit was crazy. But with Sinolaola, because that was the initial, you were doing all those stories when you first got down there. And you've mentioned them today because you mentioned the Chapitos Alliance with one faction of CJ&G and everything. What is what's outside of that? Like, what's the status of them from a power perspective in Mexico at this point, given that El Mio and El Chapo are now gone. Honestly, I don't want to talk about who I think is winning that war because I got a death threat about that. Oh, no. Yeah.

Let's not do that. I know. And I, because I had talked about it and I was super open about it. Why did you, who, what kinds of people gave you death? Someone within that, within the faction that I said was not doing well. And so they hit you up personally instead of you don't shut up. It was, it was real. And I talked about this on a podcast like a few days ago or something.

They asked me if, you know, death threats. And I was like, I can identify when it's just like, you know, this empty threat of someone trying to scare me versus when it's something that I actually need to pay attention to. And unfortunately, I know that it impacts hopefully not the integrity of my job, but certainly the content of what I can say. But also like it's my life, right? Yes. And so there was, I did like receive a message and multiple people actually flagged it to me that there was bad like chatter about this. And that it some people were just unhappy that I was saying that like up basically what I thought was happening within this infighting.

So I'd just rather not give in... Yeah, definitely. Obviously. Yeah, no, no, no. And I'm actually happy to hear you talk like that because in the past I feel like you would have been like, you know what? Fuck it. But like you got to...

I think when you're doing a job like yours, first of all, there's not many people who do it. Secondly, like the stories you do get are insane. And like... But that's why? Because I've always kind of been fearless about it. But... There's a line.

Well, when the threat literally is like substantial, I mean, yeah, it sucks because I don't want to be scared out of saying the truth, but I just don't even think that this is worth it. I think anyone who's a critical thinker could look at the, that civil war, let's call it, and could form their own opinion. So, yeah, but I don't really just want to talk about that exactly. Yeah, no, we won't. Especially if I have to go back to Sinaloa at some point. That's what I'm saying. you have to make like and there could be people out there who are just they want to complain about anything and there there's always going to be people like that but you have to make like trade off decisions sometimes where it's like all right i want to do 100% right i want to get every

fucking thing i want to be able to say whatever i want if i do that i'm dead so would i rather be able to do 80% of what i want and continue to do the job and do it extremely effectively and for many years and actually help save lives and maybe change the trajectory of stuff and shut up about the other 20% so that I can do that and live. Yeah. Yeah. That's what you got to do. Yeah. And, but it was hard for me to accept that. You would, you know that. I understand. Because you know me. So it was like it, but it got to a point where I was like, yeah, that was the kind of the pay, like the, I had to accept that essentially. And it's, it is the right decision. So we'll stay off that. That's no problem. Because like, but there's still chaos basically, right? Oh, yeah.

It's still ongoing constantly. And I'm constantly being shown videos of someone in the Maisa faction or someone in the Chapitos faction being murdered or like the literal fucking gunfights within like the forest regions. How much of it is dragging on to civilians? I think right now, I mean, no, it comes to a head every now and then where there's like a really public shootout and you have like kids that just got out of school running for. their lives like taking shelter in some woman's home and, you know, it happens. But because also everyone's desensitized and because this has been going on for a while now, it doesn't, you know, make the headlines as much. It certainly doesn't make the headlines in here. I mean, in Mexico, I see it all the time. But everyone's very desensitized. And we talked about this. The desensitization of all that population

is at an extreme. I mean, I get it though. They've been living with it for decades. So long. It's what runs their country. Yeah, we had Carolina here and she's, her family's still there. Yeah.

And that was last June when you were here. And it's like, you know, we just take for granted how many of us, obviously we have some gang violence problems in this country and there's some places where people do live with some things like that. You go outside, you got a duck from bullets and that's horrible. But at the scale. scale that it is in Mexico.

Because in Mexico, it's a fucking like narco. It's everywhere. Government and economy. Yep. So how do you even separate that? You don't. Is there, I, don't ask me for a solution right now?

No, no, not a solution. It's like my least favorite question because you think if I had the answer? Like, we'd be talking? No. No. No. You'd be meeting with more important people.

But like, have you seen any slight improvement at all in the corruption? department. No. Yeah. It's still. Absolutely not. Every bit as bad as it was. Yeah. Probably if not even like worse now with this weird fucking conspiracy I have about Almancho. I don't think it's a weird conspiracy at all. You found that you found a stage scene. You know what? I when I was there, so on the first day I went to the cabins. Um, I went in like, oh my God, okay, we're going to be here. We're going to get this coverage and I'm going to show people what this is like. And at one I think my cameraman got it on camera. I was like pissed because I when I saw like the shell casings and like just the way the

scene looked, there's definitely like one scene to me where I'm just like, let's leave. Like what the fuck are we doing here? This is like this is such bullshit. And I started getting mad like the way sometimes you get mad on your podcast. Like I kind of crashed out. And my cameraman like at the team I was with, they were like, it's okay. we think the same thing. And then I spoke with some reporters that were also there

who are with like a legacy media outlet. And I was like, do you guys think I'm crazy? And they were like, no, we're thinking the same thing. Yeah. And I'm shocked they let you guys in there. There was no one to let us in. Yeah, yeah. But that's what I'm saying.

Like you just walk right up and you're able to go in. I'm shocked that given that it's so clearly staged, they didn't just create a perimeter and make some excuse. And I don't know, fucking bulldoze the place. Dude, one of the windows in one of the houses and- Shoot it out. I know. In one of the houses, the one that I think was like vacant, there's like sliding windows.

Okay. And so in this house, do you know that like, I don't know how to explain this properly? So like in sliding windows or sliding window doors, you ever seen people who will like cut a piece of wood or like a piece of tube to put it in that space where it slides so that if someone tries to bring. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So this house had that. And on the inside, sorry, on the inside is like the glass sliding doors and on the outside is like a bug net, right?

Um, well, in this house there is like the window is broken, like a piece of the window on the sliding door is broken and the glass is inside the house and like the rupture pushes inside. but the net on the other side of the door is completely intact. And then there's like one like bullet, but it's not like a bullet that was shot on the floor. It's like it fell out of the clip. I have a picture. Yeah, yeah.

Can you show me that? Sorry. This is just like, like put a little more effort in it, guys. Bro, I know. You know what I mean? Like if you're going to do a cover up, like a good cover up creates evidence. It couldn't even take that time. Like, blow out a few windows with some bullets.

How hard is it? No one's going to know. Yeah. Yeah, get Epstein's fake body, put it in there. Here you go. This is great. And then you can slide. Okay, so you can't see the net in that photo,

but there's a net on the other side. And you see the glasses like inside. Then you see the bullet that fell out of the clip on the floor. And it's like aimed perfectly facing outside too. Okay, but I'm not taking that. Just the aim, don't take that into consideration because so many people have been in this houses and stuff. Oh, so they could have moved it. Yeah. So like at one point, one of the guys I was with was like, look at that shell. It's on like this rubber mat and it didn't melt it. I'm like, okay, guys, like let's not be stupid here because shit's like been moving around. There's been so many people in here.

And this is where the glass is broken. That's a close up of it. I'll put that up deep. Can you see it in focus? So that's where it's broken on the side of the wood. No, no, no. Where the wood would have gone to block it. No, the wood is on the ground. I know, but where the wood would have gone. Like, see how the wood is right there and that's where it's broken on that side? No, the wood isn't from that. I'm talking about here. Yeah. There's a tube.

Yes. In there. That wood is from a broken door over here. Oh, so that's not even the thing you're talking about. And you can see this piece of glass is actually facing me. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, when I zoom in, you can see there's net here and the net is in perfect.

I'm not even talking to the mic. I'm sorry. The night is in perfect condition. So it looks like it was broken from the outside. But I don't know. But I'm also not a fucking CIA investigator. CSI, I mean. Right.

That's a little Freudian slip right there. Because we're talking about it. Don't try to fucking push some bullshit narrative. They got a zebra on the wall. Oh, there was a lot of, um, uh, Benavu. A fucking zebra, taxiderm zebra? That's wild. You couldn't take that with you as a souvenir?

So you want to know what's crazy? You know how many DMs I got of people telling me they'd pay me like X amount of money to bring them like shell casings and stuff like that. Probably. It would have been so profitable. Now what am I looking at? What am I looking at here? A Jesus statue with the window broken in the back.

But what's in the background? Like a Trojan horse statue? Yeah. Is that a hillside behind there? Mm-hmm. Okay. No, there's more houses behind the Trojan statue. Yeah.

What is this? What is the syringe? Medication. Oh, it's for insulin. I see that. Okay. Pictures of Jesus and Mary. They were very holy people. Did I tell you about the watermelon? No.

Okay, so I'll show it to you. I love watermelon. Okay, so, oh, this is like a great map of like, that's what I wanted to show you. Oh, can we see that? Let's hold that up, actually. So the green area are the cabins. All right, green area right there. We got, Dave.

The green areas. The green area. Are in focus now? Tell me when. The green area is the cabins. The red area is the forest area in front where the military apparently came through. The pink area is that road, the side road that leads up from the highway. And then the blue area is the country club.

Blue area is country club. Well, that's a big ass fucking country club. Top left is where the part where he was at, he apparently went through, tried to get tooth from the forest. Was he a golfer? Like, was he just, like, out there, like, you know, doing, run the cartel business from the golf course? I don't actually know if there was, like, golf there. I couldn't get in.

Okay. Yeah, I'm not seeing holes and sand traps. So, why did they call it a country club? Because it's a country club. Yeah, but usually, like, I usually hear, like, golfers. In Mexico, there's country clubs and, like, people go swimming there and eat there. And it's for, like, a lot of rich people to, like, have an escape from, like, the shitty town that they live in.

So it doesn't have to have a golf course. One of my friends in a state, it kind of has that. Okay. I wanted to show you the watermelon. Yeah, what's going on there? Okay, so they said that like they went in and like all these guys were living there and that obviously there was like this huge conflict and so everyone kind of stopped what they were doing. And there was like food and everything left out.

And this, I mean, I would assume, obviously watermelon was cut like right like before the opera. Like it was obviously not that long before this whole thing went. Okay. They brought the catering in first. Bro. Like this watermelon is over a week old outside. Oh, yeah. But this is two days after the operation.

So what did these guys just leave the watermelon out there for two weeks? No way. Or no one was there. They abandoned it a long time ago. Yeah. No, that's molded as fuck. Yeah. It's white.

I asked ChatchipT what that molding looks like. And my chemist friend and she's like, that's over 10 days old. Yeah. No, I can actually, because I've left a watermelon in the back of the fridge. Like in a fridge that's like 34 or 35 degrees or something like that before by accident. And it doesn't look this bad. And also. After weeks.

That, those cabins, they're built to be really cool. So even though like outside it was really warm when you're in the sun in those cabins, it's very cool. What are you looking at? Is that the Wi-Fi? I think that's a phone number. But. And two digits at a time? Yeah.

Cabana numero-Ocho. I think it's for the administration for that for those. Oh, oh, it could be like an extension. And then you took a picture of like barcode up there. Oh, because I wanted to know if the Jeep was stolen, which it was. from the states. Yeah, it sounds about right. Who are the guys on the horses?

Is that the cartel lookouts? No, no, no. Those are just guys that I thought looked cool on the donkeys. I don't even think those are horses, Julian. They look like mules. Wait, I can't. It was far away. Yeah, they're not horses.

They are mules. You're right? They're small. Poor mule, man. That guy's like two fucking 20. Okay, you need to stop sliding there because I don't know what the fuck is in there. Jesus Christ. Okay.

All right. So the poll point is, It's sketchy, period. Very sketchy. And then at one point, this one was interesting to me. So, like, out front there was, like, a little barbecue. And it was, like, obviously filled with ash. And so, dude, I'm like, what was in here?

Because this was also right at the borderline between the parking lot and the forest where apparently the operatives came up. So I just like literally started digging through the ash Like when I got there I was just like I want to see everything right Which is why I have pictures of that fucking router even And look what I found in the ash in that barbecue In the ash That little photo and then slide again and there's another one

Is this cartel guys girls? That's what I thought but then someone else told me I bet you if you put those pictures into a missing person They're missing oh my god But I don't know I'm in the process of trying to figure that out and don't show those pictures And I'm not gonna show it's two women

Just so you guys know it's like they look like passport photos It's like what it's like yeah Little passport photos They're not they're not like when I let me describe it right They look like square cutouts of what would be a past But it's a selfie But it's a selfie shot that you would see on Instagram Like a Facebook profile yeah

And they're like Whoa that's fucking Oh that's gonna chill up my spine but why would those photos just like I don't know I don't know I Because they were targets for something I'm driving myself crazy with that's nuts Because I thought oh maybe you know what Whoever these cartel lookouts were

Tried to like ditch some stuff that could like identify them But it was in the ash in the barbecue But like these photos aren't burnt That's really weird And then also So I was like maybe they're like the girlfriend of them, but then I was like, or maybe these were like targets, you know, like human trafficking or girls that they would bring to the compound to, and we know that about CG and G and G is like at

their, like at the rancho yseguere, you know, that extermination camp, 60 kilometers. We talked about that. You know, they were bringing a lot of girls there for sex services. And so those could be those girls. So I am going to, I have to figure out how to do it in like an ethical way, but try to, you know, get in touch with those. collective groups of people who search for missing people in Mexico and see if maybe those girls are them. I had someone try to like find who they were like social media pages and we couldn't find

anything. Yeah. I wonder also as well because it's a same organization that was running, that was running the kidnapping pregnant women too. Yeah, but also important to keep in mind that at this place like there was a ton, I found a ton of bottles of lube and Viagra. So if it was like just men there, I mean, unless they were gay, but there's the photos of women. Kidnaping women bringing them back. Yeah. That's crazy, man. And like you look, go ahead.

You look at the pictures of those girls, like, they're not from like high socioeconomic backgrounds. No. You know, it's like a, it's a, looks like could be a victim of. Yep. Yeah. Do we have, by the way, I forgot to ask you this earlier, ever since they arrested Lodd Diablo to take down that ring do we have evidence that things like that with you know trafficking babies and stuff is still continuing uh no it seems like it that was like that extortion

ring that was operating it and a few other young women like even some minors have been arrested for also working with her yeah oh god yeah they were the ones responsible for a lot of like so they would lure them oh it's horrible death penalty That's horrible. What about, you know, since Trump came in, obviously, the border's tighter. So that was part of the reason they're finding new rackets to make money. How is the border right now as it pertains to like even just CGNJ getting in or CJNG getting in drugs to America? Are they just getting creative with different ways to do it?

or is there volume severely impacted? It's not severely impacted. It's about the same. Numbers spiked again in November, but that's also just, that doesn't really mean anything, in my opinion. Like, that just happens. It just happens.

Yeah, like seizure numbers spiked. But I never really trust seizure numbers and I did like a whole substack article on this because just because like they caught more or they caught less doesn't mean that the volume that's actually being trafficked is any different.

You know what I mean? Yeah. So to me, like when I look at seizure numbers, like I rarely report on it because I just don't think that it has any really like substantial ground to say like, oh my God, they're trafficking so much more just because you know, maybe for that month a bunch more operations were deployed by BP or something like that. And also you could look at it the other way if you wanted to, but I think it has the same problem as what you just pointed out in this direction. And that is it's like, oh, well, that means they're

getting more of it and they're catching more of it. But it's also like, like you said, what's the real volume that they're even going after each month and what's getting through that they don't know about valid but real quick now i got to go the bathroom but let's come back and talk ryan wedding because that shit was crazy i know all right back so since you and i last talk ryan wedding as you alluded to earlier was caught as i'm i'm going to have you do a review of just like who he is for some people who may be unfamiliar or need to be refamiliarized with it but he did say that you didn't think he would get caught. I didn't. But he, you know, there were, there was a lot of, like, misinfo around it. Like, did he surrender himself or was he actually caught, how it went down, what the agreement was.

So let's start with who he was. And then what happened here? So Ryan Wedding was a Canadian Olympic athlete, who then became a bouncer. He's actually from the same city as me. He's from, well, he's from Thunder Bay, Ontario, but then grew up just outside of Vancouver. Apple don't fall too far from the tree. And he comes from fuck off. Hey, you're covering it.

He's doing it. He's doing it. I know. We honestly aren't that different. That's right. You're going to go around that corner. And he's from actually a really prominent family in Canada. They had a ski resort.

his dad is an engineer and then they moved to BC to Coquitlam which is like a suburb right outside of Vancouver which is where he went to school he was in like gifted programs super smart kid growing up obviously skied really well because he went to the Olympics he went to Salt Lake I think 2002

I don't think he placed and then ended up working as a bouncer at a nightclub in Vancouver where he made a lot of contacts with Angels, criminals, you know how that goes. It's like textbook. That is textbook. Starts trafficking, goes to Southern California for like kind of one of the bigger drops of the beginning of his career, gets caught, goes to jail or, you know, drug trafficker university.

That's right. Makes amazing connections, starts, gets connected with the Colombians, the Americans. This is also the time when marijuana is still illegal and British Columbia where he was living has some of the best marijuana in the world, B.C. Bud. So he gets makes all the context, starts doing this trafficking. Fast forward. I mean, I could go on and on, right? Yeah. So then he goes to Mexico, aligns himself very well with the Chapitos.

Like the late 2000s kind of deal at this point? Uh-huh. Allines himself really well with the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa cartel. Now why did they bring him into the inner sanctum, this great? Ringo from Canada. Obviously, like you said, he has access to, you know, B.C. Bud, but they got a lot of bud. See, I have a lot to say about this because obviously I had been like studying

wedding very thoroughly. And I think, okay, for the cultural aspect and the trust, actually, let's start with his intellect. He was very smart. I think that he was very good at making contacts with the Chinese, Colombians, and Mexicans and then the Hells Angels. And so he was able to really prove that he could up profit. Trafficking under the radar, moving a lot of product. Basically, the textbook way to move up the ranks in the drug trafficking world. Aside from that, I think in a sense, like he was kind of like

me in a way where he knew how to just assimilate into the culture. He got a lot of. He got a lot of along with these people. He knew how to chat with them. He married a Mexican woman. They had kids together. He was also very violent and had a really big ego, which can take you a long way, obviously, in this world. And he knew how to take people out that he was worried about. And so the Chepitos really trusted him because he made a lot of money. He had or has a very high IQ. And this to someone that they knew could connect them with the right people and keep operations running and make it even more lucrative than they already had. He was a good nexus for North America.

Right. At what point did he start becoming like a top dog? Not even just that. There's like 40 or 50 murders that are allegedly attributed to him. I think it's a lot more. Yeah. Right. At what point did he crossed that Rubicon and start becoming a dude order and people's heads off?

I think pretty early on. Yeah. I think it was pretty early on in his career where he wanted people to know not to cross him, not to fuck with him. And I think that it got to a point where even the Chinese were scared of him and the Chinese do business very differently than the Mexicans. They're very low key and they're very money oriented and ideological oriented. Yeah, oriented. Ideologically. And so I think when he put out a hit on a Chinese person was when there was some sort of, you know, realization that, okay, he is not to be crossed.

Who was the Chinese guy that he put a hit on? Oh, we're not saying? No. Okay. Yeah. Is it someone? It's someone where that I. I got from a source that's, you know, in that same world that I cannot dime out.

All right. Did the guy die? Did he put the hit on him and the guy died? Yeah, he was murdered. Right. So the hit happened. Was it someone, I don't know if you can say this, if you can't, no problem. Is it someone directly government connected? Like Chinese government? I don't know. That I actually don't know. Okay. But there was supposed to be some business that was done, and it just didn't work out. Right. Anyways, wedding, you know, he has his family, but he also has a lot of nexus in Columbia. He starts working with this one woman who's basically a madame who helps him run business and take out hits.

He starts dating this girl, Daniela, she was, I think, actually working for the madame as a prostitute. They get together. He almost uses Daniela, like, as a honeypot in a lot of circumstances to, you know, be friends with so-and-so's girlfriend so that we can get close to them and see where they really stand or take out a hit on them. Daniela has really bad opsec.

A Colombian BBL bad, he probably isn't going to have great op-sick, okay? No hate, but honestly, just like, oh, it's a fair point. Yeah. So she looked good, though. She did. She was a batty. I got a lot of those in Columbia. Baddy behind bars.

Waste of talent. That'd be a great series. If anyone wants to pick that up, I could spearhead it. Actually, I might watch that. I think a lot of people. Sounds pretty good. Deep let's work on it. Hey, that's my idea.

Yeah, yeah, baddie behind. Baddy's behind. Yeah, something. We'll come up with it. Yeah. That's my idea, fuckers. Listen, you just said it on the Julian Dory podcast, so we now own the IP. But please continue.

For the love of God, whatever. Anyways, so Ryan Wedding becomes a big target for the United States. And to my knowledge, the United States had actually been tracking him for a while and knew where he was. But for the Mexicans, he wasn't a top priority. And there needed to be, obviously, cooperation in order for them to get him. Why did the Mexicans not have a top priority on a gringo who had come across the border of their place? I don't know. I would think that would be their guy, would be like, oh, easy.

Great fall guy, right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what it was. But I think that also Ryan had a lot of really powerful people on his payroll. And so that kind of kept the attention off of him or people were, like, wary of going. after him and he was known to be very violent. Now here's the thing. Um, his last like residence was literally in a very high end gated community in Mexico City. Not me open effectively.

Yeah. And that's one thing we know about wedding. He had a very big ego. I'd also like to clarify that that whole Instagram page that came out about him. Oh, it's AI. It's not real. And everyone was like, fell for that. Everyone fell for it. She did. No, she didn't. In her morning press conference, she said, of course he gave himself up. He posted a picture of himself in front of the embassy.

And then tried to blame it on meta for not putting an AI sticker on it. Oh, my God. That was so obviously AI. Bro. It was like, hello, my name is Ryan. I know. I mean, I could see them writing it in Pakistan. Yeah.

Oh my god, it was so brutal. And then I got a ton of hate because I was like, if any of you believe that this is real, I mean, the one photo he was wearing like a hublo and it's upside down and I'm like, my guy wedding would never be caught dead in a hublo. He's a Rolex guy. People were like, shut up. And they do put out a fucking hilarious tweet about that. I forget what he said.

Him and I were going back and forth that whole time. He was like, I have said, I have something to sell you, but it was funny as fuck. he's like if you think this is real I wish I had it but I can't remember it he's so funny and he gets so much shit oh it's awesome and when him and I collaborate people are like why would you have him on he's hilarious he's so funny like how can I not

and the nicest guy ever I love Jeff he's super nice yeah great dude he knows and really like you know no one's perfect with stuff he covers a lot different things but he's not an idiot but Jeff knows his way around a lot of shit man for sure like I'm impressed with his cartel knowledge on stuff but anyway

You were saying so he becomes at some point there in the 2010s, he's like a topish dog kind of deal. And he got on to the FBI 10 most wanted in the last few years, right? Yeah. And I had been talking about it and everyone's like, nobody knows this guy. And I'm like, well, you're about to. They do now. And now they do. And everyone was like flipping out about it.

And I was like, I fucking told you guys. Yeah. Sorry, now that's my age showing. I told you. Right. Now does Cash Patel pay you in cash or a check in the mail? It's like a massage transfer through his girlfriend. What is that, why was that like the worst thing I've said?

No, that's funny. We might get sued now. It's a joke. Oh, because she does sue people for that. It's a joke. She would never be involved in such endeavors. But she is. Damn it, cat.

I'm trying to help you out. I'm also a girl who likes medium ugly guys, but sister. Okay. Let's be for. That's a bridge too far. Just saying one is going one way The other guy's going another That's all I'm saying

I can't believe that was the most out of pocket thing That you thought I said But she actually does take legal action, huh? She does Who'd she sue? I think C B No, she sued a podcaster Candace Owens was that it?

No She, oh, who's the guy France sued Candace Owens Who did she sue Specifically Kyle Serafin I don't know who that is. Elijah Schaefer. I don't think I know who that is either.

And Samuel Parker. I thought that was a meme account. Samuel Parker. Isn't that like the fat meme? No, he's a former Utah Senate Republican Party primary candidate. I'm thinking of someone different. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So, oh, that's, we're just making jokes here. Bro, if I sued everyone for who came at me saying some shit like this. That you can't. That's, that's. Grow a back. Backbone. Get a hobby. Okay? Like literally less embarrassing if you download Candy Crush and play it for four hours a day. Come on

If I was her I would have leaned into it But then you can't That one you might not be able to lean into but like just let it go It's not a big deal It's so much you're not marrying the guy for love and also like you know oh my god see you're on the same page with me I mean come on and like listen to them Fuck, bro. Dude, him doing that presser after Ryan Wedding being like, yeah, we got him.

And you can't even hear him because he decides to do it on tarmac. I'm like, just shut up. Oh, my God. And the way he tried to make it seem like, like, he caught him red-handed. He's got to be in front of every camera. Anytime they do something. Bro, everyone in the FBI must have been like, shut up. Yeah, like, when you, the FBI was.

so broken to be very clear when he got in there. There were so many problems in there. It's not to say every age is bad or anything, but there were so many rogue cells in there. But like, you know, fuck, with him running it, I get it. If there's people who have been there a long time,

even if I don't fucking like them, who are like, come on, man. Like, it's just, it, he's insufferable. We're watching incompetency in public at every turn. So with this one, like you said, he comes out, wasn't he like on the plane with him or something?

Like coming down with him? They literally rode the plane back together. And I can almost guarantee you, he was like, bro. Like, I know you're a criminal, but like mad respects, bro. Bro, like that fucking Daytona, oh my God. My authorized dealer just like put me on a wait list. Can we get a selfie? 100% he did.

100%. You think he didn't take a fucking selfie with wedding? Oh, I'll see you in Balahalla, brother. Oh, my God. Oh, that's so good. Bro, you're fucking my unclear jacket I'm gonna miss him when he's gone Because it is a lot of fun to make fun of him

That part I'm gonna miss It's entertainment He's not even a moving target He's just skill But you don't know where to aim Because this size looking at the fractals And that one's you know It's like whoa wait a minute

It gets you all disoriented and shit Like when they put you in those like fake drunk goggles You're like where is he? Yeah I almost feel like They probably just captured him So Cash could have a little like shindig with them That's right So what happened though

Like what do we know And what are we unsure of Oh, so. I'm actually sure about exactly what happened. Let's put it on the record, Katerina Schultz. So he was basically strong-armed by the U.S. government into surrendering himself. And how did they do that? There was something close, like personal to him that they used against him.

I can't say it. And he said, okay, and gave himself up. Did he have any kind of agreement with them for certain punishments that would be off the table? I don't know. But I'm under the impression that. Yes. So maybe he's like, all right, I can do 20 years. I'll tell you what you want. Yeah. Okay. Um, and so some people were saying like, oh, the Chapitos betrayed him, gave him up. That did not happen. Uh, people were saying, oh, no, he didn't surrender himself.

They actually went in and grabbed him. But no, it was he, he did surrender. Um, and obviously, like, Cash Patel was in Mexico City when it happened. Uh, they tried to say like he was going for something else when the fuck does cash patel ever go to mexico city what are you laughing at no i no it's a good it's a good point i don't know why cash patel will be in mexico he vacations in tel aviv yeah you're not letting up i can't help it i appreciate it oh because then i do you don't have to do it no i we've done it and it's just funny to hear someone else do it heck i mean come on i always have to say like don't sue me it's it's just a joke but You can fucking sue me. I don't give a shit. I know you don't.

I live in Mexico. What are you going to do? Yeah. Come get you. Extract me. That's right. I mean, maybe. Be a fucking great story. Maybe. That would help your brand. Yeah. Massad just distracted me from Mexico. And it was massad in the shape of Cash Patel.

In the shape of Cash Patel. Yeah. How Hindu of you. Is he even Hindu? I don't know. This is gone too far. Okay. I know. It's not a personal cash. Oh, my God. You're funny.

I'll just never forget him going. on Sean Ryan show and saying, if I were putting in charge of the FBI, I would turn the J. Edgar Hoover Building into a fucking museum day one. It's like, no, you won't. Did he go on Sean before or after me? Before. Yeah. Yeah, he went on before he got into the administration and everything. Because when I went on Sean, he makes you sign a wall.

And if I had seen Cash's name, I just would have put in, in brackets, like, Massad lover. Brought the Spunk today. I appreciate it. Well, I also know that like especially, I mean, you know, I, it's it's mostly this operation, the wedding operation that where I was like, oh, shut up cash. Like I know a lot of people, especially a lot of girls that I know were like fuck cash after the whole, um, hockey room thing. Oh, that was the cringiest. I don't know if I've ever had in, in the, at least in the past year, more secondhand embarrassment for a public figure than watching that video. That was like watching the kid whose parents locked him up and made him play like one of his six instruments to get into college for 18 years.

And then he gets there and he's like, all right, guys, let's go hard. It was, oh my God. Yeah. And I know like a lot of my girlfriends were like, you look, and now I fucking hate him. And I'm like, ladies. It took that? Ladies. Where you've been?

You ever heard of a guy named Ryan Wedding? Yeah. You see him walk off the plane with cash and that FBI agent next night. Yeah, it was anyways. So, yeah. Ryan did surrender. That caught everyone off guard, though, obviously. Yeah.

I thought they were going to kill him. Yeah. I didn't think that they were going to arrest him. I thought they were going to kill him. And I actually have reason to believe that. Yeah, but if he shows up to surrender outside of a police station, they can't just blow him away. No, they weren't going to do it like that.

If he surrendered, they were going to get him. But I thought that they were going to just... Throw him out of the plane on the way to America. No. I thought that maybe, you know, hypothetically, he would be maybe... No, you know what? I'm not going to say it. Okay.

You blue ballsless. That's all right. Yeah. Sorry, I can't. I understand. Especially because with the wedding stuff, I've had so many, like, sources that I've been talking to that are just, like, super close to it. Right.

That I just don't want to lose any of that. Where is he right now? In California. Do we have like a upcoming court date where we're going to... Should be. Yeah, let's pull that up. Yeah.

And it's federal court, right? Uh-huh. So there's no cameras in there? No. I fucking hate that. Me too. They got to change that. That's court in Canada too.

He first appeared in the United States federal court on Monday, January 26, 2026, and pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. March 24th. ... court again on February 11th and his trial is scheduled. Whoa, that's a fast trial. Trial's beginning March 24th? Yeah.

They just arrested. This is like an international criminal drug conspiracy and the trial started. That's a speedy trial, baby. That took the words out of my mouth, thief. Very constitutional. Nothing's happening there. That's weird. Yeah.

Yeah. And also, like, Diddy got all kinds of shit because he was moving up his trial and pushing it for it to happen early. And it happened 10 months after he was arrested. And that was all here. This was right away. Yeah. What are we missing, Caterina Schultz?

I don't know. I'm curious to see if he's going to dime people out. I know that he was pissed off that his ex right-hand man, Andrew Clark, who's also in jail, dimed him out, like gave a lot of information on him. He sang like a canary. I don't know if you will. his lawyer Columbo said that he's not talking he's not talking but I think his lawyer's not actually named Columbo it is it's and he's a very famous lawyer come on his he's he's like a mob boss lawyer really

Jeff knows him with a name like Columbo of course Jeff knows him with a name like Columbo come on yeah what's Ryan Wedding's lawyer's name Anthony Colombo whose grandfather Joe Columbo was a wow yeah can't make that shit up this is Joe Colombo's grandson representing him in court. Your Honor, my guy is fucking innocent. Okay. He never did a goddamn thing. Nothing.

And he's not saying shit to the prosecutors. Oh my God, that's awesome. I thought that was a joke. No. Yeah, that's him. Oh, shit. Okay, so we're monitoring this situation. That's all we're doing.

Okay. Yeah. Has there been any... But I did want to clarify, like, his capture because like everyone so many people are like no they they he did not surrender he did he did but the pictures were fake obviously uh yeah what has been on the ground with his business operations have we seen any reverberations from that um i don't know but a lot of people around him have been caught right he had this lawyer in canada who was basically sending him voice recordings of meetings with his

adversaries to tell to he was this Canadian lawyer was advising Ryan wedding on who to take out and he's been arrested he was extradited to the US actually Can we pull that up? The lawyer was fucking diamond out people to get hit

He was recording meeting with Ryan's adversaries and then sending Ryan the recordings really yeah you gotta kill this guy Yo that's a Canadian Saul Goodman right there Oh yeah no literally We need that show Yeah I know

He's got like fucking corny ass commercials Gets off from the camera calls him up Be like yo whack that guy No literally that's what was happening I think he's already extradited to the US Sometimes real life is just even better than the movies. No, it really is. I say that all the time.

You can't even make this shit up. Reality is way more shocking than fiction. No, wrong. Well, that's definitely. Definitely. That's his girl. Business ain't abomin then, pal. I mean, come on.

She's a corpse. Oh my God. Whoa. Listen, that's me. Not you. Don't worry about it. No, it's just so funny that. Deep.

Packer Paradecar? Come on. Why did you say it? What is so funny about that? That's not what I was expecting. Cocaine lawyer. Yeah, he's an Indian guy. Deepa...

Somewhere in Tyler Olivares going, look, see? Told you! All right, Deepak, Paradikar, a Brampton-based lawyer, often referred to as the cocaine lawyer. We have our show name. Let's work on the script, Dief. Was arrested in November 20,000. in November 2025 for his alleged role in drug trafficking and murder conspiracy. Oh, my God.

Oh my God. Led by former Canadian Olympian Ryan Wedding. We take murder very seriously here, though, and all seriousness people, it's very bad that he did. He was see advising murder. The US Department of the Treasury and Department of Justice accused Parodkar of violating legal ethics by allowing wedding and his associates to eavesdrop on privilege communication and assisting in a plot to kill a federal witness. Whoa. And they did kill him. That's dark. That's dark as fuck.

Yeah. Paratikar is alleged to have it to have advised wedding to murder a federal witness telling him, quote, if you kill the witness, the case will be dismissed. Whoa. That's actually dark as fuck. And he was, look, he was. He used his Instagram username used to be cocaine underscore lawyer. Cocaine lawyer. I'm telling you, Instagram is just not good for some people. Dude, okay. I know.

Postant. Paratikar had previously been reprimanded by the Law Society of Ontario in 2017 for posting a photo on Instagram with the caption, Cocaine Lawyer, 2.5 kilos of cocaine charges drop. Straight word, homie. It's great. Okay, I think I've got to Venezuela. But despite the severe allegation, no.

It's Canada. No. We've talked about this. Despite the severe allegations that I just read, Parrot car was granted bail in Canada in December 2025 while facing extradition to the United States. You're never going to see it again. So do you remember the time when I,

the first time I came on your podcast and I said, The best way to explain the legal justice system is if I tell my girlfriends, and I was joking, but I tell my girlfriends, if your boyfriend cheats on, you just kill him. Like, you're not going to do any time. Like, you'll be fine, right? This is a perfect example of that. Like, you can commit any crime in Canada and get away with it. That's fucking. Which is why the U.S. wants him extradited, because in Canada, he's a free man.

When I was in Ukraine, everyone was like, obviously it was Soviet Union, right? And I'm Polish, so, like, we have, like, the fucking red sphere. And everyone in Ukraine was like, oh, Canada, socialist country, fuck. In Ukraine? Yes. They're like scared. Yeah. Of Canada.

Yeah. There's a lot more pressing things to be scared. I was like, yeah, they're like, oh, shit. That's a Syria. I mean, they're all like, they're all like carrying guns. And they're like, soon communism. Like, you have lots of Chinese there. They're scary.

Oh, my God. I mean, they're not. I mean, they have a point. They're not wrong. They're not wrong. Like adults. But still, the fact that they're that worried about something halfway around the world. And they have fucking Russians just obliterating them.

I know. All right. So what was the story you did in Ukraine and what were, what did you say? Oh, Colombian mercenaries that are going there to fight are being recruited by the cartels. Yeah. They're being, all right, hold on. That is a loaded statement. The Mexican cartels are recruiting Colombians.

I mean, you know, they're, they're good at that. To go to the front lines in, in Mexico to fight adversary cartels. That's not where I thought this was going. Oh, what did you think I was doing? I thought it was the other way around. I thought you were saying the Mexican cartels were recruiting Colombian hitmen to send over to Ukraine to be on the front line. The Colombian hitmen are being pulled into Ukraine to fight on the front line with them, I assume, with like Western government tax dollars. So Colombia has the largest number of foreign mercenaries in the world.

So you see any war in Africa or the Middle East, anywhere. And that's it's like a ideological thing, but it's also a money thing. So basically there's a lot of Colombian mercenaries fighting in both Russia and Ukraine. And they go there because they get paid. They learn drone tactics, front line warfare, you name it. Now, because of this, the cartels will then contact these Colombians who fought in Ukraine because they know that they're like soldiers at this point, bring them to Mexico and pay them to work for the cartels

along the front lines in like shootouts and basically like battles. Now, SBU Ukrainian intelligence launched an investigation in this because what was also happening at a certain point, I think the investigation was launched last summer. What was also happening was private military companies were getting paid by the cartels to bring Colombians to U.S. to Ukraine to infiltrate their training services so that they would get trained up

and then go from there to Mexico because when you go to Ukraine as a foreign mercenary you have to serve I think the minimum is six months once your six months are done you can get out of there yes how did you get hooked up with this story because I saw that the SBU report and you just went out there yeah who'd you contact like just one of the guys on one of the mercenaries

uh yeah I contacted mercenaries and then I had like a local journalist who didn't know this was happening. And then they said come on out. Yeah. Well, so then I and I went to a prisoner of war camp where a lot of Latin American mercenaries that were fighting alongside Russians were captured. Can you pull up the picture from Katz Instagram? Oh, I got so yeah. I think I saw this where I had to blur their faces because it breaks the Geneva Convention. It britt will you see the one right there in this? It goes against no no those are it's the next

This one. Yeah. They're all blurred. Yeah. This one. What was the one we were just looking at? That was the one I was talking about. The one in the snow. Oh, this is the prisoner of war camp. So this is Ukrainian prisoner of war camp where they're holding Russian soldiers who happen to be Latin American mercenaries. Yeah. There was also African guys there. Um, go back to the other one. It was like very international. And then the one before that. Uh, there's Latin American guys here too. You see some of them actually have the Colombian flag. I don't know. you can see it in that photo. But this is where they're being trained to then go to the front lines. Okay. So you're at the training camp. Yeah. I was going to say, what was it like there? Were you like afraid?

Did you see fighting in the distance? So a lot of people, if you see in this photo in the previous photo, a lot of people were like, this is AI. And they're not wrong. I actually had to use like an AI blurring tool for their faces and for the skyline. So you can see the trees in the back are like mangled. But it's actually Ukrainian law that press cannot or even like if you're on TikTok or whatever, cannot post anything that can identify military infrastructure in Ukraine. Oh, wow.

So, yeah. And people were like, this is fake. And like, it's not fake. It's just that I literally could be in big shit for this. Yeah. So I had to abide by their standards, which is fair enough. I mean, you know, it's a war zone. It's a country protecting itself from invasion.

I think following this assignment was actually scarier than actually being there because then I had a lot of Russian people somehow get my phone number, email. reaching out to me being like, we want you to tell us how Ukraine is arming the cartels, which is not the story. What is the story? The story is that the cartels are exploiting a war that already has very little resources.

And so the Ukrainians are very much against this, right? Having people who are using their warfare experience in Ukraine to then go and arm criminal organization. But of course, Russian propaganda is trying to, to take the story that I'm pursuing and use it against Ukraine. And I really don't want that to happen. But sometimes with shit like this, you just can't help it. I'll actually show you something that's really freaky.

It's amazing how much like, this is what I mean. It's Russia and Ukraine fighting, right? But there's money coming from all over the world from east and west, proxies fighting both sides. There's army help coming from said places without necessarily it being, their own countrymen in some cases. And then you have this underbelly business of the money that's being funded into it being used to ship in mercenary soldiers from wherever the fuck to fight in the middle.

I mean, it's crazy. Yeah. It's great. And it's been going on for over four years. It is. And this year was particularly bad because it's the coldest winter in Ukraine in the last 15 years. And it's the first year in the war where Russia has attacked all the power plants. So we had no heater water.

Wait a second. They attacked all the power plants. Yeah. Was that a cyber attack? No, no, no. They bombed them. Okay. Yeah. And so I would literally sleep in that fucking jacket. How long were you there? Like three weeks. How did you get in?

I took a fucking 18-hour train from Varshava to Kiev, from Poland to Kiev. And there wasn't any instruction to get there. On the train in, we had to sit for like three hours, which is why it ended up being so long because Russia was bombing the rail. ways. And keep in mind, I'm in this fuck-ass Soviet train, literally from the Soviet Union, where it's three tight bunk beds in one little carriage. No meal service. No meal service? No. But thankfully on the train in, I was actually with this older Ukrainian couple and she brought everything to make sandwiches and we couldn't even communicate. For some reason, I was under the impression that I could just work, like, communicate in Polish with them and they're like, no, we speak

Ukrainian. I'm like, sorry. But, okay, I wanted to show you this. And this stressed me out. I'm not going to lie. So let me show the camera. Can you I'll do it? Okay. So this was my Instagram following demographic for like ever. Can you see it, you have L.A., New York. So basically, almost 90% of my following is American. Now, pass me this.

Can I see it? Yeah. Okay. Oh, the screen went dark. Why'd you? Okay. Now, this is what my Instagram demographic looks like now of profile views. Oh, boy. Yeah. You're on the fucking flowchart. Moscow, St. Petersburg. Putin's like this girl's got to go. She's a problem. Like actually. Don't go back there. I'm not.

I'm serious. Don't go back there. I'm not. Yeah. That's wild. I can't ever go there either. So basically I knew that I was already blacklisted from Russia, like, since the beginning of the war, because I was actually working in legacy media at the beginning of the war, like in a Canadian newsroom, and was putting out reports on it. And obviously, like anyone who spoke against the Russian invasion was basically blacklisted from going to Ukraine, especially if you're a journalist. Right. Now, or sorry, to Russia.

So now, though, because I was there, and then also I interviewed prisoners of war who told me, so Russia is offering foreign mercenaries a lot more money than Ukraine offers them. But these mercenaries who are going to Russia never actually get paid. They're being used as human shields by the Russians. I've been sent videos literally from telegram of. of Russians who have like African mercenaries and they're like obviously being very racist and being like this guy is meat. Like we just use him to and obviously these guys don't know what they're saying. They don't speak Russian.

Right. Um, nuts. Yeah. And so the cartels are exploiting this because now maybe I can show you a video actually of this guy who's gotten some popularity. He's a Colombian guy who was fighting the war in Russia or in Ukraine. and now he's on the front lines with CG in Mitya Khan Columbia's climate

and you gotta go fucking Ukraine in the middle of urban warfare and forest warfare and the dead of winter fuck that yeah go do it in Colombia yeah and then you get marked the second you get home

what are you giving me cat again this guy so here this guy was fighting in Ukraine as a foreign mercenary and has now been recruited by the cartels and is in Mishuakan shooting shit up

Wow Yeah I'm not going to show this video on there Is it by law And he says it in the video He's like from Ukraine to Mexico That's nuts Yeah I knew nothing about this

So this documentary is out now right? No not yet It's coming out I think this month It's just, it's a pain in the ass to edit because I was given so much access, but I have to fucking blur so much stuff. And you're doing the editing? No. Absolutely not.

So it's a pain in someone else's ass. It is, but I have to check everything because the editor obviously didn't go with us. Right. And I have to really make sure, otherwise I will never be able to go to the country again. And I'll probably face legal action. Yeah, I don't know if I'd go back if I were you. Like I said, I feel like that's a one in doneer. So I asked my, I had hired someone to be a fixer and translator and he's

spoke both Ukrainian and Russian because he was born in Soviet Union in a place where you had to learn Russian. And I said, you know, how bad would it be if I try to get into Russia? And he goes, you'll have a one-way ticket to Moscow and you're done. Because also what Russia is doing is there's obviously these prisoner of war transfers, right? And so if they take someone like me, I'm a high-value target to then be able to get a bunch of prisoners, political and prisoners of war back into Russia and they use me as an exchange. Yep. And I really don't want that. Yeah, I don't want that either.

But, but. But. Yeah, it was, it was very sad to be there. I mean, okay, to be fair to, there are a lot of foreign mercenaries there who are good soldiers who are there because they believe that the, the Russian invasion is bad and they, they want to help Ukrainians. And Ukraine is like the Latin American country of Europe, honestly. The cultures are very similar. The mindset, they're very resilient people. And so a lot of the Latin American mercenaries that go there really identify with them and get really close to them.

So they're not all like this, but this was enough of a problem for SBU, essentially Ukraine-CIA to open up an investigation into it. It was also very hard for me to interview political figures about this because their concern, of course, was Russia's going to use this against us. And I already see it happen. I mean, my email has been bombarded with Russian propaganda news outlets being like, can we have you on to talk about how Ukraine is arming the cartels? And it's like, well, that's not what's happening, right? The angle matters here. And what's happening is cartels are exploiting a war. I mean, in Ukraine, obviously there's no airports, right?

So we have to drive around everywhere, take a train. The roads are absolutely destroyed. They're like Mexican roads. Why? Because all of the resources are going to the war effort. Right. not to, you know, regular repairments of city infrastructure. Jesus Christ.

What a mess. Every time I think this thing can't be a bigger mess. By the way, we were talking about it yesterday on a podcast. But you got the casualties are up at an estimated 1.8 million at this point. The deaths are somewhere between 500,000 and the million. It's like. I interviewed one woman whose son died and she said, we're not going to have any men left in our country. Oh, my God.

And I felt horrible for her. And then, you know, there's this also other narrative coming from Americans too. And I was told about something that happened. An unnamed, which I should just say it. But a sort of prominent American journalist wanted an interview with Ukrainian politician. And when the Ukrainian politician was like, I can't, whatever, he kind of grabbed him and said, well, I pay for your war. You owe me an interview. and it's someone you would never guess.

That's kind of wild. Yeah. There's a lot of that. I mean, it's got, it's got to stop, though. There has to have, especially the whole West is funding it. So they call the shots, not Ukrainians, not the Ukraine government, because there is no war without the West funding it. And they got to be. Oh, Ukraine would be Russia right now.

Yeah, you got to be the bigger man here. You don't have to fucking like Putin at all. all, but like, you can't just keep trying to make a point with people's lives because you fucking hate Putin that much. Like, make some sort of compromise here and end this shit. People are dying. Yeah, but the peace treaty is not a peace treaty whatsoever. What? Trump's proposed peace treaty to end the war. It's, or the agreement, I'm pretty just called the peace treaty. It's literally just to let Putin take over that everyone in Ukraine has to speak Russian and then Putin will never stop.

Putin wants the Soviet Union back. He's talking about the Don Bass region where most of them already do speak Russian. But they're not Russian. But a lot of them do identify as Russian. But a lot of them don't. And a lot of people I met who speak Russian from that region refuse to speak

Russian. Refuse. When I made my fixer, when we went to that POW camp and I wanted to interview this one of the prisoners who spoke Russian, I was like, oh, I want to interview him and my fixer was like, but I think he speaks Russian and I said, but you speak Russian. And he's like, okay, fuck. They reject it. And I understand it. And a lot of people who are not from or

have ties to Eastern Europe will not fully understand it. But the Soviet Union was horrible and everyone rejects it. My Bapcha, my grandma who lived in Soviet Union was like, this is the worst possible outcome for anyone. She renounced her Polish passport just because she was so afraid. that the Soviet Union would come back and she's been living in Canada for like a long time probably like 50 years at this point No I get it and

The argument here is not It's not like oh is is Putin not that bad or whatever Like Putin Putin is what he is he is he's a dictator You can go look at his record He kills his political opponents always has But he's not a dumb He's not a dummy No he's not he's not a dummy

But the same goes for fucking like Ryan Wedding or Mentiono or whoever we're talking about at the cartels. But just because you're smart. It's totally different though. No. It's totally different. But a high IQ person, it can still be an evil person. There has to be a way here though because at the end of the day and I always cite this, Russia's GDP is the size of Italy.

Okay. So there is a limit to no matter what power he wants, there's a limit to what they can do. It is different than like when Hitler was going across Europe with the fastest grown GDP, the best. military in the world, the best technology. It's a different kind of thing. And that's a tough pill for people to swallow. But like my number one thing is let's stop people fucking dying. And if there's a way to do that, some cooler heads got to prevail. And yeah, it's got to be better than whatever's been proposed to this point. That seems like they're not trying hard enough anyone, anyone to get it across. Obviously, the last administration just wanted fucking go on forever. A lot of Ukrainian people I

spoke to would honestly rather die fighting for the sovereignty than succumb to Russia. Yeah, but I think there's ways to do it without succumbing to Russia. And unfortunately, what that is going to require is some sort of NATO compromise as well. And they don't want to hear that. And I understand why they don't want to hear that. But if they do that and then Putin decides to break something two, three years from now, they will have the full fucking right as NATO to go in there and wreck them. And it'll be interesting how it changes now because,

Russia was backed by or has been backed by Iran for a lot of it. Like Iran supplied the Shahed drones to Russia, which Ukraine doesn't have anything comparable to that. And now what we're seeing, I don't know how, what that's going to look like, to be honest. Anyways, the point is the cartels have transnational nexus between fucking every possible hostile environment, political economy you could ever. imagine. And you know what? Sucks. But unfortunately, it's like making the case for it. We wonder why spy agencies instead of trying to stop the cartels, use them as a vehicle. This is why. This is a perfect example of that. You don't think there's some sources and of course they're come on. There's a million of them. You probably talk to five. Probably. You know what I mean?

I mean, some people I spoke to, it was this one guy. He was a Brazilian guy. He worked in tech in Brazil and then he said he allegedly got a fake job offer to go work in St. Petersburg and then they ended up throwing him on the front lines to fly drones. But it was very obvious to me that he was lying that he had insane drone capacities and he wanted to go over there to make money and fly drones. He ended up getting captured by Ukrainian forces. What about the guys you were talking to in the prisoner camp from like a human rights perspective? What were your observations? Well, it seemed as though they were very much following the Geneva Convention, but it was also very controlled what we were shown. So we were given a tour, but then also like at one point, there were, the Geneva Convention was like printed out and laminated on the wall, but it was like all in English.

You're talking to the guy and like Ben Stiller from Happy Gilmore's behind. And then at one point, so yeah, okay, so they were, we were shown and told, you know, they're giving three males a day, they're showers. we actually were given bread to eat that the prisoners made. Oh, this sounds like it. Yeah. Yeah, it was like interesting to say the least. And then at one point, we have this on camera. And I'm not, you know, I hope that Ukraine, you know, can beat this invasion.

Like, I just want to make that clear. I do not support Russia at all. But we went to be shown like the recreational room where like they watch TV or whatever. and it's like this little room, probably like around the size and it's like lined with chairs and they had all the prisoners sitting down looking at a black TV that wasn't plugged in. And like silence. Please stop because I walk in and my cameraman is behind me. And I'm like, what is this?

And like at the same time our translator is translating from like the guards and the head of the prison. And they're like, this is where they watch. And then I'm like, but they're not watching TV. And like, and I'm processing it as I'm watching. it. And then the fucking guard like freaks out and is like you at least turn on the TV. You guys make me look like a fucking idiot like starts yelling and my translator is like telling me. He was super good. Right. And I burst out laughing. Oh no. I felt so bad but it just it looked so bad. And I'm like, come on guys. Like get it together. Turn the propaganda up. Like it just

looked really bad. But I mean on but I also interviewed a lot of. Okay. So this is is where it gets complicated because journalistic standards and ethics in terms of interviewing prisoners of war is very complicated. And so this was certainly the most complicated assignment I've ever done in my life because technically when you're interviewing prisoners of war, it can be done. It's typically done under duress. They don't have a choice. And as the journalist, you may not know that because the guards are telling them you're going to fucking talk to them or you're not like eating for a week, right? And you have to tell them positive things. And so when I was talking to the prisoners of war one-on-one, they brought me one guy into this office that we were

interviewing them. And there were two guards in there. So it was me, my cameraman, my fixer slash translator, and two guards. And he's like, the prisoner is very nervous. And he sits down, he's Colombian. And I start speaking in Spanish. And he's like, I don't, I don't know. know like if I want to talk to you and I was like okay I understand that and the guard as we're talking in Spanish you can hear her doing the Google Translate on her phone like you know when you hit the microphone button and he's like looking at them and I just fucking turn and my transitor's there. I'm like you got to tell the guards to get the fuck out. Yeah and someone from the Ministry of Defense came with us because we needed federal like permission to be there.

But at this point the guy from the Ministry of Defense kind of knew how I was how I am. Like, this girl's got elephant balls. And the female guard looks at me. And I'm like, she's translating. Like, and I'm not going to talk to him with them in here. Because it's probably already that he doesn't have a choice to talk to me. But I want to see if I can somehow connect with him. And but I don't want any intimidation because I'm not here to fucking do that.

Right. And so then the Ministry of Defense guy actually was like, had my back and he's like, okay, like, we'll all leave. So he gets them out. and I'm sitting with this Columbian guy and I'm like, so how do they treat you here? Which is also a question you're actually technically not supposed to ask. But, you know, there were so, there's so many rules when I was reading about it in the moment, too, like you want to know things.

You don't know if you're getting right information. And so I don't, it was very complicated. And I know that I didn't operate perfectly when reporting on this situation. But I tried my best. Tough environment. It is. It really is. And so that made it very complicated. At one point, we go into a library where there was this guy who was kind of operating the library. He's a prisoner of war. And I go, to my translator, can you ask him if he wants to talk to me? He was like a very tall, handsome guy who apparently was from Ukraine and went to fight in Russia. So I thought that was weird. And then he was like, no, in Russian, speaking Russian. And the guards are all like staring at him. And so then they all walk out first.

And I'm kind of slowly walking out and I look at him. And he whispers to me in English. He spoke English the whole time. So there were just a lot of weird things that happened on this assignment. So and then I went from that assignment straight to El Mancho's crib where like it just was all weird again. Travel in the world doing your thing. Yeah, but it's not like really, you know, some of my girlfriends are like, they get to go to Milan and like parents. I'm going to war.

I'm going to war. I'm going to war. So hi, I'm in a Russian prisoner of war camp. I'm in the place where all Mention was killed. Like you chosen, Kat Schultz, but you're doing a good job. It's a pretty wild scoop you got with the Mancho compound and stuff. So we'll be monitoring that story. People can follow you on Instagram.

We have that link below as well as X. And then all the videos of what we've just talked about will be on my podcast on Borderline Dispatches. Excellent. We'll have that link down below. as well. Thank you as always for coming in. Thanks for having me. To cover this. Yeah, thanks. All right, everybody else, you know what it is. Give us 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 help. And if you would like to follow me on Instagram and X, those links are in my description below.