Locked In with Ian Bick - Ecstasy Drug Lord Reveals How He Became One of Baltimore's Biggest Players in the Drug Trade | Brian Suder

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Brian Suder shares his story as a former ecstasy drug lord and one of Baltimore's biggest players in the drug trade. He reveals how he built his operation, the risks and challenges of the drug world, ...and the lessons he learned along the way. Brian discusses the pivotal moment that led him to leave the criminal life behind before the law could catch up to him. This episode offers a rare inside look into the ecstasy trade, Baltimore’s drug scene, and the path to redemption after escaping the criminal underworld. #EcstasyDrugLord #BaltimoreDrugTrade #TrueCrimeStories #DrugKingpin #BaltimoreCrime #WarOnDrugs #InsideTheDrugWorld #criminalunderworld Connect with Brian Suder: Website: http://Www.usalawcenter.net Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/briandavidsuder?igsh=dHhoeGtmYWVsOXUx Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Buy Merch: https://www.ianbick.com/shop Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Timestamps: 00:00:00 Journey Through a Snowstorm to Connecticut 00:06:04 Growing Up in a Law Firm 00:12:18 Overcoming Academic Challenges with ADHD 00:18:28 High School Martial Arts and Street Fighting Experience 00:24:47 Encounter with Crime Families and Steroid Business 00:31:12 Rising in the Ecstasy Trade 00:37:44 The Gambino Connection 00:44:17 Navigating the Double Life: College Student and Drug Lord 00:50:31 Navigating Trust and Loyalty in High-Stakes Environments 00:56:48 Building the Crew: The Last Gambino and the Lords of Baltimore 01:03:08 The College Connection and New Identities 01:09:15 Life as a Baltimore Socialite and Drug Lord 01:15:28 Discovering Hidden Cash Stashes 01:21:48 Unexpected Encounter with Law Enforcement 01:28:37 A Damning Call from the DEA Agent 01:34:30 Confronting Arrogance in Real Estate 01:40:18 Intro and Welcome Message Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Brian, welcome to Lockton. You made it through a snowstorm from Maryland, right? Yes, originally. Yeah, I'm surprised we didn't get any snow today from, well, we got a little bit. Yeah, I was following it. And ultimately, it was hitting us first, and it made it made its way up here. Yeah, it wasn't even on the forecast that it was going to snow here. No, and honestly, it missed New York.
Starting point is 00:00:19 Ah. So you had your own little thing up here. Have you been to Connecticut before? I have not. New York plenty of times, but Connecticut not. First time in Connecticut. Wow. Yes, it is.
Starting point is 00:00:29 Yeah, we're like a little. stayed out here. No one really comes here or knows what it's even for out here. Yeah. I mean, I've, I've been following some others up on Danbury, but all in all, I mean, it's always been, what is it? What's the, Greenwich has always been a great place to live or outside New York. Have you watched the Danbury Trashers documentary? No, what is that? That's about E.J. Galante and his dad, um, uh, who bought him a hockey team when he was a teenager. Okay. And he ended up going to prison, uh, for mob-related stuff. Got it. Um, it's, it's a big story to come out of Danbury. Okay.
Starting point is 00:00:59 It's pretty interesting. Well, I mean, right now I like the, I just like the overall feel of it. And they have a federal prison in Danbury, too. Oh, they do? Yeah, I was there for a few months. How do you like the Wu energy drink? It's good. I mean, I've been driving for seven hours, so I need a little bit of a wake up, so it's doing the job.
Starting point is 00:01:16 So did you grow up in Maryland? Yeah, so I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. I'm back there now. I lived in Los Angeles for 22 years. So I moved back about, I move. I live in two states right now. Half the year in Florida, half the year in Maryland. Ah, big difference.
Starting point is 00:01:33 Well, what? L.A., Florida, or Maryland? Well, just L.A. and Florida, weather-wise, compared to Baltimore? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right now, I'm happy where we're at right now. We just got hit pretty hard in Florida with that Hurricane Helene. So our family's got a bunch of properties down there. Two of our properties got destroyed.
Starting point is 00:01:52 There's an island there called Treasure Island. And that island got decimated. So it's going to take eight months for. to get back on track. So I'm happy where I'm at in Maryland in the meantime. Yeah. Until the island gets back on track. Who did you grow up with?
Starting point is 00:02:07 Who did I grow up with? Yeah. What do you mean by that? Like parents, both parents, siblings. Yeah. So we grew up poor initially. You know, like we all, you know, it was just like me, my mom, my grandma, my dad, my uncle,
Starting point is 00:02:26 all in one small house of this little community called Towson. but my parents were super focused in academics. So as they were pulling themselves through, they were going to school, they went to law school in Baltimore. And then gradually, you know, I kind of felt more comfortable in the poor communities, tell you truth.
Starting point is 00:02:48 People are a little bit more down the earth. And as we grew, we would move into bigger homes when I got older. And then, you know, I had a sister. She, you know, eight years old and we grew up and by the time I was getting in senior year in college, she got
Starting point is 00:03:04 really sick and we could get into that later because it probably a lot of the things that happen with her has a lot to do with my story. What do your parents do for work? Well, they started out as lawyers and they still, my mom is still a practicing attorney. My dad's an attorney and real estate investor. They are no longer together. He, when my sister did pass away and college from cancer. He moved on. And then my mom, she, she was like very interesting because very, very firm, very intelligent, very, a full academic. She's attractive in that like people liked her on TV.
Starting point is 00:03:47 So they even did a TV show with her. She had what it, I guess what it takes to be a newscaster. So they did a beta test. I think, or they maybe a pilot, what they would call that with Oprah. because Oprah used to live in Baltimore. And she didn't like it. She's like, you know, I'm trying this out. She did a couple of movies, but she's like, just not me.
Starting point is 00:04:08 You know, I'm more into the law thing. And then before you know it, you know, she's really well respected in the community of Baltimore. And it gave her a position as a judge. And it's called a master of the court. It allows you to be a judge and a lawyer at the same time. And she and my dad, when they're still together, they bought a building across the street from the courthouse is of Baltimore.
Starting point is 00:04:30 So she was able to have her cases there at the building. So it just kind of made sense, you know, this whole arrangement she had as both a judge and a lawyer at the same time. What kind of attorney was she and your father? Okay. So my dad did all kinds of like personal injury type cases. My mom, but he was like, he was the business and brains behind the firm. So he's the one who's like, let's buy this building.
Starting point is 00:04:57 You know, my mom would have never done that on her own. My dad was the guy that goes, hey, you know, let me, let's build this into a business. So my mom was like, let me put my face in the media. So when she started out in the media, she became friends with everybody in the media. So she was always our cases were always featured in the media. And she would get bigger and bigger and more high profile cases. So she did everything from, you know, she always had a huge case against the archdiocese. breast implant cases.
Starting point is 00:05:25 She would always be suing John Hopkins University for medical malpractice. She did huge sexual abuse cases, you know, that kind of hit the media a lot. She had, and that was part of my training.
Starting point is 00:05:40 I was a kid, you know, I didn't have what you would call a loving family, you know, they were very stern, they're loving in their own way, you know?
Starting point is 00:05:50 They're like, we're going to get you into the best schools we can, okay? you know, that was the way they did it. My mom's like, hi, son. That's just not my mom. You know, I would go, she's not a soccer mom.
Starting point is 00:06:03 She doesn't talk with the other moms. She's all business. So as a result of that, you know, I kind of, they take me to the law firm with them, you know. So I was raised in a law firm anyways. And you're taught a lot about certain things in life when you're a 12 year old working at a law firm. One of them, once we could get into later, but it has to do with the art of silence, you know,
Starting point is 00:06:28 just keeping your mouth shut about these cases. You know, so like I remember my mom had a high-profile case. And I was watching wrestling as a kid. I go, that's Lex Lugar. You know, he's walked in,
Starting point is 00:06:40 okay? So he walks in with this beautiful girl and the woman's one of my mom's clients. So, and there's another guy there. So the woman's beautiful. She's a breast implant case. Okay.
Starting point is 00:06:53 they leave that weekend comes up, I'm at a party. I love to go to, you know, gathering as well as in high school. So I'm a high school kid, about 14 years old. And I see a guy that was with Lex Lugar. I'm like, hey, you're at my mom's law firm. So he just starts hitting it up, having a normal whatever conversation, don't know anything about the case. And it just got back to the woman at Lex Lugar that I was talking about the case.
Starting point is 00:07:18 I got immediately scolded the next day. I see my mom. She's like, what are you doing talking about? cases, keep your mouth shut. Everything we do here is secret. So it was a really firm learning experience about silence and respecting that. Do you think there's a lot of pressure put on you as a kid because of their occupation in that environment?
Starting point is 00:07:42 Let me explain even bigger, okay? I used to get attacked because of my mom's cases, meaning I would be, I remember being at a gathering and a woman's staring at me or a young girl or in high school at this point and all of a sudden she's throwing a drink at me I'm like, what the hell is going on here? Your mom sued my uncle and he was a priest at a high school called Calver Hall
Starting point is 00:08:06 and I'm like, I'm like, I don't know anything about it because one thing my mom is good on, she doesn't discuss her cases with her family. She would probably talk with her husband because he's a lawyer, but I don't know anything about this stuff. So the pressure was that. You know, she sued a lot of people in the community. And Baltimore at that point was what we call small to-maltimore, meaning everybody knows each other.
Starting point is 00:08:28 So you're suing somebody. People know about it at that point. And it got very close to home, even suing my former principal. I swear to God, yeah. Over what? She was a nun. And she was a nun at a school. She's an absolute Catholic.
Starting point is 00:08:47 So you have a Catholic suing the Catholic Archdiocese. She still settles cases with our sizes today. I swear to God. And she was overseeing a teacher at like a middle school that was molesting kids. I mean, these are pretty ugly cases that she gets involved in. And they, she's like, she was complicit. She allowed this to happen under her watch. And it was a school that she was with before she was my principal.
Starting point is 00:09:13 So those are the things that she would do. And she didn't care. It was my principal. She's still going to do a case like that. It is what it is. So did she have to recuse herself as a judge a lot? No, because the type of judge she was, she would listen to uncontested cases, divorce cases.
Starting point is 00:09:31 So it's not really a true, full-on judge, but she did have what's called a judges. And the judges and her had their own group. Like they had this place in Little Italy. They used to have judges' dinners together. And a lot of her mentors were judges and her best friends. turned out to be judges that she went to law school with the University of Baltimore.
Starting point is 00:09:53 Was your sister treated the same way, too, before she got sick? What do you mean? Oh, no, she was too young for it. Okay. I mean, I didn't start getting the bulk of these until, you know, but they lasted because she's a firm, no-nonsense attorney. So she's got a lot of haters in Baltimore. So I would just get, I'd be guilty by associations.
Starting point is 00:10:15 I could arrest someone. You're like, you're Joanne son. I'm like, yeah? it's like what is it you know like what do you want to do did you ever get into any trouble or anything in high school at all i i should have gotten in trouble in high school um you know i i because my mom didn't play out well with others in a certain way we were she was isolating me in many ways
Starting point is 00:10:38 you know so and like like i said like when i was younger we grew up and all of a sudden we lived in this big mansion you know and i was like this is a really boring neighborhood, honestly. It's a big house. Kids don't play out in the neighborhood like they did it in my other neighborhood. So I was an ADHD kid, and I just did things differently. Like I like sports, but I was more of a martial artist. You know, you wouldn't find one martial artist in my private school.
Starting point is 00:11:05 And in my area, it's a place called Guilford and Homeland. These are two, you know, homes that we lived in. And they're beautiful homes, but next door, if you just take the bike a little further you go into the hood. And initially, I used to ride my bike there and be the only white kid. Initially, the kids wanted to kill me. And then ultimately, they just said, this is just an innocent white guy coming in. And over time, they warmed up to me. And I'm like, I feel a little bit more comfortable over with you guys than my neighborhood. So I would develop friendships and neighborhoods outside of mine. What were your aspirations after high school? Did you want to go to college?
Starting point is 00:11:44 What did that look like? So, you know, I had certain characteristics in high school that were different than others. So I was always kind of like a had, I always like going, okay, I can understand learning high school or learning the principles of English and math. But I ultimately always wanted to kind of work already, you know. So I'd always like, I'd be the one shoveling snow to make some money. Even though my family had money, they are like, we were, they're poor, you're going to earn your own dollar. We give you a nice home, but we're not handing you anything. And that's been a very big thing.
Starting point is 00:12:20 And I was kind of comfortable with that because I liked to do different jobs. I was really good at selling Rappell tickets when I was in middle school. So ultimately, my parents didn't know why I didn't really like school. I really hated it. If I wanted to do well, I could. I did a lot of testing. They said your IQs through the roof, but I had this ADHD. and then they were really trying to push me into like the Ivy League direction, you know,
Starting point is 00:12:49 and really trying to do everything they can to get me that in that direction. So took the right testing and got into a school called Loyola High School. And I'm like, Mom, I hate this school. Okay. Like, it's an all-boys Catholic school. Like, seriously, like, and she's like, you're going to have to say. I'm like, no, no, I'm going on strike. I'm going to go every day, but I'm going to get straight-ups.
Starting point is 00:13:13 So I literally for a full semester got straight-ups. And she's like, what do we have to do? I go, well, let's negotiate. I'm not going to say here. If I'm going to fail out, you know, she's like, and then the principal goes, we can still keep you here. I'm like, and then we ultimately came to a resolution that I go to a co-ed Catholic school. I wanted to go public.
Starting point is 00:13:35 They're fun, you know? So a lot of stuff going on in public schools that more meet the type of mindset I was. I ended up going to a school. called Towson, Towson Catholic, very fasting school, very small. Carmelo Anthony went there. It's like 50% white, 50% black. I had Olympian in my, in my graduating class. Only like 20 students per class, super small.
Starting point is 00:13:58 And I negotiate, I go, I'll get straight A's and Bs if you take me there. And I did. And it was a lot easier. And then, you know, and then my mom, she's so funny. She goes, you know, we wanted to go to a college close by. And so. she was like one of those moms that would pay the college to get me in.
Starting point is 00:14:16 You know what I'm saying? Like she's like there's this program you do and we pay for it and then if they like you, we could get you into Loyal even after those Fs. And I would go there and I just don't feel comfortable with this. So I always had like a moral compass
Starting point is 00:14:31 and I always had like a little bit of a war with my mom because I kind of felt like she had a level of she's not a bad person, but she had a level of corruption to her. I'm like, I don't feel comfortable with this. In fact, I'd rather go to the public university close by Towson, and I could get in there into a problem.
Starting point is 00:14:50 Let's do that. Why are you paying for this extra program to get me into college? I probably don't even want to go to. And I did want to go to a local college for a couple of reasons. A, by the time I was entering college, it was really big in the training working out. So I had like three gym memberships. I was on a very strict diet that was very expensive.
Starting point is 00:15:10 my parents love to travel so I always had the house to myself which is cool so I have gatherings no problem it was great to do that when you're in college you bring people to this beautiful spot it's a good spot and then there's a bigger reason though um my sister she was she she was diagnosed with neurobustoma like towards the semi-seatery year and she had about another year or two we never knew it was like she could die any day so I go that's why we really wanted to choose a school that on their home while she was sick. Do you think you got that business mindset and entrepreneurial mindset from your dad? Yeah, so I got components of my dad.
Starting point is 00:15:50 So my dad's a lot very likable. He's, um, you know, he's just, he's just a friendly, cool guy. And then I did get the, uh, the business acumen from him. But then I got really firm traits of my mother as well. Um, you know, like I'm in a legal world, but I'm not a lawyer. I got accepted law school, but I'm just, that's not me, but we have very, very similar characteristics to both parents. Walk us through that time period of your sister getting sick and that first year of college for you.
Starting point is 00:16:20 Well, I mean, she got sick, I believe it was my junior year, the end of junior year. And they said she could die today or she could die a year. And she ended up living for about three years. And so that was a tough, that first year. You don't know what's going to happen. We put her on so many. One of the blessings of my family at that point is they had the money to do all kinds of experimental treatments. And she was obviously here at Sloan Kettering.
Starting point is 00:16:50 She was all over, you know. And I honestly have to say, I think the experimental treatments were the secret to her living as long as she did. She had a type of cancer that most kids get, they're much, much younger than her. She was 12 and she got it. Most kids get it when they're like three, four, five, or six. and it usually don't last that long or live that long. Her, she lived three plus year. So that was tough, you know.
Starting point is 00:17:16 You know, I still kind of, I got through it, but I would just be posted up. I mean, a lot of her treatments were at Johns Hopkins. You know, that's why we wanted to stay there. And I would spend many a night, spending the night there at Johns Hopkins through college. So you had to come travel back a lot? Well, John Hopkins is in Baltimore.
Starting point is 00:17:36 Oh, okay. I thought, do they have one in New York? They have them everywhere. Oh, okay. That's why it sounds really. Their original locations of Baltimore. But now they've... Ready or not? Summer is coming. And Wayfair's Memorial Day clearance is on now. Right now through May 25th, get up to 70% off everything home at Wayfair.
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Starting point is 00:18:15 So do you think that prevented you from maybe partying on the weekends or doing any type of activity? I still partied. Yeah. I enjoyed an active social life. Even with her being sick, you still had that kind of ability to still have fun. Oh, I mean, I didn't allow it to affect me that way for whatever reason. In fact, I think the party was a way of dealing with. with it. Once she passed, how did that alter your life? It altered my life. Well, it altered everything.
Starting point is 00:18:46 When she passed, the entire family dynamic broke. So, you know, let's go backtrack a little bit, because we didn't really get too much into something else. So in high school, I was a martial artist, okay? But I, I, I, I, I remember being a martial artist, and I remember also being a street fighter. And the reason I did the street fighting is because I was winning all my tournaments, and I didn't really flaunt it too much. But I really always ask myself, how effective is my martial arts on the streets? And I remember a bunch of my, a bunch of people, students I was in school with, we went and we would get into bars when we were 16, 17 at Towson, the university. I enjoyed the fact that I already knew that university. I was already going to bars there.
Starting point is 00:19:39 And I remember a group of my students, they were in college, and they literally got their asses handed to them in a street fight. I'm like, well, how effective is this? So I ultimately just started a direction in high school about the time my sister was getting sick, but, you know, where I would literally, we would put together organized street fights. and there's no age bracket and street fights in high school and there's no weight brackets. These are street fights, bare knuckle. And then while I was younger in high school, I would win like half of them, you know?
Starting point is 00:20:15 But I would always continue, but my martial arc tournaments, I win every time. And then I go, what is this? You know, most of the kids I'm losing two or like two years older. I mean, that's a lot of weight when you're high school, you know, in terms of size, differentiation.
Starting point is 00:20:29 And then I just said, I need is just focus on training. So I'm going to do martial arts, do my tournament, and I'm going to work out nonstop, you know? And we, when I say, we almost, we should have gotten a lot of trouble because we were just Baltimore, the other thing you have to understand about Baltimore is it's a brawling town in the high school and, and junior, I'm sorry, when you get into like your, all the bars are brawl, it's a brawling city. It's a normal violence. So like you get into fights in high school, they don't go, you don't get in trouble. It's considered normalized back then.
Starting point is 00:21:04 By the time I was in college, I had what I'd like to also about Baltimore is I had two groups of friends. Okay. So I started building out my, I always had my bar friends. You know, there's different communities through Baltimore. There's like four bar towns of Baltimore. So I love to go out and socialize with that group. And these are town people.
Starting point is 00:21:24 They have jobs. They don't go to school. Okay. And that's like the core people. I like the, then I have my new college friends. So I like the dynamic of going, hey, one night I'm going to be with the college kids. Next night, I'm going to hit the street. I'm going to be in the pubs of my buddies locally.
Starting point is 00:21:38 Okay. So to let you know, I had a totally, I was very big on having a social life. I enjoyed many. In fact, and I didn't drink that much. I would just drink enough to get by. I would drive every night because I would maybe drink three, four beers. And that was enough. It was always trained disciplines part of martial arts.
Starting point is 00:21:56 Hey, watch your limit. have what you need, don't drink and dry. Don't get drunk. Just have a few drinks. And nobody got DUIs. If you follow the sign of file, you know, don't go through red lights. Don't do something stupid. So I never would get a DUI.
Starting point is 00:22:09 And they really weren't giving out DUIs back then anyway. So by the time I got to, you know, 19, 18, 19, I'm starting to win all my fights because I backed, I started packing so much weight. In fact, I was almost unstoppable when I got to that certain threshold. So evolved. almost like you're in high school, you're, you're an amateur, and then you get into the pro, then you start learning. Now, going into, so I want you to kind of put that in the backdrop of who I was and just
Starting point is 00:22:38 I'm not your normal person, you know, like I liked, I really enjoyed the street, like, the, the, the street fights. So it's a really interesting part. And then somebody is a street fighter, your type of, you know, if you need some type of, you know, a therapy, the best therapy is to actually become a bouncer. Because now you're stopping the fights. And I would go, what's the bard that has a guaranteed brawl? I could stop fights in.
Starting point is 00:23:06 And I would find that place. And that would be like a 10 on 10 bra all every night. And it was so fun for me. Now, going to the dynamic of my sister. So I'm in college. Very social life. The sister died. My sister dies.
Starting point is 00:23:24 Okay? it was very clear to me during that period of time that my mom and my dad were not doing well. Okay. And it was very clear to me that my dad was probably going to move on. And right at that breaking point, my dad left. He's like, I'm out. And it was kind of on his way out. He was buying some real estate in the eastern shore.
Starting point is 00:23:49 He built a cigar store. He really wasn't putting any of his time into law anymore. In fact, he was my sister's caretaker for a while. She had to deal with so many medications. And my mom was out there practicing law. So he'd lost an interest in law and really got more focused on business and real estate, mostly real estate. Then my mom had a meltdown.
Starting point is 00:24:12 Okay. And then she's like, you got to get out of the house. I go, well, with this whole situation with my sister, you know, you know like I got another year and a half of school I was kind of going part time on schools she's like that's your fault so as I'm going through this the next week a whole crew comes into the house my dad's gone and secretly what my mom didn't know is that when I was 19 years old I'm approaching 21 at this point so it may have taken a little bit longer now I think about it She was sick probably like three, four years. So by the time that happened, I'd already met, there's a group that came into Baltimore
Starting point is 00:25:03 and they were selling all the fake IDs to all the local colleges. So this is a little hub of Baltimore. You got Goucher, you got Towson, you got Notre Dame, you got Loyal, and you have Johns Hopkins. And you got Loyola, I'm sorry, you got University of Maryland not far from there as well. They were posting up and all the universities selling everybody fake IDs. So these guys were interesting people. So I go, you guys are huge. Like, how did you guys get that big?
Starting point is 00:25:30 And they go, you don't learn how to get this big? I go, yeah. They go, okay, follow me. Okay, okay. So they bring me into a room. He was like, read this book, master it. And when you want to come back and pick up your ID, then we can talk. And it was called the steroid Bible.
Starting point is 00:25:45 Okay. And I'm like, okay. So I had to come back in two weeks to get my fake ID. And I memorized the book. I go, okay, I want to get Decadurabone. I want an adjo, I want this. I gave him a list of things I want to get. He goes, okay, we're going to give it to you all on, on the, what's called the arm.
Starting point is 00:26:03 And then you got to, you got to drop off the cash every Friday, you know, to us. I go, I could do that. So I would take a list of the steroids and know exactly what they do. And I would learn how to ingest them myself. I learned Winster would get me shredded. Decc made me and my muscles strong. I knew Diana Ball made. me a little bit fuller.
Starting point is 00:26:23 And then, you know, like I just became an expert these and I started blowing up. People were like, whoa, what do you want? I go, you want this? I go, I get you some menstrual right now. So I had like three gym memberships and I became like this incredible steroid sales rep. And these guys were, one guy was from the Gambino crime family. And the other guy was from the Delcante crime family, which is North Jersey Mafia. And people just came up to you casually?
Starting point is 00:26:50 No, I would push it on. People were seeing that was getting big. And so I'm already kind of a sales guy anyway. Before this, I was selling home improvements. I was a canvasser. Like, I'm a natural salesperson. So I was kind of excited about taking these. And then every Friday I would come back with a stack of cash.
Starting point is 00:27:09 They'll look at me crazy to go, wait, we don't really do the steroid thing to make money, but you're bringing us money. I'm like, yeah, I'm bringing in stacks of cash every Friday, on point, on point, on point. So I started building this relationship with these two crime figures. And we found out later on why they came in. We could get into that later. But there was a whole history of this that I could get into, which would be fascinating.
Starting point is 00:27:38 But I'm ultimately building this relationship with them. And they came in because they knew there was a demand for a lot of their services in Baltimore. In fact, there has been a Gambino crime faction in Baltimore since the 1900s. And in the 1990s, which is this period of time, they were dying off. And as they were dying off, the other families kind of saw the need for, you know, bookmaking, loan sharking, you know, steroids, drugs. And what else were they doing? I think that's it.
Starting point is 00:28:17 The bookmaking was a big thing for them because it's not like it is today. They had no really internet there. You'd have to call a number, I think, in, what is it, Costa Rica? They would have that and they had, they handled all that. So they came in and there was a huge demand for their illegal services. And they're in there. And I just kind of built this relationship and friendship with these guys. And then I kind of kept it like that.
Starting point is 00:28:43 I just like the steroid thing. I know they're into all kinds of stuff. In fact, the one guy's name is Freddie, crew so I can mention his name now. He was just like a wealth of information. I would just sit back and listen to him. Like he was like a criminal analyst and like had a micro-hot cosmom of information.
Starting point is 00:28:59 I'm like, this is a fascinating guy. And then ultimately going back and I don't mean to be bouncing around, I had this relationship with these guys. Okay. And about the same time that my sister died and my dad leaves, my mom, you know, throws me out of the house, a big family comes into, or a group comes into the home. And she introduces me to this guy that she said, if your father and I didn't get married, this was the man I was going to marry.
Starting point is 00:29:33 And his name is Keith. I'm not going to say his last name, but he was a member of the Trappacante family in Tampa. My mom's originally from Tampa. And she would tell me about this for years. Oh, I loved this guy. He bought me everything. He's an amazing person. and now they're sitting here in my living room.
Starting point is 00:29:51 And my mom's like, listen, I got to get rid of this. We can't live in this house anymore. Your sister died here. I go, I kind of understand that part. I go. And at the same time, the Gambino guy, the Gambino's name is Greg and Freddie Crusoe from the DeConte crime family. I always supposed to say it wrong, the Calabacante crime family, they're like, do we
Starting point is 00:30:16 had these new pills. And believe it or not, I still had a lot of structure in my life. So sure, I'll go out. I'll be very social. I have a couple of beers. I'll get in fights, but you never see me touch a drug. Just wouldn't happen, especially the fact that I'm very big on my fitness, my diet, all that. So I'm like, nah, like, I just can't be part of that. And I go, come on, Brian. And then, like, I'm looking at the Trappaconte family in my mom's home. I'm getting kicked out. I got two years of school. I go, how am I even going to pay for school? You know, like, what do I go from here?
Starting point is 00:30:53 And then over a period of time, as I'm trying to figure out my next moves, they're like begging me. Bride, come on, meet with us at lunch. So I'm like, no. And I'm finally like, all right, let's have a lunch, okay? I'll take 100 pills or something like that, okay? So they sit down, they have lunch, and you go, here. I go, what is this?
Starting point is 00:31:12 Here's 2,000. 2,000 pills of ecstasy? I've never sold a drug a day in my life. What do you want me to do with these guys? Like Greg, the Gambino guy, he's an associate. He's just like, they're yours, you know, and you get rid of them, just bring us the cash. So I call this one guy I know. His name is Cisco.
Starting point is 00:31:34 He's from Chile originally. The only guy I know that sells drugs, okay? So I call Cisco up. And I'm like, Cisco, I got 2,000 pills. And I just upsold it $1.1. I think they gave it to me like seven or eight bucks. And he's like, I sold up to him. He's like, I'll get rid of those.
Starting point is 00:31:52 I go, okay, two hours he got rid of them. I got, I called Greg. I got the money. He's like, okay, we'll re-up you in a couple of days. So give me more. And I'm happy making it a quick 2000. So now I'm, now I can start paying rent now. I can maybe pay for school.
Starting point is 00:32:09 I mean, it's a lot of money in the mid-90s. So it gives me more. And within a day or two, they're gone. Another 2,000. And before I know it, I'm hitting the streets. And I'm still, like, upset about my sister. And now I'm putting a serious dent in the ecstasy trade. And now there's a hit out for me out of nowhere.
Starting point is 00:32:37 So people are like, dude, you just sold what? How many pills of E in, like, a month? I go, yeah. they go, Tom Dixon, he put a hit out for you. You got somebody, he's going to kill you. I go, why? I go, why? I never do anything to this Tom guy.
Starting point is 00:32:56 So this guy is out to kill me. And I'm just so fraught. I'm still kind of numb for my sister. I'm a street fighter. So you're not going to scare me. Like, I just, that's so foreign to me that somebody would want to kill me, you know? And Tom Dixon, just so you know, is based the character, Tom Egan's based on Tom Dixon.
Starting point is 00:33:16 So we'll talk about that. Tommy Egan from Power? Yes. Really? It's loosely about Tom Dixon. Wow. Again, when you take a character out of power, you got to formulate it in multiple characters.
Starting point is 00:33:26 I didn't know you were a power fan. I'm not. Oh. I only watched it a little bit. People told me to watch it. I'm now talking back to a lot of the, what we call the Lords of Baltimore. And they mapped out why they liked that, why they made that character based on him. But then as they evolved, it's not all Tom Dixon because they went down so many different layers of series.
Starting point is 00:33:48 But I'm not a power fan. I just know it's about him. And it makes perfect sense for you, Tom Dixon. We've had a couple cast members on the show. Okay. Gianni, who plays Braden and then Patricia Callumper, who plays Tommy Egan's mom. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:34:03 So, yeah. So, like, they took a lot of his characteristics. And I really think that Curtis Jackson liked them because Tommy Dixon had gotten shot six times and lived very similar to Curtis Jackson. We could talk about that later. So ultimately, so I get a call and I get a call from, you know, Freddie Crusoe. He goes, we got to do an emergency meeting with you right now. I go, why? He's like, somebody wants to kill you. And what, what Tommy didn't realize is that we're supplying you and we're supplying Tommy, okay? And we have no problem just supplying you two only. but there's a there's a serious hit out for you right now so i'm like all right let's have a meeting
Starting point is 00:34:44 with them so we have a sit down and meanwhile these two mob figures are more concerned about my life than i am so we sit down and he goes you guys both you guys were working with us i'm supplying both of you guys you know brian works with us because we've known him for the better part of three to four years he's worked with us in the steroid game we know him Tommy was brand new but was introduced to him because he was one of not the biggest drug lords of Baltimore at that time. He had the money for it. He saw the demand for it. He was jumping in big.
Starting point is 00:35:19 Before that, he was only a cocaine dealer. Now he's an ecstasy drug lord as well. So they go, we suggest that we put Brian you under Tom Dixon. We'll keep the price. I think he kept it at 8.5 or both of you. So Tommy, he'll make a slice on you. You buy so much he gets a lower price anyway. so you guys are on equal bearing,
Starting point is 00:35:41 but you always get, Tommy always gets a slice of you and you're going to get your supply from Tommy. I go, that makes perfect sense to me. In fact, you know, I'm looking at Tommy.
Starting point is 00:35:50 I go, you've been in this game. Why are you longer? I'm brand new. So I can learn a thing or two from you. So I'm a very practical person. You know, I'm like,
Starting point is 00:36:00 and it just turned out the workout perfectly. And then at that point, me and Tommy are just inseparable. We're just like, we just we just we just we just I was stuck I was working with him now now I'm with him all of a sudden different people are coming out of the woodwork uh they're starting to understand who I am I'm not somebody that's going to go out there and brag or be ton of I want to be under the radar as much as possible fact I want I don't want anybody even know
Starting point is 00:36:29 I'm doing this sorry I need to wake up a little bit um so so yeah so just this started a new direction in my life with Tommy. And at that point, I knew, I knew that I took this position very seriously. Now I was jumping into it. I just got to order out for my, the dot, you know, order out for my life.
Starting point is 00:36:58 I'm working with the, with a faction right here. These mafia guys can't kill me at any point. I know that for a fact. And it made, it was very clear to me that if you make a mistake, you could die. So after like, and again, this, this moves so quickly.
Starting point is 00:37:15 You know, the numbness on my sister kind of wear off. I started kind of understanding the severity of what I'm getting into. And this is no game at this point. And it was great. I had this really good godsend's come to me. Like Tommy was a great mentor. You know, he taught me so many different codes. And we could get into the codes later.
Starting point is 00:37:37 But, you know, he taught me, you know, really. had to be careful. He actually taught me a lot about law. And if we were careful as we are, it's not going to be us getting busted with pills. It's going to be us getting busted with conspiracy. No, conspiracy, what is that? Basically, it's RICO for drug lords. All you got I need is a group of people to testify against you. You don't have to have any drugs on you and you can get prosecuted, especially on a federal level. So we're operating on such a large level. We're above the state level at this point. Okay. And it just made it very clear to me that if I'm going to take this position, I'm going to be absolutely laser focused on it. And I had a guy, Eric, that worked under the local
Starting point is 00:38:23 Gambino faction there, the was just separate from these guys I was working with. Again, you had two people that came in, one from Staten Island, one from North Jersey, okay? They still had almost all the faction of the Gambino finally. It was the Vincent Magliano, Vincent Magliano, was pretty much the last one that was left in Baltimore, that was from Baltimore. And he had mentored this guy, Eric, and Eric had been a child drug dealer since he was 12. Now he's in his early 20s. He just gave me a lot of good ethics rules. Hey, if I introduce you to this guy, make sure I get a piece of that, that business.
Starting point is 00:38:58 Okay? I go, that makes perfect sense. I like that. I like the ethics and integrity behind that. And then I just started understanding, like, how serious. it is when the feds do come in, that your phone can be can be tapped.
Starting point is 00:39:15 And I just started over the time of working with Tommy, I grew into a bigger, bigger, you know, I wouldn't say known. I tried to do everything I can to be, but I was supplying, you know. Looking to start 2026 with an unforgettable
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Starting point is 00:39:53 Conditions apply. A good part of the city at this point and was growing. What happened to the ex-I mean, the steroid business. The steroid business was still going, but I got to a certain point where I was, When you got into this point, stairways never made me a lot of money. It was more of fun for me. It was more extra money.
Starting point is 00:40:22 And it was more a way for me to understand what I can do to better my body. Okay. So I really started putting that business down and putting this aside and just buying it what I needed for myself. And the reason being is because it became too much of a distraction for this new venture. Now, Did Cisco always move your drugs or did you have to move up to a bigger hierarchy? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:46 So Cisco was my guy for probably the first two, three months. Okay. And then over time, the natural leaders, drug lords of Baltimore start finding you. And you start equating yourself with them. So at that point, you have really two main drug lords. You have Vincent Magliano from the local faction of the Gambino family of Baltimore. And you have Tommy Dixon. Okay.
Starting point is 00:41:10 Those guys were what they would call it out. point the lords of baltimore okay now you have an evolution of new lords starting to come in you have me coming in and if you really look at i'm a product of the mafia and i'm a product of a lack of mafia in baltimore and we'll get into what i mean by that but i'm a product of the mafia because of the groups that i work with just starting out with a fake id when i was 19 okay and then it evolved to steroids and now it evolved to me being an ecstasy drug lord But the lack of mafia and their rules allowed me the expansion to kind of implement my own codes. So as I'm getting, as I'm getting mentored, I started really looking into the codes of the mafia and go, how can I improve on this?
Starting point is 00:41:58 Okay. You know, I'm learning a lot from Tommy. I'm learning a lot from Eric. But I'm really want to take on, if I'm going to take on this, and Eric would always get in my ear, he's like, Brian, just remember this. And it's such a best thing he saw me. He goes, you're one mistake away from prison or death. You're just one mistake away. He's like, you cannot allow, you always have to keep that in the back of your mind.
Starting point is 00:42:23 You have to be extra careful. Make one mistake with the mafia that could kill you. Make one fatal flaw. And then all of a sudden you go to prison. So I had to make serious decisions for my safety and my freedom. And the first decision I made is all my friends that I was friends with, they're no longer my friends. Okay. Why would I make a decision like that?
Starting point is 00:42:49 I made that decision because I knew I had to change who I was at that point. I reached a threshold. I go, I'm not the same person today that I was just months before. So the relationship I have with those friends can no longer continue. I'm starting to build these alliances. with these groups. You know, now I'm meeting, you know, Sharii. He's basically a Persian drug lord out of, you know, he's from Baltimore, but he's supplying D.C.
Starting point is 00:43:22 Now he's my best friend. Now, these are the people that are now in my life. Drug lords are now in my life and good mentors as well. And I, and as I took this role, I really started studying wall. I went and I remember still helping my mom's law firm out here and there. So before I even got into this game, I never even told you this. But I was doing an assessment of how much, how much of a problem or how risky was this. And if you look at like our merit to look at the rules of the mafia, they're like, you can't talk to cops.
Starting point is 00:43:59 Okay. You can't be associated with this. You have to say, I grew up in a law firm. I'm talking to cops all the time. So I didn't even, I forgot to mention this. While I'm doing, going down this path and learning it, trying to make the right steps as I'm proceeding, I'm talking to cops. And I'm making a full assessment about priorities. I go, what's your prioritization right now?
Starting point is 00:44:22 Okay. What do you mean? Okay. Well, what are you guys focusing on? Well, we're focusing on heroin. We have an epidemic on that. Baltimore has huge, huge killings right now. We're always in the top three of murder capital of the world.
Starting point is 00:44:36 We're focused on that. We're focusing on crack. What do you think about ecstasy? Excessy? No. Okay, okay, he just popped up on my radar. What do you know about it? He's like, if somebody's got ecstasy at this point,
Starting point is 00:44:47 we just make them stomping out on the ground. We don't have, it's not our priority list. So what I learned from that is to understand your landscape. Okay, so I know where the priority of law enforcement is. So that's a good thing. Now, the other thing is when you're a drug lord, you have to use violence or, or use huge intimidation tactics to ensure that you get your get paid your money,
Starting point is 00:45:15 especially if you're now putting drugs out on the street. So I learned the steroids help get me bigger and more intimidating looking, okay? And I completely shifted my demeanor with people. And I was all business at this point. I took this role as I'm not going to, I'm not going to miss a step. I'm not going to miss a beat. I'm going to be constantly on point. And then at the same time, my mentors are like, listen, Brian,
Starting point is 00:45:43 once you get evolved the way that you're doing, here's what I suggest you do. This is what I do. You got to move every three months. I go every three months. You go every three months. You have to be one step above the game or ahead of the police. They can't know where you live.
Starting point is 00:45:59 I go, okay, it's another rule I'm going to add on to this. What are more rules? You can't have friends over your home ever again. in fact you can't tell anybody where you live another one right there so as i'm growing and we look at the situation where you said like i have you know i told you i don't i don't talk to my friends anymore the more i go out is like i i see it as now my office so what happened during this period of time is ecstasy became a booming industry started growing all there weren't bars there anymore they were clubs And all the clubs had dance music.
Starting point is 00:46:38 It was just, it was a thriving industry. And I, in fact, enjoyed the music and going out and watching my product at work. You know, we go out and say, okay, we're supplying here. Boom, boom. We go to one club out the next to the next. And a lot of times we would see, you know, the different dealers under us, the work that they're doing. And we weren't talking to them. We're just watching.
Starting point is 00:46:59 The clubs are also a great place for me and Tommy to talk. So as I got acquainted with the mafia, Those guys like to go to social clubs and run their mouths. And the more I got acquainted with the mafia, the more I realized that the certain things that they're doing, they were making big mistakes. I go, I'm not going to blab my mouth. Okay. And in fact, I'm going to limit my exposure to the mafia. And they actually respected me for it.
Starting point is 00:47:24 Meaning, I don't see this as a friendship with these guys anymore. This is all business. Okay. So when they try to bring me and go, hey, Brian, we're going to have, go to, you know, Temps and. and the jersey short, you don't go with us, I respectfully decline. Sorry, guys, I can't go. Okay? And the reason I did that is because one of the things my mom always taught me is you don't let anybody ever see you bleed. And I took that to heart with this, meaning if you're friends, you have these open conversations, you joke, you tease, that could be used against you
Starting point is 00:47:57 later on. And by really being militant with this, as militant as I can, it allowed me to be more on point, more on top of my game. And they respected me even more for it. So that was another thing I added to this. So as I got deeper in it, I started adding more layers of protection. Me and Tommy, we would go to a club, we would have a wulfer right there, and we talk in each other's ear back and forth. And then that was the way we communicate our drop-offs. Only him and I would know about it. We try to limit our exposure as much as we could on the phone. And it got deeper and deeper. I'm talking, so I'm going to let you ask more questions if you want.
Starting point is 00:48:38 What was going on with college? Did you leave it? Did you continue it? So that's interesting. So I got now living two worlds. Now I'm a drug lord and a college student. And I had to remind myself from the day I made this decision. I go, one of the biggest reasons I chose to do this wasn't just because that I
Starting point is 00:49:03 was getting kicked out of my home and had no money. But I wanted to pay for my college. And my mom was like, you're done. Or you're out. You should have finished college. So now I'm paying my own way to college with drug money. The college part of me played a huge benefit because I had my drug lord life and I had my college life. And a college allowed me to be a little bit myself. Okay. We talked about my old friends. Now, I had new friends. They kind of had a sense of who I was. But I had to have my college. A, I didn't do great in grades. I mean, many times I'd be in business school going, I'm making so much more of my finance professors teaching me about finance. Why am I here? And I would have to remind myself, I made a commitment to finish this and I'm
Starting point is 00:49:55 going to do it. So college allowed me to do a lot of different things. A, there's a semester every few months allows me to move every three to four months. So I always move in with another group of college kids, all the bills in her name every three to four months. Okay. College also allowed me to implement a strategy. I realized that there was, I got to a point where the feds were following me. Okay. I'm like, I stayed at one location too long. They were camped out. I'm like, this is, this is not a game anymore. It's getting more and more serious. So I can't, don't feel comfortable even talking in my home at this point. So I go, unpredictability is your ally. And what I meant by that is at this point,
Starting point is 00:50:38 cell phones are brand new. And not too many people are on the internet. And I would just go up to a random college kid. I had no idea who he was. He had no idea who I was. I'm on campus and nobody's watching us on campus. I go, you want a cell phone? He goes, yeah. I go, how about this? I'm going to buy you a phone. I'm going to buy myself. And the guy might may know me a little bit, but he's just happy to get a phone. He's like, I'll take a phone. Okay. And I did that like, I got to a point. I was doing it every two months because I was so paranoid about the phone. People were always hit me up. I try to do everything I can. If we had a conversation, let's go to the bar. Let's go to a loud location and talk right there. But sometimes
Starting point is 00:51:23 you got to have that call. There's something going on. You got to get, you got to take that call. And the phone served as a huge thing for me because a lot of times people, when you get to that level, people want to help you. You know, they would go, okay, Brian, I just so you know, what's his face got busted? Some Baltimore. Everybody knows each other. So I always get the warning signs. And then afterwards, I get the call where the guy's trying to do a control buy on me. What are you doing?
Starting point is 00:51:49 I was just busy at school. I heard what happened. I'm sorry. Have a good day. You know? So the control buys. were attempts on me. And I would just kind of take a mental note of each person because I'm not thinking on
Starting point is 00:52:04 a state level. I'm thinking on a federal level. I'm thinking how many people are they going to get to testify against me maybe at a later date. So you are still always moving the product yourself. Like you would pick it up, exchange the money, bring it to another person who would then sell it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:52:19 So I got to a certain point where I realized that all new relationships were a liability. So I wanted to limit my exposure as much as possible. Let me give an example. It got more and more serious that if somebody were to come up to me, I'm not being paranoid that you're a cop, but any of your mistakes and I don't know you or trying to get to know me, if you come up to me and shake my hand,
Starting point is 00:52:41 I'll just give you a dead stare. I'm like, what do you want? You know, that's just, it was more of a protection thing. And I got to a point for about a year where I just started designing, my own team. And, you know, the mafia, they're in it for the long run. They're in there for their family.
Starting point is 00:53:02 This is a lifelong commitment. And I made it very clear that I do not want to do this for the rest of my life. I want to get in, get my degree, and get out. And I wanted to make sure that I would have and bring on a team that met the same criteria and standards that I had. So I would go, going to clubs and going to bars almost every night allowed me to assess the environment. And I was known to just sit back and be assessing. I always sit back and watch.
Starting point is 00:53:37 And you had to meet a certain criteria. Your criteria had to be a size. You had to kind of dominate when you look in. You had to have an intimidating look. Tommy's crew always were kind of savage looking, big muscle scary looking guy. and he would be able to pick out the ones that were intelligent enough to be in the game, and then the rest of them were just savages that will destroy you in a second if you look at them wrong. For me, I wanted, I looked, believe or not, my top of people were guys just graduated
Starting point is 00:54:10 college, okay? They're in, they're looking for a job. Okay. A lot of them, like one of my top guys, we'll call him, we'll call him. You ever watch the show a Reacher? Yeah, I love that show. He looks just like him. That's why we're going to call him that. I'm going to give you his real name. Okay. So Reacher and I bounced together and he played football for Boston College. He was, they were doing a movie called Training. No, it's training. No, it was called the Replacements in Baltimore.
Starting point is 00:54:39 So he's working behind his scenes on that, doing a lot of action moves for the movie. And he's like, he might go pro. So he's in between college graduate. He's six foot four. He's 275 pounds. He's an academic, smart as hell, walked on the full. football team at Boston College might go pro. It took me about a year before I decided to bring him in.
Starting point is 00:55:01 But he wanted to be next to me for a period of time. He was my driver for the longest time. He just drive around with Reacher and he would drive and you just see his Goliath next to me. And I'm a big guy regardless. He towers me. So over time, I go, he's going to get in. Okay.
Starting point is 00:55:16 And then, so I would watch and see the different components. You know, if you still meet the criteria, if you might be somebody I could send money to New York for. You'll just be a carrier, courier, and that's it. The second one, we'll call him the Croatian. The Croatian now works for the CIA today. He does. He's one of my top students.
Starting point is 00:55:36 The Croatian, I love that he was silent. Couldn't pull anything out of his mouth, okay? He had this huge jaw. He had chiseled. You know, he had just graduated from University of Maryland, and they're coachable. So if I tell you to do something, you would do it. And the key thing with my team is, They already have innate integrity.
Starting point is 00:55:56 Integrity was a huge thing for me. Okay. It means everything in this game. You know, you could trust them. They have integrity. And the other key component is denying it for the long run. The other part is they never expected to be a drug dealer or a drug lord. Some of these guys became drug lords later.
Starting point is 00:56:13 And it's all designed to get in and get out and get out unscathed. So the Croatian, you know, he was incredibly disciplined. and he listened to me. And I remember another, so I would always be on the scout for a new team. And I remember I was getting bigger. This one Italian guy came up to me. He's like, Brian, I want to be as big as you.
Starting point is 00:56:36 I go, honestly, I could get you way bigger. And I go, you have the, you have the structure to do that. Let's do that. Let's turn you into Rambo, which I basically did. I call him my Rambo. I'm going to turn you into a machine, okay?
Starting point is 00:56:48 And you're going to supersede me. I know you are. Today you're like 300 pounds. So as I'm as I'm mentoring him And it was fun to mentor guys He goes Brian I'm Italian and you work with this crew Why am I not in?
Starting point is 00:57:04 And I go Well I'll keep his first name I go Mike You're never going to be in I go why I go I go you meet all the qualifications For the Italian mafia
Starting point is 00:57:15 They'll probably take you on I agree I think they will But you'll never be part of my crew He goes what did I do I go, the first week I dated my girlfriend, you try to hit on her. You lack integrity. And for that purpose, you'll never be part. I'll build you in a Rambo.
Starting point is 00:57:33 You can hang with us, okay? That's fine. You can hang with us. You want to be with us. And I've done what I could for you, but you're not going to be in that crew. And the point behind that is that I took, it didn't matter what race you are. If you're actually looking at the mafia, it's racist. You're going to be Italian.
Starting point is 00:57:51 You can be associate, not be in. I looked at it for qualifications that I'm looking for. And if you really find those innate qualifications, now you're going to protect them, but you protect yourself, ultimately. So, yeah, over time, now I got my crew, okay, building with Tommy. We're basically being separable.
Starting point is 00:58:16 And then you have Vincent Magliano, we call him the last Gambino. He's the last one. really made man in Baltimore. Then we have Shariar. His sister's a big artist now named Shab. Shariar, he's originally from Baltimore. He's now part of what we call the lords of Baltimore.
Starting point is 00:58:34 He's in our crew. And then we brought on a Russian. I'll talk about the Russian in a second. But the key ingredient with this of when you're a drug lord, a lot of people think by being a drug lord like the cartels are fighting each other, I was a big proponent that we worked together. other. And when you did that, when you work together, we all took care of each other. If I needed something, Scotty had it. He was able to, he was able to really take over DC and Virginia. And then for a time,
Starting point is 00:59:04 I'm supplying Scotty. You're Shariar, the Persian mafia. Now he's the head of the Persian mafia. Was the Persian mafia scary? No, they're so much fun. They're incredibly intelligent. The families had tons of money. They owned so many restaurants and clubs. So the product could fly so much deep into D.C. Into the clubs and that club scene there. So he was an incredible drug lord. Was he scary?
Starting point is 00:59:32 No. He had to have huge security in order for him to get to the level he had to do because he was a short little small Persian guy. And then ultimately the fifth one was McKell. And Mikkel was just a guy that was meant. where I always was trying to bring on new talent, always trying to find the next person that I was going to bring under me. And I didn't want to be in the game too long, but I go, he's got the dead stare.
Starting point is 01:00:00 I like this about him. You know, the dead stare is good because it's just an intimidating look. He doesn't talk much. He's smart. And I go, I'm not going to bring him under me. I go, and I had a meeting with him. I go, I got an idea for you. Your new nickname's Russian Mike.
Starting point is 01:00:17 he goes, okay, he is Russian, okay? He's actually a Ukrainian Jew. But I go, one thing about Baltimore is they're very much removed from modern age society back then. You know, that's why there really weren't any big, big deal, drug, like outside. It's hard to explain. For me to have this contact in New York was a big deal because a lot of people that live in Baltimore don't leave Baltimore. There are generations in that city leaving it, which is not an opportunity. option, they just stay. That's all they do. And a lot of people that we're dealing with,
Starting point is 01:00:52 we recall they live in what's called white hoods. You have white hoods throughout Baltimore, very poor communities of white people as well that just never even thought about leaving Baltimore. It's all they know, it's all they cared about knowing. And I go, a lot of people in Baltimore don't know much about Russians and a lot of people in Baltimore are intimidated. And I know you have a big crew that lived in the Pikesville area. I want you to build your own faction, Mike. And he did it. And he built what would be perceived as like a Russian mafia in Baltimore. And I go, I go, he did it. Like I go, wow, I actually is the one who founded the Russian mafia in Baltimore. I'm saying there's a joke, obviously. But what was great about Mike,
Starting point is 01:01:36 Mike was also somebody that I wouldn't bring in, but I was supplying him. And he was doing well, getting rid of getting rid of pills. So we had this intricate group where if we needed something, Mike would also have his own sources, he would supply me as well. When you were thinking of your exit, did you have a specific dollar amount in mind or was it just to get through school? The goal was to just finish up school, maybe not be one of the one. I mean, there's a ton of wisdom I have in this. I have to think back to 25 years. But the one mentor I told you about his name was Eric that was under Vincent Magliano.
Starting point is 01:02:13 He's like, you know what like an old soul is? somebody's just an old soul, something about them that just has a lot of wisdom, even at a young age. And he would go, Brian, I want you to look at this guy and we'd be at a bar. And I go, okay. I go, see that guy? That guy all he knows is selling drugs. Okay? He would sell a bunch of cocaine.
Starting point is 01:02:34 He'd sell keys. He would get busted. And then he would do it again. The guy never took the time to learn another business. He just knows drugs. dealing. He's stuck in that cycle. That guy is stuck and he's going to go back to prison time and time again. Don't be that guy. Okay. So I just knew any, and he would talk about it. We would talk about an illegal part with like Tommy. He's like, what do you get busted? You know, first thing is he goes,
Starting point is 01:03:04 if you ever get busted, you'd never talk to me again. Okay. The qualities of Tommy, he had a lot of integrity as well. He's like, I'm not going to be the mafia. Okay. The mafia is going to go. I'm going to buy you. I'm going to pay for your return. they have another end game for when they do that. Okay? They want to control the situation by paying for your attorney. You just never talk to me again. You're done.
Starting point is 01:03:24 And that's it. We don't know each other. Maybe in 20 years we could talk, but that's that. So it became very clear that there was an expiration date on this industry. And that's why I added so many layers of protection with my crew and everybody else that it's just inevitable, no matter how long you stand the game, that you're going to get caught. So, yeah, it was pretty much as close to college after college as I can get out. I didn't have a specific number of mine, no.
Starting point is 01:03:58 Tell us about the financial aspect of it, how much money were you making and what were you doing with it? Because obviously, you were making way more than what the cost of college was. Yeah. So it's a couple of things they teach you to do. the college thing was really good because it allowed me to hate two worlds separate. Okay. And you look kind of young. Me, I look young.
Starting point is 01:04:19 So like if a Fed's going to be on campus, it's going to look weird. Okay. So I had this group, like I told you, it was really good at using college kids or working with college kids to get a new place to this day. Getting brand new phones. I was just getting new phones break it, new phone break it, you know. And then the other one would be to get storage units. And that was a little harder because you had to find a college student that was going to move. Go in, hey, I'll pay for your storage unit.
Starting point is 01:04:47 So what was your original question? The financial answer. Okay. So what I learned to do is I put everybody on a strict schedule. Okay. So if I have a guy or one of my, I call them students working under me, I always supply them on Thursday. Okay. So Thursday, I tell them, even I got to a certain point where I'm, I called them.
Starting point is 01:05:09 I'm paying for all the pills, but I just bring of the illusion that I'm still working with the mafia entirely, meaning it's their pills as well. It puts added pressure on them because they know that the people I work for are murders. It is what it is. So you don't want to make a mistake with them. So I give it to him Thursday and I would verify how much do you need? Okay, I need 2,000. I need 3,000 pills.
Starting point is 01:05:33 Okay, here's your price point. You must give it to me the money by Sunday. Okay. The good thing about a club drug, like ecstasy. It's not an addictive drug. You're basically getting into the clubs on Thursday, supplying all the clubs till Sunday. You get your money and that's it. My dealers aren't getting calls from, you know, people who are addicted that want pills on a Monday. It just doesn't happen. It's a club drug. Okay. So when you get people on a consistent weekly cycle like that,
Starting point is 01:06:04 you have a system in place. Okay. And I want to get those pills in their hands, out of my hands as quickly as possible. The key for me is get out as quickly as possible. Now, I'm not a greedy person. So I just upsell the pill maybe 50 cents, maybe a dollar. You know, when you're selling hundreds, you make maybe two, three bucks on each pill. On a thousand, you may be upset a 50 cents.
Starting point is 01:06:25 Maybe upsell maybe a dollar, you know? And in all honesty, I think I, I am many ways new. I was always grateful to even have this money. That's all you're true. So I wasn't like even trying. I was very grateful for that. And so I get when I get a storage unit, if I had to keep drugs in one storage unit,
Starting point is 01:06:48 I would keep it separate from the money. And then all I was doing is banking money. One of my things is I'm not going to be flagrant. I'm not going to drive a flashy car. I'm not going to wear flashy clothes. We did. I did have certain rules. This is going to be a funny one of what I wanted my people to wear.
Starting point is 01:07:07 We had to kind of. keep a certain image in place. So I felt like it was important to be so much dressy. You know, make yourself, you know, be a standup guy, look good, look presentable, hold your head up high. But we're not going to wear suits. We had a specific type of clothing we wear. We wear nice slacks.
Starting point is 01:07:24 Had to be long legs because a lot of, oh, my guys are also fighters. You got to be ready to fight. You got to be able to kick them if you have to. You have nice dress shoes because it has to have a rubber sole under there. So you could grab the concrete, begin the fight. we are one thing that was beautiful about Baltimore in terms of what I did is I'm a former street fighter so I already knew the landscape of Baltimore I already did an assessment of the priorities of the police I already did specific calculations I know when you're a street fighter it's a brawing town
Starting point is 01:07:55 it's a what we call like a roadhouse town back then there's no cameras back then you get in fights cops just break it up till you go home every time so by being an ex-estasy drug lord and going out and if you have on occasion somebody owes you money i don't carry drugs with me but i'm going to approach him immediately if he doesn't have my money i'm going to beat him up and what's good about that is i have an audience that's watching me beat your ass so it's very clear what happens if you pay me and i wouldn't have to do that often but i had calculated enough to know that i'm not going to get in trouble if i can make this look like a bar fight So if you had to put a dollar amount on everything, what would that be for how much money you'd raked in?
Starting point is 01:08:42 Well, ultimately, feds did come in and they stole a bunch of my money. We'll get into that in a second. But now, I wasn't a millionaire. I'd say about six to seven hundred thousand total. So they would still label you as a drug lord, even making that little money? It's a lot of money back then. Okay. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:09:00 And I was still classified that. And I think a lot of people thought, I'm being honest, a lot of people thought a lot more money in that. Tommy was probably a millionaire, but he definitely. Scotty had an opportunity to, but he spent so much money. You know, it's just his thing. I didn't spend it. McKell never knew how much he made. But a lot of people thought, but ultimately, I'm just going to be honest with you.
Starting point is 01:09:22 I didn't make. The reason why I didn't make that much is because I would literally lower my margin sometimes to a quarter per thousand, just to be kind of one of the best in terms of numbers out on the street. So I would look even bigger than I am because most of the city has my drugs. But I'm making sliver profit margins on it. What did your parents think you were doing? Like, were you in contact? Or was the relationship just really strained and they didn't really stay in touch with you?
Starting point is 01:09:54 So my dad, I stopped talking to almost entirely when he left. Mom here and my mom would be, it would be so weird because, you know, my mom would have a party. You know, and it is strained, but she's like, come over. I have a penthouse over here. She wanted to deliver a single life, you know, at that point. And she was like kind of a socialite, getting back into being a socialite. So I remember I would go out to her penhouse and it would be the mayor of Baltimore.
Starting point is 01:10:26 And it would be, you know, NBC producer. It would be, you know, one of the kind of, one of the senators from, I can't remember their names. but he'd be Martin. Now, O'Malley was the mayor at that point. And it'll be all these kind of socialite Baltimore types. And it'll be like so ironic because I'm taking pictures with them. Okay. And I'm hey,
Starting point is 01:10:45 this. And I'm like, I can't wait to get back to the streets. Like, it's like they're calling me. You know, like get me out of here. You know,
Starting point is 01:10:53 and I would go and do these pictures with these socialites. And literally one hour later, I'd be right down the street in a brawl, you know, like cracking somebody's head for owing me money. But it was a very odd. dynamic. My relationship with my mom was certainly not where it was, where it should be. We would talk here and there, and that would be it.
Starting point is 01:11:13 How long did this whole run last for it for you? So it started, the run, let's get into this. This is a good story. So I, you still kind of do parties and events, right? No, I'm long gone from that. But you did that, right? Yeah, I did do that. So while I'm a drug lord, I met some of the guys I was in college with were doing really well with running out clubs in Baltimore. And what they would do is, I like the deal. You get all the door, usually, you know, convince the club that give you free drop beer for like an hour or two.
Starting point is 01:11:48 And then if you're lucky, you get a percentage of the bar. Probably not, okay? Most of your money you're going to make it at the door. I watched the business model. I liked it. And at this point, I'm dating one of the cute, beautiful girls on campus. Her friends are the hottest as well. And I go, I'm going to replicate this business model.
Starting point is 01:12:05 So I would send her and her girlfriends out the campus on Towson. And I go, I just want you to invite everybody. I don't care how nerdy the guy is. You're inviting all the nerds. Everybody is invited, okay? And we ran out buses. And the good thing about what the position on man is I know all the drug. I know, sorry, I know all the club owners.
Starting point is 01:12:27 So I know the, they even have the, the drug, the, the club owners tend to be some, type of mafia person. So Chris McKinney, we would call him the head of the Velvet Mafia, owned a club. So I do one night I do the club there. Okay. Next night I would do Johnny G. He owns a China room. I do a club there.
Starting point is 01:12:50 And we make a lot of money. You know, I would, this was like my side hustle, you know. And it was my, my way of getting out of the industry, ultimately, you know, like, hey, I can make some legitimate money and ultimately get out. learn something, you know, when I do get out, I got a legitimate business I'm working on, okay? Or if something goes awry, I'll do that. One of the other parts of my code, and again, I got to put this in a book, but like, Omerita is like, don't cheat or don't, don't hit on another man's wife, okay? My code with all my guys is get a good girl and stick with her. We're in college, okay? We're not getting married. But you get a good girl, okay? Stick with her,
Starting point is 01:13:34 and you don't cheat. Okay. And the reason you do that keeps you grounded. You're not even thinking about hooking up with somebody else's girl. You just got a good girl
Starting point is 01:13:41 and there's no toxic relationship there. She's loyal to you. You're loyal to her. It's a good thing to have. Okay. And my code was always don't cheat on your girl.
Starting point is 01:13:51 Okay? So as I'm having these events, girls are trying to kind of throw them themselves at me at certain points. I'm like, no, no, no. I got a girlfriend. Okay?
Starting point is 01:14:02 So one night, we got a club going at China Room. Place is packed. My girlfriend gets drunk and she goes, screams at me. She creates drama. And like when you're a drug lord, you can't have any drama in public.
Starting point is 01:14:17 You can't. So I just sit there and let her do her thing, yell, punch me if she wants. That's great. She leads with her girlfriends and that's that. So I'm a little upset by it. And then this girl is just throwing herself out at me. I'm like, I can't do that.
Starting point is 01:14:31 It's a very big violation. that would, I know not to do that. Ultimately, at the end of the night, I invite her back. And she comes to my place, we do our thing. And then she's like, my friend's just going to pick me up. I'm like, okay, that's fine. So now I violated two codes. A, I allowed somebody to know where I live and I cheated on my girlfriend.
Starting point is 01:14:53 So I'm at my place and I get a call about an hour or two later. They go, Brian, that guy, Billy, that picked up that girl, he ends up. being a cocaine dealer. Okay, he's being busted right now. Watch yourself. So I'm like, okay. Okay, I watch myself. So I don't have drugs on me. I always, it's like Saturday at this point. So the drugs are already on the street. I do have a huge facility of a lot of money. Okay. So I'm there. I'm always prepared. So like, remember, I have a legal background. So I've already studied, you know, search warrants and what the criteria will be for a search warrant. So I'm prepared. You'll never find drugs at my home, ever.
Starting point is 01:15:36 You're not going to find money at my home, maybe just a little money I need. So I'm like, I'm pretty much square. I'm okay, okay? Got the knock on the door. It was the feds. They came in. They pretended like, oh, is this your car? I'm like, yeah.
Starting point is 01:15:50 I'm like, oh, and they put us all in handcuffs. And I'm sitting there going, I want to see your search warrant. And you got so upset with me. They're like, what? I'm like, there's no. way you got a legitimate search warrant. I want to see it. They wouldn't show it to me. And it's just me against 20 guys. What I always did is I put my calculations. I took accounting, you know, classes. So all my numbers are built deep into my accounting homework on my computer. So I wouldn't find
Starting point is 01:16:19 that. And it was a square off for about 10 hours. They were so confused why there were no drug. They never met like a dealer or a drugler like me where you don't have drugs at your home. You don't have guns at your home. Like, what are you? You know, like, you have to have drugs here. No, I don't. And they, I knew that I had a storage facility with a, a good little amount of my cash. It was like $3,000, $400,000. And I knew to put it in my computer. I forgot to do that. And they found the card. And they found the location. They go, what is that? And I already know they're on their way there. I go, it's a lot of money. It's in somebody else's name. So it's not that person's money. So whatever you want to do, don't get that guy on it.
Starting point is 01:17:03 It's my money. I'm thinking, fuck, these guys might be able to get a conspiracy case on me. They go, okay, what's the next step? He goes, we found out who your mom is. Okay. We're going to go ahead and get a warrant for that storage and let's meet tomorrow. I go, fuck. So I have to call my mom.
Starting point is 01:17:24 I go, mom, I don't know what's going to happen here, but they just found three to 400,000 of them. my money, okay? What the hell's going on? We could talk in person and we end up having a meeting at the federal prosecutor's office. And my mom is Baltimore's Baltimore. In the legal world, everybody knows each other too. All the legal people do it. And she just was doing everything she can. It could make this go away. And she's like, Brian, you let them keep that money, you know? And I'm like, I'm kind of okay with that. So we put a, this shows you how corrupt Baltimore is. And this was always my issue with my mom is that I kind of saw an opportunity
Starting point is 01:18:07 when I did get into this to create that add some integrity into criminality. And it just showed you how quickly she was able to make this go away. And these guys, they, they told me they're going to do this. They go, they claimed 100,000. So I got a piece from the DA for 100. And it kept about 300,000 for themselves. Now, that sounds crazy, but these guys are already arrested for doing the same shit. They did a movie call, we own the Baltimore, we own the city, the city. So one of the guys got arrested was one of those guys. Really? Yes. I had someone that was one of the guy, one of the drug lords in Baltimore that got wrapped up in it. His brother worked for one of them or something like that. Yeah. So one of one of his name is Gladstone. I'll mention this name because
Starting point is 01:18:55 you've already been arrested and whatever. But yeah. So we put a, deal together and the deal got better. It almost was too good to be. They go, Brian, when do you graduate? I go about a year and a half ago, we could stay off you for a year and a half, okay? But we're getting Tommy Dixon. We've been trying to get him for 15 years. So you can't do work with Tommy Dixon. This is the first time I've ever told, told you, told anybody this just so you know, okay. I go, okay, they go, you can continue to work. I go, I could continue to work. I go, I could continue to what? They go, yeah, you just can't work with Tommy Dixon.
Starting point is 01:19:34 And I go, what else? And they go, we want you to be done by the time that you graduate. If you finish by then, I could do my part to keep anybody off of you. But after you graduate, you're fair game. If you're in the game afterwards, we're going to come for you. I go, okay. Sounds too good to be true. I don't believe it, but okay.
Starting point is 01:19:56 Then he goes, then I go, what about the rat? I know who the rat is. They go, you could beat them up. I go, what? They go, we know you don't use guns. Okay? We know your reputation, but you're allowed to beat them up. Now I'm like, this is way too good to be true.
Starting point is 01:20:13 These guys are corrupt. They did take my money. And now I got to, they, the deal was made. They let me go and that was that, okay? And this is the FBI telling you this. This is the DA. Here's what's different about this, okay? It's a DEA task force, okay?
Starting point is 01:20:28 that was made up of Baltimore corrupt police and the local DEA. Okay. So it wasn't the FBI. The fact that these guys are local guys and corrupt cops, one of them, the one I talked to is in jail or went to jail and got out, is the reason why that deal. And it's the reason why I wouldn't even tell anybody for the longest time, because, hey, I'm not going to rat on these guys.
Starting point is 01:20:50 They already got in trouble. It's already out there. And it's 25 years later. Okay. So all I did at this point, point is I go, what are my, what are my next moves? So I did two things. I approached the Russians. Okay. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I can't supply you anymore. He goes, well, Brian, I could supply you. We are, we already, we already have our own suppliers. We're Jewish. If you know anything about
Starting point is 01:21:17 the exosy, the Israeli mafia really runs it. And I go, we already have a good source so we could supply you. So, boom, that's handled. So then they didn't know any of my, oh, any, any, of my students. My students, they don't look like drug dealer. They look like college kids, you know, or big football players. So I go, I'm going to bring on a special operation. It was a guy Dave I was working with, never give you his last thing, but he works on Wall Street now. And I just turn him into my next project. And I was so paranoid after this that I would add 10 codes on top of codes, on top of codes on top of codes on them. Like I made, I made his life so miserable while he was making money for me that we just had to be extra careful.
Starting point is 01:21:58 You know, like I didn't believe it. And what was great about this whole thing is my drugs are already on the street. So all my money from the drugs that were on the street came back. So I didn't lose everything. I had more money stored away in other locations. So it wasn't a complete loss. And I had about another year or so back in the game. And we continued with another one of my students and we just were super careful.
Starting point is 01:22:22 Now in terms of of beating up the rat, I didn't feel comfortable with that. these guys, you just don't trust them. Plus, they would pop up at random locations. And the rat, I just would go, he's a social kid, he was a college kid. I just point to the door and say, you got to leave, you know. So I did that for about a year. Just go. Just get out, get out, you know. I didn't feel like it was good move. You know, I'm trying to make calculated moves. So he had put the cops on to you before that guy that picked up the girl from your house, he's the same guy. Oh, he's the same guy. Yeah. So he had already gave him. you up. Yeah, he gave me up. And he just happened to be the guy friend of the girl.
Starting point is 01:23:03 Just happened to be. And this is why the codes are built the way they are. Because it's just a weird chance encounter could get you in trouble. So it wasn't a setup. It's not like the girl approached you. No, not at all. Okay. It was just a coincidence. It was an absolute coincidence. He was already wanted by the, I mean, the cops even gave me all the information, you know. They were like, they got paid out. So they're going to tell me everything, you know. So like, and it got worse. It was. And then about a matter of time, you know, I'm going. Okay, now I'm working with the Russians within three months, full operation now, still going, trying to, now I'm just focusing on graduating. Much money as I can graduating, okay? Tommy gets busted. Okay. These guys, they're on them. They get them. Okay. So now I got
Starting point is 01:23:48 this guy Gladstone calling me. He's like, Tommy's trying to set you up. Are you lucky? Whatever. I'm like, okay, Gladstone, thank you. Um, so now we got one drug lord down. Okay. I'm still operating. Vinny is another story, him being a drollular. It just shows you with Vinny. Vinny is an incredibly talented and amazing entrepreneur today. He owns this company called LifeMed. So shout out to that company. He's always been a great bail bonds company. But he was always getting caught up, you know, and then out of prison when he was selling, you know, cocaine. He didn't have the level of tenacity that Tommy had. So I pulled a lot of stuff from Tommy. The next drug lord that went down, Shariar, he ends up getting busted. By that time, though, I'm already graduating. I finished my last exam. I ended up going, I go, I'm just going to move to New York.
Starting point is 01:24:47 Okay. So, so I go, I'm going to move New York. I'm going to become a stockbroker. I just took as much money as I can. I made an agreement with the DEA that I'm not going to be continuing. So what do I do next? I got everything ready for New York. Okay?
Starting point is 01:25:02 Boom. I'm moving in. I come back to Baltimore. 9-11 happens. So I'm already fully committed. While I'm doing that, I didn't tell you this, but I'm taking my last again. When you graduate, I go, I'm going to go out with a bang. Okay.
Starting point is 01:25:17 So I call Russia mic up. I go, I need 40,000 pills. He goes, okay, I'll get them to you right now. Drops them off. I go, I'll be right back. Never returned them with my. the money. I ripped off the head of the Russian mob at that point. So now I have to leave because I'm going to get killed by them. So and it broke every principle that I was. And when my,
Starting point is 01:25:41 my team, my students saw that I did that, the level of disappointment in them were like, you did what? Like what? Like I go, guys, we're going to lower the numbers. You guys get rid of it fast. I'm out. Okay. This is my last move. And it makes it. even worse for the Russians because we're getting rid of it right in front of them on the streets of Baltimore. They know their products out there. So ultimately, I made my way to New York. I, after 9-11, kind of fended off. I moved everything back, moved everything into New York. And I just started getting ready to be a sock broker, you know, and start my new life. So I remember it's just going out when I can and everything's settled. You start going out. And we typically go to like big kind of
Starting point is 01:26:26 ecstasy clubs. Like they had like a sound factory was big then. And at this point, the, the guys, the Italians, Tommy Dixon's now trying to testify against them. So it's getting heated now with Tommy and the Italians. And what's beautiful is that them making sure I worked under Tommy, I don't had that connection I used to have with them. So I'm not there.
Starting point is 01:26:49 I'm no threat to them. Okay. We don't have that relationship. They're not giving me drugs anymore. I'm getting it from Tommy. We talk once in a while to get updates on certain things. We try to limit those conversations. They're already fully set up in New York and New Jersey, mostly.
Starting point is 01:27:02 When they came back, though, those are back to their hometowns. They turn darker than I ever saw them in terms of like they kept on ripping off drug dealers. I would get arguments with them. Like, what are you guys doing? You know, this is bad karma. Like we make plenty of money. Why would you do that? So I remember I go out to Sound Factory.
Starting point is 01:27:21 I see my contact from the associate from the Gambino Crime Family, Greg, I go, hey Greg, he goes, Brian. I go, yeah, I need you to come with me. I want to have a meeting with you down this alley or down this hall. I go, what? I go, you're out of your fucking mind. Okay. And the reason I do that is like shows you, you ever hear that story where somebody goes,
Starting point is 01:27:46 hey, you're one of us to take you the, the best thing for me to not be in the mafia is to do what I want to do. And if my, if my, if I had one inclination that you're, you're up to no good or you have bad intentions, I'm not going to follow you down this hallway. You're out of your freaking mind. And I was absolutely right. You attacks me right there. And we, great God, it's a club where they search you for guns. So there's no weapons in there.
Starting point is 01:28:15 And we ended up in pretty much like a jiu-jitsu fight, you know, on the ground, you know. And I was studying Jiu-Jitsu. He doesn't, he's just brutally, he's huge. It's so you know. He's probably 30 pounds over me. I'll fight this guy. We get pulled apart. And it was just very clear than me that I can't continue in New York.
Starting point is 01:28:38 You know, I'm like, I mean, they want to clean house. I'll kind of make it quick. So my reacher, the member of the football guy, he's now doing another football movie in Hollywood. He's like, I'm going to be, I'm going to be an actor, Ryan. Okay. Reacher, I never told you this. He's like, I'm like, I'm like kind of graduate. He's like, well, Brian, while you decided to graduate, I've already met the Israeli mafia out here. He's very charismatic just so you know, okay? Just like the guy, Richard, just like that. Already met them. Already good friends with them. And I went to a party in Indiana. I'm already supplying Indiana. I was like, that's one of my students. Damn, like, he's good, you know? I was like, whoa. Like, I go, okay, he's like, come on in. Come on down to L.A. And I really had no other choice to go down there. And while I'm in L.A., I get a call from Gladstone, the DA agent. He goes, where are you?
Starting point is 01:29:31 I go, I'm in L.A. He goes, stay there. We just intercepted the phone call. I go, what? Dude, there's a hit out for you. The Gambino crime and the Calviconte family want to kill you. I go, okay, thank you. Just stay there.
Starting point is 01:29:47 And that's a damning call, just so you know. because if you understand the power of the mafia back then, way more powerful than it is today. They still have absolute power. But that changed the trajectory of decisions I had to make in my life for the better part of 10 to 15 years. You know, like I still had to kind of be on top of my game for a while. I had to take that threat very seriously.
Starting point is 01:30:14 I had certain times hire PIs to check up on them, to find out where things are going. Wom in L.A. Tommy's going down. He takes down those associates from those families. He's testifying against them. Shari, the Persia Mafia gets busted. He's down.
Starting point is 01:30:35 Vinny's got his own legal problems. And then Russian Mike gets busted. So all the drug lords are out. Except for you. You survived? I survived. Wow. And now my students are like,
Starting point is 01:30:48 we want to get back in. So I call the Croatian up. Now I build this. I go, I want you to come with me, fly out to L.A. We're going to meet the Israeli mafia. Okay. So we're going to go meet with them. But we're going to be the way we're going to be.
Starting point is 01:31:06 So when we took that sit down, we just stare at them the whole time, analyzing their mannerisms. Because in my mind, this is too good to be true. Okay. I've been wanting to get connected with the Israelis forever. I knew that they had the best prices. They were the source of ecstasy. And as I got connected, we ultimately decided that we'll move with them. So now I ended up.
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Starting point is 01:32:39 Yeah, they label me the Baron of Baltimore at that point. Baron of Baltimore. On the baron, they're the lords now. And it allowed me to do a few things. Allowed them to take over. At this point, I'm just the finance. Okay? I'm the source and the finance.
Starting point is 01:32:54 And it made the students have to fly back and forth a lot. We had the mail packages out. We stayed on, we stayed all the lords were gone, except now my students are taken over. They're now the new lords. And we had a good run. I was the whole time I was working on, becoming a mortgage broker.
Starting point is 01:33:14 Like I'm one foot in at this one foot out, knowing that I eventually had to get out. I got enough information, the show that the heat was really starting to catch up on them. Even though there are my students, they're not good trainers. They're not good at training new blood. And they had some very close encounters that I got to a point for everybody. I go, hey, we had another year. It's done. Okay.
Starting point is 01:33:40 Let's put this done. All of you guys got college degrees. All of you guys didn't never wanted to be drug lords. I didn't want to be a drug lord ever. But we did. And now it's time to move on and we shut it down. How old are you when you walked away? So at this point, I'm probably 26.
Starting point is 01:34:02 Wow. So you've been living the last, those, what, 20 years after that as just a normal citizen? Yeah. And it was very hard to do because. It's got to be boring. Well, I say I'm now a normal person. What was cool about it is because you can start enjoying your life again. Because when you have that level responsibly, it's day and night, it's home.
Starting point is 01:34:24 Everything is a job. Everything, you're on point nonstop. You can't miss a beat. So for the first time, I got a nice, beautiful place on Sunset Boulevard. I broke up with my girlfriend. I was like, I want to enjoy life. I can start doing Coke. let's do some drugs.
Starting point is 01:34:42 You know, like, I'm not like a drug person, but I'm just letting loose, you know, like, then that was kind of the normal drug in L.A. back then. But it was like you just let loose your single life. And I just started working hard at becoming a mortgage broker. And I did very well. And I told these rallies, I go, hey, guys, I'm out. And they were like, they celebrated. They're like, yay.
Starting point is 01:35:05 That's great. Like, who does that, you know? And I started working with them on stuff. And I didn't become an actual millionaire until about five years later. Wow. Five years later, after the mortgage industry, I build a company going home rescue programs. We had a big mortgage meltdown. And I'm still like a kind of nerd at hand.
Starting point is 01:35:26 I saw an opportunity in the industry. And before I know it, this drug lord is now being flown to meet with members of Congress to educate them on loss mitigation underwriting guidelines. Well, they didn't know you were a drug lord. No, but it's crazy. I'm going back to D.C. Like, I was here five years ago as a drug lord. Now I'm on Capitol Hill.
Starting point is 01:35:44 Like, what is this? Did you ever think you would be telling the story? Like, you probably thought at that age, because there was no social media. There wasn't any of this. Dude, I was scared as hell for anybody to know the past. Yeah. Of, like, the type of judgment. Like, now the world's different than it was years ago.
Starting point is 01:35:59 Yeah, so what inspired you to share it? I think, I think there's been a big shift in transition. You know, when you have Wes Watson, former people, People like that are now influencers. He's a tool, man. He's a tool. We already know that. I have a lot of patience for people.
Starting point is 01:36:17 One of my students, one of my lawyers, I have a lawyer. It was a student of his. So I reached out to him just to fuck with him. Wait, he paid him? Yeah. He was, no, it gets crazier. He used to be a DA. I'm like, what are you doing?
Starting point is 01:36:31 So I reached out to him about that and he just wanted to blabbed his mouth. And then I go, Wes, I think your numbers are down. So I'm like, I'm going to be arrogant back to him. He goes, what do you be? I go, you always ask people to show your banks. I want to look at your bank statements. So I'll play with them back. And then I go, I don't think you're going to be coachable.
Starting point is 01:36:49 I go, you're probably right. You don't own any real estate. And I do. I don't know where I'm going to get any feedback from him. He doesn't own any real estate. He rents everything. Which I guess in probably some part, it might be smart because it's all write-offs, right? It can be.
Starting point is 01:37:02 With influencing and stuff. Yeah. And that's what he's doing is he's using that, you know, the, like I had, I had Ben, I sold them all. I'd rather put that money in the real estate. But if you're playing this, you know, image on social media, it's part of the job. Do you have kids? No. Did you want kids? No. Wow. You probably wouldn't be here if you had kids. Yeah, I don't know. I just, I just, I'm living in L.A. It's just never a place I wanted. I lived in L.A. for 20-some years. So I just never really wanted to have that kid. I got married eventually. I have a wife for 11 years. So I'm happy with marriage. I don't know. Maybe we might adopt in the year or two, but at this point, I'm pretty happy with that. I'm built differently. Did she hear the story before you told her? Is this the first time she's listening? She knows most of it. Okay. Otherwise, this would be quite a shot for her. She knows most of it. She's rushing. She can deal with it.
Starting point is 01:37:54 When you meet someone, how far in do you tell someone? Like when you first met her? I mean, we've been together for 11 years. Yeah, but when does this come out? It came in a few years later. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just one of those things you just kind of, to don't want to introduce Ray off as an immediate conversation piece. You know what's interesting is there's got to be hundreds and thousands of people like you
Starting point is 01:38:18 who've just never been caught that have done what you've done. I honestly think, well, most of the stories you hear, you might be true. There's probably a lot of drug dealers that don't get caught. I agree with that. But we might do another episode because I reactivated a couple times. Well, that's what you promote in a book or you're. own platform that you're building, you know? Yeah, I reactivated.
Starting point is 01:38:42 And what I do now, and we don't get off topic, but just as good I was at legal and criminal strategy, I'm ultimately in the same industry. I'm a legal strategist. My company is legal strategy. And you have promoted if you want to plug it in. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. So, like, after I had that company, we got into suing mortgage banks, you know, for the
Starting point is 01:39:06 mortgage meltdown. So we, I've been suing bank. banks for 15 years. The first seven to half years, we're suing, you know, the big banks make America Wells for the mortgage meltdown. The last seven to eight years, we've been doing credit card banks, specifically banks are united with, you know, Visa MasterCard, etc. So our clients, you know, the website, I think I said it, but USALawcenter.net. I'm now the full owner of that company. I had a partner. I bought them out about a year ago. A less than that, actually. And our clients aren't late in their credit. They're just basically over, you know, well,
Starting point is 01:39:41 with debt. You know, they've got over $20,000 in debt. They don't want to go late. They're looking for options. They realize that it may take them, you know, better part of 10, 20 years to pay those payments back. You know, there's minimum payments. That's really all they can afford. So they're looking for a solution, you know, and, you know, they don't want to go late on their credit. They don't want to file bankruptcy. They don't want debt, you know, relief. They don't want to consolidate. it. What we're able to do is we've identified about 12 federal statutes and we come after the banks and we settle out the debt by eliminating the debt. We literally litigate to full litigation to the full elimination. So what do you think is a life lesson you want people to take away from
Starting point is 01:40:23 your story today? There's a lot there, a lot to impact there. So it's never too late. you know like if you if you started out being a drug dealer when you're young you could turn into something much greater later on in life there's a lot more money to be made legitimately than non-legitimately when you work in the non-legitimate world you always had this thing kind of hurling over you you have that extra concern when you get into legitimate world you don't have to deal with that it's so there's way more money to be made and it's such a blessing to be able to make money legit. If you do decide to get into the game, know the landscape.
Starting point is 01:41:07 That was one of the key things, just understand the landscape of where you're going into the game. I would never get involved in a drug like fentanyl or heroin or crack. That's just not me. What I've gotten involved with marijuana? No, just because it was too big to deal with. So, yeah. I mean, one of the things I never even touched on is that we barely had the internet back then.
Starting point is 01:41:34 And I was testing the ecstasy pills for quality. We were. And there was even a website just jumped on. I mean, you know, internet was brand new back then. It was called dance. But I think they're still alive. And we would be able to test the drugs. Now, we didn't have the problems that they have today.
Starting point is 01:41:51 Nobody was dropping dead with, you know, like, you know, with the components that they have in drugs today. But we were doing that for quality back then too. So, you know, if you're going to jump at the game, have some integrity, have some rules, have some codes. Well, Brian, I appreciate you sharing your story with me today, man. Of course. It's been great to connect and sit down with you and you tell your story so well. I always love when a guest can speak it, you know, so well, and they're excited to share it for the first time. I appreciate that.
Starting point is 01:42:18 Yeah, I appreciate you, man. Safe Travels back to Maryland. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

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