Julian Dorey Podcast - #405 - “Chocolate C*KE!” - Ex-FBI Most Wanted Kingpin on Sicarios, Smuggling & Power | Owen Hanson

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

SPONSORS: 1) GHOSTBED: Get an extra 10% off GhostBed by going to https://GhostBed.com/julian and using promo code JULIAN at checkout. Some exclusions apply; see site for details. JOIN PATREON FOR EARLY UNCENSORED EPISODE RELEASES: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey CLIPPERS DISCORD: https://discord.gg/8QmWEKJ3BT (***TIMESTAMPS in description below) ~ Owen Hanson is a former USC football player and national champion who transitioned from a college athlete to the leader of a global drug trafficking and illegal gambling empire. After serving nearly a decade in federal prison for his ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, he was released in 2024 and now operates as a motivational speaker and entrepreneur. OWEN's LINKS: IG: https://www.instagram.com/theofficialcakid/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/@UCTxy9vJL7lqHkCnyx7G3DEg PROTEIN: https://owen-hanson.com/california-ice-protein/ FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY IG: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/ X: https://x.com/juliandorey JULIAN YT CHANNELS - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@juliandoreyclips - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily - SUBSCRIBE to Best of JDP: https://www.youtube.com/@bestofJDP ****TIMESTAMPS**** 0:00 - First Guest Fidgette Squeezer Prison Story 11:45 - Making USC Team Rose Bowl Years 22:54 - Parents Divorce Abandonment GHB USC Culture 34:33 - Gambling Start Costa Rica Bookmaking Empire 43:58 - Power Addiction Bookie Tactics FEDS 52:47 - Cartel Involvement Jungle NFL Players Gambling 1:01:39 - College Programs Encrypted Blackberry Cartel 1:15:20 - Million a Day C*caine Australia Operation 1:28:08 - Tijuana El Jefe Debt Cartel Pressure 1:40:44 - Smuggling C*caine Liquid Chocolate Method 2:00:02 - Sting Setup Feds Henry Hill Moment 2:10:58 - RICO Charges Facing 30 Years Sobriety 2:23:21 - Prison Life Release Culture Shock Business 2:38:49 - Family Reflection College Programs 2:42:01 - Owen'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 405 - Owen Hanson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I message him back, Julian. I say, hey, about that. I need to see you. I'm not going to tell this guy on this encrypted phone, who I've never met that I lost his money. I can't, right? I'm like, I need to see you. And he's like, okay, well, you got to come see me in Mexico.

Yeah, so. Woo! Yeah, I fucking hate telling the story because it fucking brings back so many bad memories. But so I go, I go to Tijuana. I cross the bridge. Right back where it all started. Yeah, where it all started. That same bridge I used to smuggle stairwell.

Reds across. And I meet him. Six Sikarios. We meet at this restaurant. He has six Sikarios with him. You're the first person to ask for my hand fidget is well over there. So I feel like we're matched up today. I like it. You got to have big forearms. Chicks love forearms. They do like four arms. They do like them. But dude, how's it adjusting back to life? I mean, you've only been out what, like seven months? Seven months, yeah. You know, it's a it's a slow and steady crawl. Right. And then I finally stood up after. I got out of the halfway house and started walking again. It was a strange feeling, right?

I had this girl that's been with me the last 10 years in prison and she, she says, I'm delivering you mastros and delivering me, mastros. I said, that's a steak restaurant Beverly Hills. She goes, go outside. And this is when I was staying at the halfway house. And I go outside and she goes, you got Uber Eats. I said, what the fuck is Uber Eats? She goes, yeah, they're out there.

they got a steak dinner for you. I said, what are you talking about? I've never heard of this. Like, Uber Eats. What the fuck is Uber Eats? I go out and the guy brings me a master's steak and fucking buttercakes in there. And I'm like, holy shit, what's this world coming to, right? It got a little more convenient since you left.

And then she had a package come. And she says, hey, I got you a set of Bluetooth. I said, what's Bluetooth? And she's like, I did Amazon Prime. It's going to get there tomorrow. I'm like, what the fuck's Amazon Prime? right like yeah and she's laughing i'm like what are you laughing about she goes that's that's what we use now it's next day and like holy shit so now i learned about next day amazon prime i learned about

bluetooth and i learned about uber eats and in less than 24 hours right when i got out that's a good start dude and then i started scrolling through social media which i haven't had right i'm checking out all these hot chicks i'm clicking on them and they got this thing called only fans i'm like what the fuck is only fans right i'm like this is crazy and this is this is this is the new world we live in. It is definitely like, because I don't have a concept of it because it all happens gradually over time when you're out here in the world, but you were, you were going for, what, 10 years in prison? Yeah, about nearly 10 years. I mean, when you're just completely turned off like that, it is really a snap because it, I mean, it goes from when you were gone away. It's like

people are still on Facebook and now it's like Instagram's old news. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? It's just way different. Probably before your age was MySpace. You know, I remember when I was in like fourth grade. Yeah. You put like your top friends on the. Yep. Yeah, that was kind of brutal.

They make you do like the top. Yeah, you get your friends pissed off like, hey, what the fuck? You have a girlfriend. Hey, man,

who's that girl up there? That's my mistress, you know. Now, you had the same girl stick by you for 10 years while you were in prison. Listen,

I wouldn't say stick by me. Who knows what they're doing out there? But they answer my calls. At the end of the day, that's all that matters, right? Yeah. And then she's there when you get out?

Yeah. That's really nice. For me, that's important. That shows you who your true friends are. For sure. She could have told you about Amazon Prime, though, next day while you were in there. Well, listen, I'd ever got to accept that package, so it's not the same, right? I'm sure I've heard about it reading the Wall Street Journal because that's all I read.

But the next day, like, and then putting the Bluetooth, and I'm like, where's the cable that you connect to the phone? You know, like that? That was the hard part for me. Did you have an iPhone before you went? No. I had a BlackBerry. Okay. Oh, shit.

You're on the Crackdardt. I was on the Crackberry. I love the berry. I'll tell you what, I used an encrypted Blackberry to communicate with the cartel. I was going to say, probably. I wish I had that Blackberry. To be honest, I like that keyboard. It's so much easier.

You and I could be talking right now and I could just type without even, like, looking, right? And now the iPhone, my big fat fingers hit it. And it's like, fuck, I fucked that one up. Hey, guys, three quick things. Number one, if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe to huge, huge help. Number two, if you'd like to join my Patreon for early uncensored releases of the full episodes, you can join via the link of my description. or in the pin comment below.

And number three, if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make content from the show and make money, you can join via the Discord link in my description below. That was a thing for a few years when the world really did move to iPhones and all the Blackberry business guys did have to move to it.

There was a good three, four, five year period. I'm sure people out there can pull up the old Reddit threads or whatever. Like, goddamn, could they just make it with the Blackberry keyboard and we'd be good? You know what someone told me, Julian, that they made a thing you put your book your iPhone in and you have like a little keyboard that's the same as the Blackberry and then they got sued by Blackberry that you couldn't use that.

Yeah, I think it's great. Could you imagine if you could just be on your iPhone and pretend like you're using your BlackBerry? Yeah, it actually was kind of nice. Can we pull that up, Joe? Yeah. Why wouldn't Blackberry just say, all right, you owe us 50% licensing? Yeah. Yeah.

They made a phone. They're making their own phone now. Who's they? Clicks. That's what it is. Oh, that company that did it. Oh, it is Clicks. Yeah.

I don't know if that's going to work out. They ain't got that iOS. That's tough. Look at that big Beck and Magnet on the back. Yeah. No, I do like the feeling, though, right? Like, literally I could, I was so fast. Yeah.

Did you have like when you were in prison and, you know, obviously we're going to get to what happened here, everyone if you're wondering what's going on. But when you were there, what was your computer access like? Was there anything? The only computer you get is for law library. So anytime you're researching your case or just, you know, fighting, looking at your discovery, putting in motions. So we have no internet.

Right. They have no internet throughout the Bureau of Prisons. They have an email base where you can email, but the people that you email have to be accepted by the Bureau of Prisons. So they have to do a background check. And then when you email them, it's, you know, my case is such a big deal. The FBI would read all the emails before it would get sent to my family members. So it's monitored. You got like security inside the prison systems, which is called SIS.

And they act as like the FBI liaison. And so anything comes in goes to the FBI. They read the emails. They send it back to SIS and they say, okay, he's good to go. Send it out. And sometimes people wouldn't get my emails for, you know, two to three days. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a pain in the ass.

It's also like, you know, I know your expectations all change when your life has changed and you get put in there. But you realize I would imagine, nothing in your life is private at all. You can't, it's kind of weird like saying anything because you know a bunch of people who you don't know are going to be reading this, including people that may have some ability to hold some sort of judgment over you. Yeah, reading or listening, right?

Like phone calls, and you can just hear it like your call being recorded. And, you know, one bad thing, and they click, turn off the phone. So it's, it was definitely an eye opener. I'm glad it's behind me. Yeah. Now, you wrote a book about your whole experience here, the California kid. I wrote that literally in my six by eight prison cells starting in 2017, right after I got sentenced to 21 years. 21 years.

Yeah. But you did 10. Did 10 and you're going to ask how I got off. Yeah. You got to watch the docus series. We got to let it. We got to dangle the carrot, man. Maybe we'll dangle that.

Yeah, but you do have a docus series produced by Mark Wahlberg. They're working on a film about your story. because you're a kid from Redondo Beach, I understand, who also happened to be a great football player, played on one of the most legendary programs in college history back in the glory days of Pete Carroll at USC. At USC, multinational titles, obviously Reggie Bush, who, for my money, was the best college player I've ever seen in my life, team main of yours, right? So how, first of all, how does a kid like that end up on that USC team? Let's start there before we get to everything else that happened.

By accident. By accident? Yeah, it was never supposed to happen this way. I went to USC on a volleyball scholarship. I was the top 50 players in America. I was an opposite hitter. It was this surfer kid from Redondo Beach that played volleyball. My dad was a highly competitive volleyball player.

My uncle was a professional volleyball player and volleyball was my life. I went to USC on a scholarship, two thirds. Sophomore year, my coach called me in and said, Hanson, I'm red-shooting. I said, fuck, I came here to play volleyball. What do you mean you're red-chirting? He says, you need to work on that vertical jump. He says, you're not jumping high enough. He says, you need to work on your arm strength.

I said, coach, come on. He goes, you're playing behind the best all-American volleyball player in the nation right now, Brooke Billings. And he says, you got to step it up, Hanson. I said, okay, I'll fucking step it up. And I left that office that day and I said, fuck, what am I going to do now? And I literally drove down Redondo Beach where I'm from. I went to Gold's Gym.

I went to the biggest bodybuilder there. And I said, man, I just. got fucking cut. You know, redshirting is pretty much getting cut. I said, I just got cut. I said, my coach said, I need to play work on my arm strength, my vertical jump. What do you recommend? And this bodybuilder goes, do you want to do it legally or illegally? And I said, whatever works fast, right? And he says, you got to get on performance enhancing drugs. I think I was 19 at the time. What did he put you on? It wasn't what he put me on because I couldn't afford it. Remember, I'm a blue collar kid. My parents were blue-collar family.

My dad was a construction worker. My mom was a librarian and they were divorced. And he says, well, this is what it's going to cost. He starts to name and, you know, Sustanon $250, $100, $150, you know, $150,000, and of our, $150 growth hormone. I'm like, okay, I can't afford that. He says, well, if you can't afford it, I suggest you go to the pharmacy. I said, the pharmacy.

He says, yeah, Tijuana. He wrote down this list and Julian, that's what I did. I drove to the pharmacy in Tijuana. I picked right across the border right across the border and I walked across because I don't want to have to drive back. I don't want to have to get stopped by by the customs and I showed up there and I gave them this list and they looked at it and they filled it right there on the spot and you know I had like two vials of testosterone. I had sippinate sustenon 250. I had windstrel tablets. I had anavar. I had human growth hormone. I had HCG Novodex. I'm like right. Where the fuck am I going to

put this, right? Like, I can't just walk across with it in my pockets. And I remember I had my compressor shorts on that day and my compressor shorts were used for the volleyball team. And I said, you know what? That's where I'm going to put them. And I dumped all the pills and the vials in this plastic sandwich bag and I wrapped it up and the lady gave me some 3M medical tape and I taped it. You know, I just made it like a, just think of a banana. And Julie and I went in that bathroom and I didn't stick it in the hole, but I stuck it in the crack. And I pulled those compressor shorts up and I said, let's go. And my buddy and I, we went back to that line. U.S. Customs says you bring anything back? I said, absolutely not, sir. And I lied, right? And I walked

across that border with this banana up my ass. And for the first time ever, I lied to the authorities. And I broke the law. You never broken the law in any way before. I was, I was a kid. kid that followed directions. I headed a father that gave me a 6 p.m. curfew on Monday through Friday, 8 p.m. on the weekends. Never drink a sip of alcohol. Whoa. Yeah. So there's a lot to think about when you're shopping for a new mattress. Your budget, your sleeping style. Where do you even start? Luckily, Ghostbed is here to help. Ghostbed's redesigned mattress quiz cuts through all the noise and gives you a clear, reliable recommendation for the mattress that is going to help you get the best sleep possible. All you got to do is answer a few questions about yourself and get a recommendation

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Yeah, we'll get there. Just to give your viewers a understanding. The first little trickle. Yeah, that's where it started right there. Yeah, you're just trying to get stronger. Yeah. And so to like go to T-O-1 so you can afford it. So I did.

You know, I did. I went back and started injecting. And this is why it was an accident. I made the football team. I was in the weight room and one of the strength and conditioning coaches comes in. He goes, Hanson, what the fuck have you gotten into? It was an accident, right? I'm fucking science.

You know, I'm like this mad scientist injecting this shit in my ass and pop a pill. And dude, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. You know, I'm listening to a bodybuilder. And I said, coach, I got cut. He says, Hanson, you need to walk on a football team. I said, coach, I've never played football in my life. You hadn't played it ever. Never caught a football in my life.

My dad didn't allow me to play football. I'll tell you why. He says it was too dangerous of a sport and he didn't want me getting hurt. And I told you my dad was strict. So I just obeyed him, right? Yeah. But now I'm 19. I'm an adult.

So I go and I tell the coach, Coach Char, I said, hey, when's tryouts? And he gives me the date. I go back to my dorm room. I look at myself in the mirror, I go, fuck it. I'm an adult. I don't care what my dad says. I'm going to try out. And I try it out.

There's 50 guys, all Americans from junior colleges in high schools. And I ran the 440, which was probably the reason I made the team. I ran it in 4.6 seconds. And I was weighing 240 pounds. What are you? Like 6.5, 2? 6.3, yeah. So I understand better numbers.

That's like combine numbers, right? Yeah. And then that'll do. Yeah, and then I obviously had a vertical jump from volleyball. It was like 36 inches. So they saw that. And then the last test was we go down to the bench press. And obviously no one knows at the time, but I'm fucking on every kind of stirrward there is.

And I get down there, I'm benching two plates, just bouncing it off my, my chest. And I hit 26 reps. Yeah. At like age 19. Yeah. Yeah. So I, uh, I said great. You know, the tryouts over.

I did that and two weeks later coach says coach char the same one that told me to try try out he says hey go look up Pete Carroll has the list up who made the team I said why am I gonna go up there I didn't make the fucking football team I'm a log player he goes just go check and I went up there and I see all these like disappointing faces leaving all these guys that that I tried out of I go up there and there's one name says Owen Hanson you were the only one was the only one made the USC football team. And that's, so is this 03? 03, yeah.

So we won the, that was spring during spring. They had won the Rose Bowl before, right? Before we run the Rose Bowl with the, no, it was the Orange Bowl with, no, it was the Orange Bowl with Carson Palmer. I was part of the Rose Bowl championship team that we won with liner and Reggie. That was to be Michigan. We beat Michigan for the Rose Bowl and we split that AP champions. That's right. And LSU was the BCS champion.

Who would Carson beat Iowa, Brad Banks, right? Correct. Troy Pell-Pollumol was on that team. Yep. Okay. And then the next year we go and beat Oklahoma and the Orange Bowl and we blow them out, 5519. Remember that well? And I was part of that team.

So I got two national championship rings and I never played football in my whole life. And so this is where this, you know, bounce back, this back against the wall, this underdog started. All right, let's back up for a second. First of all, when you start taking all these steroids, I don't even remember the cocktail you went through there. It was Winstraw, and I heard a lot of other shit. Like, obviously it's helping you get way stronger, but, you know, I was very dumb at 19, too. I'm not thinking about anything.

Once you start taking them, are you getting, like, some kind of weird side effects, too? Angry. Right? Every little thing irritates you. I remember someone who cut me off in my car, and I'd follow those cars. And I said, get the fuck, pull over right now. I was angry. Yeah.

And every little thing just, just you would snap. girl would do something that pissed you off. You're like, what the fuck you're doing? Like, why are you yelling at me? You know, and it's just because you're, it's called royd rage, right? Right. You get on steroids and you get rage. And you get fucking backney, you get acne, you get everything.

Everything is fucking acne everywhere. You know, you're not supposed to put that kind of shit in your body at that age. Were you worried about when you made the team? I mean, I don't know what the testing was like back then. No, no. I was worried and I got off of it. So I had it down to a science where I would do it in the offseason. And once season started, I was clean.

Yeah, I was able to keep my size just taking the protein shakes, the creatine, the glutamine. Did that feel weird, though? Was it hard on your body, like going from 100 down to zero? Yeah, of course. You know, you're not as strong in the gym. Right. But it has to be done. I got tested many times.

Past all. Yeah, past all. No wizenator. No, no wizenator. Back then they didn't have it. But, yeah, the thing came in very handy later on in life. Yeah, it'd be some fucking well. white dudes going in there coming out with black cox.

Yeah, yeah. I've seen that. I've seen that. The old Wizzinator, they got it in all colors now, right? They even got a Chinese one. Yeah, a little Asian. They got it. What's an inch long?

Now, were you a tight end or what was your? Yeah, it was your tight end. I played behind Dominique Bird. Oh, yeah. Fred, Fred Davis, who played in the NFL. Yeah. Great gun there. Yeah, it was great.

I had an awesome time. I learned a lot. Coach Brendan Carroll is my coach who was Pete Carroll's son, obviously. Lane Kiffin was our receiver coach. That's right. Coach Sarkesian was our quarterback coach. Norm Chow was our offense coordinator. Ed Ojon was our O'Oline coach.

He's a cool guy. Yeah, he keep going. Ken Norton was our linebacker coach. Shit, I mean, the legends, right? Ojole-Lat play with Ed O'O-Ton. I can't. I mean, I couldn't stand O'Jon. He scared the shit out of me.

He said, you motherfucker. one time he had a bunch of dip in his mouth and he put coffee grinds in his mouth with his dip he'd mix it give him that fucking energy and one time i didn't make a block and he said you motherfucker he grabbed me by the fucking face mask and he shook me you fucking walk on and he took his fucking dip and he just threw it in my fucking face mask i go fuck what you can't do you can't do anything this guy's a fuck everyone's scared shitless of this dude and i'll ever forget that day man He just manhandled me. Yeah, he's kind of like it.

Dief, have you ever seen the video of Ed Ogeron running, like on campus shirtless? He's a nut. Oh, he's out of his mind, but it's the funniest thing ever. He drinks like eight red bulls a day. And he's cut back. He used to drink like 15, I guess. That sounds about that. So Dan Campbell numbers right there.

Yeah, I don't know if we can find that on Twitter. Yeah, I would like to go see Ed, I want to see Ed coach again, you know. I want to go speak to his college team. It's kind of great. were away when that happened but like he goes to LSU he had had all these other jobs and you know could never stay as like a head coach goes to LSU recruits Joe Burrow builds wide receiver you while he's there wins a title and like within a year they're like get packed yeah what the fuck yeah it doesn't make sense oh this is a no days off oh my god this is a that is a

Osirond stroll right there. Is that at the campus? Yep. He's sweating like a whore. He's got the towel for the sweat. He's running back right back right here. That's funny. Oh, my God.

Now, just picture that man, just like throwing coffee and dip right in your fucking face. But yeah, I couldn't understand why he got canned. That was kind of crazy. I was hoping Kiffin were to hire him, bring him back on. Wouldn't that be funny? That would be kind of a full circle kind of thing, right? So yeah, that was good. Were you friends with guys on the team that we would know?

Yeah, Matt Liner. You know, I was in Reggie's wedding, Reggie Bush, Brandon Hancock. Lendell White were in my... You were in Reggie's wedding? Yeah. No shit. Lendell White was... Yeah, I remember Lando.

He was in the docky series on Amazon Prime. Brandon Hancock, our All-American fullback was in there as well. Kept in contact still to talk to Matt Liner yesterday, actually. Are you going to do him in... Jerry's show. Yeah, we did it. We did it. We did it right for the dokey series. Yeah, yeah. It was perfect for the football. And, you know, Jerry's friends with Walberg, obviously, from Montrose. He's friends with all of them, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it was good. It's been a, it's been a grind. It's, it's, you know, it's life. And it's, it's very humbling to come from,

you know, eventually we'll talk about making a million dollars a day and right. And getting out of prison and making a dollar on an ice cream bar that I manufacture, right? And it's, it's just a slow and steady race but at the end of the day it's we're looking for an exit planning you know four or five years for the business you got yeah yeah so you talk about that rush though when you're at the border and you've always been this kid who was forced to file rules first of all like did you have like a um i don't want to call it like a weird animosity but did you have like a develop once you got out of the house like a rebel nature kind of towards your dad because he had been so strict And that was part of the rush?

I think, you know what? I think you're right. At some point, you just realize like, you know what? Now it's my turn to understand why. Like, why was he so strict? But I understand why because my dad was an alcoholic. And he always says, we don't drink in this family. And then when I got to college and I had that first sip of alcohol, I felt like Superman.

And then I had when I had that first line of cocaine, I really felt like Superman. And I was like, okay, now I see why pops didn't want me doing this. It's in our blood. Like, we're fucking addicts. We enjoy. drinking alcohol because it makes us feel good. And I see why my dad, you know, you just drink every night. So he wasn't a recovering alcohol. No. So when I went, when I went to, when my dad took me under his wing when I was eight years old and they, my parents divorced, my dad got sober for 13 years. So he got

sober all the way until I graduated college. And then as soon as I graduated college and he saw that I was, you know, successful, he's like, okay, now I can drink again. I don't have to worry about my son. Oh, wow. So he did that. I respect. him for what he did, you know, he stood by me and pushed me through and got me out of school. And it was by my side as a sober person. Yeah. I don't think I've ever heard a story like that before. Yeah, it's crazy.

13 years. Now, were you split when your parents divorced, you were eight? Yeah, I was bombed. Yeah. You know, you're supposed to have a mother in life, right? And then to see my mom, you know, once or twice a year is difficult. Oh, so you didn't split time. No.

No, no. My dad said, I'm keeping my son. My mother said, okay, well, I'm going to take on sister, their daughter. And when we would change, you know, during like Thanksgiving or Christmas when I would see my mom, my sister would go with my dad and I would go with my mom. So I'd see her, you know, twice, three times a year most. And it was hard. And you're not not having a mom. Most people, it's other way. You don't have a dad. Right. Right. But either way, like even. A lot of situations, it's like they see their dad every other weekend or on weekends, that kind of thing. At least there's something to like, regardless of what parent it is, to only be with them on like a holiday or something once or twice a year. Did you feel like you even had a relationship with your mom? Like she even knew who you were? Yeah, I mean, she would call me obviously. And it's just not that relationship most people have with their mother. Right.

It was just, you know, to this day, you know, I tell her, fuck man, fuck me up. But at the end of day, it is what it is. My parents, you know, didn't get along and it had to be that way. So why didn't it have to be that drastic? Why couldn't it be like other parents? I think because she left and she moved away, like, you know, 10 hours away. So that made it difficult to see her. She was living in Northern California and I was living in Southern California.

And so it's a big difference. And why was it? So you were the boy, so I guess your dad. Well, I was already, yeah, I was already. playing sports. I was eight. So I was in AYSO. I was playing basketball, AAU volleyball. So it was like, my dad's like, no, no, you're not taking them. He's already in the sports leagues here. It was the best thing to happen. I'm glad I stayed. Got just got into USC because of it, you know. Did you ever feel like your mom because she, you know,

was okay, I guess, with not being in your life pretty much like she didn't love you or you felt abandoned? Definitely abandoned, right? watching her leave with my sister, my sister crying, sucking her thumb with her blanket in her hand. I was like, damn, that's hard. I was like asking my father, what did I do wrong? Like I told my dad, I said, Dad, what'd I do? Like I've been showering, I've been making my bed,

I've been eating my vegetables, like, where did I fuck up as a kid? And it's hard to understand at that age, no doubt. Impossible. Impossible. Wow. All right, some of it's clogged. of its clock and how you know you don't have that normal yeah in any way no normal type upbringing but then like your dad is making sacrifices to do the best for you which i think is an amazing thing

but then it's also like in some ways it becomes like okay do as i say not as i am yes not as i did right and it's also very strict to the point that then when the governor's kind of taken off it's like All right, baby, let's go. And it ends up here, you know, from USC Golden Bunny International Drug King. Right. It really stem from this if you were a tasked expert. Before you ever got the redshirt conversation, though, because that was before when you were going to be a sophomore, right? Correct.

So freshman year, had you experimented with, like, alcohol and Coke then? No, I hadn't yet. I waited sophomore year. The reason I waited as sophomore year is that's when we were like out of the dorm. We weren't being watched by like the USC volleyball coach because everything was monitored so closely in the dorm living. You know, you couldn't be drinking. You know, we're underage, first of all. You know, and I was very, very strict.

Yes. And the volleyball coach had a rule that if you're a freshman, you can't rush a fraternity. You know, you're going to be monitored and you can't drink. So I was following these rules. And then sophomore year, I rushed to fraternity and I started doing steroids and doing lines of cocaine. And it's snowball, no pun intended. So the steroids before the blow? Yes.

You think maybe like the steroids getting you so amped up was like, I want some of that white stuff too. Or like, what was it? Definitely. I think I put everything in anything in my body. And once you put the steroids in, it's like, what else can I throw in here? Right. some molly some ghb some zanics some viking and i i mean everything you're doing GHB oh yeah that was my favorite i would take do you remember it i love it i loved it because it would be on storage you're so amped up

and it's hard to sleep at night and then when you take that ghb it just brings you down yeah and that's what i liked i liked that feeling of being down when i'm so amped i like at night not yeah not during the day yeah i got you and then you'll see in the book i started literally taking I can G at six in the morning when I wake up to go work out just because I'm so amped and fucking got this cartel behind me and I'm just like, holy shit, I need to calm down. And GHB and a half of Xanax would level me out. But that, so I always just think of GHB is the date rape drug

because people- If you mix it with alcohol, right? But GHB did used to be legal in GNC. They used to call it Blue Thunder in the 90s. And it was legal. Whoa. I think it was called Blue Lightning or Blue Thunder, but you could buy GHB legally.

and people would use it for insomnia. Wow. Yeah. I didn't know that. So this is before people started abusing it. Right. Yeah. So you would, well, that's a lot going on.

But when you're playing on the national champions for a couple years, obviously, like, you know, as well as anyone, college football is a full-time job. I mean, you work. All my best friends in college were D1A players. They had a 60 hour a week job. Oh, yeah. And then they also had to take class and stuff like that. And, you know, the balance is insane. How are you, I always kind of wonder at.

Like how the guys, especially at the highest level, playing on teams like that, balance being at a school like USC in California, women are looking great, parties are amazing. And then also being so locked in to be able to be like undefeated national champions. Like, was it fucking with your body all the abuse you were doing to it to the point that you couldn't perform like you wanted to? there? No, I think I performed better. You know, it kept me going like, like imagine taking an adderol constantly and being up and just laser focused. And that's, that's how the cocaine did it for me. And then at night, I'd take that GHB to lower my levels, I'd sleep and then do it again and again. And, you know, I think it helped also the USC program put us with tutors, right? We had athletic, everybody on the football team had a tutor for every class. So I made a lot easier.

time to do homework my tutor would be sitting there you know and we'd get through it if i didn't have that it there'd be no way i'd be able to pass what was it like playing for pete man legend no doubt he's a players coach so every day we'd be excited to go to you know practice not only practice but we'd watch film and there'd always be some some little thing he'd bring into the room like snoop dog or dr dr dr drey or you know like will philrell would be there some days and these guys guys would dress out. You'd see Will Ferrell on pads and you'd see Snoop Dog running routes with us. It was cool. And he was just a jokester. I remember one time. He said, hey, guys, Lindel's suicidal and we looked up and Lindel wasn't at practice, but he was on above the roof. And someone dressed

a mannequin up with Lindel's practice jersey and threw it off the roof. This is before, like, if this happened now, you know, people would be fired. He'd be fired for sure, right? So people like, no, LaDelle. They were like, what the fuck? right but it's this pete's imagination just he was great and uh is he is upbeat like positive all the time as he appears oh yeah yeah the guy used to drink like six diet mountain dues and and he'd have this gum i remember our equipment manager tino would give him this this big league chew and he'd just be chewing big leech and just chugging these tired mountain dues and i'd be coming in from from like a late night and i cut through heritage hall and there's pete just literally just literally

still on the computer looking at film for like three in the morning. You know, like this guy's just, he's a beast. Definitely lover of the game for sure. I wish we were talking before camera. I do kind of, I agree with you. I kind of wish you would have hung it up after the Seahawks game. Because he had been going for like 50 straight years at that point. Yeah, it's time to retire.

Yeah, he didn't need to go to the Raiders. Yeah. Yeah, bring Gino Smith over there. Yeah, that kind of felt like. Yeah. And luck that now the Seahawks are in the World's, or the Super Bowl. Isn't that great? Yeah, it's crazy, man. Like McDonald's was that one year, he pulled that off?

Yeah. Wow. Darnold, a USC kid too. Yeah, yeah. I just read a stat, the first USC football player ever started a Super Bowl. Really? Yeah. First quarterback, yeah.

No shit. Yeah. I wouldn't guess that. That's a good stat. Yeah, Carson never made it, right? No. That was Kurt Warner. Kurt Warner, yeah, but he wasn't.

For Cardinals. but he's not at USC. Wow. How about that, too? It's a great story with Darnal because he started up here with the Jets, which is just where football goes to die

and finds a way back onto the field eventually. I love it. I saw him like a year ago at his country club. I was golfing and Hancock introduced me and he was playing at Minnesota at the time. Look at they got rid of him. Yeah.

Now look at it. Now he's in the Super Bowl. It's awesome. I love it. That's really cool. In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $24.50 an hour. Employees also have the opportunity to grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields like software development and information technology. Learn more at aboutamazon.ca.

So you were on the team for two years at USC? The back-to-back years. The third year we lost to Texas, they needed me. They needed my performance. That game would have been different. Yeah, yeah. Well, they needed my performance enhancing drugs. I became a doctor at this football program.

He called me Dr. O'Dok. I was just going to ask you how many, you know, was it, did they have like a gatorade machine in the middle of the locker room that was spinning out wind straw? So what people got hurt, they came to me, but I only treated them during the off season. Like I wasn't putting my teammates on steroids during the season. That's nice. You know, like we're getting tested, right? We can't have a bad test and, you know, it costs us a national championship. The Spanish doctors.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, that third year I wasn't there. Maybe if I was there for Texas, we would have came through. Maybe. Should have got that third year red shirt. Now, when did you, because if I understand correctly, talk with AJ, like kind of the gateway to what ended up happening in addition to you starting to experiment with things was you got involved with, like, gamble. Yes.

In college. Now everyone sees gambling now legal and all that kind of crazy while while West back then, very different story, you know, completely different environment. How did you get involved and what was the nature of you getting involved in gambling? The nature was, you know, the recession hit in 2007 and I just lost my job. I was working for a big USC alumni. And I was like, man, what the fuck am I going to do now? And I was like, man, I really like sports.

you know, I'd be perfect. You know, you're watching Goodfellows as a kid. I was like, I'd be perfect, a perfect bookie, right? I got all the athletes that I played with. I'm meeting all these, you know, celebrities from all my buddies that are dating, you know, you got to remember, the liner was dating Paris Hilton. Reggie was dating Kim Kardashian. That's right.

So I was meeting all these people in Hollywood. What an era. I was literally like, I said, you know what? That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to become a bookie. And at that age, I was like, man, who am I going to have teach me this business? And my dad had an Italian friend. I was a bookmaker.

Makes sense. And I begged my dad to give me his numbers. He's like, no, you're not seeing Uncle Tony. I said, Dad, I got to see Uncle Tony. And he said, he said, you're not seeing Uncle Tony. And I begged him like, finally I got a meeting with Uncle Tony. And I said, Tony, please. I said, this is temporary.

I just lost my job. I said, I got all these USC kids. I got all of my boys in the NFL now. I said, let me just have an opportunity. Let me have a half pay. They call it a half sheet. where he gives you these he gives you a percentage off of the players you bring in and at the time he said i'm going to give you 20 percent of whatever your customers lose and the first like the

first i want to say five or six months my one just one customer lost a million dollars and he gave me 200 grand right over a six-month period and and i'm collecting big money for him right cash and then he's like i'm like hey something's backwards here uncle tony i said said, I think I should be getting 80%. You get 20. These are my customers. You know, like, and he's like, not happening. I said that to the Italian.

Yeah, he said, he says, he says, well, can I get a bigger percentage? No, that's all. I said, you sure? And he said, well, let me ask my partners. So he asked his partners. And they're like, no, well, most of we can give him is 30. Right. And I was like, I was bitter about it.

I was like, you know what? I got to figure out how to do this myself. And that's when I flew over to Costa Rica, the mecca of sportsbook. Right. That was like where ground zero kind of, right? Ground zero, yeah. So what are you doing there at the time? I fly over there and I literally go door to door and I start knocking on these, these doors of Costa Rican bookies.

Keep that mic in front of the way. And these bookies, you know, they have servers over there and 1,800 numbers and people that have call centers. So you basically call 1,800, you know, Beto dog, which was eventually what became my site, bettoe dog. And you go over there and they have people. speaking English and they take the bets on the call center or if you want to do it online or your application on your cell phone you can bet through that app and i learned literally learn this

business by going over there and building this thing from the ground up and i had uh at my height i had 30 customer support call center people answering i had two line managers moving lines and and two bip customers that would answer all my bip customers what kind of revenues are you looking at the I mean, at the Picos, before I got busted, I had 2,000 customers. And we're talking, I mean, at the end, you know, 2015 when I got arrested, we were, we were probably making, you know, half a million a month. Yeah, I was going to say, it's got to be up in those numbers because that was, so we're going to get to the cartel stuff. That was what I was under the impression. A lot of the indictments that were about, but like in Costa Rica, just from the gambling perspective, what were you

doing that now is like, you know, illegal? So now, I mean, I mean, in 2018, they legalized online sports betting. Right. I was the Trailblazer. I had this company called Beto Dogg. I was literally, let's see, I was about 10 years early to the game. So you were just doing kind of exactly what they're doing now? Exactly what they're doing.

It just wasn't legal yet. Yeah. And I was taking, all mine was lines of credit. So no one would use a credit card. No one would deposit a check. No one would, you know, now you have to obviously post up. Right. So I just gave lines of credit.

And when you lost, I would collect. And when you want, I would pay you. And sometimes we'd have to do things the old-fashioned way and knock on doors and, you know, avoid breaking kneecaps, obviously. But we would put the fear of God in. You never broke a kneecap? No, no. We, we tried not to allow, my big thing was if you involve any kind of violence, it's going to get you in trouble. And one of my collectors, all he was supposed to do was knock on the door.

and that's it. And I remember the person got hostile with him and he ended up slapping him. And when he slapped him, it was all recorded. And when they re-coed me, they gave me a RICO racketeering charge.

They said that I had violence in my case because this is... For slapping? Yeah, for slapping this guy. Come on. Yeah. There was no Louisville? No, no.

This is what the FBI does, though, you know? They try to make it bigger than it is. Yeah. Slap doesn't feel like too much of that. What was he in India? like six figures no this is the funny part it was uh the guy literally the week before he beat me for like five grand and the next week he loses like i think like three grand and he tells me to go fuck myself and i said what you just won i just paid you now now you're stealing that's like the cardinal

rule in this business you never you never get paid and then then lose and not pay back right especially the next week it was a principal thing and i had a guy in minnesota that where this agent was or where this customer was and I said hey give me a favor go knock on the fucking door this guy I caught him off guard and he ended up being an FBI informant oh he ended up turning in that tape to the FBI working with him taking the stand so he was literally wired up this is after yeah this is after right this is after so after that happened he called the FBI hey guys if you haven't already subscribed please hit that subscribe button it's a huge huge help Thank you.

Yeah, actually, now that I come to think of it, I wonder how much harder that is these days to do the old-fashioned, you know, New Jersey-type cooperation. No, no more. Everyone's got to do it anymore. Because you got to remember, everyone calls the cops, everyone records. Yeah. Those days are over. You know, street bookies no longer. I got to ask my guy aunt the bookie about that.

I'm sure they find a way around it. Yeah. You know, it's not the same as the old days for sure. Definitely not the same. So you were living in Costa Rica. Yeah, I was part-time. I was in Costa Rica mostly. I had a house there on the water and then I would fly back.

Sometimes I'd meet up with customers, take them golfing or taking them Vegas fights or, you know, wine and dine them. You know, I treat it like a concierge. Was your, this is where I'm a little confused, just for the gambling aspect of it. Was your identity behind the website anonymous, meaning if the government first found out about, what was the name of the site again? Bet, O'Dog. So the government first finds out about Beto Dogg.

They don't know it's Owen Hanson doing it. No, no. I think my name in the business was Junior. Yeah, you just, you know, you got, you got these these names like for all your agents. So they have to figure out who you are. Yeah, they're going to figure it out, yeah. So what you, meaning for years there, even if it in hindsight probably was a little careless, you weren't worried about flying back and forth to the U.S.

Like they wouldn't know who you are. No, I would say I was a real estate developer because I was developing in the United States as well. What were you developing in the United States? Mostly spec homes, residential. Okay. Stuff in like Hermosa, Manhattan Beach. Nice. Yeah, yeah.

And you were doing that in Costa Rica too? As well, yeah. So I would fly back and forth. And I would have my blueprints with me, opened up my plans. Like, oh, I'm doing this house. And it's real. It's real. It's no cover up.

So you would launder money through that? Through the construction, yeah. Right. And you're doing lines of credit. How would they, so if they're not doing credit cards and, like, deposits back then, would it literally be they send you in cash, like in packages? Yeah, no, they do. It's not the safest.

But back then I had a company that, company that was under my umbrella, it was an ATM business. So what I would do is I'd have it in Chase and Bank of America, in Wells Fargo, like it was called ATM Unlimited. And so I'd have these people go deposit cash into the banks. Back then it was like 9,900 was the limit. They'd go deposit 9,900, no red flags. And then I'd have the owner that limited liability go and they'd pull out, you know, 120,000 cash at a time because the person, the teller's not can ask questions. They see it's an ATM business. What do you do with the cash? You put it in your ATM machines. And I would just pay, I'd pay a fee. I'd give my guy that own the LLC

3%. And it was work for everybody. You know, he made a couple thousand a week and everyone was happy. So you go from being on the top of the world, playing at USC, doing roids and winning national titles and being the man, to then, oh, now I got to work like kind of a normal real world job to very quickly the recession hits and then you're out of. a job like oh shit now the world's really real i got to make some money to building this business that at the time is illegal again we're just on the gambling right now and it seems like pretty quickly getting to a point where you're making a fuck ton of money like was there obviously a lot of people love to make a lot of money but was there something about it where you know

you started to feel a power yeah it's power of course look at a every movie scarface and casino and good right you you you you get this the world is yeah the world is yours right there you feel like you can get anything you know i had people on my payroll i had fbi i had fbi agents that were private investigators right you have you know you have cicarios that are your your security guards in in costa rica and mexico that are working for you with bulletproof cars you have any girl you want you want like oh you want a chanelle bag i got you baby come on and over you know you fly him in And for me, that's like, that was what I'd live for.

It was, it was fun. You got a lot of women in college already, right? Yeah. Imagine playing for USC? So that's not new to you. No, that was new. But being able to get something that you can't have like that, like that. Like, I like that game, right?

Like, it was so much easier when you're making that kind of money and you had that kind of power. Yeah. And you have, you know, security guards around you. And they're like, who's that? What do you do? I'm a bookie. Like, you know, like, what the fuck's a bookie? You know, and it's, it's like this surfer kid that became this, you know, wise guy in, in California.

Right. You know. Did you gamble yourself too? You can't beat the house. Right. So you stayed. You didn't get high on your own supply. I knew.

Eventually, when I get to the co-cane business, you'll just see this thing's about out of control. And I did get high on my own supply once I got in debt. But I mean, as far as the gambling, I had bookies that would bet with me. And I would just take their money. I was like, dude, this is this is so stupid. These guys are bookies like me. And they're just losing all the money they win from their clients. And they're just giving it to me now.

It's like they haven't figured it out. So you grew up surfing, though? Yeah, surfing and skating. Was that like your horse? Yeah. I love the ocean, man. I still love the ocean. I walk that sand.

I'm like, fuck. This is heaven. beach kid I like that sun this cold New York weather is too much for me but going from Surfer to you know I mean you're very on brand for Jersey New York like Vito Mob Boss over here Yeah I'm just gambling business

Two very different things Yeah more of that like California version Like I'm still kicked back But I'm still going hard in the paint When people know me And it was just I put a twist on it right I didn't use that that mobster I was more like that charismatic guy

Like come on man you gotta pay i just paid you know you just you lean into them they don't pay i send flowers to their wives at work i was one of my fucking secret oh you do that i find out where their their their family was oh but listen it's a game of tactics it's a cold world yeah and usually after that that that that flowers usually i'm getting paid within like the next 30 minutes because the wife's calling hey i just got some flowers it said junior who's junior and then they would know that's my bookie let me let me take care of that this.

Whoa. Like, hey, well, don't you ever send flowers? I said, well, don't you ever stiff me? That's, uh, that's some psychological warfare right there.

Yeah, it's gaming. And you're just playing it just for psychological war with them. Yeah, it's all psychological. It's not going past that. You never worried about, I don't know, like the feeling of power

that can happen there to where someone does fuck with you after that. Maybe it does go farther and you do things you're not capable of, or you think you're not capable of? Yeah, I mean, of course, it bit me in the butt. I remember, remember one guy I reached out to his father and his father ended up, you know, calling the FBI.

And, you know, it's just all these little FBI phone calls and they start investigating. Right. Now, what about like your friend? Because you were, like you said, you know, you're out in Hollywood, basically in college. You guys were the hottest game in town, too. Like, what about your friends, including those who were famous people at that point? You mentioned, like, actual celebrities, but even like the guys you played with, the Reggie Bushes of the world and stuff like that, who you maintain friends. with what did they think about what you were doing you know they know I'm in the

casino business they know it's an offshore account and back then if you were offshore you're technically legal right that's that was the separation like you can bet gambling online but had to be offshore so that's why I did it in Costa Rica now I didn't so it was Lee it was it was a gray area because the exchange of cash or exchange of any kind of money in the United States was made it illegal keep that in mind so like the companies like Bavada and all these companies that were offshore they would send you like a check from Costa Rica or from you know wherever they're at Canada where wherever they had the office

and that's what made it legally because the check was coming from there but you didn't do that no right I give you a bag of bag of cash old fashion yeah old fashion was would that have been like you know because you're your own guy you're not like this conglomer like bavato or something would that have been like a real bottleneck to be able to try to do a system like theirs meaning like it would have basically put you out of business if you had to set up something like that it just takes too long i'll tell you why i'm a week to week bookie so every monday i settle those guys will let you you know cash out whenever you want but i like it week to week because i clear your account and that gets you to gamble more of a bavado guy they leave your money in there

and let's say they they request you know two thousand dollars from their positive five thousand dollar account well guess what they still have money to play in there i like a take it where I give them the money right away, so now they have to lose it right away. And that's the difference between a street bookie and an online company that's legit. You can cash out. And it takes a long time too. You cash out from a company like Bravado and it takes you like three weeks to get a check. To do's day or back?

I don't know. Back then it was. I don't even look at the platforms anymore. I'm banned from every online, every casino in the United States and the world. So there's no point. It might be for the best. Yeah, it's probably better, you know. But wow.

So that, that, it escalates quickly, though. Now what, like you talk about the power and, you know, you're offshore too. So there's some interesting connections you get. First of all, when did you start bringing on like XDEA and XFBI type private investigators? And what spurred you to do that? Was that strictly like clients who weren't paying kind of deal? Yeah. Clients weren't paying and some other guys in the industry used them.

And it was he he was ended up being a FBI slash DEA undercover and he ended up starting his own private investigation. And he had a database that was insane. You know, he could get anything from from where your family live, from Social Security's to your grandmas, to your phone numbers, to addresses, anything and everything you needed. And it was so cheap, you know. You know, just bring them cash, meet him at Starbucks, cash amount. he'd give me files like you know whatever I need did he ever talk to you about like you know man-to-man like you should watch yourself here eventually later on once the FBI was watching you know we'd run license plates we start running license plates that were following me

he'd like yeah that's FBI but on the way there he didn't say anything no he was just collecting his paycheck right he didn't care it's interesting when he got defense he ended up risen. Oh, he did? Yeah. You'll see he got arrested. Oh, wow. That's in the documentary? Yeah, I did two years. He's actually in the documentary. No shit. Yeah, he did two years, yeah. Because there's a lot of guys who operate, as far as I know, legally, who are ex, you know, insert agency here or whatever. For sure. Who have to do jobs that are protected by client, you know, privilege. Where, you know, even guys say that in the work they do that stop short of doing anything that could be criminal, they'll run into situations with this client privilege where they know, like,

whoa, this is this guy's doing the same kind of shit that I used to like go after. Yeah. And now they're on the other side, even if they're not on the other side. It's a, I don't know what that's like, but it's got to be kind of strange. It happens too on the legal side too, right? You got ex-prosecutors that become defenders or defense. That's right. I see that a lot.

That's right. the guy that prosecuted me he became after my case he he became like this huge defense attorney now now he's working for the bad guys i see i'm i've had on before brian mcmonicle it's one of the best defense attorneys of all time i had him episode 115 he got bill cosby off wow and then quit and then bill cosby got found guilty yeah and you know this is a guy who's defended people in the mob you know he got help with the meek mill case which was actually a great one for him to do and all that but like The most moral guy I've ever met in my life. I've known him since I was like four years old, which is like a strange thing to say, but he genuinely really is and another one who came from at the beginning of his career first four or five years on that fucking $65,000 a year government salary being a great prosecutor to then be in the defense attorney for all the hardest cases in the same city. And that, you know, that switch is a strange thing. Of course. Yeah. He's very honest about it. He's like, I'm making 65 grand a year working my ass off and now I can use my expertise to go control my destiny. That's what I do. But to his credit, he's like, every defense attorney is supposed to take any case, like objectively, right? Something comes in. Everyone deserves a right to a fair trial. So you got to take them. But he's like, I'll be honest with you. If you like blow up a building or something, I'm not your guy. I'm not defending you. I'm not doing it.

You know? Or if you're a sex offender, right? He's done some of those before, which is interesting because it's like I view that as terrorism in its own light as well. But, you know, I would, that is not a job I could ever do. No, definitely not. Right. You know, there's different cases. Maybe you have a client who really did break the law and did something wrong, but it's like, you know, I'm not really worried about this guy.

It's fine. He won't do this again. And then you get the client who did the worst thing. Yeah. And you know it. And then you get him off. Yeah. Like that's, that's a tough one. I asked him if he would let Bill around his daughters. That's a good one. What do you say?

He gave a lawyerly response, if you will. I was like, well, you know, but I don't know. That's the thing. Like, I wouldn't want to have to get those questions from people in my life. No, no doubt. You know, for what I do. It's a strange, strange thing. thing. But anyway, we left off with you like building your gambling business and all that. At what point though did the actual, whoa, there are the cartels and here's a business opportunity because that's entirely different. Like at what point did that come in? I was, it became, I was like,

okay, I'm all throughout the United States. I'm this ambitious kid and killing it in the gambling business. I was like, let's expand this thing. Let's go not only North, let's just do all of Northbury. Let's go international. Let's go Canada. Let's go Mexico. fuck it and I open up the floodgates to my my sub bookies I said hey we're going to Canada we're going to Mexico whoever wants to bring other clients part of this North America venture let's do it what was the difference let's just like start with Canada what makes it different to have to expand your business in Canada versus what you were doing my servers my servers are already going worldwide rights the

worldwide web so it's like if they have a banking system and they they can wire money and I'm good with it. Easy. And the same for me. I can do the same. And then you wanted to like going to Mexico and stuff? Just right there. I'm two hours away from the border.

So I was like, okay, I can use the Caliente casinos. If I can, there's ways, you know, I've started dating a girl from Mexico. I was like, I have ways now to expand to Mexico. And one of my agents was out of Newport Beach. And he ended up getting me a client. And this guy from Mexico was a whale. He would lose literally the first couple weeks, $250,000, bags of cash dropped off.

I was like, hell yeah. You got a whale. And then did you know who, like what he did? Didn't care. Remember, I don't care who you bring me as long as you're, as a sub-booky, you're responsible for the guys underneath your package. So if you bring me 20 clients, I don't ask who your clients are. It's not my, that's your responsibility.

I'm paying you a commission. So I didn't care. Like, he's bringing me these bags of cash. I'm like, cool, you got a whale. Keep him happy. whatever he needs you know we provide anything flying to co find costa rica let him see the office you want to stay at the the mansion in the jungle we got that if he wants to go to Vegas whatever we we would literally i could became like a casino host near literally you had a

mansion in the jungle yeah had a mansion in the jungle in costa rica overlooked all the pacific and then and behind you it was all rainforests you just used that as like your air bamban for for yeah for wales bookies nifeld guys for bachelor parties oh NFL guys fell guys for bachelor boys like your boys yeah i had a 30 man bachelor party and we use like three mansions in the community wait for yours for my not mine but but for my boys someone else my teammates yeah you're not gonna say which yeah better keep him out we'll save that for the movie that's right 30 man bachelor party mansion in the woods yeah in the jungle not the woods yeah i'm sorry the range forest yeah got fucking leopards running around out there too can sams oh

my god monkeys now do you bring the strippers in for that or do you go into town no no we we bring them in a bus we got like a school bus that we rent and we bring in like 50 girls for them prostitution's legal there so that's why these guys want to go christreican way yeah the blue-eyed latinas and you bring them in on these buses and the guys are just still to this day get direct messages on instagram man you threw the best backs party you threw the best you threw the best Did the government take that one? Yeah, they took that house. They still have it?

Yeah, they took it. Oh, my God. And how long did it take you to like buy something like that within starting your business? A couple years? Oh, yeah, like two years in, you know, I was I was already building a mansion. Oh, you built it? Yeah. It built.

It was all glass. That's right. You're in real estate. Five thousand square feet glass floors. One of my, to this day, people talk about it. I had this floor that the second floor was all glass. So you'd walk on it and it was glass. And part of the second floor, you just look up and it's all glass.

And one of the rules, like for the party, the guys that would throw in the parties there, they made all the girls, if they wanted to go upstairs, they had to take their panties off. And this is, this is how sick this was back then. You know, girls would wear in the like sun dresses and none of them wear panties and all these football players. They were just looking at all time, looking up. It's before me too. Yeah, before me too, of course. Right now, I'd probably be hated.

But, you know, that was back when we used to party. Yeah. Party, like rock stars. It's the old days. Yeah, those days are over. Now, were you like, during this time, are you starting to, I don't know, like, abused Coke and stuff a lot, too? Not yet, right? I'm still partying.

You know, I'm not, like, abusing it, maybe, like, once a week. You still working out? Oh, yeah, I'm pumping iron. I'm drinking a lot, though. You know, I'm doing a lot of wine in, like, a lot of wine and dining with V.I. customers. Oh, you would do that. Yeah, I would personally do it because they want to see like the NFL guys. So I'd bring the NFL guys. I'd bring out the guys that were like betting on the NFL guys, right? And I'd put them all in the same room. And it was like the, it was a client's dream.

I had guys that would want to bet with me just to meet like the Matt Linards, the Reggie Bush's, the Jeremy Shokies. Did that ever get like gray area with, you know, so how you guys looking next week? You got to remember this is back before all that stuff you've. mattered like no one even thought of that stuff back then it wasn't it wasn't like that i mean of course they're going to ask them like hey how you guys playing i mean no one knows like these guys aren't they're too high level or not this was before all this bullshit started happening where guys are getting you know duffel bags cash to not cover of basketballs and in football it's a lot harder you got to keep that in mind yeah it's a lot more difficult what do you make you know

There's a little side tension here. What do you make of this kind of brave new world that you've now come out to that we're living in when it comes to gambling, not just with pros, but with college where we're already seeing scandals all the time, a guy's throwing games because they get in debt and stuff like that. Like I'm speaking literally to universities now,

college universities, athletic departments about this. It's a huge topic. I was on News Nation last week about it. It's just the tip of the iceberg. It's going to get worse. You're on your phone and guess what? You can bet on an NBA team, but right below it, you can bet on an NCAA team. And if you're an NCAA basketball player and you can bet on your own team, what makes

you not want to play the second half because you sprained your ankle, right? I mean, you're, it shouldn't be allowed. You shouldn't be allowed to be able to bet on your own team and now you can. Right. And it's taking away the fun of the game. and as a as a former bookmaker with morals and ethics on this i would i would never allow it you wouldn't allow that kind of thing i wouldn't allow no way i mean you got to remember i was an athlete so for me to see that it's like you're you're you're now you're now fucking with my livelihood as

a bookie because if these players are doing it it's going to cost me money if they have an inside scoop one of my one of my customers is betting on a game that he's He already knows that the guy's going to do something that's illegal by cheating the system. Now you're fucking with my money. And that's a big no-no. But it's also like you think about these kids now, like just even going down to the college level, 18, 19, 20. They've never seen any money before. Some guy offers them five grand.

Yeah, just to know what's going to happen in the third quarter. Yeah. Kind of deal. Or the guys like this last scan, all these like smaller schools, the kids, the kids, aren't getting that N IL money like all their buddies that Duke and Arizona are getting. So they're like, fuck it. Let's do this. I got a guy from New Jersey that just offered me 60 grand in bag of cash.

I'm averaging 22 points a game. Well, you know what? Come second quarter, I have a tummy ache and I'm not going to play. And I know for sure that I'm not going to cover that 22 points over under. It's called a prop bet, right? Yeah. And 60 grand cash. And now that bookie that just gave him that 60 grand cash, you know,

bets a million throughout the sports books on that prop bet. Now, it's, but that's the thing, especially when it comes to smaller schools like that, how easy with basic, you know, I don't know, technological law enforcement tracking mechanisms could it be to catch, you know, some million, $2 million bet on Greensboro states to guard? Easy through the ones that are monitored. Impossible to monitor through the guys like me, a street bookie. It's not. Oh, that's right. So that's where it's happening. It's not regulated when we're,

we're offshore and there's nothing being monitored by the government. Now, Fandals and Draft Kings and all those, yeah, they're being watched. But when you bet with the company like Bet Odog or Bet juries or whatever these companies are, those guys are all offshore in Costa Rica. No one can look at those servers. Right. That's where it's happening. Now, it's interesting, though, for you to be talking to some of these programs as well

because even if there's like things you did wrong, it's kind of like a separate issue in a way because you're talking about the stuff that you're like, yo, even when I was around, this would have been bad for my business. But guys on the street who aren't regulated at all now, like it's good for them. And that's where you got to look out for it. So in a way, you're talking to them about guys that weren't you

that just are in the same business you were. Yeah. And I can say, hey, listen, I can speak from experience because you guys got to remember, you guys are getting in the hole with these people. You're owe money. And that's why you're doing it, right? These NBA guys are going to these poker games,

because they lost money or whatnot. And then, you know, I tell people, listen, this all started, this thing all came. Where did I start this business? I started in a bookie business. And later on, you'll see I ended working for the cartel, getting in debt to the cartel, all because I started taking wages, right? It's the same thing. If you're taking a wager or betting it, you're still betting.

Yeah. Now, the other thing that I feel like is hand in hand with this, if we're looking at college specifically, is the NIL. I always thought it was total bullshit that athletes didn't have the opportunity to monetize themselves. I thought it was crazy of these programs would make billions of dollars and Reggie Bush would take a car and suddenly we had to pretend we didn't watch the Heisman trophy ceremony. You know, that said what it felt like, what it feels like to me is that the guys like Mark Emmert and the back room suit guys who forever just collected all the cash reached a point to where society had tips. much that they were going to have to let this happen. And they said, you know what?

Fuck it. We'll let it happen. And there's going to be no rules. Everything's wide open. So now you have a system where, you know, a kid can lose a marketing contract on a Tuesday. And they thought he was going to get for X number and say, hey, you know what? I'll go enter the transfer portal tomorrow and be at school at some new place by next Wednesday. You know, is there a solution here in the middle to where athletes can monetize themselves,

but we can also have like some sort of guardrail so the system is not just the latest paycheck sends you wherever the fuck you're going to go? Yeah, you got to put a cap on it and you got to have a certain amount of transfers that are allowed. What's allowed? You can't just keep letting these guys. Right. Just go everywhere.

It's taking the fun away from, I mean, look at all the coaching staff that they're losing on this. You know, Alabama just lost saving. that no one wants a coach anymore. It's taking the fun away from the game. You know, it's all about who has the money, who can pay the most. Yeah, even in basketball, you saw Shashefsky, Jay Wright, Tony Bennett. And Jay Wright and Tony were not necessarily like really young, but younger guys, relatively speaking, great coaches, just like, yeah, I'm done with this.

That's not good for the game. And Laranaga quit halfway through the season the year after he gets to the final four. these are not good trends and I think you're going to keep seeing that and it just feels like a perfect storm in all the wrong ways that they're sending for these kids to just create you know

what's the word I'm looking for not incentives but temptations temptations yeah right and I think it's I mean college is not you go to college you're not supposed to be making this kind of money these guys are making more money than they'll make in the real world including a lot of these guys

making more money than they'll make in the NFL right that's right yeah that's right there's now like tradeoffs where guys are more incentivized to stay oh my god now back then i don't know are you able to talk about you know maybe some of the stuff now that would happen under the table i mean listen everyone knows it's it's happening in all colleges alabama ls u i mean guys are driving cars boosters are giving money but i'm I mean, I'm not going to say who, but yeah, it's happening, okay? It's happening everywhere. But at the end of the day, what's different from today's age?

They're getting a lot more than we were getting. Guys are getting, you know, Caleb Williams, I think made $9 million this last year. So it's like, who cares? But back then, was it kind of like an open secret kind of deal? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Listen, you're not showing up in that Mercedes-Benz to the practice hall, but you're driving obviously on the weekends when you're back home. I mean, there's ways around it. And it happens. Happens at all levels. Yeah. Now, when did this whole with you, after building the gambling business,

you said you started to go like international with it, where you're like, okay, I can get my servers in Mexico. I got all these connections. I can get into Canada, all these other places. When was your first connection to the cartel formed? Even if it wasn't in a business capacity, Like, when did you first, like, come across them and who was it? No, I'm not to say who it was, but it was that customer, that sub-booky that worked for me.

And I told you bags of cash, $250,000. Oh, that was. Yeah. And he finally won, like, the fourth week, he finally hit me for like 260. But I had already collected like $750,000 from it. Right. Perfect. I'm giving him back his money. This is like a perfect scenario.

They lose first. You see him pay and then they win a little and you give them back some. For a bookie, that's like the perfect situation because you never want them to lose forever. they're going to stop playing. Right. So I said, hey, let's pay this guy Monday morning. It's unheard of in the bookie business at the street level. And my sub-agent goes, why?

I said, dude, this guy's been paying us. Bags of cash. We got to do the same. This is what separates the men from the boys in the bokey business. Most Buckees wait until Thursday. They collect from all their losers and they pay their winners on Thursday. I already had bags of cash all throughout the United States. I said, let's pay him Monday.

8 a.m. sharp. He showed up with a bag of cash, 260 grand. And he paid him. And he comes back a couple days later. And he says, uh, I got something for you. I was like, what do you got? And this is my subbookie. And he hands me an encrypted phone. He says, this is from my client. I'm what the fuck's this? He says, my client's also my uncle. He's from Mexico. I'm like, okay. What do you want me to do with it? It's encrypted BlackBerry. And he has a post it with three passwords. He said, you got to enter all those. So I'm entering these passwords. in a message said, hey, I like the way you do business. Right?

Yeah, yeah. So I was like, okay, this is interesting. I said, yeah, like, you know, I'm giving this concierge service and this AKA Casino host, right? Yeah, whatever you need, buddy, I got, I got you. You ever need to fly into LA, I got you, take you out to dinner. Just small talk. And he says, I know you're a bookie.

He's probably pretty big the way you paid me. And he's like, hey, why don't you, uh, you could help you. me do something i was like yeah what do you need he's like hey i mean sometimes i need money dropped off in the u.s and i know as a book you probably have money throughout the u.s can can you help me with that i'm like yeah what do you need dropped he's like 100 grand i'm like okay where do you need to drop he says with this way i'm gonna offer you he says every time you drop off money i'm gonna give you 10 on the dollar so if you drop a hundred i give you 110 i'm like this is math 101 wait what he he gave you one 10 yeah just because i'm doing him a favor you remember this guy's in mexico

I want that job. It was a great job. So that's what I started doing. I literally started taking bags of cash and dropping them off at these safe houses. I don't know they are safe houses. I drop off like $100,000 in San Diego. And then within five minutes, he messaged me, hey, I have $110,000. Where do you want it?

You got to remember, I'm in Costa Rica. I want it in Costa Rica so I can play my employees. It's perfect. Now I'm laundering the cash. I'm making on the streets. And I'm bringing it with a clean wire to a Costa Rican bank. And then I have payroll for all my workers. It's a perfect storm.

Oh, he'd wire it in. Yeah, he'd wire it in. And it was awesome because I'm building over there. I'm paying my employees. I've got drivers. I got electricity. Everything, right? So it's like, okay, I'm making 10% a day.

You do the math. That's 300% a month. Yeah. So then the next one, 100,000 in Florida, 100,000 here, 100,000. I'm just dropping off whatever he wanted. I'm just cleaning the cash I have. And then he said, said, hey, this time I need you to pick up cash. Pick up. Like, wait a minute. I'm dropping off all this

cash. Now you want me to pick up? He goes, yeah, I need you to pick up in Texas. It's a, it's a, it's an area that I'm not allowed in. Like, okay, this is like, okay, this is kind of weird, but I'm doing the math on this one. He says, I need you to pick a million dollars. I'm okay, 10% of a million dollars is 100 grand. I'm like, fuck, this is math 101, right? Like, okay, Texas, I'm probably going to have to fly. I'm going to get a private plane. I'm doing the math. I'm like, okay, I'm going to need 2,500 an hour.

It's going to take me eight hours. You know, I'm doing the numbers. I'm like, okay, I'm still going to come up on top, like $70,000. And went over there, I had brought one of my buddies that worked for me, a lieutenant, tank. And he brought one of his UFC. Tank? Yeah, tank. He was one of my collectors.

I want a collector. Takes at the docky series. You'll see Tank. And then he had a buddy that. that was in the UFC at the time. And he brought him. This is in like 2010, right? It's before the UFC got what it became.

He brings him and we're on this plane and we pick up cash and I get off this private plane and I leave tanking this UFC guy. I say, hey, stay on the plane. I message, we'll call him El Hefe. That's what I call him in the book. I message El Hefe and I say, where do you want me? I just landed in Brownsville, Texas.

He says, give me five. minutes and five minutes later a gardener shows up and a gardener pulls up he comes out he was in overalls mexican gardener he hands me a bag of cash a million dollars get back on that plane i tell uh el hafe i said hey i'm flying into the torrance airport where do you want this he's like hey drop it off in ontario take your nine he said take your million or take your hundred k in in the 900k you're going to drop off and that's what i did and i was like you went to ontario yeah ontario no no not Not Canada, Ontario, California.

Oh. Yeah. Oh, that's true. Yeah. I flew into Torrance, yeah. Okay. And where'd you drop it off? Like at a safe house?

Another safe house, yeah. And I was like, okay, I knew, now I know I'm, I'm definitely doing something illegal, but I'm like, okay, I'm looking up to, like, laws. What am I getting in trouble for? Right. Like, at that point, you're still bookie. Okay, now you're laundering money. Okay.

You really haven't done anything that bad, right? And then. There wasn't a moment, though. Well, there wasn't, I don't know if it's like when you land back in Costa Rica and you're chilling in your house, you're like, wow, it's a nice extra 70K out there. But there wasn't a moment where you're like, I think Al Hefei, he might be a real hefe. Yeah, well, I was ambitious and I kept going. And he says, how would you like to do what you're doing now? But in another country, I'm like, what do you mean?

Like the same thing, I'm moving money for him, right? Yeah. There's money mule, money launder. But this is where he got me. says how would you like to do what you're doing now but make a million dollars a day i was like okay now i know i'm fucking crossing the line right but you just go back in that mindset you're like where did i come from i came from a construction worker my dad was a construction worker and then i i fast forward i'm like a million dollars my dad's probably never even seen a million dollars

you know now i'm i'm right just saying fuck it let's what's the risk versus reward let's get in and get out what years this 2000 end of 2000 town So you're what, like 27? Yeah, 26, 27. God, I was still retarded at that age completely. A million dollars a day? Yeah, how do you say no to that? That's what I'm saying.

It's like you start to rationalize. Yeah. My idea was just I'm going to get in and I'm going to get it out. Did you have like that plan everyone has? Like, I'll do it for a year. No, you have the plan that you're going to do it and get that. He had a ton of cocaine. A ton of cocaine is a thousand kilos.

And the deal was we were going to sell the cocaine for $100,000 a kilo. I wasn't going to have to touch it. I was just going to be handling the cash. Okay. Can you break down how this would work? Yeah. Just so I understand. So I landed in Australia.

Basically, let's back up. He says, you have to figure out how you're going to distribute the cocaine. He says, I already have it there. Okay. Like in Australia. In Australia. One of his people got, got in trouble that couldn't handle the distribution in Australia. So I was the perfect candidate. This white kid comb over, never been in trouble. He's like, hey, go over there. And you're going to find someone that knows that that market and they're going to distribute. I'm like, okay, well, how do I do that?

Yeah. And it took some time. I went to, uh, a friend that was in the weed business and his brother was dealing with a lot of international clients like people in Italy and Canada and I went to him and I said hey do you have anybody in the cocaine business like no not me he goes I just deal with the weed he says but I do have an Italian friend that's visiting in San Diego another Italian go figure he's he's international I don't know you can ask him but he's been in an internet international game for years in the drug game he goes but i'm not going to speak on what he's done i'm like

okay well let me meet him i drive down to san diego it's like two hours from my house and i meet this italian we'll call him uncle louis that's what i call him in the book i say hey hey i'm nice to meet you and he and i start to talk and tell him what i do and you're like hey hey hey stop right there we ain't talking anything in the united states about anything illegal he told me that he's like you want to you want to you want to talk to me he says fly over to naples it'll where I live. Yeah. Oh,

shit. Yeah. Oh, he's one of those. He's one of those. Okay. And I was like, okay. But the whole time, Julian, I'm thinking about that million dollars a day. That you are?

Yeah. And I'm like, fuck it. I'll go to Naples, Italy. So two weeks later, I'm in Naples, Italy where he's residing in this fucking badass house, two villas and a wine, like literally a wine field down the middle, like a winery, his own winery. Mm-hmm. And I sit down and we start talking. And I tell him, hey, man, I got, I got someone that has cocaine in Australia.

And he goes, no, you don't. He says, it's impossible. He says, that's the hardest place in the world to get cocaine into. And you told me that. And I was like, because it's so far. You got to think how far Australia is. Like, here's the, the U.S. and the world in Australia is all the way over here. Like, it's impossible because it's like its own island.

Only way to get it in. You can't bring it by plane. Only way to bring in it in would be by boat. Yeah, boat. They didn't have that figured out? I mean, you got to think. They must have, right? But Uncle Louis, Uncle Louis didn't believe it.

He's been in the game, you know, 40 years. And he's like, no, it just doesn't happen. He says everything stepped on over there. It's garbage. You're saying this is 2010, 2011? Yeah. Yeah. One of my friends, I guess you could say, is this guy, Luis Navia, who from 76 to 2000 was like the chief smuggler for the cartels.

he was probably the chief smuggler from like 86 to 2000, but he's with them since 76. And he'd smuggle it all over the world. What cartel? All of them except the Asian ones. That's a direct quote. He was taken down in this thing called Operation Journey in Venezuela in 2000 by like 15 different countries.

But he had boat systems that were in. Yeah. See, they have it. I mean, they have it. Obviously somebody had figured it out. It was over there. And this Italian didn't believe me. I'm this young kid.

He's not going to believe me. He's like, listen, I don't believe it. But he says, if you do have it go over there. And when you get there, he says, message me. And I remember I left him on cryptic phone. So El Hefe was really leaving your own devices. It was on me. It was on me, yeah.

Now, where was the cocaine in Australia sitting in like... Sydney. Yeah, but was it sitting in a garage? Don't know. You don't know. And don't care. Remember at this point... You're never going to see it.

My idea was I was going to hand it off to Louis, Uncle Louis and just let him do his thing. Meaning like El Hefe would then tell him where it was. No, no. I'll show you how it went down. Obviously, we got to get there. So I finally, I lied to Uncle Louis. I flew over to Australia and I said, Uncle Louie, I see it. It's here.

I lied to him. I didn't see it yet because I already knew El He al Hefei had it there. He already told me at this point when the guy's been paying you bags of cash for the last five weeks, you're going to believe him. He's a man of his word. He's been paying me. You're still not shitting yourself a little bit. No, listen. At this point, El Hefe is going, are you ready to work?

You know, I have to give him an answer. Right. I said, yeah, I'm ready. Okay. Where do you want me to drop it off? but now I got to lie to Uncle Louie. Like, get over here. It's here.

I haven't seen the cocaine yet. Still, to this day, right? And I'm telling Uncle Louie, I've seen it. So he flies over. Uncle Louis says, okay, where is it? I'm like, hang on. So now I'm on the cryptophone with El Hafe. I'm like, hey, where is it?

He's like, go get a hotel room, four seasons hotel, Sydney, Darling Harbor. I'm like, okay. He says, as soon as you get a hotel, let me know the number, email on the cryptophone. and I'll have the first package dropped off. It's a test run. So I grab Uncle Louis.

I said, hey, we're going to four seasons. I go pay for a room, room 426. Uncle Louie gets room 428, so we're right next to each other. Tell L. He'll have to him in room 426. 20 minutes later, he has a guy shows up with the package. He's in a DHL outfit. And he goes in the package.

I'm like taking it. I'm like, oh, hell yeah. knock on the door next to me and knock on the wall because he's in the next room over I'm like get over here as soon as uncle louis comes in I'm like here take this I'm fucking scared now it's real it's like he opens it up he's like oh yeah it's this is this is real and he's like okay there's 10 kilos I said well what are you going to do he takes it 30 minutes later he comes back with a million dollars 10 kilos so he's selling for 100,000 that was my agreement with him I'm giving him 100,000 a kilo.

The agreement I have with El Hefe is he keeps 50 and I keep 50. Whatever Uncle Louis charges, that's on him. That's his, so Uncle Louis was charging 150 to his customer. So everyone's making 50, 50, 50, 50, 50. Yeah, you don't care. As long as you're getting, yeah. He comes back. He says, hey, they want more.

When can we get more? I'm back on an encrypted phone. Hey, El Hefe, we want more. When couldn't we do it? He goes, you've got 20 more coming same day. tomorrow same time tomorrow 20 more 20 more in dhl yes straight to 426 straight to 426 so now i have two million dollars a million for me a million for al hefe now i can say i'm making a million dollars a day we work again wednesday thursday friday we take off on the weekends we do it again next week

you'll see in the documentary i'm sitting on 10 million dollars eventually of the cartels money and my money what does that feel like to make 10 million dollars cash in fuck it's insane. It's, it's, it's 26, 27 years old, you're just like, wow, this is, this is, this is too easy. You know, I got it in my, my dishwasher, my refrigerator, my freezer, my microwave, my attic. I mean, I'm in the studio apartment in Australia. Oh, so you set up a home there as well. Yeah, I have to. It's a studio apartment. It's expensive over there. It's like $2,000 a week. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah. Studio. You have to come up. You have to come up. Cover it.

Studio. Were you thinking about how you're going to get it out there? Of course. That's what got me in trouble. All right. That's where it all backfires.

I started to, I panic. I started to figure like, okay, I can't get it out of here. Like I'm sending cash back in like comic books. I'm buying Euro notes

and putting $500 euro notes like 20 of them at a time. Euro notes at the time. A $500 euro note was worth like $750 US. Mm-hmm. So I bought every euro note I could in Australia, sending them back home, converting them to U.S. Started buying gold, putting gold coins into UGButs and sending UGButs back.

I got creative. Going to the Bank of China with 50,000 cash and fake IDs and having it wired to Costa Rica bank accounts. I mean, we got... No, that's got to be scary. That's scary because you're using fake passports. Why the Bank of China? They did any wire with 50,000 cash or less anywhere in the world. It's useful.

They didn't care. It's Bank of China. Yeah. They're not worried about a United States criminal in that way. Yeah, you got to remember. I'm in Australia. How long were you in Australia total? Six months.

Now, did you talk to El Hafei about, hey. No, remember, he's paying me a million dollars a day. That's my job. I asked him, I said, hey, what do you want me to do with this cash? He goes, that's why you're getting a million dollars a day. Figure it out, Amigo. So, yeah, I mean, I started, like, you'll see you the book and the docker bettery. I had to figure out a faster way and I hired a blackjack player,

this guy that was a, I guess you'd call a whale in his eyes, a Vegas blackjack player. And he came along and him and I made an agreement. He'd do it for 25%. And he'd go to the casino and he'd take the cash, exchange it for chips, pretend he's playing. I mean, he's playing, right? He's playing hands.

win some lose some not feeling it cash me out so then they take those chips and they give you a check the check is for yeah the casino right so now he goes and goes back to bagas where he's already got the host that has already set this whole thing up goes back to the venetian and he takes that what's called one point five million dollar check goes back to Vegas they cash him out chips cash whatever he wants he's a bip right so they'll give him whatever he wants now he just laundered $1.5 million from Australia to the U.S. Minus my fee, he took his 25%. He paid me the balance.

Two weeks later, he says, let's do it again. This time I give him $2.5 million. Now, you did this whole deal in like 10 days, so now... I'm just sitting on the cash, and I'm stopping. I'm not even working right now because I'm figuring out how to get the cash back. Where's your bookie business? It's running. It's like a well-of-machine.

Yeah. I got someone, I got managers and call center, people, agents. sub-bookies. So you're making money on that too. Yeah, that's, that's, that's like, that's peanuts now at this point, right? Now it's like I got, I got more money than I know what to do with. And, uh, let's see we, we do 2.5. I give him 2.5 this time. He's in Australia and, in three days, not even three days, three hours, right? Three hours later, he calls me and goes, hey, we got a problem. This is the gambler. I said, what do you mean? We got a problem. He says, I lost the money. So you didn't have money to lose. You had 20.

25% that's all you could lose everything else was mine he's just bringing me some more cash I'm like I'm not bringing you any more cash did he's saying he lost the money like at hands yeah on hands so now I'm thinking I'm calling bullshit yeah I'm saying this guy stole he robbed me and uh I was at the gym when this happened I was with my personal trainer you had a personal trainer yeah yeah you needed one at the time yeah I couldn't get motivated you're making that kind of money you can't get motivated to work out. Really? Yeah.

A lot of stress. I mean, that illegal money, of course, is bringing you stress. Right, right. Okay. So my personal trainer, he's like, I got someone at that casino, don't worry. I know the pit boss. I'm like, okay, let's go over there. So we put us, we literally put on these three-piece suits.

Like, we're going over there, we're going to sweat this guy. And we show up to the casino and the guy's like, you could tell he's stressed. out. I'm like, hey, we're calling bullshit, man. We're going to do some background work right now. He's like, my guy, my personal trainer goes to the pit boss and he comes back. He's like, dude, he fucking lost the money. He really did. He really did. I was like, fuck, what are we going to do now? That's a breach of his agreement, too. So now he's basically, you know, he's not allowed to lose the money. So now he's into you. He's into me. And he says, don't worry, I got 300 grand

at the hotel room that he had saved. Did you call up tank? No, I bet Australia. I can't get tank for this. He's too big to go to Australia. He's black, first of all. They don't like black people in Australia. For some reason, you'd ever see black people.

It's crazy. In Australia? I wouldn't get that. Yeah, you'd be surprised. Interesting. So no tank in Australia. No tank, I wish. No, I literally tell them, listen, we're not leaving.

You're not leaving the country. You're actually going to go get that 300 grand that you said you had in your hotel. I said bring it. with your passport you're not leaving this country and i tell my personal trainer who's also like a bodyguard in mine i said hey get a hotel room at the hilton i said i want to have this guy meet you there he's going to give you the 300 grand we'll have a sit down with him he's like okay so my personal trainer goes gets the room and we're waiting nothing crickets the guy's not calling us we're thinking okay this guy's bailing on us go back to my studio apartment with my trainer and we're just sitting

there like man what are we going to do finally he calls he says hey i'm i'm heading over we tell him the room number 1026 so i knew he had 300 grand i'm like okay if he's going to bring 300 i said i told my trainer i'm going to give you a bag of 700 so when you get the 300 700 700 that's a million i'm so paranoid right now like i'm freaking out i said we're going to take that million we're going to go hide it at your house my personal trainer i trusted him i'm like here just go take that million at your house put it over there Because in my mind, this gambler already knows where I live. He's been in my studio apartment.

So I'm kind of paranoid. So my personal trainer goes back to the hotel that we had the room because he thought he was going to go meet this gambler there. And as soon as he gets there, there's four officers waiting for him. What kind of officers? Australian police. And they said, hey, we got a phone call by an American that you have a gun in your room. He's like, what are you talking about?

He's like, I don't have any gun. They're like, okay, we're going to need to check your suitcase. And that's the suitcase of 700. So now they check a suitcase. They don't find a gun, but they find 700 grand. So now I lost 2.5 in 700, 3.2 million because this scammer called the police in one day, right? I'm like, and I don't know. I'm still at my place thinking, like, why isn't my trainer calling me back yet?

I'm thinking he's, now I'm thinking he got me. I'm thinking he robbed me. Six hours goes by and I finally get a phone call from the new Southwest. Police Department. They say hi, Jr., this is the New South Wales Police Department. We're calling about the 700,000 that we found from your personal trainer. I'm like, oh, hell no. So now I know he's got arrested. Yeah. So he said, obviously, it wasn't his. It's yours. You got to call my friend, Jr. Yeah. Now, at that point, this is now, now you're on the phone with some actual law enforcement. Yeah. You've been paranoid. You've obviously been trying to get money

out, you're stressed out of your mind, you're in with some people that's like, you know, they're dangerous, but you did your end of the job. So now it's like the dangerous part is trying to not get caught on what I did. Is that a wake up moment where you're like, oh, shit, this is real and I need to just fuck the money. Like I need to just figure out how to get out of here. Now it's like, oh, shit, I got to get out of the country. The law enforcement's calling me. That's scary. I leave two days later. And now I got the authorities on me, right? I'm like, oh, no, I got to get out of here. Because they called the U.S.

I'm thinking, right? I'm thinking they're going to. But guess what happens when I get to the U.S.? El Jaffe messages me? I need some cash dropped off. I'm like, oh, shit. I need three million dropped off here. I'm like, oh, no.

I message them back, Julian. I say, hey, about that. I need to see you. I'm not going to tell this guy on this encrypted phone, who I've never met, thought I lost his money. I can't, right? I'm like, I need to see you. And he's like, okay, well, you got to come see me in Mexico.

Yeah, so. Woo. Yeah, I fucking hate tell the story because it fucking brings back so many bad memories. But so I go, I go to Tijuana. I cross the bridge. Right back where it all started. Yeah, where it all started. That same bridge I used to smuggle stairways across.

And, uh, I meet them, six Sicario's. We meet at this restaurant. He has six Sicario with him. I'm sitting there at the table with these guys in front. And I'm like, telling them the truth. I'm like, I got to tell them. the truth that's the only way i want to get through this this guy and people like aren't you scared i'm like dude if i'm going into this meeting i'm going to go like if he's going to kill me he's going to

kill me now like i don't want to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life and i went in that meeting this i was honest i said remember i gave i laundered the 1.5 and it worked i said i gave you your cash i said well i went to go laundered 2.5 and i told him the story he's like i already know it's in the paper there's in australian times at this time now it's all over the news old, you know, 700,000 picked off by New South Wales police departments everywhere. He's like, I know. He said, the guy's telling on you. He knew that he did his homework.

He says, that guy's a ratta. The personal trainer? No, no, not the person trying. Blackjack player. Yeah. He goes, he's a ratta. He's telling the Australian authorities, look at there's interviews with him. He's talking to the FBI.

He knew this. He says, let me tell you something. He goes, you don't owe me $3.2 million. He says, you owe me $3. four million and now you work for the cartel. What was the math there? Interest. Oh.

I mean, I have a right soul, right? I mean, it's business. Wait, hold on a minute. Why would he want you? I understand that owed money. That's a separate issue. Why would he want you to work for the cartel when you now have a giant target on your back?

Well, listen. He says you're taking two years off. He says you run your gambling business. He says you're hot. He says, you're not going to do anything illegal. No money laundering. No fucking cocaine drop off. None of them. None of the stuff we've been doing together, you're doing with me. He says, run your sports business like you've been, run your construction business.

He says in two years, we're going to recirc and you're going to start paying this thing off. So for two years, Julie, and I went back to the bookie business. I went back to this fucking nine to five construction worker business, you know, looking like this fucking straight guy that's, you know, working as a developer. going to the Hollywood Hills with my blueprints and my architect. And I took off. Let's back up for one sec. What you said to me makes sense about going into that meeting. I'd rather just face this, if he's going to kill me, do it now when I'm looking at

them rather than running through the streets, wonder when it's coming. That still means, though, that before you go to this, when you're crossing the border, walking up to this, you know, driving up to this restaurant or whatever, you know there's a possibility you're walking into something now. that you're not going to walk out of you're going to be dead I would imagine you probably never had a thought quite like that before what was that like to contemplate that or were you trying to compartmentalize it and ignore it no I didn't ignore it I wrote a note that day I was in my bed of the Hill's house to my wife I was wrote a note saying hey I'm going to Tijuana right now

I don't know what's going to happen oh you were married yeah I was married I was married to a girl from I put it in my I put it in my sock drawer so I knew if something ever happened to me she would eventually look at my sock drawer she used to put my socks in there every day so I I put that note there just hoping nothing happened but if something happened they should know and I I went to that that that border and I took two caps of GHB took a Xanax of Icaut and a Percocet you know and I I went in thinking, okay, this is it. I'm going to be relaxed in this meeting.

If I'm going to get killed, I'm just go out in peace and it's going to be over with. But trust me, there's a part of me that wanted to turn around and run forever, right? But it kept going back, okay, I'm like, I can't run forever. I got to face the music. In life, I've always been a guy that faces things head on. I'm going full force. I got to, like, that's how I've been. Yeah.

And as a kid, my dad always says we pay back people that we owe. And that's always been in my mind. Like, I can't do the right thing. Like, I've been to bookie my whole career now. And I know when you lose, you have to pay. And when you win, you're supposed to collect. Well, guess what? I lost this guy's money and I got to pay it back.

That's the right thing. That's the honorable thing. And my face was along the line. Even though it wasn't me that lost his money, I'm responsible. And that's when I said, you know what? This is on me, the saint on this gambler. I have to do the right thing. So I went into that meeting and I told him the truth.

And that was probably why I'm here today to speaking to you. You think he respected that about you? A thousand percent. He says, why don't you have some fucking balls and some levels. It's like I was going to feed you a horny over there. Dude, he forced he had respect. I mean, at the end, he said, now let's drink. And he had a caron and I had a margarine and fucking goes with that fucking thing.

man. I was like, okay, I'm alive. So when you turned around to walk out there, you weren't thinking a little time of the veto action? Not anymore. I already knew. I knew I was indebted to the cartel now. See, that's the thing. Like, all right, you're not looking over your shoulder that you're going to die tomorrow, but now you're in debt to the cartel and they're like, wait for our call. And the call's not next week. It's two years. Two years away. And you, and I, you know, I missed this part too, because you mentioned early in the conversation that you were, married to a Mexican girl. But what was that like, like me and a girl getting married along the way? It was the worst fucking marriage because I couldn't have sex with her. I had no sex drive. I was

literally so worried about this fucking debt I had over my shoulders. So you were married shortly before that meeting? Yes. Okay. Yeah, I was married and I was just literally like, she's like, you don't fuck me. You don't, I couldn't tell her. You can't tell her. Well, sorry, honey. I can't fuck today because I got four million dollars with the cartel. But like I had no, like, I was literally pop up. This is when my drug habit got so bad. I was literally doing an eight ball of cocaine every day, taking Xanax, taking GHP, taking Viking, and I would golf every day with clients and like I'd pop like three, four biking in at time.

And I was just so stressed Julian, I was like, fuck man, this is like, this is never going to end. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get killed or I'm gonna get arrested. Christ. Did you, at some point, did you have to tell your wife like what was really going on? No, not until I got arrested. but so in those two years even if you didn't tell her the truth she wasn't like asking you like what the fuck is going on in your life what are you yeah listen

when you when you're married to a mexican they they turn a blind eye right listen they're they're happy that they got their fucking twenty thousand dollar a month allowance their hermes bag and they're louis batons right and they're living in beverly hills so that's just kind of a rule of thumb from that from that culture you know you don't ask You don't want to know. How'd you meet your wife? In Vegas, actually. It was Jeremy Shaghy and me and Reggie Bush.

We had a cabana. And she was in the cabana next to ours. Oh, that's classic. She was with the blackhead peas. That's classic. And how long was that before you're meeting with L. Hefe? A couple years? No, not even.

I would say probably less than nine months. Oh, so you like fell in love. Yeah, I got the dance. Yeah, I was fucking making millions. I was like, fuck it. Married this girl. What made you want to jump into marriage? I mean, you were living the high life.

I was living the high life, but this lady was so fun. She was just like party. You want to go out with girls, no problem. You want to have fun with girls, no problem. Like if you're making money, honey, whatever, like that life you live, as long as I'm number one. Oh, so she was giving you hall passes before you even. Yeah, listen, she goes, she came from this culture and it's accepted, right? So for me, I was like, you know what?

It's like a best friend, right? Right. And it's fun. Best of both worlds still. Best of both, yeah. Yeah. All right. So El Hefe sends you away.

You know, your stay of execution at least is there. Two years, yeah. But it's two years. You start really abusing drugs. You're trying to, like, keep your mind off it by running these businesses. The nice thing is, I guess you still make it money because you had good businesses. Yeah. People are like, oh, why don't you pay it back with the money you're making?

know because he let me run my business. Like this is, this is separate. This gambling business is separate from this entity. But you weren't like treating it like college debt, you know, putting a little fund to the side? No, I'm just running this business. I need the cash. I need my capital to run the book. Like people don't realize you can have a month where you lose a million bucks. For sure. You always need your cash available. You know, Hfei respected that. You know, I've been out of politics. People comment, oh, why didn't he just use the money? Because it's two different entities. If I use that money, then guess what, I don't have a booking business. Right. So that call eventually comes down, right?

Yeah, two years. And he says, you got to figure out. He told me you got to figure out how to get it into Australia. He says, you're going to use my product. But I'm going to give it to you in the U.S. and it's your job to figure out how to get it over there. Oh, wait. He wants you to run the same mission again. Back in Australia, too. So now you got to become the smuggler. You don't have expertise in smuggler. Never been in the smuggling game. besides the steroids across the border what did you get smugglers for dummies and read up i got creative i got creative my first mission was with my contractor my construction like my contractor for my homes i'm building uh-huh i uh he just had gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar

of the gambling when he used to drop off like bags of cash to clients and i always keep like a quarter million at his house in one day he uh i need to drop off the quarter million he he uh i need to drop off the quarter million he had to a customer that one like 240. I said, hey, I need you to drop off 240 to a customer. And he's like, hey, I only have 150. Like, what do you mean you have 150? Your ledger says you have 250. Oh, man, I had to use some. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So I already knew. I was like, okay, this is not good. So I had my contractor get creative. I said, listen, you're going to come work for me. I said, I had to break to him. This is the only person I could tell. I said, I owe the cartel $4 million. I said, we're

We're going to figure out a way to get cocaine in to Australia. I said, I need your help. And he says, you know, this idea had already stemmed from a communication I had with a guy in Australia. We were in Fiji, Australia, or excuse me, we were in Fiji, the country Fiji. And I flew there maybe like two months before I started working to figure out this mission, the two years. Mark was up. And I meet this kingpin in Fiji. I can't fly in Australia.

So he meets me. He flies from Australia to Fiat. I fly from the U.S. to Fiji. This is a different, this is not O'HFAs. No, this is a kingpin in Australia. Got it. Okay. And we, we're drinking wine and I'm asking them, like, okay.

And I'm, I hold up the wine. I'm like, okay, that's, that's what we're going to do? He's like, what do you mean? I said, do you think if we take this, this wine, you know, I break down the cocaine wine, you can have someone bring it back in Australia? And he looks at me, he goes, like a chemist. I said, yeah. He goes, yeah, I got a chemist.

I said, that's what we're going to do. And he looked at me like I was crazy. You were going to put Coke in wine. Yes. So I fly back. You'll see it in the docus series. I fly back. I get to Redondo Beach, when I'm from.

I get my contractor who had his hand in the cookie jar. And I tell him, this is what we need to do. I said, we need to take cocaine and turn it into liquid. And he gave me the idea. He says 150 proof alcohol. He says, there's stuff called Everclear. Yes. He says, that's your answer.

I said, what do we do? He goes, I'm going to work off my debt. Now, why was ever clear the answer, chemically speaking? He says, what happens is you take the cocaine, and this is what we ended up doing. We did the first run with 10 kilos. We put it in the bathtub. We had this, obviously, we had construction sites. So we put in our bathtub.

We put 10 kilos of cocaine and we took Everclear. Did you clean the bathtub? Of course. It was brand new bathtub. We hadn't even used it. They're responsible drug chemists. Yes. So we're in there with an ore, like an ore.

you'd use for like a paddle like a like a or like a or like a or you use for like a stand a paddle board right that's what it was i had to stand a paddle board and i use that or we have this ever clear in this this cocaine and we're in there and we're just literally mixing it and turning into alcohol and it's clear it's got a chalky look a milky look but the wine bottles we got from napa valley were dark dark wine bottles and we take a funnel and we literally funnel two cases worth of wine. We dump all the wine out where you're funneling back this liquid form. And then I bought online this cork kit where you can put a cork in a wine bottle. So people that make their own wine, you put the cork, you put it in, presses down. And then they give you this

little red, like wax and it goes on top of the bottle. Like you ever seen when you buy a wine? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this kit makes it look completely professional. And I wiped on the wine models with alcohol pads make sure nothing you know smells and put them back in the box and so I have now two cases wine 24 bottles and I call one of my runners for the the gambling business how much coke was that going into those that's so between two cases 24 bottles there's 10 kilos okay so we we have this liquid formula call my runner from from the gambling business I said hey you got to drop off some wine I said he's like what do you mean I said get over here I give him a mission give him a couple thousand bucks I said drive to nap

I said see this this company and it was the name of the winery on this box is from Napa Valley I said as soon as you get to Napa Valley whatever address this is I want you to find the nearest FedEx he gets over there he finds the address goes to the closest FedEx and he ships the wine to Australia and he puts wine samples and he puts the name of the company the wine company so it looks like it's coming from Napa Valley and it's wine So when the customs gets it, they look at it, they think nothing of it. It's wine.

It's wine. And it's not attached to you. No, it's not attached to me. Right. It's going to a wine shop in Australia. That's what they call them bottle shops. And my mate goes on the encrypted phone. He says, mate, you wouldn't believe it.

He says, the wine made it. I said, fuck yeah. We made it. Now I know I have the route. Now I know I can get 10 kilos in through this wine business. That's so creative. Putting it in the liquid, though. And that's what I did.

I mean, I can talk about it now, obviously, because my contractor, when he got arrested, he told the government how we were doing it. And it had taken his life too, which sucked. But, you know, that, you know, people are, oh, listen, this is all documented. The fucking FBI was told by people. Yeah. So it's not like I'm telling. But this is how it happened.

Now, here's the question, though. Those two years before this. you knew you had made a flow chart in in Australia right because you had been contacted so you know that they knew about you and you knew that because you're an American citizen they probably contacted other authorities in the U.S. who now knows about you. Before we even get to the wine part, were you looking over your shoulder of like, oh, they're going to be making a case on me for anything, like not even the drug stuff? I knew because I would get these phone calls from this Robin Hood, this gambler and he'd be like, hey man, I need a pay, back. Let me, let me and launder some more money for you. Launder, that's how you talk on the phone. And I knew I was being recorded. I was like, okay, this guy's not working for the feds now. I knew it. Like, you don't talk like that. Like, we talk, we talk in person.

So you're not, the reason I ask that is because now once you do get put back in the game here and you come up with, you know, pretty genius method, if I may say so, myself, don't try that at home, everybody. But, you know, you're not worried about the fact that, you know, you're not worried about the fact that, I mean, you just mentioned one guy eventually did become an informant, but that anyone you come into contact with will be turned because they're tracking you in cars and they see who you're talking to. Like, are you worried about that? You got to remember, I'm in the gambling business. Okay, am I going to get busted for gambling? I'm not, people aren't knowing I'm working for the cartel besides my contractor. And it's not like, we're like, we're behind closed doors when we're doing this. But what about the South Wales Police Department? Didn't they? Are they going to fly over to the U.S.? I don't think so. But if they alerted the U.S., don't you think they were like, this is fraud drug money. Listen, I'm definitely alert.

You know, I'm going to construction sites. I got Verizon vehicles, Spectrum vehicles, and I'm running the plates and they're the FBI. Right. I'm aware. In those two years. Yeah, I'm aware. And I know that they're on me. But I also know I owe the fucking cartel $4 million.

Right. So it's a-prison's better than death. Yeah. And at that point, I'm like, fuck it. I'm paying these guys back. Right. Okay. So it works.

Yeah, it works. The first shipment of 10 kilos. Do it again. How many kilos total did he want you to move again? Well, we just had to get that number down, that $4 million number. It's not about, it's what the exchange rate is. It's what we're getting back after we're paying a percentage. You know, there's so many factors in laundering money.

So how much of a dent did you put in the first one? 5%. Barely, I would say about that. Let's just do the math. 100 grand, cut it in half, 50 grand, minus commissions, minus exchanges. exchange fees, you know, let's say $10,000 each kilo times times 10 after we pay, you know, pay off everybody. So 100 grand, right? Yes.

Yeah, you got a lot to go. Yeah. You got to do this at least 40 times. So then I do it again. Now this time. How much later? I did again next week because now I'm like, fuck it. Let's keep going.

One year plan. Yeah, I'm on the one year plan for sure. But I get another hiccup. The guy that's exchanging the cocaine from liquid to brick form now, he was making 2,000 a kilo. That was his fee. Now he asked for half. He says, I want 50%.

I said, oh, really? I said, do you want 50%? I said, you ain't can know 50%. I said, in fact, if you want 50%, I'm no longer in a ship cocaine through wine. I said, you sure you don't want to resharpen your pencil? He goes, no, I want 50%. He tried to play hardball with me.

I said, all right, cool. Well, guess what? You're not going to have a job anymore. And he played hardball and guess what? I fucking terminated the wine. I stopped doing the wine because he got greedy. Because think about it, 50%. I'm already making 50.

Then I got to give a heavy half. That's 25. So if I take 50%, now I'm going to have like $2,000. I know, but he had a goal. great system. He did. I had a great system. You know, you were just trying to pay off the debt. Exactly. It took a little longer. But it's not going to work that way. You don't just extort me. You already had an agreement. You and I made an agreement and you're getting paid $2,000 to turn it from liquid to Coke. Normally, I'm totally with you. Okay. Not if I'm in debt for $4 million to LF.

I can figure out another way. And that's what I did. So what was the way you figured out? Chocolate. Chocolate. This part's not in the documentary. Okay, let's hear about it. Now are we talking like dark chocolate, milk chocolate? Every kind of chocolate you could think of. I had a guy from USC that his- fucking good chocolate.

His parents were in the import-export business, and they would bring European chocolate from the Europe, the UK, and they would bring it to the U.S. And this company would distribute throughout the U.S. this European chocolate. And I knew this because when I was at SC, I met him at one of these fraternity parties. And I remembered, I was like, okay, I remember there was a chocolate guy.

And I was, you get creative when you, when your back's against the wall. Yes. You figure out a way. And I was like, okay, I got to figure out a way to get to this guy in order to offer him X. Now, how am I going to do that? Well, I knew this guy was married to a girl that was going to be in my friend's wedding. My best friend was getting married. And this girl, this wife was going to be part of this wedding.

She was bridesmaid. I'm okay I gotta get you know I gotta get to him at the wedding it was in Palm Springs and start getting drinks and liquor him up and towards the end of the night I have 50,000 cash and I go I go I notice your wife's likes those Chanel bags and the Louis batons and I said how would 50,000 dollars a month do to help that out he's like what's this for I said uh we'll talk on Monday but this 50,000 you're gonna get every month I said all I need is your expired chop He says, expired chocolate. He goes, I got palettes of expired chocolate.

I said, perfect. That's all I'm, that's all I care about. Why? No, I know why you'd ask for expire because he would have an incentive to give it up to you, but am I overthinking it to think that maybe that could trigger an alarm if they see it's all expired coming through? They're not looking. They're not looking.

Remember, this thing is a pallet coming in. They're not looking, oh, look, it's expired. They don't care. It's going to the destination, which is going to the destination, which is looking. candy store they don't give two shits what's coming as long as it's chocolate right got they're not thinking like that so i said come monday i'm going to come speak to you and make sure we can do this so i come monday and he's like hey i want to help where'd you mean it's a company or the city called rancho domingas which is compton actually yeah yeah it's a it's a bad area they smuggle some but it's it's a

good area for this it's an industrial area so i tell him i said um i got someone that's going to be coming at 6 p.m I want all your staff to be gone and we're going to come and we're going to do our thing he's like, what are you doing? I said, no, I'm not going to tell you. You're getting paid 50,000. You don't need to know. He goes, well, I want to help.

You're paying me 50 grand. I said, do you really want to help? I said, okay, be there at six. So I get Tank's nephew to come and he shows up and he drops off. We do the sample run 10 kilos. And this guy's like, I want to help. I said, you don't want to help.

I'm telling you right now you don't want to help. I don't want you involved in this. He goes, I don't want to help. give me $50,000. I want to help. I'm like, all, fuck it. Give me one of those bricks.

I cut open the brick. I literally cut open the brick. I literally cut open a bag up like a little over at eight ball and I go here. This is what we're doing. You still want to help? I said, do you want to help? And now he's like, I already knew he liked Coke.

He's fucking, now he's all jacked up on the Coke. And he's like, fuck yeah, I'm going to help. I'm like, okay, you want to help.

I said, take all those pallets of chocolate. I said, break down every box. I want every box taken out. I mean, this is like a 48, four feet stacked of chocolate palette of chocolate, like boxes and inside the boxes are like, you know, 24 chocolate bars. So I literally have all these guys breaking down the palette

and they're opening up the boxes and we're taking these chocolate bars out. And at the bottom, I start having them put a kilo in, put the chocolates in, reshape the box. So it looks like it's just typical box. Now we have all these loose chocolate bars. And I'm riding down like, okay, box 26, aisle two, row four. Like I'm writing down where I'm putting these kilos. We're stacking them just like they would come. We wrap it all up just like you'd ship chocolate. And I said tomorrow morning, I want you to have this leave from your chocolate facility

to Sydney, Australia. And I gave them the address. Six days later, my mate calls me in Australia on the cryptid phone. He goes, mate. He goes, we got a problem. I go, what? he goes i got the chocolate but there's no there's no cocaine i'm like what do you mean there's no cocaine i pull out my list i go go to row 4 32 6 8 12 like i've given the numbers that i wrote down

he's like holy shit mate you're a fucking legend he goes it made it they couldn't find it it was hidden that well and i got okay i figured out away right i figured it out finally so chocolate became my new route and now so that's on the encrypted phone that you're doing that Correct. So you're not worried about it being bugged or anything? No, it's our phones. It's our phone system. These are, you know, phones that are costing a couple thousand, $600 a month in service. So when you would send one chocolate shipment like that, are you, again, like taking a 5% chunk out of your debt each time you do that? Yeah. I mean, listen, it's starting to, it's starting to pick up, right?

What's El Hefe saying? No, and he's loving it. It's just the timing is tough now because we've got to get that cash back from Australia. And it takes a while, you know, and you, you want to make sure you have the cash secured in the U.S. before you send a new load. So that's where things are taking a long time. Because that's where it went really wrong the time before. So what was the difference this time? Australia had a method and their rates were a lot higher, you know, like 30%. And it would take sometimes two to three weeks to get the cash back.

And, you know, they had different methods. And I'm not going to mention those because I don't want to get people in trouble. But they had their way. And it just would take a long time. But you would at least get it this time. Yes, it would take, yeah, of course. You're not hiring fucking blackjack players to go. Definitely not doing any of that.

Because remember, I'm trying to lay low right now. Right. Okay. Now, where did this go wrong? How did they catch you? I mean, you start with the wine system, then buddy comes. I mean, I will say, you were, you were around when Breaking Bay was out. You should have been watching that.

That's what happens. No, I think Breaking Bad literally came right at later. Like it was 2005. Okay, yeah, maybe I should have watched. That's what happens. They won a bigger Vig. as time goes on. But, you know, that system blows up because of that. And now you go to the chocolate system. So what goes wrong? Well, now the feds are watching, right? Well, they're watching

my people in Australia now. So what they did is the FBI sent over a couple of undercovers to go to Australia to work with this kingpin. They go on this, this, this yacht party. And my partner over in Australia is on this yacht. He's all fucking drunk and chipped up doing rack. They infiltrate him where they're just talking them, drinking cocktails with them, shooting the shit, and they start talking about gambling. And they're like, where are you guys from?

It's like, oh, we're from U.S. Oh, you gamble? You should bet with my buddy. He's a big bookie. And then he asks, he goes, what business are you in? Like, they're asking this guy. They don't know. It's an FBI. And I said, oh, we're in the money business. We clean cash.

Oh, my gosh. Right? The perfect storm. So, yeah. Tell us about your friend. Yeah, so my buddy doesn't know. He's just excited now. He's like, mate, we got a new guy that's going to fucking launder our money. I'm like, okay, what do you mean?

He goes, he does it for 12 and a half points. He does it for half. I'm like, oh, that's fucking awesome. Who is he? He's like, that's what they do. They specialize in cleaning money for us. Like, are you kidding me? Like, this is like perfect storm.

Like, well, what do you want to do? He's like, dude, let's give him 10,000, just see if he steals our money or if he brings it back to you. I'm like, okay, where do you want me meet this guy? He says, let me find out. So he has this agent. We don't know as an agent at the time. And he has me meet. What am I been doing the most?

I'm golfing, right? So he has me golf course, San Diego. Meet the guy. Gives me the cash minuses 12.5%. It's him, a guy from Switzerland, a guy from Hong Kong. and these guys are all in the banking business. And we've got to force them. And they're talking about how they set up the Kong Kong bank accounts.

They laundering the money through Dubai, Switzerland. They give the cash. I'm like, oh, this is insane, right? Like, this is perfect. Then we're having cocktails. And the next thing you know, they said, hey, I heard you're a bookie. Can we start betting with you? I'm like, fuck yeah.

Of course you can bet with me. I don't care. Right. I'm giving them accounts. Mixed finance with business. Listen, at this point, I'm doing anything and everything. I'm a hustler. Right.

But remember, this was referred to me from my partners in Australia. I'm not thinking like, we're not dealing with the feds. I'm thinking this guy's in the business because this is what my buddy's telling me. You're not, it's not crossing your mind that you're golfing with the FBI. Not yet. It wouldn't. So it wouldn't cross. Not yet.

I mean, I don't know what the fuck would cross mine. There's a referral. Anytime you get a referral. But then. But even like two years post all this? No, no. This is when I started to realize like. El Hefe says, dude, no one launders money for half.

This is an industry standard in this business. Right. There's rules. You don't just cut it in half. Yeah. And he told me, he says, you're working with the feds. He told me, El Hefei told me that. I'm like, oh, fuck.

And then I started to backpedal. And then I go to my mate in Australia, go, brother, where did you find these guys? I said, we got to look into them. I said, I can't keep doing transactions. I've already done like the next week I did like $250,000 and they did it like that. Cash, Australia to the U.S. Come and brought me to cash. Cash, we're talking, the U.S. government.

This is how big. At least they do something on time. Yeah. So I'm literally working with them for like six months. And eventually, like right before, maybe two weeks before my arrest, I get a package picked off, the first one ever. And we didn't know it at the time, but the person on the inside that worked for us that was clearing the packages. They had a strike and it was D.HL.

Towards the end, we were literally so loose. We had someone on the inside of D.H.L. And they would clear the packages through customs. They had a strike? Yeah, they had a strike. Like a union strike. Oh, like a union strike. Union strike.

Not the individual. So all the workers that were working for that union, the guys that were on our payroll, were no longer there that day. They were strike. And we didn't know and the package was supposed to arrive there on Thursday. So that package got intercepted. intercepted. So now I didn't know this and we're like tracking it. We're like, fuck, bro, what's going on with this package? She goes, fuck, man, they went on strike. We don't know. Like, oh, fuck. So now I'm panicking. And then I've already paid back the cartel at this point. Now I'm,

I'm like working just to make my own money. I've already paid back the four million. Oh, you're already out of debt. I'm out of the debt. But you're staying in this business. Two weeks prior to me getting out of this debt. I said, what do you want to keep doing? You want to keep doing? You want to keep working or do you want to stop i said fuck that i want to make some some money now i want my own i would listen i must have thought you were a savage dude he he listen i was already in so deep julia i was like fuck it what do i got to lose now right he's like this green goes local so i uh we get that package picked off and now these guys that are laundering our money come to us and says this is the perfect storm this is how you know something's going on he says hey uh

If you ever need help, we're also in the distribution game. We, we, we, we, we send packages to, to Australia. Um, I've been talking to your mate. So he says sometimes you guys send work, work is coke. Like, yeah. And I was like, okay, this is perfect. We just, we just lost our route because the fucking union strike. And he's like, do you have any, any to sell?

And obviously I had cocaine in our warehouse. I'm like, yeah, what, what do you need? He's like, well, why don't you buy, uh, let me buy five. kilos from you and I'll let you put five of your own on. That's kind of how the system works. It's like the way it works is everybody invests and they send a package and there's investors on that load. So this this guy, this money learning magician was purchasing five from me and I was also throwing my five on there. So when they arrived, I would get paid on my five and he'd make his money on his five. This is just kind of how the game works. And, uh,

So they complete that transaction. They purchase it from Tank's cousin, Jr. And Junior comes and gives me the cash for the cocaine. And I'm like, okay, well, at least we got cash. I mean, maybe this is not the feds, right? That's like my mind's thinking, okay, well, the feds would have arrested us. Like the cops would have arrested if you're doing a transaction. They paid us.

They paid us on the cocaine, our cocaine. So now my mind's playing tricks on me. I'm like, okay, it's not the feds. And then I'm meeting them to have drinks with my wife and I. And we're like in Hollywood at this place called Tocca Madera, which is a hot spot. And we're drinking. Is that a steakhouse? Mexican steakhouse?

Yeah. There's one of Vegas. Yeah. Great food. Yeah. So we're at Toka and we're like drinking and I go in the bathroom. I say, you guys want to do a line of cocaine? I'm going to go in the bathroom and they refused, right?

They stayed. Okay, that's weird. So I went and did a bump and I come back and my wife's like, let's go. I'm like, what's matter? She's like, let's get out of here. I'm like, okay, that's weird. I'm like, hey guys, we're just not feeling good. They're like, okay, we'll pay.

right and they I think the bill was 800 bucks and they pit tip another 800 I'm like okay these guys are in the business man they're fucking that they just tipped a thousand percent right I'm like uh or a hundred they just yeah right they just tipped a hundred percent a hundred percent right not a thousand percent 100 percent I'm like okay then I get in the car and my wife's like those are that's DEA that's FBI I'm like what are you talking about your wife said she said that and she says they asked me what role I have in the business I said, what do you mean? I said, what did you tell him?

She's, I just told him, I don't do anything, but I spend the money. That's what she told him. Right? She spends the money, right? So two days later, we have a tea time at seven in the morning in San Diego, just the same guys that are laundering the money. We're discussing another quarter million dollar package. Plus, we're discussing the cocaine that's being shipped.

down to australia that we just shipped so seven 10 and was the exact tea time it was at a vr country club and carlsbad and we uh i remember i get in my porch panamaara like five in the morning i just fucking haul it all the way down takes two hours to get there i'm in l a you pop g hb yeah and of course ghb a line fucking viking in driving like this in the fucking carpool this is when you know you're like passing police officers and you're in the carpool and this is how you know like you have like no worry in the world like this is how you know you're meeting up with the FBI if you're not getting pulled over because there's a fucking alert on you probably a tracker underneath me and I get there and there's no one in the fucking parking lot no one I'm like this

is weird this is like the most expensive country club in San Diego and there's no one here this is odd. There's like a Gardner, you know, F-350, and there's like six guys in there. I'm like, okay, this is kind of weird. But I pop my trunk of my Porsche Panamara. I get out. I grab my clubs and my caddies right there. He's like, Mr. Hansen, welcome. And he's shaking. I'm like, oh, no, why is he shaking? This is not good. I'm like, where is everybody? He's like, Mr. Hanson, I don't know. I'm like, okay, this is fucking weird. I give him my bag and he's still shaking. He puts my clubs on the back of the golf cart. I go to my passenger side where I grab my man bag i got like three encrypted phones 50 grand in there to go bed and i pull around and

fucking 15 FBI agents come out of the bushes fucking helicopter in the sky oh you got the henry hill treatment the henry hill treatment for sure it was all over what goes through your mind that instant relief relief it's over was did like time stop yeah everything stop as soon as they put those metal handcuffs on you, just like, wow. froze. As soon as I heard that Australian accent in the back of the vehicle, this private undercover vehicle, they put me in. The whole time I'm in there, I got two FBI agents on me.

I got one driving, and I got some guy in the front. I don't know who the fuck he is. I'm just listening to every little thing. What are they talking about? Yeah, keep the neck again. What do they lock? I'm listening. I'm sitting back.

I'm listening to every little thing. Like, what do they got on me? Is this for the gambling? This is all I'm thinking. I said, Julian, if this is gambling, I'm going to be okay. It's like two or three years, right? I'm like, okay, please be for sports betting. Please, for sports betting.

And then I heard the guy that I was driving, speak to the guy on the passenger seat. And I heard the Australian accent. I said, holy shit, I'm fucked. And I turned white. The whole face weren't white. They weren't trying. I mean, you hear a lot of these stories. They try to fuck with you to get you to talk.

Oh, of course. So, of course. What are they saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, at this point, I just, I'm saying nothing. Right, you're saying nothing. But what are they saying? But they're just talking, right?

And I just wanted to hear the conversation, just like the small talk. And once I heard the accent, I said, I knew that was fucked. But I knew something was odd because when they arrested the guy, this money laundering guy, they arrested him. And he was like, hey, Owen, don't tell them shit. They got nothing on us. I'm like, come on, you're the motherfucker that set me up. I knew right away.

Like, this guy's trying to play me. But they were just playing the game. Like, they handcuff them and put them in the car like he's getting arrested like he's part of the you know this was they undercover this is the guy al wilson that got me and busted and then they put you they take you to this this headquarters who was in carlsbad it was like the d a fbi i headquarters and they interrogate you and you're like come on guys this is this is where i tell you to talk to my lawyer yeah it's they hate they hate that yeah but they got to respect it right yeah and that's what happened they like they're

They're pissed. They're pissed. Yeah, they're pissed. Yeah. And you give them your lawyer's name and they have to communicate through them. All right. So you had relief, but then that's followed by the long car ride where you're like, oh, fuck, this is about the drugs. And now you're starting, what's the five stages of grief or whatever?

It's like denial and then, you know, anger, except whatever it is. Like, are you going through that? You know they got you dead to write. And you're like, oh, fucking. Hey, how are we going to? And now, now then they supersede us and they do a RICO. You know, first it's a charge. They charged me for distribution and cocaine, right?

Because that's what they busted me on. And now they got myself and then they arrested Junior Tank's cousin that same day. And so I'm like, okay, it's a junior and I. But I know I have the gambling operation. So that's running. I'm like, okay, at least that's making me some money right now. Yeah, I think it's going to keep it running. Like they didn't arrest me on it.

So I'm like, I'm looking at the charges and this is distribution. cocaine. So in my mind, I'm like, fuck it, business as usual, keep running the gambling business. And that's what I did. I kept running the gambling business. From jail? From prison. So what was your bail? I didn't get bail. You didn't get any bail? My bail that we tried, we tried to put a couple million dollars up. Oh, wow. I wouldn't give you bail. No, not on the fed. I mean, this isn't murder or anything. It's because it's international ties. So I, I, three months goes by and my lawyer is something that he's like, something's not right. He says, I feel something's coming. I'm like, what do you mean?

He goes, well, they took all your phones. He took your computers. He says, are you doing anything out there? I said, well, the gambling. He's like, well, I hope you're not doing it still. I'm like, oh, no. I said, I don't know what's going on. I said, I'm in prison. I don't know what you're talking about. But my office, they kept running it. They kept running the business. And so they superseded. They arrested 23 people. Find the gambling business. Yeah, for the gambling business. supersedes on a racketeering case, RICO. They find all your assets?

Yeah, they took everybody that had my assets, my accountant, my lawyers, my, I mean, they took everybody. They grabbed everybody. They got a guy that won three Super Bowls was one of my agents. They grabbed my private investigator, my collectors, they grabbed tank, they grabbed any, they grabbed my personal assistant. Jesus. She got arrested.

They grabbed runners. Everyone got arrested. They were part of this conspiracy. It was a racketeering charge and everyone got charged. And it was sad because now in 2018 they passed gambling. It's illegal. It's legal now in the federal system. Right.

So all these people, poor guys, they all got felons on the record and now it's legal. That's crazy. Yeah, that point. I mean, the Coke is a separate issue here, obviously. But like the gambling part, that's nuts that like now everything that you're arrested for and get a record is legal. Yeah. You've got to carry that around.

Now, what is, so you don't make bail, you're sitting in jail. They keep adding to the indictment and everything. What were you facing? What was like the max family? First, they started at 30. He said 30 years you're going to get unless you cooperate and tell him the cartel. I said, ain't happening. I'm not signing death certificates.

Yeah, you never thought to. Yeah. I said, it's not happening, guys. They asked many times. I said, I'm not doing it. You guys are crazy. Then my lawyer said, hey, you got a shot. shitter get off the pot to him. I'm like, I'm not taking 30 years. And then we have this thing

that Australia was going to come in and extradite me after I do my time in the U.S. So I had that in the back of my head. That didn't end up happening. No. Like I said, you're going to have to see the dock. Right. But I did, listen, I did fire that lawyer and I ended up hiring a new lawyer that represented the Ariano Felix cartel, which is the Tijuana, a big cartel at the time. So he came in and he's like, dude, you're not getting 30 years. He said, there's no fucking way. He says, I've been working on cartel cases. I've seen these things. You're not getting that.

Don't worry about that. I'm like, well, what do we look at it? He says, you got a mandatory minimum for the cocaine. It's 10 years. He says, they reco'd you. Yeah, but at the end of the day, everyone on your case is getting like two, three years. The most anybody he got was five years. He says, I don't see you getting more than 10.

He says, I'm going to ask for 10. We pled guilty. He says, this is after like two years. So he comes on after you pled guilty? No, no. He came on before. Yeah, he says, let's make the case. let's make the deal let's plead guilty on he goes you're you're looking at 10 years i'm like okay

are you sure he goes yeah he goes it's it's it's not like you're dealing meth it's a it's a cocaine charge right i'm like okay so 10 years he goes listen i'm going to ask for 10 so fast forward now now it's you know we're turning in this pre-sentencing report and and they they're recommending like the pre-sentencing report comes back like they're recommending like 25 years i'm like holy shit. What is it like, you know, I was just thinking this when you were saying 30 at first. You're good. That's my good. What is it like when someone, when you get a piece of paper or however they did it, you know, you're sitting in some interview with an FBI guy and they're like, you're facing 30 years of no freedom and it's federal time. So you're serving 85% of it. Like what is what happens in your head when you hear that? Your life's over, right? You're not ever going to see the daylight. You're not going to see your father. not going to see your mother because they're going to be passed by then.

Did you have any relationship with either of them during this whole time? Yeah, the whole time. My dad's coming to visit. My mom visits are not visiting, but she's calling me. I'm calling her. What did they? Obviously, they didn't know what you were doing? They were in shock.

No one knew. Everyone thought I was doing the sports betting legally, you know, through offshore. It was gray, but I was doing it legally because I had it offshore. They thought I was a developer that I was building these beautiful homes that I was showing them. Did you, did you have some? serious heart to heart conversations with them or that wasn't listen i was fighting for my life it was hard to speak to them there's a lot of tension a lot of arguments pay for this lawyer get me this help me please you know you're just you're at the mercy of them and it's definitely the hardest

time of my life if and for them right like they told me every time they'd come visit me you know it's not just you that's in prison we're in prison too we're we're going through this just like you are what's that like to hear that terrible feeling terrible so so devastated to hear my dad tell me that you know so remorseful no doubt is i mean obviously on on that note like this is where the first time things slow down because you're in jail and you have time to like think about things did you have those nights where you're like how the fuck did i get here why did i ever do this you know, where you could slow it down and really actually comprehend that? Yeah, you're finally sober, right?

Yeah. Holy shit. Oh, what was that like? That was a hard, like the first three months you're kicking the Xanax. Those are the hardest things to kick. The Xanax were the hardest to cook. They're not the drinking, not, but the Xanax, like, they had a, literally, they were, I was taking like Benadryl because it was the only thing he could buy on the commissary.

And I was like popping these Benadryl just to try to calm my nerves and sleep. It was, thankfully, you know, a very, you know, eventually got off of it, lost a lot of weight. But you know, you're finally just like, wow, what? This thing really got out of control. And you're just, you're overwhelmed by the court system. You're overwhelmed by, you know, being in a six by eight box. That's going to be your new residence for a long time. Did you have, I mean, obviously you had a lot of friends, friends in high places too from over the years. So like if you're taking a pleading on stuff, did you have a lot of them write letters?

Yeah, you get character letters, but you got to remember a lot of guys getting nervous scared. Like I remember Tito Ortiz and Chuck Ladell and my friends, you know, they're, oh, we're not going to write letters, or you know, Reggie Bush. Everybody gets scared, right? This is a federal indictment. No one wants to be part of that.

They don't want their name tied to a kingpin. And they didn't know what you were doing. No one knew, yeah. So I, uh, you know, you, you definitely can count your friends on, on one hand when you got a prison because everyone falls off. A bunch of cockroaches. Did you feel like it's different when a friend falls off when you're in a time of need and things have gone against you than when you're in a time of need, things have gone against you. And it's through your own doing with some, frankly, like, stuff that doesn't look good, right?

Correct. So looking back on it now, like, are you pissed at some people? Not at all. I don't bring in one bit. But at the time, you don't know that. That, of course. You know, you're just in this box and you're like, oh, these are my friends. What kind of friends are this?

I said, I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. You got the FBI on this thing? No way. Stay away. Don't call me. Have you reconnected with some? Yeah, a lot of them come back. And they're like, dude, let me tell you what happened.

The FBI contacted me. They told me if I talked to you, I'm going to get indicted. You know, they scare the shit out of these people. Yeah. You know, subpoenaed Jeremy Shockey. To this day, he tells me how much lawyers cost him. and i just feel terrible it's my best bro and i i have to live with that every day i told him listen when i start making money again guess what i'll pay you back it's not a big deal i fucked up

but at the same time i didn't mean for you to get subpoenaed it's like it was never in my intention yeah third and fourth order effects go beyond what you could ever think of you know on friends that's that's hard i i i can't imagine that i mean that's like because it's all happening at once too It's not like one guy at a time, something like that all at once. And then you get the power of the federal government on it. It's like, you know, of course they got to make cases against people who break the law and stuff. I totally get that. Sometimes the reach and scope, though, of where they take those cases and how they use, you know, the long, hard dick of the law against fucking everyone, including people who have nothing to do with it, that I got a problem with.

It starts to get to some constitutional rights type things. For sure. You know, I took chair, me to my Costa Rica house. And obviously they see him on that flight and they think, oh, he's involved in the sports betting. But no, I took him to surf and see pretty Latinos. Right. That's it. That's legal.

That's legal. Perfectly legal. Mm. So you end up doing 10 years in prison? That's a long time. A long time. How'd you pass the time? Like, do you have a clock in your head?

A lot of exercise. G.D.'s tutor Eventually getting my master's degree in business administration while incarcerated. That was fun. Yeah. I took up like four years. Yeah, all right. So I spread it out.

I started sewing gloves with the U.S. military. Selling gloves? Sowing. Yeah, so they have these utility gloves that the military uses. And we, in this Colorado prison, we would be like the seamstress. We'd sew them. And I had my own sewing machine where I'd sew like 40 gloves a day. What prison were you in?

I started at USP Lompoke and then I went to the FCI Lompoke and then I moved to Victorville, which is shit hole. And then I went to FCI, Inglewood, Colorado, which is awesome for prison. Like they had the weight pile donated by the Denver Broncos. They had the sewing, like, where you get decent paid jobs. They had six by eight cells that had like open doors where you'd have to use the toilets, like, on the outside, which is different. Most six by eight cells you have the toilet and the sink inside the cell. It starts to stink.

So you start to appreciate a lot of the very little things. Little things in life, you appreciate. And you still, you're what seven months out now? Yeah, just drink of this black coffee, man. It's like, wow, that tastes pretty good. It's better than the toilet coffee in there. Keefey, right? They got this stuff called Keefe and the only way you heat it up is you flush the toilet.

And it starts getting the water hot and you get lukewarm water. And it's like, wow, the little things. I remember I went to Starbucks, the first Starbucks in 10 years. And I had to use a tap. Like, what the fuck do you tap? You know, I don't know what tap is. I was like, the little things you learn. Like, I was like, you guys don't understand.

I was like, had my videographer with me. And I'm like, that, that whipped cream right there, that would be worth like $20 in prison. Oh, yeah. That little whipped cream you guys just ordered on that latte. Yeah. You said Colorado. I was like, oh, he wasn't an ADX Florence. No, no, no.

That's chop. Oh, shit. Ooh. Yeah, that's a. I drove by it. We had to drop off some inmates. We flew you, they call it Conair. And they take you on Conair and then they put you in a bus and they drop you off.

We know to ADX dropped off inmates there, FCI, Florence. And then from there we drive to Englewood. So I saw it. I feel like those guys are never seeing the daylight. Once you know that fate, though, and like you're on Conair, you're moving to what's going to be in your home? It's better because it's, you're killing a monotony of that last. But you know where you're going now. Yeah, they don't tell you actually.

They don't tell you until you get on the plane. So the whole time you're like, fuck, where am I going? Where am I going? And then they say, okay, we're in Colorado. So there's two options. It's FCI Inglewood or FCI Florence. And then like when you're not going to ADX, your security level is not that high, obviously.

And I'm like, okay, I think I'm going to Inglewood. I've heard about this prison. This is a lot better than U.S. Polic or California politics. Yeah, minus like, something. Some of the famous ones like Florence and nasty ones like that. A lot of the guys I've talked to over the years have talked about how federal prison is a lot better than experience in many cases than like state prison. That's what I heard.

I think the type of people, right? More upscale guys with RICO's and gangsters and white collar crime guys. How'd you do like making relationships in there past the time? I'm a people person. Yeah. Like you and I, like we could just shoot the shit. We could go work out. We could have chop it up.

Like that's how I am, but it's very political in prison. So it's not like he can just go chop it up with my codifent tank. Like tank and I were on the same yard at one point. Oh, wait. He came to the same prison? Yeah, we were in a FCI Lompoke. They sent your bodyguard with you? Yeah, he was there.

Yeah. So it's different, right? Very political. I can't, you know, my whole life have been playing sports with blacks and Mexicans. Well, guess what? In prison, you're passing by. hello you're not you're not chopping it up you're not eating food with them you're not sleeping with them you're not doing things that you would do on the outside and for me

that was a difficult part how long did it take to get used to that a couple years a couple years yeah a couple years because the whole time you're fighting your case you know i was fighting my case for nearly three years you're still haven't seen prison then when you get to prison you realize there's politics that's right yeah so were your parents like coming and visiting yeah my dad would come every like three months and And we just kept praying, kept hoping that there'd be some something that goes on the court systems. And I think that's where we leave it. You know, something that literally won the lottery in life.

Right. Yeah. Now, having come out and hit the ground running, you got a book. How'd you get the docu series so fast? It was while I was inside. They started making it in 2020. I was with Walberg's team on that wall phone, the prison wall phone. nine months of telling the story on the 15-minute phone calls every day.

Would Mark on the line? Not Mark personally. His director, Jody McVeigh-Sholtz. Now, how did he get connected to the story? There was a guy that came to USP Lompoke and he says, I want to handle your life rights while you're incarcerated. I said, go for it. I'm supposed to get out in like 2038 and then I'm supposed to get extradited. I said, you can do whatever you want.

I'm going to be in here a while. He goes, I want to do a book deal. I want to do a doc. I want to do a movie. I'm like, yeah, yeah, go ahead. Didn't think anything of it. Found me the ghost writer. We started writing the book in like 2019, 2018.

And then in 2020, he says, hey, I got a doc on Realistic Ideas. Who just, Walberg's company, they want to do the dock on it. They got to deal with Amazon Prime. It's locked in. I'm like, cool. I'll be in here. And then we literally, for like four years, we're creating this documentary. And they find out about this, me getting out.

And like, holy shit, we got to document this. So they literally have me getting out of prison with the documentary. the people there. It's insane. So you didn't have to get extra dieted to Australia. No. They just give up on you over there? I'm going to leave it.

I'm going to leave it for you guys to watch. Yeah, that's a good one. I'm definitely watching the documentary. We're going to link that down below. And I'm going to link the book as well. I tell people the book's great because what I do is I, like you could go on Amazon and buy it. Lou Farragno gave you a shout out right there.

Lou Ferrigno. Derek Lavel, three-time Super Bowl champ. Yep. Luke Pedigree. He food for a doctor for the clippers. Okay. Guy from Vice. Authorization of Generation Kill.

That guy's great. Trey Rush, a YouTube influencer. Oh, wait, the show, the thing that became the mini-sum. Yeah. He actually ended up killing himself day after he wrote that testimony. No. Yeah. So sad.

How did you know this guy? Dude, he reached out when I was, when I was writing my story. He saw him in Vice magazine. And then I sent him a book. And he wrote that for me. I was so blessed to get that. And then he read that. That's the best one. Read that to the victim. A deeply compelling story about a young man's rise from a broken middle class home to the heights of organized crime. Owen, a self-taught kingpin with just a USC degree, had no background in the criminal underworld, but excelled in it.

He surrounded himself with wealthy college kids and adapted to their lifestyle. This is the essential true crime read of the year, a tale of ambition, excess, and the blurred lines between good and evil. He just nailed it right on the head. He did nail it on the head. God, that's horrible. Yeah, it was so bummer. Was he a veteran? I think he must have been. Yeah, it was devastating.

I literally dropped it off at his house and met him when I gave him the book. And when he passed away, I think it was his wife at the time sent me that. I was like, oh, man, that's devastating. That's horrible. But I tell everybody, they go on the website, the California kid.com. It's not like you're getting it from Amazon. I actually do a personal message, just like I did for you. Oh, yeah.

A personal message, and I sign it. You know, it's like you're getting a piece of me in it. That's very cool. Give them a cool bookmark, the line of cocaine on the back. It's funny, though, that you had, like, obviously you're working on the documentary while you're in there. You know the world's changing. You just don't know how.

But then you walk out and, like, you already have a videographer out there. Then people are, did, did someone hand you an iPhone too? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Give me the best. I wanted, like, I was like, I need to learn. And first I just started, like, the iPhone 13.

I'm like, okay. And then everyone's, like, got, like, USBC. I said, I need the C charger, man. I'm tired of this type. And then, so the girl, just to, like, bring it back 360, the girl that stayed by you in the 10 years that you were in there, was that your wife? No, my wife was there. My wife stayed there. This was more of, like, a mistress.

Okay. Yeah. Is that who you're with now? No, I don't have anybody. I'm single. But, like, my wife, she's still my best friend, my ex-wife now. We're cool. Like, she rode with me.

She visited me. I told her in year seven. I said, hey, I'm never going to. getting out. On 2038, I'm supposed to get extra to don't. I love you to death, but don't wait around. She's 10 years older than me. I said, don't wait around. I said, go find someone, be happy. Good for you. I said, I can't support you. I said, I can't support you. Yeah. I can't do that to someone. And I'll let her go. And then I find out I get out. And we're still friends. I see her maybe once a month. She came to the LA Fit Expo where I was selling my protein ice cream and she supports me.

That's cool. And that's, that's a good thing for you to do as well. because it's like, you know. I feel better. For sure. Yeah. I sleep, I know the first fucking month I was crying my eyes out in bed, like holding it back. You know, you don't cry in prison, but you're not bed and just laying in your bed and like fucking devastated. It's your best friend.

And then you're like, fuck, man, I got to get over it. It's a lot better place to be doing it while incarcerated, right? Yeah. Because you don't have to see of the person. And you said you've had a chance to like reconnect with a lot of your friends from the past. Yeah, I'd say like 99%. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Like 99% took me back, right? And there's just still like maybe 1% or 2% that haven't accepted it, but that's like. Which you got to, I mean. No, I'm fine with it. Yeah, you get 99% is pretty good number, huh? And then do you think, like, part of it is though, you know, you're conscious of the fact that because a lot of those people had no idea what you were doing, like, you got to earn back. Yeah, you got to earn back their trust. Like my accountant didn't know and my accountant's brother was my best friend.

He didn't know. And I told him my apologies when I got out. I said, I fucked up. I did that wrong. I know it's going to take time for you to accept it and having me back in your life. But, you know, now they've said, hey, you know what? We forgive you. Is he your accountant again?

Yeah, not my accountant again. I can't be. Oh, my God. Well, what's the story with the protein ice cream? That's something that you started in prison. Yes. I've been a hustler my whole life. You see how I moved.

Clearly. I like that money. Yeah. No, I like to hustle, man. It doesn't matter what it is in life. life. I remember I started selling pizzas in prison. I started nice guys pizzeria. And the next thing you know, I'm like, a pizzeria in prison. That was like my hustle. At the USP Longpock, no one had microwaves. They don't have microwaves in prison. But I worked for a counselor that that was the incentive.

If I worked hard, he would let me use his microwave once a week in the office. And I would microwave like the pizza crust, the meats, and no one has that. So you can cook the sausage and the pepperoni and make it crispy. And I literally started to. sell these pizzas and everyone would buy them for me because it was like legitimate pizzas. They're like, this is fucking, I stood the stuff crust with cheese and it'd be melted inside. People are like, man, this guy's fucking got real deal pizzas. But fast forwarded, I literally got transferred from that prison because my custody level dropped. And I'm like, fuck, I'm not going to be able to make pizzas anymore.

So I got to the next prison and everyone makes pizzas now and I'm like, okay, they don't do it like like that because there's no microwaves. Nobody has a job with a microwave. So I was like, okay, I got to figure something else out. And I started making protein shakes. And what I would do is I would take my protein shake. And I'd get these empty peanut butter jars. And I put like bags of milk.

We get milk in prison during, it's called the chow hall. They give you a bag of milk. So I put the milk, put the protein powder in there. I slice this bananas, little drizzle peanut butter, and I shake them up. And in prison, you don't have them, you don't have refrigeration. So what would we do is we take a mop bucket or you could take your trash can and you fill it with a plastic liner and you, you put ice in there. We get ice. you know i put my shakes in there my macros my tunas whatever i wanted cold my soda pops and you

keep it cold well one day my celly comes back he goes hey we we have no more ice the ice machine broke down i was like fuck what are we gonna do like we had like two inches of ice left in the moth bucket i'm like fuck man i i i crave my protein shake every day after workout and uh he says oh let's let's just throw some salt on it so he tossed some salt on it and i go work out and i come back like four hours later and i grab my protein shake and i go dude It's fucking frozen. What am I going to do? And he's like, just fucking eat it.

And he gave me a spoon. And I started eating it. I'm like, holy shit. Fire. Protein ice cream. Everybody had like a slice of banana, peanut butter swirl. It's like a chunky monkey. I was like, dude, we're on to something.

And he's like, dude. And I said, like, I tell everybody, the light and the light bulb went off. I'm like, okay, I'm going to start selling it in prison. I started building in prison. Wow. And there's footage of me starting. Here we got, California ice protein. We'll link that.

down below them. Yeah. If you go. I'm a guy like this, bro. Yeah, dude. You're going to love it. But there's videos of me making it in prison. On the end of the dokey series, there's me making it in prison. They got some footage.

But it's a story of second chance, man. It's a redemption story. And it's something I started in a six-by prison cell and now we're in 300 stores nationwide. Wow. Seven months in. Yeah. I ship it worldwide, or not worldwide, nationwide nationwide, nationwide. It takes two days.

I send it in dry ice. If you go to eat iceprotein.com, that's the best spot to look. I basically, you get to pet. I make people pick a six-pack. They're right there. Yeah. So you get like, you go by now and you, you pick yourself, you know, you get creative.

So I have four flavors, have your cake and eat it to. Cake batter, Oreo, strawberry. Strawberry. And we have 20, between 15 and 20 grams of protein. And so you click, like, let's shop now. Let's get the cookies and cream. Boom. And then you build your package.

You get that starter pack, six packs. That make you buy six boxes because it's so expensive to ship with dry ice. At 89 bucks, you get six four packs, so you get 24 ice cream bars with, you know. That's not bad. No. And by the time it gets to your door, it takes two days on dry ice, you open up and it's good to go. I got to show you the- protein shake on a stick.

afterward i got to show you the protein i use and what i do with it because it might it might give you an idea yeah do you do the um the what is it called i don't want to give it away the ninja the ninja yeah you use the ninja i want to like a ninja ice cream no no no no no it's different but i want to show you i don't want to give it away because maybe you'll have an idea but like how's your relationship with your parents now dad's still my best friend i see him in two weeks we're going golfing that's good my mom i just get to see her uh i think uh i had thanksgiving with her that was nice. Is that like a real relationship? It's tough. It's listen. I told my mom, I said, man, I missed my childhood with you. But you know, at the end of the day, we got to accept it. And we move

forward, just like everything in life. It's a hell of a way to look at it. It's a heavy thing. I don't hold a grudge. And, you know, it's just, it's life, right? I've gotten this far. I'm to keep going. They forgive you? Yeah, I think so. I think so. They just worry. And I hope you don't go back to that life. I was like, I can't go back to that life. I'm not. I'm never going to get out. There's no, like, there's not even a question. There's no third chance here. No, no, no, no.

There's no such thing. I said, I'd rather make a dollar a day living in the free world than being a rich man in prison. You know what? I don't need to go to prison to learn that. Yeah, right? You can stay right here. I could not agree more. I think about that often.

I'm like, just the ability to wake up and decide what I'm doing with my day. That is priceless. Even in cold New York, you know, this beats prison. Fucking minus two. Yeah. But you. You know, that's great that you have that relationship and like you're getting it after it and everything. But you're also talking at juvie halls and you're talking at colleges as well where it's the Wild West.

Actually, that's the best feeling for me. When I go in there and I got 30 guys from a baseball team or a basketball team, and they're literally, I'm telling my story with their jaw is on the ground. I'm like it started with gambling. You guys don't understand. And once gambling, guess what? It's literally going to keep going. You guys are adrenaline junkies, your athletes. We want to win.

And I tell them and I get into this. I said, guess what? That one bet I took turned into me working for the cartel. Don't forget the banana up here. Yeah. They look at me like, holy shit, this guy's not lying. And their homework is the night before to watch the series. The coaches make him watch cocaine quarterback.

So they know what they're getting into. So they know it's true. And like, it just takes one bet. I said, it happened with me. It can happen to any you. And at the end, I tell them what happened in prison, what I saw and what I did and started this company from the ground up. And then at the end, I passed out ice cream and like, holy shit.

This is badass. Right? You know, I ended with something good, a positive mark. Yeah, you can be a mentor for kids. And then they have the juvenile hall tomorrow to Brooklyn Detention Center. I'm excited about that because these guys are young. They're young. You can still get them.

14. I can get them before they do it. Yep. You want to be a gangster? Okay, let me tell you what happens in gangsters. Because you're never going to get out. Right. Well, that's cool that you're paying that forward and, you know, you're doing things on the up and up now.

Hope to see that keep going. For sure. Yeah. For sure. I'm going to be watching the documentary. I'm sure everyone else out there is probably going to fucking want to watch it too. But you check out the book as well, the California kid. We'll have that link down below.

Owen, thanks so much for doing this last minute, man. Yeah, no worries. Thanks for having me, bud. Of course. Everybody else, you know what it is? Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace. What's up, guys?

Thanks so much for watching the video. If you have not subscribed, please hit that subscribe button before you leave, as well as leaving the like on the video. It's a huge huge help. You can join my Patreon via the link in the description. And you can also join my clipping community via the Discord link down below.

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