Locked In with Ian Bick - I Sold Guns, Drugs & Fake Documents — Then I Almost Got Deported | Kamil Philip

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

Kamil Philip was born in post-Communist Poland and came to the U.S. with his family on a one-month visa that turned into a lifelong fight for survival. Growing up in a Long Island junkyard, Kamil’s version of the American dream spiraled into gun charges, forged documents, and years of run-ins with the law. But his biggest battle wasn’t prison—it was deportation. After losing his mother and being targeted by a detective determined to ruin his future, Kamil faced being sent back to the country his family risked everything to leave. Against all odds, a judge let him stay, and he rebuilt his life from scratch. Today, he’s a successful business owner who employs ex-cons, mentors young people, and teaches others how to build their own second chance. From selling guns and fake documents to nearly being deported, Kamil’s story is a powerful journey of survival, redemption, and what it really takes to overcome the system. #LockedInWithIanBick #TrueCrime #DrugTrafficking #DeportationStory #PrisonStories #Immigration #RedemptionStory #realstories Thank you to RULA & PELIPOST for sponsoring this episode: Rula: Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/LOCKEDIN  #rulapod Pelipost: Go to https://www.pelipost.com/ and use code LOCKEDIN at checkout to get your first 4x6 photo for FREE. Connect with Kamil Philip: Facebook: Bumblebee Motors Imnstagram: Kay_capitalmovement Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00 – Intro & Camille’s Early Risky Hustles 00:42 – Welcome & Camille’s Businesses and Success Today 01:26 – Felon-Friendly Trucking & Helping People Rebuild Their Lives 02:51 – Growing Up Immigrant: From Poland to New York 03:53 – Family Struggles, Survival & Adapting to America 05:31 – First Exposure to Crime & Family Influence 06:47 – Burglaries With His Uncle & Early Criminal Lessons 09:13 – School Troubles, Language Barriers & Culture Shock 13:10 – Neighborhood Life, Side Hustles & School Entrepreneurship 15:24 – High School Hustles: Dice Games, Weed, Liquor & Making Money 17:06 – School Discipline, Criminal System & Early Tactics 17:44 – Adulthood Begins: Flipping Cars, Ambition & Bigger Risks 21:00 – Deepening Involvement: Guns, Car Deals & Dangerous Moves 23:32 – First Gun Arrest & Fear of Immigration Problems 24:39 – Police Interrogation Tactics & The Breakdown of the Case 27:21 – Fighting Charges, Court Battles & Consequences 29:41 – Caught Again: New Hustles & Escalating Trouble 31:59 – Running a Molly Operation & Forgery Scheme 38:47 – Sticker Forgery Task Force, Surveillance & The Sting 43:54 – Arrested Again & Camille’s Life Unraveling 46:47 – Felony Charges, Family Loss & Reaching a Breaking Point 52:59 – Deportation Threats, Immigration Battles & Uncertain Future 01:02:03 – Fighting Multiple Cases, Delays & Weak Evidence 01:06:01 – Rebuilding: Starting a Clean Life & Launching New Businesses 01:11:10 – Trying to Stay Out of Crime & Close Calls Along the Way 01:18:12 – Finding Faith, Family Strength & A New Direction 01:19:50 – Ups, Downs, Luck & Hard-Earned Lessons 01:21:12 – Advice for Young Hustlers: Opportunity, Regret & Reality 01:23:48 – Final Reflections & Camille’s Closing Message Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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or just grabbing one more spoonful of yogurt, keep it real. Look for the seal. Real California milk by real California farm families. I dabbled in things that just kind of didn't make sense, and that was with guns. Why would you get arrested and then go back out to try to do another gun deal while you're fighting that case? The drug Mali comes out, and I remember the first time got it in. Somebody's like, man, I got this thing here, and it was just a crystal rock. Do you end up getting pop for the drugs or the forgery?

They put on their plastic gloves. They told me to go in the bathroom. And they gave it to me. Camille Philip came to America from Poland chasing the American dream, but instead of opportunity, he found himself selling guns, drugs, and fake documents just to survive. By 21, he was facing prison, deportation, and losing everything his family risked their lives for. This is how he went from almost being deported to building a new life and helping others do the same. Camille, welcome to Lockham, and thanks so much for coming on the show today.

I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. You know, thank you for me. Can happen. I've been watching you for a while. And you built an amazing brand and following and all of that. So, you know, respect to the show. Yeah, I appreciate you, man.

I see you got your locked and bracelet. Yes. Promotionals. They did. They did. You got some merch going on over there, and I like it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely, man.

I appreciate it, man. We got to send you home with one of those locked in figures. Yes, yes. Those things came out really good. They did. And not a lot of people are doing that. So I see that you got some. It's totally different, you know?

It's different from what everyone else is doing. Of course. Do you want to tell the audience about any of your businesses you have going on? Yeah, absolutely. So I own a few businesses now and some, of them range from a car rental place. We do car rentals in the New York, Long Island area, and also in Atlanta, Georgia. And I also buy and sell heavy equipment from trucks to semis, landscaping equipment, bucket trucks, anything for your business that it does. That's what I do.

I locate it for a fraction of the cost and we sell it. And also on a trucking company. And what we do is we help people who want to get in a box truck industry, how to start it from A to Z, meaning start the LLC, get your DOT numbers, get the truck financed, get you a dispatcher on set, and link you with everything so you could kind of start doing that. Now that business, the last one, that's felon friendly, isn't it? It is. And that's what it's hard. It's a lot of people who didn't go to school or, you know, were obviously behind bars or locked up. It's a great business. You know, it's not a lot of cost to entry for it. You could literally do this for 20 grand, you know, out of pocket, 15 to 20 grand

to get it started all the way. And you could get, you know, a lot of income plus it's scalable, right? You could go ahead and get another driver and it's something you could build and grow if you wanted it to. So awesome. Well, we'll have your contact info in the bio so people can reach out to you about that. Where do you grow up? I grew up in Long Island. I was born in Poland when I was young. It was actually just coming out of communism. So like the fall of communism come, you know, talk about like, you know, projects and apartment buildings. They're all just cement buildings one by one. And I was there.

And then we moved over to Queens for a little bit. And so it was just me and my mom. And my father came out here to work. And they said, hey, pack for three months. Just your immediate stuff, you know, I just had a backpack and a bag. and then we flew out here to New York, and that was it. Didn't go back for a very, very long time. What did your parents do for work in Poland?

My father was a truck driver, and my mom actually had a good job. She actually was working in like a court system. So she was definitely building up and going in there. She had her sister, whole family there. So it was, you know, it was doing okay. But again, it was still that change from communism, so it's not what it is now. And that was it. And then they brought me over there for, you know, hopefully a better, a better future. What would you say, based on your memory, it was the biggest difference between Poland and coming to America?

Probably culture-wise. Culture-wise, how, you know, just the way you grow up and everything like that, it was definitely a big change, right? So Poland is obviously a smaller country and you basically have a lot of your people. And then when you come over here, you know, now you're in a boiling pot and it was, you know, to be able to just, you know, mingle into twine with a lot of cultures. So when you got to the U.S., how old were you? I was six. You were six. I was six, yes.

And so what the thing is is we move over here and I'm thinking, okay, we're coming to stay. And we were actually going into a home that was an old office and a parts warehouse at a junkyard. That's where we were actually living at. It was literally the inside of a junkyard, the fence is right next to it, barbed wire. they actually dismounted the tires and the gas tank right behind the house. So every single day, all you hear is the machine going off, tires dropping. The whole thing was just infested with rats. It was like 10 of us living in that house.

And that's it. It was like literally inside the junkyard. And then across the street would have a cement house. I mean, the guys felt bad. So they would drop off, you know, a little bit of sand. So we could have like a little sandbox there. And that was it. we, you know, grew up pretty, pretty poor there.

Pretty poor there. But my father, he would at night, he lived in a junkyard, he would take orders from everybody in the city. And then at night, he had access to the junkyard. So they would go in the back, get a couple parts, be able to sell them on the side and just kind of, you know, make things happen and see how things kind of, you know, came together. But, you know, growing up there, it was like, you know, you got to fend for yourself. money was definitely something that was important.

It had to be saved. You could tell, you know, during the week, all we ate was like, you know, some rice and a can of soup. But on the weekends, once everybody got their paycheck, we were able to, you know, eat good. Family was tight. But I did know that my family on my father's side, my grandfather's family is involved in a kind of an organized crime syndicate back home and here in the city. and his my grandfather's brothers they were you know involved and they were pretty good you could tell when my uncle used to come in to visit from Brooklyn he would come through in like a nice Buick regal jewelry on you know this and that and my grandfather is over there taking gas from you know

from the cars in the back and using it for fuel for everybody so you know money meant that you know a little bit so it was like hustling and so my lit I also lived with my uncle my uncle my uncle is only six years older than me. So he's very close to what it is. So it's almost like a brother, right? I'm kind of living with somebody who's a brother figure and, you know, he was six years older. And so they started, you know, we started doing house burglaries. One thing I respected about my, you know, my uncle is he took me a couple places, right? If you're 13 years old, you don't want to have somebody at six or seven with you, but he kind of took me to a couple places and it just, he took me along to those things. And now, I didn't really comprehend what was, you know, what was going on.

You know, they were probably maybe using me because I was little and I could fit right through the window and, hey, open up the door and all of that. You know, they're grabbing valuables and I'm just, you know, and I would take things like if there was like, for example, a teenage room, I would grab like a poster or a comic book or a lava lamp or something, meanwhile, you know, out of that. So, you know, it was just growing up like that when, you know, when, you know, when we were younger out there. Do you remember the first burglary your uncle brought you on?

Yes, I do. I do, I do. It was actually this kid Jeremy's house. They knew about him. They knew he was gone. And it was only a couple blocks over. We would walk down, boom, shoot out. And they hoisted me up in the window and we did it.

And that's probably where I got the comic books one. Yeah, I do remember that. And what items were you stealing for them? Nothing. They would do their own thing. He wasn't like steal this for me. They just, hey, come in. We're going to, you know, open up the door.

And, you know, I was just free to roam. So, you know, I grabbed what I thought was cool and what I wanted at that time. And that was it. Did your dad know that your uncle was doing this? No, no, no. But, you know, he was involved in his own stuff. You know, he's trying to take parts here and make stuff happen. He knew that we would run around.

But, no, they didn't know exactly that we were burglarizing. Did you know this was wrong at the time? Or did you not really have much sense of what was going on? I did. Yeah. After a little bit, I did. The first one was more like fun, hey, but maybe like the third or fourth. I didn't go on a lot.

I'm not saying I was, you know, doing Gregory Sprees, but, you know, we hit a couple. Probably by the third or fourth is like, you know, that's actually, you know, somebody's stuff. Like, no, you know, and just kind of, it's like, nah, you know, this is, this is not it. But so it was, it was there. But so it was just growing up on that path in second grade, I'd get kicked out of school already. I was taking ESL classes at the time And kind of where I was growing up It was like you know

You could have something on you But as long as you're not committing a crime It's not a crime And I remember we I had a pocket knife on me And I just took it out just to show somebody It was never on no violent Or nothing like that

Kid went tells the teacher He probably went and recited something like Us kid said he could pull it out and use it whenever And boom I get kicked out and what happens is they get the paperwork to transfer to me over. Now, I give it to my uncle. He signs everything off and, you know, signs off that everything's acceptable in this. And what we told my parents was, hey, you know, ESL teachers transfer in schools, right?

She's transferring schools and now she's going to be, you know, at this school. So I transfer over to a worse school. It was the Eagle States. It was, you know, a lot worse of school. but the school bus came. As long as the school bus came, my parents like, okay, cool, it's fine. You know, ESL class is no problem.

But now I was getting picked up on a small school bus with obviously some special kids and kids with, you know, kids with, you know, all this type of stuff. And so there used to be an aide that used to ride with us in the bus, right? And I remember one time I was getting picked up and I get on the bus

and one of the kids in the back was like, to the aid, like, why do we pick him? Why do we pick him up from here? Like, does he live here? He actually, like, lives here. And Dave was like, oh, no, it's, you know, some people have whatever. And that was like the first time it kind of was like, damn, like, you know, it's, I guess a lot different from everybody else. Obviously, you could see other people's homes and, you know, we weren't in a regular house. But it was like, you know, whatever, right? We just came out here. We're just, you know, going to do that. But that's And I was like, okay.

So finally we find out we start moving to another house in a little bit. And this one was like, okay, finally it's a house that we're able to, you know, have a front yard, a backyard. There's obviously, you know, people everywhere. But this lady calls us that she knew somebody that was there. And they said, hey, listen, you know, come out. You could rent this house. We come into this house and this thing is roach infested, very dirty bed. I'm like, man, this is, you know, this is crazy.

We're moving to another one, but at least we had a yard. And at that point, I met both of my very good friends who were like my family now right across the street. They were from Puerto Rico and Peruvian. And that's where I learned a lot of the Spanish culture out there. And, you know, I was raised with their, you know, family and parents. So a lot of the Spanish culture, music, all that stuff is kind of, you know, I grew up with them on that.

And growing up, you know, I grew up. over there, I kind of took that with me. I was like, you know, burglaries, you could kind of turn that into money. As I'm growing up, the people who are riding down my street are people with the fanciest cars, right? These guys are a little bit older, but, you know, everybody got the new Mercedes, TVs are in the Sunvisor, and, you know, that's who's hanging around my neighborhood and and around there. And it was just like, okay, those are the people that are, you know, getting the respect and the love. And it's just like, you know, this is how it is. These guys next door, he just goes inside this house. And, and that's it. You know, this is what's kind of being, you know, respected and this. And this is how, you know, want to come up. So you've seen a lot of that, you know, around the neighborhood. Everybody got these. And I remember getting the first job at a car wash. I was like, man, I got to get. get to a car wash. I want to get a job and do this and that. And I got hired to work at this car wash young. And everybody either there was either Spanish, Hispanic, they didn't know the language,

or people that actually came home from prison or, you know, had felony backgrounds. Then we ended up going and doing a couple of burglaries out there. What I would do is anything that I found in the house, I was selling it at the car wash, right? Because a lot of people were coming in and out. So it was able to be like, okay, cool, you know what I mean? We could sell this and make an extra lot of money. And that's how, you know, I was making money back then. What was your mom doing for work? My mom at the time was, she was working at like a factory job, but she would go to school at night and do night school. And she was able to get a good certification and was able to land a job at an outreach called Catholic Charities. I've heard of that. Yes. And, and

And she was one of the headquartered. She built her up. She started from, you know, an assistant to this and actually was able to grow in a company. But that's what, that's what she was doing. And my father at the time was a truck driver as well. So he was driving trucks. Were you guys close, your family? Yes, yes.

We were, especially me and my mom. Me and my mom were very close. And my father as well, but my father was, you know, a little on the wild side. He had some stuff. He had runs in, you know, about a car here and there. You know, a little small stuff. But I feel also that there was resentment because all of us moved there, right? So I'm still living with both my parents, my grandparents, and my uncle at this new house while I'm still, you know, in middle school and stuff.

So all of us were still living in this house. And I think there was a little bit of resentment from my father's side towards my grandfather. So like, why we didn't do this? Why were we following the right path? Like, you know, like, you know, we had connections. You know, my grandfather's like, no, we're going to do this and do the job and make sure everything is right as opposed to, you know, run out and do that. This is a Bose moment. Your 10 boring blocks from home until the beat drops in Bose clarity.

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I had discipline with money about how it would carry it. I mean, every dollar would be from highest to lowest, you know, same-faced order. I would learn that. But I mean, even through middle school, I just started selling and hustling anything that I could. So by high school, I was already running the dice games. I had all the dice games that I was running. I even had my own little baggie with the three dice. I would sell hallway passes.

Every hallway pass that you wanted, I had. It was known for that. I had pens. I had bud, weed, and also food. So when cafeteria come, I would run over to the. the Wendy's, whatever day it was, we would buy everything for a dollar, then we would shoot it back and sell it for twice the amount. So everything was just about money at the time. A hallway passes to this, even had, we were selling bottles of liquor, you know, like when the vacation's coming

up and you, like, a Friday and you have like winter break, well, we would take Gatorade and liquor and sell it and you could either buy a shot, a cup, or even buy the whole bottle from us. And we ended up actually getting caught. And I remember right before Christmas break, we ended up getting caught because some girl was like, oh, can I have some sure, no problem? She takes the Gatorade bottle. And as the teacher's teaching, she takes a shot of it and just like makes the craziest face. And the teachers like, or for Gatorade, boom, took the whole team down. We ended up getting suspended for that. So that was that. But what I'll tell you this is in high school, it, it, it, taught me a lot for what like the criminal, the law, the judicial system works. It was almost like

a prep thing because we would get referrals. We would obviously get sent over to principal's office. And, you know, I would be doing negotiation tactics with her like, you know, like listen, this is this, this, let's settle all of those together for, you know, three in school days. And that's it. And she would be like, okay. And she would wait until there was four. and then you know do that but i was literally trying to make money off of everything in there but the time 12th grade hit i had uh already a Mercedes was like five years old cashed out already rims 20 20 inch rims already on it sitting out front to school and i didn't have a license yet because i'm one of those that was turn 18 after right so i'm already you know 16 about to turn 17 i got

the car outside sitting out front and you had to have a pass you had to have you know your car checked in at the office, they need to have at least a junior's license to be able to bring the car there. Had none of that. I was just parking it. Sister Britsa close in, listen, I don't want you there. You can't park. Take the bus to school. I'm not taking the bus to school if I'm driving this, right?

It's not happening. But I'm like, okay, no problem. I come in the next morning. The security cards were already there. They're sitting there and they said, you know, you can't come on the property. And I was like, how are you going to tell me I can't come to school? This is not right. They said, listen, as per Mrs. P., you can't come in.

I said, all right, no problem. I'm not going to hold the other kids up. I swing around and I look and there's the assistant principal's parking spot, right? Perfect place to park. And so I backed it in there. Boom, boom, left and I went to school. But by third period,

I was already called out and had to go home for, you know, a couple of days. So that was, that was it? Did your parents speak English or was there a language barrier? Like why wasn't the school calling home to kind of tell them what was going on with you? There was.

So my mom. my mom would be the one that would handle that. And she was very good with the language because she went to school with it. She writes all that. My father's was broken. So he would, what are they talking about? As long as your grades is good. Now, they did call a couple times.

And I told them what happened. I said, I want to bring my car to school. They won't let me park it. They're giving me this. They want me to take the bus. I'm not taking the bus. And so she was the type of person that was like, that's nonsense. How's your grades, right?

Like, let's talk about that. And to be honest, my grades was good. I always academically did what I had to do. It was none of that, but I would always be late to class or I would, you know, do this. But I always made up on the grades. So it was, you know, it was always just like that. At that time, what were your plans for the future? What were you thinking of doing with your life, your career?

So at this time, I know I want to do a business. I wanted to be somebody that's involved in any type of business. I know I wanted to open up a business for sure. And that's just something what I wanted to do. But this was all just like, let me get my money up, use this, and hopefully try to do something that I like. What I was also doing was I was also car flipping on the side now. So now I'm getting into something on a side, car flipping, whether it was at the time, Craig's List, being able to just call.

negotiate a car, sell it, and my father started to get a business dealer's license. And so I was doing that on the side as well. But I knew it was something to do that involved a business and in all those, you know, aspects. So yeah, just wanted to do a business. Now, one of my good friends that lived across the street that I told you that were like my family, his cousin, who was a very close friend of mine as well. He's almost like family. He treated me like a younger brother. He had a pizzerie at the time. And so I kind of went to work with him to kind of know it. But he was also in the game. And he taught me a lot of like grown up stuff. Obviously we were moving, you know, white at the time. He was and he kind of brought me in. But school me things in a positive way to be like,

hey, don't move like this. Don't be shiny. Like he would even, you know, make sure that everything is good. He tried to take me to church even on Sundays. Even though you were doing bad, he was trying to, you know, just point a good way. Don't move like that. Don't move like this. You know, don't have that Mercedes.

I mean, he, he would drive a little geometro to work and he had a big Mercedes. The delivery guy was driving a Mercedes with 20s. And when they got pulled over, he almost put his hands on him and said, you're never going to bring a delivery, you know, you're not delivering pizza in this. So yeah, like a discipline to them and that kind of, you know, schooled me to a lot of things. But at this time, I'm just like, whatever makes money is kind of what I need to do. And so I dabbled in things that just, you know, kind of didn't make sense. And that was with guns, whether it was taking them from one place and, you know, reselling for a higher number.

And so what happened is I graduate high school in June. In August, I turn 18. In October, I'm already arrested for possession of a firearm. Why did you get into guns? I really didn't. It was just the thing that was like, it was like, whatever makes money, I'm going to do it. And when I seen the opportunity that this is 150 but sells here for 650, okay. But it just didn't make sense.

And I'll tell you an incident's crazy that that happened that, you know, was like I'm not going to, you know, get involved with that anymore. It was actually a code offender. I'm very, you know, cool with. We ended up, you know, exchanging. And I was in the car. And they actually pulled me out because I was the one nervous. Now, now is the real deal. I just turned 18.

Mind you, I'm not legally here because we ran on a three month extension visa and it's supposed to go back. and now, you know, my parents are trying to do things to something called sponsor themselves, right? So when you get a sponsor, you're able to do it. Now, my objective to get a citizenship was to finish 1 through 12, and as soon as I turn 18, I'm eligible as long as my parents are being sponsored to apply for citizenship, and I'm going to obtain it. mind you two months after I turn 18 I'm in this situation and so you know it goes in there and I mean they had us they're interrogating us crazy you know there's blood on a gun and and and you know there's

this and you know they're saying it's yours and I know none of this stuff is true and and like no one's breaking they literally had us in this room for hours and I'm like you know it is what it is like you know I'm just trying to sit there after hours handcuffed to the floor and so no Nobody did nothing. And what they did was they put them in the holding cell in the precinct. And they took me at 2.30 out of the room and shipped me over to another precinct. And why they did that was when they were seeing that I didn't enter, it was probably for them to be like, oh, look, he got out. He must have said something, right?

There's no way he got out and we're not there. And they separated me. And I'm like, man, this is crazy. You know, these guys are going to think I'm over there. We were dying them out. And I remember we went to the cell. I couldn't sleep. I said as soon as we get into bookings, I'm going to find them.

I got to find them, let them know that I'm still here. And so I get into bookings. Every cell I'm, you know, trying to see which one they're at. And as people standing on the gate and I'm, you know, guys there. I finally see him. I shout out to him. Cuckoo! You, I'm here, cool.

And it did that. But it showed me that it was just like, this is how they play. You know what I mean? This is exactly what the play in this detective that actually arrested us. for this. He would later on harass me and hit me with additional charges and even try to set me up with something. So he literally didn't like me from this beginning point on and all of that. And here we are fighting this case. And we're trying to do, you know, whatever we can to kind of, you know, not have this, you know, stick especially on the jack in a situation. One person was in

the car was completely innocent. We had to eliminate him out to picture. You know, I can tell you exactly when I realized therapy should have been easier to get. It wasn't after a breakup or a bad week. It was right after I got out of prison. I was trying to rebuild my life, deal with stress, anxiety, the whole identity crisis, and every therapist I found online either didn't take my insurance or had a waitlist longer than my sentence. And that's the problem. Affordable, accessible mental health care shouldn't feel harder to get than a bunk in county. That's why I'm obsessed with Rula because Rula actually makes therapy possible. Go to Rula.com slash locked in to get started today. That's Rula.com slash locked in for quality therapy that's covered

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Tell us a story from the beginning. Like, how did you guys actually got arrested and what was going on? So I remember my co-defendant pulled up. Shout out to my man, night. He pulled up and I was like, you know, here, boom, take this. And I was supposed to go back in the house. And he said, I got to go drop him off our third person off at work. You know, come out, come in, join.

for a ride and this and I said you know what cool I'm jumping in jumped in the car we go pick him up he jumps in the car and now we're heading off to drop him off to work we were going to stop by and see somebody else as we're driving an undercover cop boom throws the lights pull us over I know it's in now again it's my first time getting arrested I'm still young but nervousness kicks in you know now I you know you later you learn how to deal with the with the nervousness but at that time it was nervous and you know they're poking around this you he looks at me he pulls me out i'm in the back and he looks at me and he said you look very nervous and just step out the car for me and i'm like okay you know it's not on me so i come out they pat us down boom nothing he looks around nothing then they went

to the obviously the driver passenger found it they arrest us they take us in their separate rooms and uh and they cuff us and all different stories like hey you know there's blood on that gun this is going to be very serious for you, you know, just tell whose gun it is and we can move on. Oh, well, I got it know it was in there. I don't know nothing. Did you guys use the gun for a crime? No. So why was there blood on the gun? There wasn't. It was just they're throwing a tactic. Now, I know it's not. So that's how I know it's a bluff. Because I know it wasn't. They're just saying that. They're going to see what I'm going to react. They were using their tactics on there. And obviously one of them was, okay, let me ship you out of here. So now we could, you know, hey, he's not

here, let's see if these guys are going to say something. What kind of gun was it? It was, man, that thing was, it was probably like a 38. It wasn't, you know, nothing crazy. Is that what you would normally sell or was there a variety? Nine, nine millimeters, small. Everything was small. And how much would that go for? About 650, 7. And how much would you buy them for?

150. That's it? That's it. That's pretty cheap. Yeah. And these are just like black market guns? Yeah. Yeah. Use this, that. using somebody else's name. And so, yeah, we're moving down. But and I'm like, okay, it's a good, right? It's a good markup.

But when you sit there and think, and still, I, you know, I don't learn my lesson and I go down and I do it again. And this time I kind of, I got like kind of lazy with it because I would make sure that everything was from point A to point B, right? Myself, I would put my hands on it. This time, I'm like, ah, you know, this and and I told the guy down there to just kind of you know ship him and move him this way and it was a sloppy situation and so I remember now I'm still with my code offended now this is

you know probably like eight months to a year later and and he knows you know that they're supposed to come in and hit and I get a phone call and it's the guy from from down south and he says go to this in this address and tell me what's going on It just went left. And I was like, okay, boom. And mind you, he's down there. So we jump in a car. We're going.

And I remember we're coming down to the street and we're turning down. And I'm looking at like the house numbers because, you know, iPhone. And we're looking at the house numbers. And all I see is just like unmarked police cars inside this guy's yard from all angles. And everything was just like slow motion as I'm passing the house. and it's an officer with a police jacket and they're like carrying a gun and a plastic bag and just walking out the house as I'm passing this by and as soon as I see that like all oxygen out my body just kind of leaves and I'm like what is going on like this is wild right now and I said I got to

call him back and I didn't want to use my phone at this time so we we pull over on the side there was this guy riding his bike I said I've got to use his phone I jump out on him I said I got to use your phone. He's like, you're going to steal my phone. I said, calm down. I'm not jacking for your phone. I said, I need to use everything right back. I get on the phone. I call him down there, and I said, I said, it's all bad. And he said, yeah, I know. And said something about, you know, it didn't work out, bah. And that's the last time I heard from him and I haven't contacted him since. And this was before or after your arrest? After. Okay. And so you guys ended up getting bail that night? No, no, no, no. I went into booking.

things, it took a little bit. It took a little bit for us to get bailed out, I believe. It was a couple days. Just a couple days. A couple days. We all got bailed out. And the case took about a year to finalize. So this is probably out on bail for us right now.

And the guy who actually was in the car, we signed that. You know what I mean? He's out. He's not anything to do with that. So they try to actually remove him from the case. And so we're out on bail. And so I can't sleep for the next three days at all. I mean, even it could take longer, but I'm not, I can't sleep.

Like, I'm thinking it's going to go, you know, something's about that. God willingly, God has another plan for me. I don't hear nothing about that situation, whatever it was. You know, because they're the ones that were in charge of that, of that shipping. So I was just about to, you know, in there. But so that, you know, overrid that situation. And I was like, okay, cool. And from that point on, it was like, I'm never going to do something that I cannot do the time for.

It's not worth it, right? Because even though the markup is there, what are you making, $35,000, $4,000? And the consequence for that is 10 years, deportation, a very serious time for that amount of money. right it had to have been had to make sense right if you do car stealing or auto theft or whatever that that brings you a certain amount of time that it's like okay i'm able to live with the risk but in this situation it was like this ain't you know never again right like this is not whatever i'm going to deal with whatever i'm going to get involved with is going to be something that i'm comfortable because you know my position on on telling and and statements and informants is is you know

know, a no, especially at this time. That was just like what I grew up on and it was very much that, especially, you know, with my family as well being on that side, you know, involved in that you hear things. So it's just like, you don't do that. My cousin had to stand up tall and take seven years for a situation and this guy had to do that. So it was just, that's just what it is. So it wasn't an option. So it was just like I'm either going to know what the consequences are and deal with them or I'm not going to get involved. Why would you get arrested and then go back out to try to do another gun deal while you're fighting that case? To be honest with you, I have no idea.

And what I could think of it was was the request and that. Like, because that was, the person I was, wasn't just a random gun deal. That was somebody that, a code offender that I, that I worked with that I didn't, you know, we grew up and hustled on the street together from high school to, to whatever. So it was like a more personal, me and him got caught with one as opposed to, hey, there's people that are still calling for that. So, and again, I told you, it was, I got, you know, it was a sloppy move. I didn't, I didn't really comprehend, like, the seriousness of the fact.

So, it's not a good idea, no. So what happens to the case? The initial gun charge. Yeah. The initial gun charge, we fight, and this is before the law that gets passed. So this is, you're talking about 2006. right after that was the mandatory, I believe, two or mandatory one or two in upstate prison for a possession. That was different back then.

And the gun wasn't loaded. And obviously it was three components. And so at the time I was telling him, I said, listen, I'm supposed to be applying for my citizenship. You know, it's just me and you left in this situation. You know, you take a plea. I'll cover everything, you know, on the back end for you. And that's what we ended up doing. It was just like, okay, I got that.

My responsibility on the driver. I'll take it. You know, I helped, you know, out with certain things on the back end. And we moved off. So your co-defendant took the rap for it. Yes. And you, the case got dismissed against you? I pleaded out to a violation for something.

They wanted something out of me, and we did a violation that disappeared anyway. Okay. So it didn't affect your citizenship at all. Now, yes. Now, right. Now it didn't at this point, exactly. but this is like now a year and a half later so now that we have that disposition saying that it's a violation now it's it's a good thing um but you would think you know that nothing happened and so after that

that followed a another arrest for um i had a a a tag that was that was forged and some other documents that I had and I ended up getting arrested for that. And also now I'm dabbling into cars a little bit more. So I'm using a lot more used cars. And we had a dealer plate that was found just at an auction. We ended up using it. We didn't have it. And so they charged me with that as well. And so I get pulled over at a random traffic stop. They hit me for a possession of like forged documents that I had and a plate and I get taken in. Nothing, you know, crazy. but it's still another case. They play it out.

It takes a little bit and we'll move on. Now, as I'm kind of flipping cars and doing that, I said, you know, I got to get into something, you know, that, you know, is there. So I'm trying to build, like, you know, something with cars and all this other stuff. And then comes out Mali, right? The drug Mali comes out. And I remember the first time we got it in. Somebody's like, man, I got this thing here.

and it was just a crystal rock. And I'm like, I'll take it. It's cheap. I'll take it. I take it. And I'm like, what are we going to do with this thing, right? Like, I can't, people don't know what it looks like, really. And I'm not walking around with crystals.

They can take this. They're going to think it's crystal meth, you know. Crystal meth's not big out in Long Island, right? So it's not like, they know what it is. So I'm like, no one's going to try this. No one's going to want this. And it's, you know, people that's talking about Molly, but they're like, you know, they take it in a different way. So I hop on eBay, I look, I said, okay, plastic capsules, perfect.

We order them in and we break it down. And I remember he was running a shop. Now, he's now my brother-in-law, but he was, you know, my guy back then. And so as soon as we shut the shop down, put a mask on gloves, we're breaking it up. And we used to put point twos, okay, point two in a, in a capsule and sell it for 20 bucks. And we were buying a gram for $18. So now you have almost, you know, five times the amount of profit just off of one. And then obviously the price went down. So it was an amazing, you know, profit margin, right? It was great.

And everybody was loving mom. So, you know, I'm out here with the guys at the auctionist. We're just, you know, putting it out there. My guys, you know, putting that out there. And then I got involved with these inspection stickers that we were able to have inspection stickers that were. you know, duplicated, and it was a big need for that at the time. What's an inspection sticker? So in the state, you have to have a valid emissions sticker, right, on your car.

And if you don't, you get pulled over and, you know, all this stuff. It has to be displayed on the window. And so everybody needs it. But a lot of times, it was difficult to pass emissions. Whether you had a check engine light or you didn't have the proper safety measures or your windshield or whatever the case may be, you're not getting it, you know, you get pulled over. And so it was, it was a good, you know, good commodity to have. Everybody needed them. And so I remember we had, you know, connect that just was taking them, but then those numbers were coming back to stuff. And it happened

that we were able to get a connect that was very, very, you know, solid in what he made. And so it was, you know, to the T. But I didn't want to be the person that's like, hey, you know, I'm, I'm, selling these or hey pick one up i didn't want to be involved in that i wanted to to market out so we ended up going to the city and getting people right by shay stadium over there where they you know all the cars and all the stolen parts and everything and hitting up a couple boroughs and just saying yeah i want to take this in on bulk and that's exactly what we were doing just wholesaling it you were crazy and it went from yeah we'll take 25 to we'll take 50 to we'll take 200 and it was just wholesaling it, and it ended up, you know, going out there.

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in their wall and they're going to look at it every single day. Pelopost.com, keeping families connected one photo at a time. make these stickers? I would get them from somebody who had the the the printer and everything to do it, the right way. And how would you make sure that they were legitimate and not, I guess, fake proof or being able to prove that they weren't frauds? So there's really no way you could do that. There was really no way you could do that. But it was, you know, I guess numbers that are that are legitimate because when they were taken from example, like a dealership, like if you had somebody I was like, oh, I got this, right, from a dealership.

The dealership then reports those numbers, okay? And they are flagged. So now if those numbers are in the system, they're flagged as, you know, took and missing and whatever the case may be. But when you were using numbers of legitimate ones that are active, then they're not going to come back as, as a warning or anything. They were just going to come back as an active one. They were on the wrong car. but no one's going to go that far. They're not flagged as the wrong ones.

So that was, you know, that was things. It was using active numbers. And how much are you selling them for and what's the profit margin? So that was probably we were talking about 17, 18 on the buy. And you're wholesaling them. I mean, they had different customers. They were wholesalers that would buy them for 25. And then they were wholesalers that would pay 60.

they would sell them for 100 plus. So they had a great profit margin as well. Now, is the enforcement of these, are they actually taking the time to look at the numbers and make sure they're legit or they're just making sure

there's a sticker? Correct. That's time. They changed all that in New York State now and they got kind of smarter. Now they print out. So now your inspection sticker is actually a printout

and it has your VIN number, make, model, everything on there. So you can't just mass produce. Back then it was just a regular sticker and you punched out the month that it was due. How would customers find you? Just word of mouth. It was just word of mouth.

But again, I didn't want to be involved. At first, it was, you know, cool. I got a couple, boom. You know, I was 100 bucks, 120, 150. But I was like, I don't want to, you know, be doing that. We have to find somebody that will take my job, the one that's going to be selling it for there. And that's exactly what we wanted to do.

So let's go out to the city and find people that are willing to do that. And that's all it took. Mind you, if you have, you know, five, six guys that would take anywhere from 50 to 150 a week, it's more than enough to just kick. But, you know what I mean? It was great. It was no need to do anything more. And how old are you at this time?

Now, now I'm a little bit older. I'm probably right at like 2021. And you have the Mali business and you have this forgery business. Correct. So how much do you think you were bringing in all together a week at that time? between the two businesses? Probably about 45 to 5. 100 or 1,000?

No, 5,000. So, 4,500 bucks, $5,000? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, nothing crazy, but, you know, it was a good fact that, you know, about 25 a month. It's pretty good. Yeah. And that's your share after paying out whoever you're dealing with.

Correct. Yeah, that's there. So it wasn't bad. And so what I did with that was I started to buy cars. so I get the money and we buy cars. Obviously, you know, you do the club thing. You're in the club scene and all of this. And a lot of money went to that.

I definitely want to say it. A lot of money got spent into partying. Which, again, if I was educated on that, on how to really do that, it would have definitely put a different outcome on where it is now. Because if somebody told me, man, don't spend this $2,500, $3,500 every weekend. but use this to put it into the businesses that I'm putting in now, buying a truck route, or buying a truck and putting somebody in it, or taking a piece of real estate back then, it was a lot easier, right, with the lending.

So if we were able to put 25% down on a home and the way the houses went now, it would have definitely changed my, you know, trajectory. But it was all about what I seen and what was, you know, the club thing, spending money, getting more money, as opposed to just invest. Do you end up getting pop for the drugs or the forgery? I do. I get hit for the forgery. So the connect for the stickers kind of dies down.

It doesn't happen anymore. It's just not working out. They're not able to make it happen. And so I was like the demand is so here. I need to find another source. I need to find something. And so after reaching out and trying to do homework, we ended up finding another source that was able to do it. But it just wasn't the quality.

It just wasn't it. Right? This was almost like 85%, 90% perfect to something that's like 75, 70. And that would cause them to lose color, fall. You know, it was just not working out. They were being able to be noticed and picking up. And so that started a, hey, they're out there. And it also started a task force to come into that.

And so now there's a task force out to obviously detect this. And I remember one of my guys was driving and he gets pulled over. And first thing they ask him is, where did you get that? You know, what's what? He's up, you know, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. he's like, well, why? What's going on? And he goes around and he says, I'll be right back. And he comes back and he brings him another one. He said, because these two are the same. And, and wherever you got it from, we need to know. And he's like, you know, I don't know. Talk the way out of it, got it out. He ended up telling me this. And I said, man, this thing has to, you know, shut down, like immediately. Like, this quality sucks. It's really ruining stuff. So how do you end up getting caught them? So what happens is somebody obviously had to say something, but to do that.

So I immediately shut everything down. Everything's, you know, canceled, done, boom. You know, let me, let me take it easy. Let me, you know, lay a little focus on the cars. And, you know, nothing happens for a day or two. And then I noticed a, it was like an internet truck right outside my house. Okay. and he's on a poll at first day

I don't think nothing there come back I see that he's still there I said okay that's that's pretty crazy but all right no problem second day on the third day I woke up to him

and say hey are you doing I said what are you fixing for three days I was like I don't have a problem these guys don't have it what are you fixing and he's like no you know this one of these things

is bad and we just keep getting the wrong part and stuff we should be out of here in a minute guy packs up some leaves and uh And I keep looking out the window too, and I see another car sitting down there. I ended up going to the back and pulled up on him. And believe it and I said, hey, how are you doing?

Can I help you? And he's like, hi, I'm an officer. Shows me his badge. He says, but we're watching the house down the block. And so I'm just sitting here scoping out the house on the block. And I'm like, oh, okay, okay, no problem. And I go in there. And after that, they had a warrant to come in and hit the spot.

bot and so nothing was found but they still take me in they said that you know they had somebody that said that you know this was coming from me felony charge at this time they were pushing for a felony a um and uh i remember one of the the captains saying he's like oh we're going to push for for felony a and my uh the other guy's like we can't because felony a is like currency or like the top thing he's not at that level we have to stay at a boom now i remember getting arrested and this is like December 29th so you know you only have like a day or two to get out and I'm like I cannot I cannot you know spend the day in New Year's as this happens right so everything's going good I got the Miley business right stickers are going good I'm flipping cars on the side and everything's

going you know lovely chilling hanging out and obviously you know all good things come to an end all at this time my mom she catches cancer right she has breast cancer and she ends up passing away six months after that and i lose her i lose my mom and then a couple people that was around me they ended up turning to be you know people who you know were deceitful and i had people that were close that just kind of you know was not it another person's actually feeding another person you know information about me and it was just like these are the people i grew up and i just found out that betrayal would two people that would close. And then I also get into a problem with somebody in the street that kind of gets serious.

Right now it's a little bit more serious than what it was. And then boom, I get arrested and hit with a felony. And this happens all within six months. So you get arrested again after you got bailed out the first time? No. So the bailout was... And you said right before New Year's, did you get bail? That's it.

This is the case. Yes. Yes. Yes. This is the felon. Right. For the, for the stickers.

This is the one they were searching the house. Okay. As soon as I pull off, they came, pulled me over. I remember, supposedly said,

you got to wait here for the detectives to come. Detectives came and they took me in. This is December 29th. Do you get bailed out? I do. I do. I do.

Yes. Bail was set 10 grand. I get bailed out. And what's a felony that hit you with? It was felony be possession of forged instruments, um, forgery with intent and another misdemeanor.

that I get hit with. And I do get bailed out. I said, whatever it takes. Just come bail me out. Of course, they came, pushed it in. And I have that. And so all this is happening at the same time. It's just like, man, this is crazy.

I just lose my mom. It's one of my best friends who's, you know, there. I have a felony. Again, this is December 30th that this happens. I go into the New Year's as best that I could. and I had already a vacation plan for my girl who's now my wife at the time. I was like, hey, you know, let's get away. But this was planned before.

Now, your laws and rules for somebody who's a citizen and somebody who's a, you know, non-citizenship, it's totally different things, right? There's totally different laws and different rules that apply to you if you're a citizen and are not in there. And so we take this cruise. I fly out. This is just a regular cruise. I come back in.

As soon as I come back in, they arrest me. Now, by Homeland Security. Homeland Security arrests me. They take me in. They take my passport, all of this, and something called like, federally parole me where I can't leave. All my documents are seized. They arrest me.

They bring me over to JFK. And they said, you know, you're placed in deportation proceedings. Case pending. And we have all your documents. your next court case is going to be in 30 days at JFK. And this is all because you had a state felony charge pending. Yes. That came on their radio.

Correct. Correct. And I was not ever supposed to leave the country. So where do they bring you when they book you when they arrest you? So there's actually a jail cell at the border. This is in Fort. Palm, wherever the cruise was. It was either Fort Lauderdale, I believe it was.

So the cruise came in. I went on a cruise. And when I came in, I had to go through Homeland Security. They took me in. There's actually a jail sale there. And so I sat there for definitely like at least 12, 13 hours. And after that, they take the documents and then you're able to go. I had to get a whole new flight back to New York.

And from there, I have to show up to court. I think they gave me 30 days. I had a court date that I had to go to court. Oh, so they released you on bail? No, do you just go? Oh, so the immigration picked you up and lets you go? Yes. Homeland Security picked me up.

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go to LinkedIn.com slash campaign, terms and conditions apply. Ork at immigration court, correct. So you're fighting a federal case for immigration and then a state case? Correct. Okay. But you would think that they would just arrest you and lock you up then if it's an immigration case, right? It is, but I have to, it's called pending investigation. So they can't continue their case until my cases are closed.

So they kind of, A, have to arrest you, but it's not like there's a charge on you. They arrested you because you left the country. Now they take all your stuff away and now you're placed into deportation proceedings. And that is case pending, which was what it was. But I'm going to tell you also what happened because I had another case pending. So I have this case that I literally just got arrested for, right? This is, I think the cruise was like end of January. I got arrested right at the end of December.

I had another charge pending because when I first got locked up, I told you there was a detective that really was after us, right? He was crazy, separated us. And as I was driving a couple, this is years later, it's early in the morning, I'm driving, I'm in the Mercedes and I look over and it was the detective with somebody else. And I kind of looked at him and kind of, you know, gave him a smirk because I was about to just turn. And I said, this guy's going to keep going. Literally not, he hits the brakes, boom, jams it, pulls it, pulls him. me over, has me on the side of the road, start searching. Now, in the car was a police badge that my friend left in there and I know how he got it. He works at a dealership. He sold it to a police

officer, a car. The officer ended up giving him like a police badge to keep in there. And he's like, I have it. He ended up leaving in the car. I know where it came from. I know the backstory of it. I get pulled over. He's searching the car. He's going, you know, wild, trying to find this, trying to find that. And so he finds the police badge, takes it in, and pats me down. And I used to always carry a knife on me. It was just a thing just for safety purposes. And I would always have it on the line of my zipper, right? That's where it would stay because when every time I would have to go through metal detectors, it would pick up only on the zipper. And a lot of times I would always get in with it. It was just how I carried it. It was right there. And so he searches it,

but he finds it and he says it's a concealed weapon and he said I'm going to take you in for this I said okay whatever you want to do um and so he's searching the car he can't do nothing brings me in the back of the car and he says I know you can fight this weapon charge and I'm sure your lawyer could you know get this thing resolved but we have a stolen police property in your car so what do you talk about he said and he they pulled up like something on the screen that says stolen on it but it was all fake right but it was just like it just like it just said stolen in red letters. I guess they pulled something up. And I'm like, really, what is it? And he's like a police badge. And he's like, listen, the police officer, he's like, I know him. And he's like,

he's going to, you know, try to push for a felony on this. He's like, that's stolen police property. And he's going to be pissed. Tell me what you know what's going on. And we'll just take you in for the knife and we'll return him his badge. I said, I don't know nothing. I said, I'm working. I don't I don't know nothing. What are you talking about? So they said, okay, no problem. And they take me in. They take me in. They come in there and they start asking.

Then they start asking me about my co-defendant. What's up with him? How's he doing? Where's the gun at? Where's this? I said, officer, I don't know. I said, please. Like, let's just, you know, keep, book me in for this.

I want to go. They ended up putting their gloves. They put on their plastic gloves. They told me to go in a bathroom. And they gave it to me. You know what I mean? They hit me. And they knew where to hit, I mean, because they're not punching you

in the face to where you have bruises. They're elbowing you in the back, in the ribs, all of that. So they put it down for a couple seconds. They brought me back. They was like, you sure. You don't know nothing before we, this. And I said, I said, please put you in myself.

They never charged me with the stolen police batch because they couldn't, because it was never stolen. I ended up catching the concealed weapon charge. How many cops were there? Two. Two. Now, this is the same officer who I had multiple interactions with and he was my arresting officer for the first gun charge years back.

So he's on a lot of paperwork, right? Obviously, the arresting officer at the first time and he also had a couple encounters where he's seen me out. They pulled me over, you know, all that stuff, right? They searched me. And so he made his partner put his name on the paperwork because I'm like, oh, it's, it's, you know, this officer's name, you know, on the paperwork. And they're like, no, it's not. It's his. And I'm like, that's because he used his partners. But there were only two. That's it. There was no, these are plain street closed detectives, right? So this is not like, you know, there was a lot of, you know, other cops there or anything. It was just them too. And you didn't want to report that they beat you up. No. No, I, no, I didn't want to. They got a couple of shots in there, but it wasn't really going to, you know, do nothing. Like, I'm not going to sit here and file a report. And I mean, you know, for what? You know what I mean? Obviously, it was messed up situation, but it was just something I didn't want to. Now, going back to you having this deportation case, why didn't you just get your citizenship

in between everything that was going on, the cases, after you get off the first one? I already was arrested for the second one while that one was pending. Because remember, the first one was a year and a half before it actually closed. By then I had the one with the dealer tag. I had to fight that. And then I had another one that was, what was it? It was reckless endangerment. And then now I also catch this knife case.

Now this knife case becomes a big problem. It's a very small case. It's just a pocket knife, concealed weapon. I'm sure anything could get done. The judge that seen that case said, I seen him coming in and out of these courtrooms. I'm not just going to let this go. I want to issue at least, you know, 30 to 60 days and probation and all this other stuff.

And so I said, okay, but that's going to come on a record. My lawyer is like, listen, we got to wait until he shifts because they rotate the judges. So if we wait it out and they rotate the judges, another judge is going to come in there. He's going to see this case and we're going to be able to move it out. I said, okay, but this took such a long time because he stayed in there for a long time. So even though I could have just got this case done in a month or two, I don't know if a lot of people in New York, you could have cases stretch out for a very long time. It's just pushing in and pushing it and they sit out there. And so that's what was going on with this one.

And so now when I get arrested for this felony charge, I have to show for these two cases that they're, you know, that they're closed. And so it's just, you know, a difficult situation. I'm going through a lot is just, you know, from people trying to, you know, backstab and do this and you know having a felony and and and this it was just like man like you know what's going to happen I start calling lawyers to see what we could do with this case um this case also dragged out so I had to call immigration every because they only gave me 30 days so every 30 days I would call the courthouse and say I'm still pending my um my uh criminal you know record on closing the case and so she said okay and

every month I had to renew. So finally, it was down to the felony. My lawyer comes in, and so they couldn't find nothing in the search. So there was no actual possession of anything because there was none. All they had was one person saying that it was, and that person now is not like, oh, he didn't actually give it to me. I heard that he had it. And that was it. And so it was a very, very weak case.

And my lawyer ended up literally just getting this thing knocked out. Then we had to wait for the knife case. The knife case switch is finally the judge would get it closed out. I get all my dispositions. I go now to the immigration court to now, you know, come in there. I presented everything. Now, in the meantime, I'm calling lawyers to help me, you know, get out of this deportation stages because she could decide.

It's literally one lady, right? one judge and I'm sitting there when I used to sit there she would literally like I would see a person stand up and she would be like boom I granted you know that you're deported you have 14 days you report back and you're out of here they would give some people 14 days 30 days to be with their family or you know whatever they need to do then they have to report back and they get deported and sometimes depending on the case they would deport you right then and then you were on the next flight So this is happening like right in front of me and I'm like, man, this is crazy. And so I start calling lawyers to see what's going on.

I call a bunch of them and everybody is like, nah, this is a hard case. We don't think we could do. You're very, very likely to be deported. I seen it happen, but it could go both ways. There's nothing positive. What we could do for you is we could fight for you and try to, you know, appeal it and keep you here and say that this is here and that's here, you know, 10 grand, 7 grand. all these numbers.

And I'm like, man, I even went to one of the best lawyers in Manhattan. And there's like, yeah, 10 grand just for us to, you know, come in there, but we'll fight for you. And at least you won't be deported. You know, anytime soon we have time to fight the case. I'm like, man, this is crazy. And so I was like, I'm just going to take this in a matter of my own hands. If I was supposed to go, then I'm going to go. And if not, I'm here.

I'm kind of going to leave this in God's hands right now. You know what I mean? So what's the final outcome? Final outcome. So we come in there. I don't hire a lawyer. I go in there and I present myself with the dispositions. And most of them, again, this is like dismissal and the first case wasn't this. So it looked bad on the arrest side, but on there. I said, listen, I was hanging around the wrong crowd and here's what I'm doing now and I was just telling her that I started a business. Now I'm trying to start a trucking company and I'm doing these and I have my family here and and my father just got a citizen. So he got it first because I'm lingering for all these years. So he was able to get it. I said, my whole family's here, you know.

And she says, okay, no problem. You know, you're out of deportation. And you are now back on temporary visitor status. Now, that doesn't mean I'm out of this. I'm good. Everything's okay. This just meant that now I'm out of deportation proceedings, right? I'm out.

but I still have to get citizenship or I have temporary visitor status that either I have to prove that I need to extend it or what I need to do or I have to pack up and leave or I have to apply for citizenship. So going back to the lawyers, all of them were also saying like you cannot apply now. You have to have at least five years clean history before you'll last arrest. So you need time. Now, before these cases took a little bit of time, so the arrests were actually a little while back. So I had about three to four years to just, you know, keep it calm and keep it clean. And so that's what I did. Now, during this time, it was just a time to just kind of, you know, rebuild and grow.

So it was just like, what am I going to do? I ended up open up a trucking company where we ship medium-sized duty products and trucks and cabin chassis, had a, had a dealership, and just kind of, you know, build these things up and grow. And you stayed away completely from crime at that point? In a bit. In a bit. So, you really like to play with fire. A little bit, a little bit. And I just, I don't know, but it was just like now I was around it for so long that, you know, it's like, it's around you. And I'm not fully, it wasn't fully involved, but it's always around. And so my whole thing was during this whole, you know, deportation and before was like I could get deported and this is like the worst thing, right?

Because imagine like my mom gave up everything. She gave up her family, her life to bring me a new life. They left a home. They brought me here. She sent, you know, she sat there and learned a different language and restarted her life to give me a better future. And after she passes away, I'm in handcuffs about to go. back home. So what did she do all of that for? You know? And it hit you. It was like, I got to do something that's going to make her proud at least. So something has to change and give. Like,

I can't do that. There's no way I'm going to go back there in handcuffs. Why do you think you didn't have that realization before you started committing crimes? I don't know. I don't know because I thought I could get away with it. I thought I couldn't get caught. Growing up, a lot of the, everybody around me always did a year, six months, they're here, they're there. It was almost like it's a part of growing up. You have, you know, you're going to get caught and you're going to do that. But realizing that, you know, deportation could come and it happened so quickly because when you, when you do these things, it's like a revolving door.

Everybody says it, right? It's hard to just do this and learn. You always get kind of brought back in. The problem was, is I did it right as soon as I turned 18 and it just kept going for the next couple years and now all of a sudden four years later, you know, in this situation like that. And so one thing was, was I was also very angry. Like it was a, it was a wake up call to change, but I was also like angry about the

situation. Like I can't believe they're doing this. I can't believe it's here. And I had a backup plan. So I said, man, if they're going to send me back, because again, I left it in there. I said, I'm not fighting. I'm not doing lawyers. I'm not paying all this money.

And I'm just going to go in there and. represent it and present my case. So I was like, man, if I go back, what can I do to win from this situation? So I had like four or five credit cards. I opened up another one. I try to raise all the limits. And I said, if they get me, I'm going to ring up every diamond, gold chain, bracelet, everything that I could sell as fast as I can over there.

We had connections with like stolen cars. I'm like, man, I'm shipping two, three cars. And I already know as soon as I come down there. and I'm like, I'm going to cause ruckus. I'm going to bring my ways out there. It was just like, I guess, a little last shot out of anger for it. I don't know why. But I'm like, man, if they take me back there, then that's what it is.

I'm going to open up like an exotic car rental. But to get there, I'm going to, you know, join with these guys. And again, my family was out there and they were pretty well connected. They are. So I knew that, you know, me going in with them was just going to, you know, bring that. But again, got a different plan and then end up staying here. And so for the next couple years, I do, you know, keep clean. I build up the business with the trucking with this and kind of, you know, stay on a right path.

But and then finally comes the time to apply for citizenship. Now, in the last year when the application comes in, literally immigration is sending me for fingerprints once a month. Every month I have to drive all the way, you know, to Hempstead, get fingerprints. did all the way, picture taken, boom, and then another month. And every month they would do this thing for almost six months for me, I guess because of the background. And so it was time for the application. It got processed and I was ready for my interview.

So do you end up getting citizenship? I do. I do. And so at this time, I had built up the business. I was doing a soccer coach program. So, you know, I did that. I got a lot of good character letters from people that were. pretty reputable from, you know, anybody that I could that was in a little bit of a higher position.

So I got the good guy letters. I have a business. I employ people. I take care of a lot of people. I have good this. I passed the test and she, you know, I sit down with the interviewer. And she, you know, basically was like, you know, listen, you speak amazing English. You sound educated in this. She's like, what's up with these cases and arrests? And I basically broke it down. I said, listen, it was just. I was young. I hang around the wrong people. There's down the third. And here, you know, this, that.

It's nothing. It's nothing mindful. You know, good. And she says, okay, you're good. And there you go. I got my citizenship. Very big move. Now, in my head, I'm like, now the worst that could happen is jail.

There's no more deportation, right? I got it. And again, another ignorant, you know what I mean? Side push is like, no more getting scared of. deportation now. I mean, they'll send me up, no, whatever, right? And I even, I remember I almost even got kicked out of the ceremony for my citizenship, right? Already back on my BS. And I come in and I'm late. And so there's tables and exact chairs with a pamphlet on the bottom, like a little booklet. Everything looks the same. Everybody's wandering around. I go and sit down in a chair.

I sit down in this chair and I'm literally sitting in it for 10 minutes. Some guy comes up and he goes, Can you stand up? You're in my chair, sir. I said, no, I'm not. I've been sitting here for 10 minutes. And he, or no, he's like, no, no, this is my seat. If you do not get up, I'm going to call security. Hated that.

Hated that word. And I said, listen, I said, this is my seat. I said, go get security. You look like a bitch that's going to call security. He goes get security. They bring me up. They bring me up to the front table. They're like, what's your name?

Okay, sit over there. They make me sit all the way on the side from the ceremony. No problem. I didn't understand, you know, what the issue was. So I'm sitting there. They're calling out everybody for their thing. Now, there's important people, right? Obviously there that presents you the de-neutralization certificate.

And I remember my father and my grandmother were there and, you know, my best friends, too, came through. And so they came to the ceremony and they called everybody out. Everybody's clapping. They save mine for the last. And nobody, everybody's already, yeah, they wall. walking out and it's just my, you know, immediate family, four or five people, and that was it. And I was pissed. I walk up to him and I'm furious.

I'm walking up and he kind of puts his hand out and I grab it. And I said, why would you do that? And the three people jump back because it's like a senator and they said, what? What? I said, why would you put my certificate last like that? I don't understand. And he was like, ah, we didn't put it last. we were there and then there's a big guy standing next to him and he kind of pushes in he's like

listen I would take the certificate and go and I said okay and I grabbed it and I went uh you know and I got it now as I'm out now obviously okay these things are I couldn't know you know I'm only going to prison now there's no more deportation not that I wanted to but it was just kind of like it's around you I'm no longer involved in I'm really thinking business wise you know trying to just focus on the right things, but a lot of people that were away that were around in my community and friends, they're coming home from, you know, bids here, bids there. And, you know, they was involved in a couple things. And so I started, oh, I need this, you know, I need some pills. Can you match it up? Sure, no problem, right? And then another one of my guys, they were, you know,

involved in some moving. And so I was dealing with cars. So I was able to get cars that had stash boxes in them. I deal with a lot of cars. They get cars that are police impound that I have cars that have stash boxes. And this other guy I met that we were dealing with, he has a connect of 200 pills

a week. I go up, I didn't really trust him. I take it easy. Something's not really feeling right. But, you know, it's there. I pull up on him. But he allows me to come to his home where he lives

to be able to inspect, checked everything out in this. I said, okay, cool. I respect it. He's giving me a little bit of way. So I go over there with the first time and I had a white B&W at the time. And then I leave. And every time I pulled off the block, I always just like took a second to see if a car would ever move. Just had a feeling about it, but nothing. I go back. But every time I go back,

I bring a different car, right? I have a dealership so it doesn't matter. We own a couple cars. So we always switch in them up. I switched the car. And I remember one time I was going to go back. This is like the fifth time dealing. I was about to go back in the car. And then last minute, My wife was leaving and I said, switch cars with me. I gotta go pick up this package. I don't wanna come to see car. She's like, okay, cool. And I go in there and I grab it and still had a feeling but nothing.

I get a phone call a couple days later and he's like, yo, the guy who introduced me to him calls me and says, you know, so and so he got hit and he's the rest of the house. He was actually serving and they were watching him move cocaine to somebody. And so they were watching them. He was, you know, this and he got arrested. Just want to let you know, you know, nothing with you right now. You're good. He's going to stand and take the charge.

You have nothing to worry about. I said, okay. And he's going to call you. I said, all right, cool, no problem. Calls me in a couple days later. We meet up. And he says the thing. So listen, I've never been in trouble.

I was wholesaling it. They were watching it. I'm going to take Willett program. I'm going to take the whole thing. I just want to let you know. They did ask about you. They said, who is this white guy with this white BMW that came in. and what's what's going on and i told them that no nothing you just you know were helping me get a

car nothing they didn't recognize that you were coming back multiple times because you always changed the car so they just viewed it as that you know once or twice time i said okay cool that's what's up slipped through that and then uh on the other end i was supposed to text these guys uh the picture of the car they were like oh send me to and i was going to but something told me not to a month later they get hit and they get indicted and if they had that picture that would have already been conspiracy and they could take me in and use me as you know bait for that if i would have sent a picture so i literally just slip this right around me everybody around me goes i got my guy right now he's usaa knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and sidekicks or

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dot com today. Pool days call for cookouts and lots of laundry. This memorial day at Lowe's save $80 on a charbroil performance series four burner gas grill. Now just $199. Plus get up to 45% off select major appliances to keep dishes, clothes, and food fresh. Having fun in the sun is easy with us in your corner. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's. VALUV. VALTHU 7.7. While supplies last, selection varies by location. See associate or Lowe's.com for details. 15. I have my other, you know, friend that's doing 10 and then I have a couple other guys that are in the feds right now. You have a lot of luck on your side, buddy. Yes, yes, I do. And this is where I took that. And now, as this happens, my daughter is born. My daughter's born. She literally changes everything.

I 360 it. And something just kind of comes in about just opening up the Bible a little bit, reading and taking in and start, I start going to church and just kind of, you know, know, taking in. I grew up Catholic, but I never grew up Christian. And so Christianity was just, you know, different. It was open. And, you know, these pastors that kind of lived a similar life here. And, you know, it's a lot more, you know, open. And so I started, you know, reading in it. But a person like me, you know, from where I come from, it's not just, oh, wow, I had, you know, this happened. It was like a build and grow trusting. And so that's how I felt it was. Like, I felt like, you know, I give a little, I take a little when it was a relationship with God.

And that's what happened. And he was like, you know, showing me like, here's your blessings in front of you. You know, use them because you could literally be going left and right. And it was almost like he said, like I had this like thing in me. It was like, if you go back to crime, I'm going to, you're going to get punished to the highest extent. So you could stay on this path or go this way and you'll be. whatever that crime is, you'll be punished to the fullest. And so I kind of just, you know, took that in, having my kids, now I now have three kids, just kind of built that.

And just trying to help now the younger guys. There's a couple lot of young guys ripping and running. And I just try to, you know, push them out there to, listen, you could start an LLC. You could start a power washing business. Like this business stuff is not that hard, right? As long as you have it, if you use the same passion as you do in the street, to put this or to make sure you don't get caught or to connive or to do this into that's business, you could make, and it's yours and it's legal.

And so, you know, a lot of people don't know about starting an LLC or how to get commercial insurance or the frustration for that. And so, you know, I try to guide. But most of the things that, you know, we do now is we kind of help people start their box truck business. That's like the main thing that it is. So that way, whether you just want us to get, get you a box truck that's priced lower than market value and finds you financing and you do the rest, no problem.

Or we could literally start the LLC, do the whole process, get you insurance and a broker and be able to get ready to go. What do you think kept drawing you back to crime, the streets, you know, that kind of lifestyle? A lot of it has to be like environment. I definitely think environment was just big because it's just you're always around the same thing. and the same people and it was just like, I don't want to change. We're all living this life together. Like, what's there to change? But then you come to a point where it's just like, you know, no, like this isn't, you know,

this isn't it. There's a lot more to it. And I wish that I, you know, seen that before. I wish I would have seen that before. I wish somebody would come up to me when I was 13, 14 years old and say, man, go ahead and party here and there for your birthday. but take money and put it away and put it in real estate or buy a home or use this as a down payment or invest in this or undo the business or even buy rental cars.

You know, I own rental car companies and it's just you could do all types of stuff that you could reinvest. And, you know, I didn't. It was just teaching it to be this way, to be that way, how to, you know, connive and how to move around, that sort of thing. Do you think you didn't value becoming a citizen and what that meant? No, no, I didn't. I didn't in the early stage. When, when like right after I got it, I seen there's such a crazy value for it.

It was just, it was very valuable because people don't understand how privileged you are here in the United States. There are countries that it's not easy to start a business. It's not easy to go get an education or choose a career type of your own. this country literally has a lot of opportunity for us to grab it if you want to grab it, if you want to go out there and do it and grab it, whether it's a business or whether it's a career choice, you have that. The thing is, when I was in high school, there was no guidance. My parents were very busy.

They were either trying to make money and my mom was off to school at night and trying to keep it together. And there was no, this is the opportunity. because I'm sure they probably didn't even know the opportunities. But if somebody told me that, hey, man, I could be a financial advisor, you know, go take these courses here and then you could go to this community college here and do that. I could have used that. But my guidance counselor didn't even want to sit with me because they viewed me as,

oh, he's not serious into that. So they focused their time on the good students. Oh, you know, Stephanie's here. She has this. let me give her all the game on how to go to college and use it the right way. Oh, Camille's here. This guy with the chain and the Mercedes and running around here doesn't care about anything. Like, what are your plans?

I'm like, I don't know. Okay, no problem. They didn't even spend 10 minutes with me because they probably thought it was a waste of time to explain all of that to me. What advice would you give your teenage self? Teenage self, I would say get educated, find a purpose of what you really want to do. and work towards that goal. Invest in yourself with that, you know, put that vision together. Whatever that vision is, just build it and whatever you could do to put it in self.

Don't try to, you know, do what anybody else is doing or try to look this way or look cool, but just, you know, build yourself. I appreciate you coming on the show today, brother. No problem. Thank you so much for having me. Bumblebee Motors. We're out there. You want to Google us.

All the information is going to be in there. If you want to learn how to build a box, truck business you want to talk you need equipment for your business whether it's a pickup truck boom truck whatever it is i got you guys covered and i appreciate you having and it's all legal yes yes it is it's all legal no more drive nothing awesome thank you