Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Banker Launders Millions for Colombian Cartel

Episode Date: April 5, 2026

Christian Carmona shares how he rose from a childhood shaped by cartel ties and personal loss into a legitimate life, only to fall into crime himself before ultimately outsmarting the system and setting the stage to turn his life around.⁣ ⁣ Christian's links - ⁣ www.zealnovel.com⁣ https://a.co/d/07iJjK9N⁣ https://www.instagram.com/zealnovel/⁣ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE0s7beN0eu7DdjprQKNFGA⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://www.insidetruecrimepodcast.com/apply-to-be-a-guest⁣ ⁣ Go to GoodRanchers.com and use code INSIDE to get a free meat for life plus $100 off your first three orders.⁣ ⁣ Get 10% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout. ⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ Check out my Dark Docs YouTube channel here -⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@DarkDocsMatthewCox⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. The safety deposit box, you can hide a lot of lot of stuff in there. They're bringing me bundles of tens, and I'm able to turn them into hundreds for them so that then they can ship it back down to Columbia. None of the employees ever suspected anything funny was going on. So I was born in Colombia, Medellijin, Colombia, as a matter of fact, and there's one area back in Pablo's heyday and stuff in the 70s and 80s called actually Barrier Antiochia. So that's actually where I was born, both my mom, my dad, all my uncles, pretty much a second generation growing up from that barrio.

Is that what your dad is involved in that area? Is that what he did? Growing up as a teenager, yeah, because my grandmother ran a couple of Bordels or however you want to call him, but yeah. I just stopped myself from being like, nice. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's probably horrible. It's horrible. I'm sorry. Yeah. But yeah, they grew up, him, my uncles, they all grew up in that environment. So it wasn't tough to get into the business because just being from El Barrio, I mean, you could get a connection very, very easily. The get rich scheme now is the narco world.

So Griselda's first thing, most of the mules that she would use at the beginning to bring drugs in here were the girls from El Barrio. We're used to that, and all they would have to do is put some drugs. on them. Right. And bring them back then on the airplane, they wouldn't check them. They say they'd come here for modeling. This is back at the 70s, right?

Like, they're not. This is like 75, 76. Yeah, it's not like it is now. No. Not. Yeah. So we're talking 75, 76 now. So I have a now who comes as one of those and loves it over here and starts seeing now how

the get rich in Miami kind of, wow. Right. You know, and a better life, right? Like, let's. Well, it's just quick. you know, pretty quick money, and it's a lot, you know, a lot of money. And she establishes here first, and then she slowly starts bringing more, you know, more family members. Kind of like opened the door, establishes here, and then brings over my dad.

So when we were getting brought over here, so the connection most of my family members was through, they would catch a play or boat, I'm sorry, to like Bimini to the Bahamas. Then from there, they'd catch like a little Sessna plane that would bring them over. Right. stuff like that. That was back then. These were talking early 80s. Me and my brother were coming over legitimately, but with other documentation as Venezuela. I just remember that I had a different last name. And you got to think about it. I'm five, six years old. Yeah. Right? And I'm having my older brother, my mom too, telling me, hey, if they ask you what your last name is, you're not

Carmona. You're not Carmona. This is your last name. This is what you got to say. And I'm like, like, why? Like, why? Thankfully, when we went through, they never asked me. Yeah. You know, but they did prepare me mentally and things like that. So I remember, you know, little things like that. Of course, I, you're a kid.

You don't really put too much thought into why are we doing. You know, you just, you know, your mama just tell, hey, this is what we need to do to go, you know, to go live with dad. So, okay. And stuff. But I do remember her telling me, like, so adamant and being like, so scared at the airport that They were going to ask me, hey, what's your last name? And I wouldn't remember what the passport last name was. So we came over.

And my brother, yeah, we assimilated into the whole American culture, just going to school, having friends, riding bikes, playing football. I mean, everything. This is the thing. I never even knew my dad, drug, until he got busted by the FBI when I was 13 years old. So my whole childhood from five to 13, I mean, my dad just was very low key. Like I said, I wouldn't, it just, when the FBI came and told me, I couldn't believe it.

I just couldn't believe it. My dad would get up, go to, well, pretend like he was going to work every day. Yeah. What happened when your dad got arrested? So, yeah, so now we're, that was in 1991 in Portland, Oregon. Okay. And so I'm 13 years old. So he lasted about a good, what, 10, 12 years flying very below the radar.

He set up shop in Miami. He expanded out to Atlanta, and then he opened up shop in Portland. Okay. And so he, that's, you know, if you look it up and stuff like that, it was a trafficking network that, you know, span from Miami, Atlanta to Portland. So what happened there? Like, I mean, are you, you come home? from school one day, does your mom pick you up?

So we're living, so at that time now, we moved to Atlanta. When Miami became so hot with the whole cowboy era. Yeah, they're shooting each other in the streets. And being that, my dad directly and indirectly would work, would get product from some of those families. Let's just say those two would be warring against each other and what you just mentioned, killing each other. And my dad was sometimes buy from this guy and sometimes buy from this guy.

But he always paid his bills. He always kept his face clean. He never, so nobody never had a problem giving him work. But the heat was just so much in Miami that that's what I was told we moved to Atlanta for. Now when I'm young, now, you know. Back then we were told just so that my brother can go to school somewhere, you know, and all this other stuff. So now we're living in Atlanta. and my mom and my dad take a like a vacation.

You know, I'm telling you now from what I've been told. So they take a vacation. They were going to take a vacation to Hawaii because my dad was going to disappear. Certain things were starting to happen that were a little weird. And he always knew how to sometimes just go back to Columbia, hide out, disappear for three or four months. I mean, I remember when I was young, I remember asking my mom. mom, you know, and dad's coming home, and it'd be three or four months since I hadn't seen him. Of course, she would say, oh, no, stuck in Columbia, because supposedly his, his business of what he did was he opened up a corporation that would send construction equipment to Venezuela for construction projects and things like that.

Right. So my mom would tell me is that he's in Venezuela and I can't come, but, but it'd be three or four months. Now I know back then he would just lay low, get another identity when things got a little bit too, and then, of course, come back. He was on the verge of doing that again. There was a lot of, you know, just a little signs going on. Like, like co-defendants or co-conspirators getting arrested? Like, what the little signs like? Just, you know, from what I've been told, like FBI agents snooping around.

Right. Asking, they had certain pictures of certain people. Yeah, surveillance show. We keep seeing these people are following us. Yeah, so you start seeing a certain way, you know, or whatever kind of. but mostly a lot of the places, like the bars and the people in there, they would tip off, you know, my father's like street level. People say, hey, there's some, okay, most American bars, like, it's local people.

Yeah. Go there. When a new person kind of shows up and is trying to be too friendly, too cool, it's okay, but that's what started saying, hey, and they would start telling, I don't know, there's some funny people coming around. and they're actually asking me, you know, they're asking, hey, where can I get some of this, which is, so they, of course, that would get back.

And you just knew right then, like, okay, something, you know, they're fishing, right? They're fishing for something and things like that. So my dad, when he hears anything like that, that's what I'm saying, his protocol before then was to go lay low. They usually would freeze operation in Portland, Atlanta, everything until things kind of died down in things. and that's what he was on his way of doing this time around.

My brother at that time, he's about 19. I'm about 13, yeah, and I'm about 13. So they left us in charge. We were only staying home for like four days while all of this, and that's when that happened. All I remember is the phone ringing at like 2 in the morning. My brother picking up and, you know, I do hear the worryness in his voice saying, okay, well, mama,

yes, si, si, si, si, yeah, it's fine, you know, I got him, I got him. I got him. I'll take care of, I know, I know, I know, I know. And I'm asking what's going on, what's going on. And he's like, you know, just get a week worth of clothes together. We got to go. We got to go to a hotel. Of course, I'm asking, why?

Why are we going to a hotel? Well, let's not answer me. He's just telling me, yo, shut up, just do what I say, all this other stuff. So that's all I remember. You know, so then my brother also told me, you know, tomorrow when we go to school, don't take the bus home. I'm going to come pick you up. And just things like that.

I was, I didn't understand. understand exactly, you know, what. You know, my brother would tell me something like, oh, they're just having a little problem, something with the papers on the flight or, you know, like something at the airport. He would just make up things like that. So my brother knew very well what the family business was.

So he went back to the house to pick up some money that was in a sofa, hidden and stuff. It came out to be like almost $80,000. So this is in like 91. He runs upstairs. He tapes it to his leg, put some sweatpants on from my dad, grab some other, like, personal stuff, grab some more clothes and things. And as he's leaving the house, FBI swarms him.

Again, boom, FBI everywhere. And my brother's also never, you know, had to confront any of this or stuff like that. So he's, you know, he's freaking out. Thankfully, for whatever reason, they didn't pat him down. Well, he's just a kid and he doesn't look like he's got anything. They probably don't. They knew. And they did ask him, what were you doing in the house?

And he said, look, I was just getting an extra bag of clothes and all this. And they just said, well, we're here now to let you know that that house and this car are now property of the U.S. government. You can't drive it no more. And they pretty much just left him. You know, he walked to the corner and called a taxi and picked me up in a taxi. So now here's another question. What happened to that? So that he shows up at school.

I'm waiting two hours. after school's letting out, even, you know, teaches and everybody's wondering what's going on, what's going on. But he finally showed up in the taxi and picks me up now wondering what's up with Dad's truck. And now he's like, guess what? Now we're going to Miami. And so, yeah, so now we come back to Miami. We have a lot of other family connections, not in the narco world or nothing like that. But in Miami, we, you know, we will feel a little bit more safe.

Well, I still don't know. Yeah. I still don't know. I mean, I'm asking them on the way down, you know, what's, what's really going on. He just kept them. Same thing, you know, just that they're having just some problems in the airport with the papers and things like that. But they should be home soon and all this. It wasn't about, so we go live, we go stay at a family friend's house.

That's, you know, nothing to do. I mean, nobody close in the family that was also involved in that world. Of course, they're not going to take us in right now. Right. It's like giving it away. So we went to another close friend of my mom's who, you know, they live very clean lives and we stayed them for a week. But so when I finally got the truth revealed to me, I just, I'll never forget.

So I'm sitting at that house. I'm sitting there and the FBI shows up two agents. So about two weeks have gone by now since my parents have gotten detained. You know, and I'm sitting there. And that's the FBI finally said, hey, you know you're never going to see your parents again. I just remember just getting frozen. Like, you know, and then, you know, your dad's been selling drugs, like a lot of drugs and all that.

I just stayed quiet. I just, I froze. I just didn't, that couldn't register because I never saw. Right. I never saw anything. I never saw that like counting money or drugs or nothing, nothing to make me believe. believe that, that, I mean, and it wasn't even me, even the neighbors and everybody, because supposedly the FBI then would go and question the neighbors and everybody's like, no,

I can't, you know. I mean, this guy's like at all the family barbecues and all this and all. We see him leaving at work, like, and, bro, my dad's, apparently he looks like Albert Einstein. He doesn't look like a typical Colombian, you know, like night, like how you would, no. Like the white guy even inherited the early whites and was the um did you ever see the movie uh traffic Mm-hmm where the when the the the distributor for whatever cartel it was in uh California when he gets busted like his wife Has no clue until the the lawyer comes in and sits and leans into her and explains but everybody

involved like they have no idea like he's got he owns restaurants he owns like they're like he's He's a regular businessman. It's like, no. She's like, what's going on? He's a businessman? What haven't you? His lawyer leans in, he's like, it's not exactly what you think.

You know, the businesses are used to money, you know, launder drug proceeds. And that's when she was like. But yeah, yeah, you know, it's smart to keep that, that look for,

because people, you know, people get jealous, they turn you in, they, you know, you stay in a nice neighborhood. You go to look like you go to, look like just like everybody else. It was like everybody,

Like every other family man on the block. Just like, you know, now I reflect back and I'm like, man, how was I so not? But just you would never, that reality would have had never crossed my mind until, of course, that day. I mean, that was devastating now just to, and then to think, because they kept saying that he's going away, that they're both going away for life. Right. Just to think that I'm never going to see them again. Of course, that eventually didn't happen.

You know how it is at the beginning, how they did. Yeah, they're terrifying. Yeah, everybody. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, that's, so that, that happens. And then I go to live with my brother. The protocol was, if this thing ever happened, okay, so they catch my mom in Portland, too. She shouldn't have been there.

This is one of those cases where wrong place, wrong time kind of thing. And, look, she, she, she will want to maybe believe she didn't know the money, but she knew of the money. And her, her charges was laundering. and knowing the proceeds. And there was just no way that she has no way of knowing and all this money. And she had a couple of houses in her name. There was a couple of houses in me and my brother's name, but she was left as the custodian until we were 18 years old.

So, of course, the government came hard. Come on, how are you not? And she was like, well, at the end of the day, it's my kid's fathers. If he brings me money out, it's not my job also to question him where the money comes from. Yeah. And if it's enough to support my kids and for us to live good, it's not. And what she should have done, because they did, she got released on bond. She was left, you know, we put a couple of houses on bond for her to get out.

And she should have just, man, grabbed us and followed the protocol and took us to Columbia. But she had faith. It's one of those things. I remember specifically sitting down with her at dinner one night. now the reality, I know the reality now. You know, and me, now remember, I'm raised in the American school system. Yeah. And justice system.

And, you know, you're innocent into proving guilty. As America turns 250 this year, it has me thinking about the people that really help build this country. Not the ones in history books. I'm talking about American ranchers. The men and women who wake up before the sun, work long days and keep food on our tables, year after year. That's exactly why I like Good Ranchers. Good Ranchers honors that legacy by only sourcing their meat from local American farmers and ranchers. Everything from the pasture to the final seal on the box is done right here in America. I'm actually a Good Ranchers subscriber myself. In fact,

my wife and I had the chicken nuggets last night and they were amazing. And that's not the only thing they have. They have steak, chicken, seafood, and more. And all of it is amazing quality. If you want to support American ranchers and get great meat at the same time. Now's the time to try it. Subscribe today and get free meat plus $100 off your first three orders. That's $40 off your first order and $30 off you are next to. Just use my code inside. That's good ranchers.com American meat delivered. You believe in these things and I remember specifically asking my mom or mom, are you guilty? I mean, how do you feel? She's like, no, I never did anything about you. That will give me the money. I mean, it's your dad. I'm like, well, if you're not guilty,

you'll be innocent. Right. And then, I mean, I don't think she's going to lay on the advice of a 13-year-old and such serious, but who knows what her lawyers were also telling her at that time? Yeah. We don't know with the government, and she showed up to the trial. Right. And so how, she went through the trial?

She shows up, and, I mean, now, you know, my dad just, when he saw her walk here, he couldn't believe it. He was like, no, like, this wasn't the plan. At the beginning with the trial and things were... Is this his trial or her trial? Or both their trial? It's a whole enterprise. Okay.

With like about another five co-defendants in Portland. Right. They were able to get everybody in Portland. The people from Atlanta and Miami were able to get away in time. Okay. Because since everything happened in Portland, all the red flags, so the calls got out, boom, boom, and everybody. So when they hit the places in Atlanta in Miami,

there was, you know, nobody left. But in Portland, they did, like I said, so my mom, my dad, and five other co-defendants. So now everybody's at the trial. And that's where when he sees her go show up, she shouldn't have been there. And when he sees that they're really hitting her heart and they're, you know, like throwing the book.

And at the end of the day, they're using her to get to him. At the end of the day, what they wanted him to do. Pleaded guilty. Was no, in Snitch. Oh, okay. You know, see, to give up his higher connections in Columbia. Who's he working with? All this other stuff. No, not even him and

another the co-defendants would cooperate. Would he even talk about it? A little late now anyway, now that it's been publicized and it's everybody, everybody ever knows he's already been grabbed. Yeah, I remember. I've never been able to get from the Oregonian, but I know he made the front page of the paper there, Columbia Narco, you know, busted in Portland, all the, and people in the Portland community would follow that whole story through. But yeah, So now they used her as a pawn to hopefully get to him. And when he saw that they were trying to throw the book at her, he pretty much stood up in the middle of the trial and just said,

I put, you know, give me, give me life. I'll take the blame for everybody here. And he pretty much told the government, he wanted to make a deal, let her go, give me life. I forced everybody to do it. They didn't have a choice. Like, this is just how it is. And, from what I, from my mind,

I'd been told there was a deal in the works where she was going to be really as long as he Please guilty. Please guilty and things like. But then at the end, they threw in the curveball. Not only did he have to plead guilty, but he would have to turn in some associates or, you know, give up some information. Right. And on that part, my dad said no. And so then they gave him 20 years and my mom got 12 years.

and all the other got five to between five and eight years. Would she get the 12 years for money laundering? Just straight money. Yeah. You get a lot of time for money laundering. Mm-hmm. Well, they gave her 12 years. That one was harsh.

That one was harsh. And that hit him hard, but my dad fell into a code of silence. And some people don't even know this. Here's another, you know, kind of like a, I want to say fun fact, but it is a fact.

He's been the only resident to do 20 years in the federal prison and never made one outgoing call. He never used the phone one time to call anybody outside. When they gave, since the time he got the take, he never picked up the phone one time. They say it's the only person ever in that they know of that never made a phone call. Even when my mom, so now they're both,

they're both in the federal, you know, in the federal bureau, a prison. And merry couples are allowed to like call each other once and my mom would put in the request and he would he would always um deny the call okay i don't why there a reason he went into just a deep code of silence and he he just felt as if by picking up or talking to somebody who knows who else they might go after or whatever but that's just how do i say we just go that's that old nature of just not you know you you know you did the crime now it's time to do the time

What year was this? So all this is what, like, well, 92 is when, you know, they get detained in 91. Okay. It was February. And it was, my, they already had about a two-year operation. So trial and everything was pretty, was pretty quick. And you know how the feds are. The feds, I mean, they don't detain you until you, they pretty much.

Right. Yeah, once they arrest you, they've already got a case. They got a case. And it's, I mean, there's really no way out unless you, you know, you cooperate. Yeah. the stale grab you and then put together the case so i think it was like six or seven months later the trahab so yeah it's probably the end of 91 and now they get sentenced so my dad gets the 20 years my mom and my dad was supposed to get life but actually the judge had compassion on for actually standing

up and just taking the guilt of everything and gave them only 20 years so all right so by this point you're what, you know, close to 14. So now I'm about 13, 14. And I go to live with my brother, remember my little brother. And, um, but they were always very still trying to still get my dad to talk one way or another, one way or another. So my brother is about 20 years old now. I mean, we're, we're living back in, in South Florida, back in like the Broward County area where, you know, we're, we're pretty much being my brother, like grew up in the whole Hollywood, Pembert Pines area. I graduated from MacArthur High School and stuff, which is, you know, one of the big schools there.

Well, so my brother now, so he's living with my brother, and my brother now, he's hanging out with a couple, you know, rough dude, you know, gang, little local gang guys and things like that. And they're out one time at a club. And my brother always said that he was, they were still following him. Okay. You know, he would always see some car, and he just always, and I guess what?

Or was he just kind of paranoid? No, no, I get, yeah. So I guess now clubs, he's got a couple of drinks on him and things like that. And they see this weird car just following him, him and a friend of him. Once again, as they're leaving the club. So this time around, they actually, my brother says he, he pulled, the car had pulled, they had pulled into a plaza. And they saw that the car also pulled into the plaza, but they went to another way.

but then they quickly got in the car and went. But they were thinking, who is like? They don't, you know, they don't know. So they're just, so there's my friend in one of his, my brother and one of his friends. And when, you know, the guy steps out, and he doesn't, you know, he doesn't disclose himself as a police officer

or an undercover agent, nothing like that. And they start the war words. And one thing leads to another, ends up being my brother hits him. Now, all of a sudden, he isn't undercover. So now he gets aggravated battery. On a police officer, on a Leo. On a Leo and stuff.

So now he gets arrested and all this. So now he has his old trials. I remember now I get that phone call at like two in the morning from my brother because we're living together saying, hey, I'm in jail, but don't worry, I'm going to get out. This is stupid. He, you know, all this other stuff. I'll get out.

it out, but man, they just, they made his, his case also seem, but bigger than, than what it was. And before you know it, they're using my dad, they go to my dad, hey, now we have your older son. Right. Want to help him out? And what's he say? No. No, he'll be fine. He'll be fine.

He'll be fine. He'll be fine. He'll figure it out. Mm-hmm. If he, if you say he did what he did, then he'll know how to do the time. And they hit my brother with five years. He got over. I talked to the lawyer and they said they over sentenced him for,

because he had no priors, no nothing, no. So when lawyers look at that now, they're like, man, they over sentenced him by like three years. Actually, he should have just got like probation or something. They don't want five years out of the, but this is now Florida State, the state of Florida. And he did, out of the five years, he did three years in Brevard. He gets, so now he, so now I'm about,

I go live with an honor of mine, an honor and an uncle, who's a, my dad's sister. She was the only person in my whole family from both sides. Because remember now, my dad's side and my mom's sides, everybody's involved in the narco world one way or another. Whether it's selling, shipping, trafficking, laundering, one way or another. And I have one on. I came over here and never, never, never went to the left.

Like, never have all the temptation to do, and she never did. she just concentrated on living an honest life and thing. And thankfully, God touched her heart and she took me in. So when my brother went down, went down. So now she takes me in and I go live with her and her husband during all my high school years and things. So my brothers, and I went to visit my brother like one time. And I'm visiting my mom too during all this time.

I'm going up. Where were she? So she started in Connecticut. then they moved there to at, was it Atlanta, no, Kentucky, I'm sorry, Lexington, Kentucky. And then from Lexington, Kentucky, they, you know how they, they try to move you as close as you can to like where you have family? And then finally the closest we got her down here was to Tallahassee, FCI, Tallahassee, FCI, and I would go to Tallahassee to visit her periodically and things like that.

And so now I'm starting to become a young adult. Right. and things, and you start going out, you start hanging out the reality of who you're fan. I guess it could get a little bit into your ego or in a way, but I'm having for the, I have a very good influence now with my aunt and her husband, because like I said, just hardworking, dedicated people, very Catholic kind of oriented, but at the same time, I have a very strong pool still from the other side and things like that. I'm living with them.

My brother finally started the five years with good conduct and all this other stuff. He serves three. But he was just a resident back then. He didn't have. I was fortunate enough to be able to, because of my own and uncle and them pretty much adopted me and things like that, get my citizenship. My brother, being now he got arrested. So now he gets immigration on him and they deport him.

So we ended up having to put an immigrant. They put an immigration ball on him, right? So he gets out of the three years that that immigration is just waiting for him right outside. Right. Immigration picks him up. Well, yeah, I remember we had to go to court in New Orleans. And then, but the judge just deported him.

So now he goes back to Columbia. And I stay. I'm living with my honor, uncle. I'm going to high school. I'm graduate. I'm clean, not getting involved in nothing. and, you know, just living, living day to day. Up until this point, my dad still had, I mean, not even a phone call, birthday card, nothing.

He doesn't talk to nobody, nobody. I mean, there's another crazy story. My grandma, his mom came, he was in, most of his time, he did it in Peking, Illinois, which is right outside of Peoria. So you would have to fly into Peoria and then drive like an hour into this small little facility. and his own mother. Imagine this, an old lady coming from Columbia knowing no English.

Just never knowing, he has a 20-year sentence, never knowing if she's going to see her son again before it gets out. So she's like, let me make the trip. Makes the trip all the way out there, doesn't tell nobody, shows up for Mother's Day to visit her son. Yeah.

And he denied the visit. Yeah. That's all in the book. let me just ask, he denies the visit. People, that's just, they actually interviewed her, like, coming out of, like, the local news and things like that because he would always catch a little fame here and there. Right.

For not talking or not calling, all this other stuff. But, yeah, she said, I could, she said, it was all in English. I didn't even know what to say, but they wanted me to say something, but she just went back to Columbia. So how long is it before? when you get involved? So by now, I remember even my own and uncle, they would still part, you know,

we would still see the van after my brother's arrest. But then it finally, like, calm down. We don't, we didn't see no van. My own and uncle, but my uncle would like when he would take his walks and stuff like that. And he's, you know, I remember one time him, him even knocking the window on the,

the other guys do they say, you know, what are you guys doing? And they would just say something like, well, we have permission to be here or something. He's like, okay, well, then you want to water or a coffee or something. Just let me know. I mean, you know where we're at. I mean, we're here. But eventually all of that stopped. All of that stopped.

And Matthew, I'm, I'm, trust me, I don't want that life. Right. Nobody, my closest friends, even my girlfriend back then, I didn't tell nobody the reality. Right. of what my parents, I would always just tell everybody that my parents were back in Columbia, you know, and I came here to, you know, for my aunt decided to adopt me and better schools and all this, but I was ashamed, man, and in high school and stuff like that, at first I didn't even want to talk about it, too, you know, and I would just be ashamed of it,

but I become 18, graduate high school, I'm going to college at FIU, and just living a very, very legit life and things like that. And then I start working at a bank as a teller. Okay. Back then it was great Western Bank. You know, that then gets bought out by Washington Mutual. Start working at the bank. And I move up.

I'm moving up. And I'm actually, that's what I'm going to school for, international business and finance. And as I'm moving up in the bank, moving up in the bank, so I'm going from Teller, And I'm going to, I'm already pretty much like a assistant branch manager, all this other stuff. And I'm like, man, why am I spending all this money on school? Because one thing my, even though my dad, you know, got busted, one thing, he, he left us well off.

Right. So I had my four-year with the Florida prepay college, like, paid off. They left a house in my name. So, well, I guess we got to. we were able to to make a deal after everything went down and they kept exa and I was able to keep just one house that was in both me and my brother's name in custody of my mom.

But we had to prove that the money came from my, my grandfather, my dad's dad, which in reality, he was a butcher all his life. He owned a lot of butcher shops in Colombia and things like that. So we had to kind of falsify some documents in Columbia to show that that money never came from drugs. Right. That that was my grandfather giving us that money.

That he had paid for the house. The house. Right. And that's the only reason the government allowed us to keep that house. So at the end of the day, look, I can't sit here. So I have my tuition paid for. I'm collecting the rent every month from that house and things like that. So I'm pretty good now.

I'm working at the bank and things like that. but it's Miami, you start going out. You start going out. You start partying. You start meeting people. Now they're, oh, you're so-and-so's. Oh, you're the younger son. You're going to club.

Oh, yeah, man. Oh, it sucks. Yeah, what happened to your dad and all this, the 18, the night the girls and things and stuff like that. And so now I'm like, oh, wait a minute. So that same life where I used to be a. ashamed of nothing. It's opening up these doors, these party life doors. You know, I'm going into clothes. I don't got to wait online. Sometimes I don't even have to pay for my bill and things like

that. My friends are coming with me. We're, you know, we're kind of like enjoying that. And that's where, when I start opening my eyes to that, you know, the darker side of certain things, but I'm still working at the bank, still doing all that. And it happens to be at the bank, they offer a position at a branch. So this is now what, this is about 98. This is about 1998. I graduated 96. It's about 98.

Position opens up for a, to run a branch out, like a very underperforming branch for Washington Mutual. So, of course, the assistant branch manager, the one I'm working, and says, hey, I'll love to take you with me. I feel like, boom, and I'll make you the assistant of that one. Now, you got to know a little bit about what's going on in Columbia in 98. So in 98, we had a president, Pastrana, and he, he was very lenient, and he allowed the guerrillas and stuff. Like he gave them a Switzerland, Saai, size part of Colombia, so hoping that they will make peace and all this other stuff. And of course, you know, this is a Sufark? Yeah.

Okay. And, of course, they don't, you know, they use it just that to, you know, to, you know, to, actually. armed themselves, trained, do better, all this other. So a lot of Colombians now flee. Colombians want money, though. You know, Colombians with money, and some of them would, you know, be undercover, narcos and things like that, would flee Colombia now because, you know,

the guerrillas are getting all this power and stuff like that. And, of course, usually the first place to come is, you know, usually South Florida. Miami's a lot of connections here and things like that. So all these influx of all these people coming with money just from Family Connect, hey, you know, so-and-so Sunday is working at this bankies. So I'm able to open up accounts for them. I'm able to, you know, show them how to a business account and maybe how to wash a little bit of money here, do this, do that.

And man, let me just tell you that, that branch goes from an under, and less than about, two years, it goes from being the underperforming branch in the region to like top three in the region now, in deposits, in cash and all this other stuff. I mean, they're bringing me bundles of tens. You know, this is from the street level guys. Yeah. The fives and the tens and stuff like that. And I'm able to turn them into hundreds for them so that then they can ship it back down to Columbia. And that, because you could fit a lot more.

If it's in hundreds, then, and all that. So, but like I said, I'm not, I'm not getting involved in, like, trafficking or not like that. I'm just now using my position, yes, in a way to not, in a way, not really wanting to, but it is kind of like how to, look, I'm not, I'm not going to say here and say I was obligated in any way, shape, or form, but I did feel if I, if I said no, what else, I mean, what could happen? I mean, we still got family in Columbia. Okay. And this time, my brother's in Colombia, right? He's trying to make things happen over there. But right now, Medellin, again, it's still very dangerous.

It's still, because we're talking 98, 99, especially the body of where we're from it. You know, that's, now it's known for Narcos and Sicarios. And if you're not from there, I mean, you just don't go there. Now it's totally changed. Scar is, what, a killer? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah.

And now it's totally changed. Now, I mean, Medellín is a totally different. different, different. I mean, it's a tourist hotspot now. And the actual barrio where my family's from, as, you know, known first for the gambling, the prostitution, the narcos, the cicars, and all that. Now it's it's the number one hub. So when tourists go down there to get drugs or whatever they need, the taxi man just takes them to it by it. And it's actually very, very safe. They don't want no

robbing or killing or not, you know, the people who control it. Right. So it's very, so tourists go. there to get whatever fix or whatever they need and they know they can safely go purchase whatever they want. Don't have to worry about the police or anything like that and get what they want and go back to their hotel, to their party, to their Airbnb or to whatever. So buying now is actually come up. They say every corner because it's very well distributed. So, you know, like a taxi comes in and then, okay, this guy, you know, it's your turn and this turn. So everybody's making money and they say every corner is worth a couple million dollars and stuff so

the value has definitely changed it's no longer all that but when my brother was still there it was still very dangerous and my brother's trying to make things happen but majean is still not still not like i said what it is today and he's getting frustrated and my grandma's getting worried he's been on you know spending my dad's money right and man that's like i'm going to, you know, your dad's going to do 20 years and you can't get out. And this, let me wrong. We got, you know, he's got properties and things there and stuff. So my brother decides to come back to the States.

Now, being in the Barrio, we've always had connections to get papers and things like that. So he decides to come back to work, you know, do legit, live together and stuff like that. And we're able to get him to Costa Rica or he uses his own name from Calamita, Costa Rica. Right. Then in Costa Rica, he gets a whole new Costa Rican identity, passport, everything, stuff like that, lies into Orlando, like coming on a vacation for a week to see Mickey Mouse and go to all the parks and all that.

But when he gets to Orlando, he has another ID waiting for him from Puerto Ricans that live in the mountains and stuff and they'll sell the birth certificates and they'll sell that and then you can just... Right. Mm-hmm. They kind of just match you up. Yeah, yeah. You know, oh, yeah, this.

guy he looks about blah, blah, blah, yeah. And so when he gets here, he has a whole other, with a social and everything able to work. And it's not hard to take those documents, I'm sure, and get, get driver's license,

a Florida driver's license with your real picture on it. And, you know, slowly. Especially back then, I saw, when I saw what of your episodes and things, I was like, man, he was,

you were doing it from when they were, like, creating them. Right. You know, young, but no, you know,

our connection, that's what they would do. they would just go to up in the mountains and these people that live, you know, they're just farmers or whatever, they never use them. Yeah. They don't carry IDs. They don't do. And they would just pay them, take them down.

Well, if I have a driver's license in the state of Florida, you know, as, you know, whatever, Juan Fernandez. And the real Juan Fernandez has a driver's license in Puerto Rico as Juan Fernandez. Like, nobody's connecting those two things. You know, and let's face it, you can. have if you move from Iowa to to Georgia or you know you know I'm saying like you could I you still have a valid driver's license in Iowa and one in Florida like in that and you could use that one yet to get another and another yeah so it's not like that that that raises any red flags

okay the guy just moved and got a new driver's license so the only red flag sometimes he would have because he he still spoke good English you know but the the whole border you know a lot of Puerto Rican speak good English. They know, you know, back and forth. A lot of Puerto Ricans don't speak English at all.

No, and that too, you know, that too. There's people in Miami that have been there 20 years that don't speak any English. Trust me,

even if I fairly is still, but yeah, he had to work a little bit on the accent, especially being, not if you're in Georgia or something like that. They don't know the difference,

the accents, but if you deal with a, let's say in Miami, with a Latino policeman or undercover agent, I mean, he can peep that. Yeah. This guy's Puerto Rico, and he speaks like he's Colombian.

Right. You know, that could, so you would still have to be a little careful stuff. But like I said, he wasn't coming here. He was coming here to live legit, you know, take care of me and all this. But so now he, you know, he comes back in. We're good. I've, you know, I got my apartment and I got all this. But I am doing all this other stuff at the bank.

Right. Kind of like on the side. I mean, one of the other. I mean, the things that they also was to, the safety deposit box. I mean, you can hide a lot of stuff in there, especially cash and drugs. And when they started, I guess it's something that was already come from Kalamia because somebody pandas. And they said, hey, when you take somebody into that other room, you know, when you go, your safety deposit box and the guy from the bank then walks you, takes you to the other room and stuff.

You know, is there cameras or anything? I said, no, it can't be. See, no, we're not. And by law, you're not supposed to keep cash or anything like that. So, of course, I mean, to any criminal, the light bulb goes on. I said, well, what is to say if I was to put, you know, some drugs in there, and then some other guy comes, and you let them in. He gets the box.

Right. Stuff, and, you know, he takes out the drugs and puts in the money and could end. And no, I don't, no, no, there's no cameras. There's no nothing. And being that, I'm also the kind of like the gatekeeper of it. Right. You know, I could be the, you know, I could peep them off and say, hey, guess what? You know, they're on to the eyes or something like that.

Yeah, they came and seized the box or they came. They told us to contact them if we saw, if somebody comes to check in. Correct. And so then I, that's where I started getting, yeah, I started getting into some badest associations by doing that, allowing them these access into the bank. So now we're talking, this is about 99, almost 2,000. You know, cell phones had already come out with the techs and the Nokia's and things like that. And, you know, they would text me a code so one guy would come, they would always just wait for me to, you know, they'd sign their name in the waiting area, but only wait for me to come let them into the box.

I'd come in. I'd take them to the room, boom, boom, boom. And then the next day I'll get the text of who the other guys coming into. What are you getting for this? I wouldn't be doing this for free. No, not at all. Not at all. We're all Colombian.

We're going to, I just doing this for a fellow Colombian now. No. Correct. No. So we're not, it's not for free. They're, they're breaking me off. You got to, so in 2000 I'm getting, depending on how many, it would be about two to three times a week. Sometimes only once or something like that,

but pretty much every day that something like that, it'd be about $1,000. Okay. That's pretty good. Yeah. Man, I was, what, 20 years? I'm making good money at the bank, and I got this side hustle with all of this going on.

You're a rainmaker, right? Yeah. Like the people at the bank think, this guy turned this place around. Correct. It's funny, 90% of the deposits are in cash, but that's kind of weird, but yeah, he's doing great. Yeah, bad me tell you, you're right.

I'm getting all the alkaliates from the bank, too. Like all the rewards and in the trophies and things for number one, the pile. I mean, my manager, she's like, and everybody's coming and asking for me. That's the thing. And they're opening up a, I mean, they're opening up legit businesses too. Right. I mean, of course, it was to, you know, to launder money and stuff like that. But, you know, you'd have like your car detailer, mostly the ones, a lot of people

to understand that most of those dollar stores back in those days, that original concept was made for that was for traffickers to loan their money and I can call it. Listen, you know how many fucking places I drive by on our daily basis? Like Jess,

my wife and I would drive by, there's a place called a, I want to say burger monger or burger, it's some burger place, right? It's been there for three years. It's on a corner. There ain't nobody going in that place.

And the burgers are all. They're not bad, but I mean, there's, we'll go in there. We're in there for 30 minutes. One person walks by. This is at noon. One person comes in. They get some fries and whatever. The people are sitting behind the counter just talking on the phone and doing, you know,

and I'm sitting there and she's like, I don't know how this place stays in business. I go, this is a money laundering operation. Do you understand that? She says, no, it's not. I go, I'm telling, look at this place. There's no fucking way this place should be open. I said, do you have any idea? Listen, this is on the corner.

This is on 56, State Road 56 and Bruce B. Downs. And it's maybe a block in, and it's on the corner of this massive strip mall with a Publix. And this place is, I'll bet you the rent there's $25,000, $30,000. We'll always start thinking like that way. Yeah, like there's no way. You've got three staff members who are doing nothing. you're paying $15,000 for staff. I mean, this place is, there's no fucking way.

Like, there's no way this place is staying open. And we drive by all the time. We'll drive by some place and my wife will go. Oh, look, there's people in there. No, no, not there. No, because there's never anybody in there. No, just in general, she'll see a store. She'll go, I don't know how these places stay in business.

This place right here, I'm like, there's a money laundering operation. I say that every time she'll say it. And she'll do it and go, you know, there's nobody ever in here. I'll go, of course not. They're laundering money. And I keep telling her, since Trump, I'm like, listen, since Trump shut down all of the, well, at least a lot of stuff coming across the border and coming in the boats and this. Like, I'm telling you right now, we're going to start to see some massive fucking places going under. She says, why, he goes, because they're not able to launder the money.

There's no money. There's no money. Places are going under. Burger monitors, they got another month. They're going under. There's no way they can stay in. in business. Yeah, there's tons of stuff. I was thinking about that too. How easy is it if you're making money illegally? Like, the smartest thing to do is go open some legitimate business

where you're doing business, but you're also laundering money in through, you know, not a ton, just some. Because the truth is, if you can open up a business and stay in business for three years, you got a pretty good chance of that business being successful because that's the, it's the repeat customers and you're building up customers over the course of three years. Most businesses fail in the first, really the first year. But within three years, it's something like two thirds of all businesses failing in like the first three years. So if you can make it three years, you've got a pretty damn good chance of, just because even if you're just a half-ass business, it doesn't matter. You've got the repeat business. You've built up that business.

So if you're, if you're got a drug operation or some kind of illegal. legal something. One, you get to launder your money, you know, easily. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. Exactly. Just don't go crazy. That's how they get, that's how you keep, people don't realize too. If you go, you walk into a bank one day and you say, hey, you know, I'm open a bank account. Okay, you open a bank count. I'll open it with $3,000. Oh, okay. They're, they're okay with that because they understand the business. That's normal. And then two days later, you come in and say, here's $8,000. And then three days later, you come back, here's $9,000. And here's $7,000. The next day is, here's 10. And it's all cash.

Even if you said, no, no, sometimes I have people write me checks. Okay. So 95% is cash. Yes, 95% of everything goes. Within two months, they're shutting that business. I mean, they're shutting those accounts out. Yeah. People don't realize.

It's going to get a red flagged, right? Yeah, they're going to be like, listen, this 95% of all the money that's coming in here is cash. Oh, no, no. It's just a cash business. It doesn't matter what, nothing's a cash business anymore. Even cash businesses aren't cash businesses. So because everybody uses a credit card, even if it's a cash business. attached to your, your cash app or your PayPal.

They all have debit card. So it just doesn't, so it's very difficult to make those businesses work. If you can launder money through them and stay it for three years, then you have a legitimate business. Maybe you can start working your way out of that, right? Correct. But having somebody at the bank to help run interference and let you know what those laws are, what those rules are, what those, hey, don't come.

Hey, go get some money or, hey, do you have any friends? Great. Give your friend $5,000. Have them ready to check. Not for $5,000 even. $5,000, $1,12. You understand? Don't get, like, let's make it look legitimate.

You know what I'm saying? Like, don't, oh, here's $5,000. It's always in $1,000 increments. Like that, that's a red flag. They're going to flag that and say, this guy's making every fucking deposit he makes is $7,000, $2,000, $5,000. Oh, but they're all checks. It doesn't matter.

What business do you have? It's an even number. every single time. It's a flag. You're going to be a problem. But if you could have somebody like you want on the inside saying, listen, don't get crazy. Your boy came in here three days in a row with fucking $9,900.

Like that's just stupid. You know, oh, it's under 10,000. I don't give a shit. It's under 10,000. It looks suspicious. You're going to this teller here. This is Jennifer. Jennifer's a middle class white woman.

She's going to tell on you. She's looking to tell on you. Exactly. Because we would even, and you're absolutely right, man, which is saying, remember when the fraud department or, you know, like the Secret Service, because pretty much they're the ones who back, back then I still think now, but back then they were the ones and when they would send us a little, like, hey, what do you know about this account? Because they would be flagged. Yeah. Because, you know, boom, boom, boom. Has the heat, the heat shoots up through your stomach into your chest and you start sweating, reading that letter.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Even, and you're only loosely involved at this point. Right? But doesn't matter. You just know the name of the guy. And I opened the account. They're asking questions.

I don't want to be. Yeah. I would just, hey, it's not my job to wonder where, you know? Oh, yeah,

the guy came in. He started a business account just like everybody does that. All the papers, everything's legit, all this, all this stuff's got, you know. But the next time you see the guy,

you got to be like, hey, you got a fucking, yo, exactly. Hey, that account, we got to,

guess what, you know. Do you close it or you, oh. Yeah, it'd be like, hey, you know, we got to tone it down and now, you know, open up another one, going to need another name or something like that.

But by then, that one served its purpose, you know, you used it for like a year and a half or something like that. So, you know, how much did you, you know, were you able to sifle in through there and stuff like that throughout the time? So it, and then, you know, and that was pretty much the typical lifespan of certain things like that. And sometimes, sometimes the business would even, like what you said, and sometimes guess what the business would take off?

Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure periodically that's going to happen, especially the longer you can go. If you're really running it right, not just, you know, like if your whole goal is, oh, no, I'm just trying to launder money. I don't give a shit about the business. Okay, well, it's going to go under then because whoever you hire is just going to rob you blind. Because people will just rob you blind. That's what happens with most restaurants is they're like, I don't understand what happened.

Well, the biggest problem with restaurants is people will just, your employees will rob you blind. Just a little here, a little here. We get six employees. They're all stealing 150 bucks a day from you. That's no good. You're going to go under. You know what's a great for money laundering is going and buying just a shithole house. You know, you buy just a cruddy house for $100,000, right?

So you go, some guy's selling a house. I mean, it's just a junker, right? Everything's bad on it. Go buy a house for $100,000. Get the person to owner finance it. Give them $10,000. Like, I'll give you $10,000. I'll give you $20,000 cash, but you want to finance it for $80.

Okay, great. Here's your tune. I owe you 80. I'll make the payments, no problem. But I'll have you paid off in a year. Okay, no problem. You know, they'll take cash because it's just some seller, right? Or some investor.

He'll take cash. And then you dump a hundred grand into the house, right? So they got $200,000 in the house. And then you sell the house. But when you do that, when you go to put the roof on, you just have some guys put the roof on. You don't pull a permit. You could pull a permit if you wanted to, but you put the roof on. And then you put, then you,

The guy is paying it. You pay him. Everybody, you're paying cash. Cash. Because they'll all take cash. The roofer, he'll take. He's desperate for cash. Cash.

Yeah. Cash. You know, the painter cash. The guy, maintenance guys, cash. Trim the trees. Everybody loves cat, right? They all take cash. So you've got $100,000 right there.

Now you get $200,000 in the property. Put it on the market. Even you put it on the market and you break even. You'll probably sell it and make $230, $2.40. But let's say, you say, oh, no, no, I actually broke even. I only got $200,000. Well, you're getting a check for $200,000. So you bought it for $100,000.

You sold it for $200,000. You got a check for $200,000 or less whatever you still owe that guy from owner financing. Let's say he gets his $80,000. So you've got a check for $120,000. And you declare that to the IRS. I just bought this house for $100,000. I put a few thousand into it. Three months later, I sold it for $200,000.

And the IRS is going to be like, okay. I'm like, that happens. People have, well, that's a hell of a return. Yeah, it's a good deal. You don't tell the IRS that, you don't tell the IRS, I paid this guy cash and this guy cash. And they think you bought a house for $100,000. I painted it. I came out on the weekend with my son.

We trimmed the trees. We mowed the yard. We patched the roof. It was, it was no big deal. It was just a little leak. I did the some of the drywall myself. So here, I put. $2,000 on some paint and some supplies, and we did it ourselves, and then we sold it. I couldn't believe it. We got $200,000 for it. Oh, my God. So there's a profit margin right there of $100,000 or $98,000, whatever, last year. The few little receipts you turn in to make it look legit. Like we just did some minor cosmetics.

I was going to say, you get some invoices and things like that. It was minor cosmetics, right? So you do that. Now you just you just, you just laundered $100,000 in proceeds that you told the IRS. Now, I'm Are you going to have to pay taxes on the $100,000? Yeah, I'm going to have to pay taxes on the $100,000. But what does it matter? Now I've got the money that I can legitimately get a check from the title company. I legitimately get a check. I can deposit into my account. Now I legitimately have $100,000 that I pay taxes on.

And you really don't have to pay taxes if you just roll that into another property. You can do the same thing again and again and again. And, you know, you end up with a million dollars. And granted, you're going to pay. taxes on you. You're probably going to pay 20%, 30% on that profit. But at least then at no point can they come and say, oh, we're taking everything you have. What are you talking about, bro? I made a million dollars in the last year. Last year and a half, I made even legitimately. I paid taxes. It's on my taxes. I can show you all the everything. They're going to be like,

the fuck did this guy do this? I don't understand. How's he getting these deals? I'm good, bro. I'm good. I drive through these neighborhoods. You know, there's shitholes. I'm always in these bad neighborhoods. You know that. You've been following me for three years. Yes. You see me driving in these shitty neighbors. I know all these drug dealers, by these drug deals like that. That's why I hang out with these guys. You see me with these guys.

And they'll be like, he does hang out with the drugs. Like, you think that's what's happening? We've been falling for three years. Yeah, you know. What did you think I was selling drugs? Come on, man. Oh, like, because I'm Colombian, racist. That's what you say.

Yeah. You put together, but yeah. Sometimes I look back because back then, in 98-99, and I'm young, but, you know, the real estate game didn't pop off here until. Well, actually, when did you, wait, was it 98-99? No, it was. It was, it was. It was 98-99.

That's when it started, that's when the kind of subprime started shooting. It took a few years. Correct. The last few years is when it went insane and then fell off a cliff, 2007. If the real estate game was going on back then, you better believe that's what I would have been like, forget the business and stuff like. You're still fixing up the house, though. Yeah.

You're not selling that. Like, you're still, you're doing it a legitimate. renovation and you're just not paying anybody. You're just paying everybody cash. That's how you're laundering it through all of these guys who are just doing the work. Yeah. They don't. You could have to be good.

Right. The guy who's put it in the countertops doesn't think he's laundering money. A property management company. And look, I'm managing all these properties for all these investors. Yeah. You could just sell, you could even sell the properties, people that, you know, sell them and then just keep the properties and manage it. And then just, you know, everybody who's paying rent for, oh, I pay $1,500 a month in rent. You say, oh, he's paying $2,000.

You know. Did you ever see Animal Kingdom? It's a Animal Kingdom. It's a show about a family and they rob, they basically rob banks. Well, I think they do some drug deals too, but it's mostly bank robbers. And the mom runs the whole thing. And she launders all the money through all of her rental properties. Every month she goes around. And it's funny because when they come to finally start investigating her, they're driving around, like they're talking to some of the tenants. The tenants are like 85 years old. They're like, I paid $200. and they're at $200. And she's saying she pays like $1,900 a month. And some old lady who pays $200 and she's, yeah, but she's had tenants in there just to have in there. You know, just, and then she gets her $200. And then she puts another, she goes and gets money orders and makes all these deposit.

They do it every month. And that's how she, and all of her kids are W-2 employees. It's really, it's funny. It's funny. If you know, if you watch, if you watch, it and you see what's happening, you know. Like, there's not like they're telling you what's happening. You kind of figure it, kind of figure it out.

But you would know. You'd be watched. You'd be like, oh, she's, oh. Because at one point she, one of the kids she takes under her wing and says, listen, this is, these other nymrods aren't smart enough to do this, but you are. And so the kid starts handling all the accounts for her and laundering the money. And she teaches him how to do it. But while she's doing it, if you watched it, you would know, you'd be like, oh, shit.

I see what she's doing. She's doing this every month. This is just, this is her full-time job. It's just laundering money that her sons are robbing banks. And they would show up and this, here's the money. And she'd be like, is that all the money?

You didn't keep any money. She was these hard ass, bro. You got to watch that show. You'd love that. Yeah, man. It's one of the better ones. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. Adam Kahn. I got you. So what happened? So these guys are, people are showing up or are? Yeah. So now, you know, it's very smooth operation. I mean, nobody that I'm working, because now the branches, I mean, it's like 17 of us now

working there. I mean, tellers, I remember when I first got there was all the old ladies. Right. They got to go. Yeah. Are these all Hispanics? Pretty much, yeah. Do any of them realize, like, something's not right here?

Something's not right. No, no, so I made work in there so tough for the old guard when they came in that they would request transfers to go to another branch. And of course, now I'd bring in, like, more attractive women. So at the end of the day, out of the 17, it would be three guys and 14 and all of time. And so on top of not only all of these illegitimate businesses, I mean, the legitimate businesses are moving over from the other branches and stuff like that. So that, but none of the employees, none of the employees, nothing ever suspected. Anything funny was going on.

everybody just, well, you know, he just knows a lot of people with money. I mean, that's, I mean, just always been like that. Yeah, that's what's happening.

Yeah, but usually younger. Yeah, I was going to say, if they're younger, if you're younger, they're young and stupid. You're young and you don't,

you don't, you're not looking out for that. Yeah. Listen, I come, I like coming into work. There's eight hot Latinas that are working here.

I'm not asking any questions, bro. I'm one of three guys and eight women. I'm, I don't care, this guy's doing. Correct. You know,

the older ones would be like, wait a minute, this is a little, this guy comes, you know, this guy's coming in there, she's got to go.

Yeah. Correct. The old bitty start asking questions, say, listen, Martha, you'd be happier somewhere else,

I'll tell you right now. Exactly. And the young ones because they get a good tip too. Yeah. You know, the guys would be like, hey,

I don't know, she just finished counting out $20,000 dollars, of course, I'd have to sign off on it to, you know,

and stuff like that. And then, hey, here's 100 or 200. Thank you. Oh, so they're loving it too. They're just like, oh, how great. You know, these guys. So how long has this going on? Almost about two years.

And that's actually what, so one of the guys, one of the street level guys that's supposed to bring in. So remember, you have the laundering aspect of it, but then you also have the trafficking side of it. Mm-hmm. Putting the drugs in the safety deposit boxes and all this other stuff. So that one's a more These are more high-level Type of dudes and stuff like that The money laundering guys that are gonna

You know that walk into the branch and their face is being Because there's I mean there's camera There's no way there's no way around that Yeah So you know they're sending in Street level dudes You know to do this on behalf of the company And stuff like that so

But this street level dude never They would never know what's going on with the on the safety deposit box side. Yeah, well, everybody's an individual different. Yeah, he's just going to pay to come in, you know, bring in 20,000 and tens and fives and stuff like that and get, you know, 20,000 and hundreds, you know, make sure, you know,

Christian is there working at the moment in time when this is going down and that's all he knows. But they do know that I'm the guy who's making sure that nothing bad is going to happen. Right. You know, so one of the streetlights, level dudes, he gets popped for something. Well, I later found out, yeah, he tried to do some deal actually here in Hillsborough County.

Okay. Right. Turns informant. Right. Turns informant. The, you know, the DEA then is telling him, well, who could you help us at all? Like, who do you know anybody? You got to help us out.

You're going to catch, you know, minimum mandatory. What they do to most of these guys, they don't even last three months now. Right. You know, they, they just turn over real quick. And of course, he's like, well, I mean, I do know this one guy works at a bank. That's actually a big deal. Like, if you could say, you know what I'm saying? They all know another drug dealer.

They're like, oh, great. But if you're like, no, I got a guy in the bank that's helping us launder money. Money. Correct. That's a headline. We can get some newspaper print out of this. We're going to get some articles made and make us look good. And guess who his dad was? Who?

No. And then imagine him telling the DEA to. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And guess who his dad is, how well connected he is? I mean, they must have been salivating. Right. They must have been like, what? You can help us?

Yeah, that's another, that's even a better article. Yeah. You can help us set this guy up? Man, I get, they actually, I was later revealed, they paid him. They were, they wanted this so bad. They paid him $10,000 to set me up. Imagine that back then in 2000. What about the code?

Yeah. No, no. So now he comes in. True, I know. I don't know. Tell me about it, you know. So he starts bothering me. This is the guy that was just bringing it, for somebody else he's bringing in cash.

He's bringing them in cash. So that's what they. He just knows your balls. Exactly. He just knows the money, the whole money laundering side of it. Right. But he doesn't know about the deposit, the deposit box, stuff like that. Okay.

But they want to catch me on a trafficking case. But he does know that I should. should, you know, they're like, look, can you get him to reveal a connect or something like that? Okay. So, of course, now he starts, you know, when he comes into the bank now, he starts asking me, hey, man, you know, I got this debt to pay. I parted too hard one night. And now, you know, I'm a little under.

And, bro, can you help me, you know, when I come in. Because, but for them coming in there doing the, you know, they're probably getting paid, I don't know, 300, 500, 500 a pop. Yeah. Something like that. You know, it's still okay. I mean, not. For what, all of 10 minutes for the work?

The work and stuff like that, but now he's saying, oh, he'll some guy $3,000, but he's got a guy that, that's needing a kilo, you know, that's needing some work. You know, can I help him find, you know, can I, can I, can I. A buyer, whatever. No, no, a seller. He's got the buyer.

Oh, okay. You know, he really needs this because if not, I mean, he has to pay back these $3,000. Did you not think that this is like, Why are you talking to me about this, bro? Yeah. Like, I mean, I would have immediately been like, I don't know what the fuck you're talking. Yeah. Especially now, now for sure, you know, prior to prison, I might have been like, what?

I don't really, you know, or maybe I do know somebody. I probably wouldn't have been thinking, but now if somebody started saying that, I'd be like, what the fuck are you talking about? No, that's what I was saying? Oh, okay. I kept telling him. I'm like, what are you talking about, you know? Like, oh, you know, I don't want nothing.

Look at me. I'm in the bank, man. Yeah. I had a good job. I don't need to get. He's like, but come on, you know someone. Like help me out. I even know, I said, how much is it?

$3,000, I'll lend you the money. Pay it back to me shortly. And he kept, he actually showed up. Well, of course, it was an undercover. Yeah. He actually showed up one day at the bank. This is when I pretty much lost it. Say, no, here, just so you, you know, Chris, this is the guy that wants to, you know,

that wants to buy the keel. He wanted to make sure everything's legit with you, that you do work at the bank. all this. And I turned to the guy and I said, look, the only business I'll have with you is if you're coming here to open up a bank account. Right. That's it.

I don't know what he's talking about. I don't know not. All this other stuff. You know, I leave him there. Of course, I pull it the other to the side and I say, yo, please don't you ever, ever come in, you know, do all this. And I knew the persistency was also like a. Yeah, red flag for sure.

Something's definitely wrong. Something's definitely wrong. And I'm saying no each way. The no, the one note, the, listen, I know what you're talking about, bro. Don't come around. That shit is right there to shut it down. Anybody who comes back again, no. If you were questioning it before, you'd be 100% positive.

This is a, this is a bullshit right now. Correct. So now mind you, my brothers live, where me and him are living together again. Right. And he's working, like, I think he's working in a landscaping company, like everything legit. And I'm doing the bank thing and stuff like that. Right. And now this is going on.

Like I said, I never said, if anything, I mean, they did eventually when they revealed the wires. Like I had three, you know, like when you just tell somebody, okay, bro, just leave me alone. I'll see what I can do. I'll see what I can do. But that's about it, right? But I never did anything. So then he calls me one night as I'm leaving the bank.

There happened to be at Chili's right next door. This is in sunrise, right by the Saragrass Mills Mall. And he's like, hey, where he at the Chili's man? You know, crazy got out. These guys now there. They're saying that I'm, they thinking I'm on the cover, like I'm setting them up because I can't seem to deliver with the product, all that other stuff. Like they're threatening. They're going to do some stuff to me and stuff like, I'm like, huh?

Sounds like a you problem. Yeah. So I'm like, but a little bit of my ego and stuff like that, I'm like, they're threatening you. And I'm starting. I understand. I'm like, 20 years old. I'm like, I'll go over there. Let me talk to them.

They ain't going to threaten, you know, like, do they know? you know, like, let me go over there and talk to them and stuff. So when I go over there to the chili and I talk to them and I tell them, look, this is it, I don't know what he's trying, but it's not going down. And you're not going to do nothing to them either. Right. You know, of course they're all in the cover. You know, this isn't going to happen.

All this other. When I leave that Chili's, man, oh, man. I think every table in that Chili's was on the cover. Right. They jumped, I mean, from behind the bar, from on top of the trees. I was even like, who that, like, who are they coming for? I'm even now in the parking lot saying all these, all these black Suburban's pulling up and everybody. And I'm even wondering, wow, who are they getting that?

And it's me. Like, boom, it was, it all happened so quick. They just, they grabbed me, threw me in the back of a suburban, right? And this generally happens to be in like a public, a big shopping thing. And then it just, they threw me in the back of a suburb. bourbon, boom, all those cars, all those people, I don't even know how, as fast as they came, they disappear just as fast. Yeah.

Well, they're trying to grab you because they want to flip you on everybody else. Everybody else. Right. They don't want anybody to see you get thrown in there or be arrested or anything at this point. Or anything, correct. And so now we go to behind the publics. And Matt, you're just, you're right on point. The first thing the undercover DA says is, hey.

You can help yourself out. You still have time. Nobody's going to even know this happened. Yeah. You see how quick we were in and out? Like nobody knows. Don't ruin your life. You got a good.

Now, they don't know really nothing about like what's going on in the bank. They just know because of my dad now, they're like just help us now get to the bigger guys. Yeah. Can you do that? I'm like, I don't even know what you're talking about, bro. I don't even know what's like what's going on. Why am I even here? So he's like, okay, you want to play?

He slams the, you know. He stands the door. And this is when I immediately know. So I'm in the back of one suburban. The guy who's trying to set me up, who brought all this on me is another suburban. Now all of a sudden, they take him out of that suburban,

and they put him in the back with me. Right? So now, and I'm being quiet, and he starts talking, he goes, are you the, so they were right, you're the snake. That's what they were telling me. I can't believe you did this to me,

all this other stuff. And I'm just like putting my finger up saying. Right. And that's when I knew it. I said, damn. This is him. I knew.

I just stayed quiet. I guess when they saw that, right? They came, they pulled him out again. All this other stuff. The undercover comes over again and says, come on, man. We're,

you know, we can throw the book at you here. We got more than enough. I mean, just work with us. No, I know. You know how it is at the beginning. They'll don't make it seem, right?

And I'm like, I'm just staying quiet. I said, I really don't know what you're talking about, all this. I saw, of course, boom, now they take me down to Browd County, Maine, jail. They start, well, they actually put me in an interrogation room first, of course. And it's one interrogation after the other, after the other. My only concern at this time was this. I knew what me, it wasn't, you know, I'm like, this is going to be, this going to play out with a whole lot of hearsay. whatever, all this other stuff.

But my one concern is my brother. I'm like, if they, if they go to my house, we're living together. Oh, yeah, he's here illegally. He's usually, yeah, yeah, false. And he's, and him for, once again, re-entering the, you know, the country, it's a minimum. Right off the rip, five years.

Is it five years? Yeah, I think so. I had a, I had a seven years that got, had five years for re-entry. For re-entry. Yep. I had a celly that, I had a celly that got seven years, he had done,

he shot a guy in the head in Texas, he didn't die. My Sally's name was Victor, by the way. He'd shot a guy in the head who didn't die. He got like 10 or 12 years. It was Texas and for some reason he, maybe it was Arizona, whatever,

some border state. He ended up doing like five or six years on like a, on like a, I think they brought it down to I don't know what it would like manslaughter or something like that they brought it down so he did like does like seven years let's say and he got and on the reentry that's not so I'm wrong on the reentry

he had gotten like I think like 10 years on re is the second time he'd been for reentry second or third time and he had committed a felony came back in and committed felony so he got him more time so he got like 10 years and I remember him saying I'm going to do more time on the reentry on the reentry, then shooting that motherfucker in the head. And I was like, really said, yeah, four months, four extra months. He said, I'm going to do on the reentry with good time and everything. And he's like, this, motherfuckers. And I'm like, what are you doing?

Like, I'm going to go back. I'm coming back. I'm coming back. She's. Yeah. And he worked for the cartel. And I was like, really? Like, what do you?

He's like, ah, dude, I load trucks. I do fucking, I dig holes. I fucking, you know, he's like, they hire tons of us, you know. Yeah. But yeah, he was, he was something else. But yeah, I always thought that they were,

they're not fucking around with the reentry. No, man. I'm telling you. Let me tell you that, that, you know, how to get too political

and stuff like that, but shunning on that border because, man, it's what sometimes we get through there and how many times, well, yeah, it's rough. So, yeah,

some of these guys are not. Come on, stop it. And, but it was so, like, to hire some, a sacadium calling me

to just come here, do a hit real quick and go back. And Mexico was just like, boom, like, Yeah. It's too easy. Like, it was too easy, man.

It was too easy. So your brother, he's sitting at home playing, playing, playing, game boy, right? Or whatever, game boy, whatever. So I'm in the- Not knowing any of this. Yeah. Not what's going on. He's waiting for me to get home for him.

He's waiting for me to get home from work. So I'm in the interrogation going up because this was all about 6 o'clock, right? I'm in the interrogation. So now he's getting work because it's probably about nine. by now nine or 10, right? I'm not picking up. My cell phone's going off like crazy, and it's him. Of course, back then it didn't say a name or not, you know, just the number.

And of course, all the, all the DA are like, hey, is this the guy you were going to buy the kilo from? There's got to be your connect. That's who you were going to go see, right? Why is it keep blowing up your phone? Why is he, you know, so they would show me, they wouldn't let me hold up, but they would show me the number. And I'm like, damn, you know, my brother. So I'm just staying quiet. I'm just staying quiet.

I'm just, you know, I'm not cooperating with nothing, stuff like that. So they finally say, book them. Book him. I know in their mind that he's not even going to last three months. Book them. So a good amount of them leave. I'm left in the, well, it's a small interrogation room. And right next door he had like, I don't know,

it was kind of like open. He had a little desk. And I guess he's starting to type up all the arrest report and all this other stuff. And I see that the phone was left like right on top of the counter. I'm like, man, I got to warm my brother. I don't know if they've hit the house, not, or anything like that. So I ask him, at that moment of time, they had me handcuffed with my handcuffs on the front.

Interrogation and stuff like that. Yeah, there's still being nice to you. There still be a nice to you. And so I ask, could I use the bathroom? And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's one right there. Of course, there's no door so he could see and stuff like that. But he was so busy on his computer. As I walked by, I actually grabbed the cell phone.

And now I'm in the, you know, in the, you know, by the toilet standing up looking like I'm urinating. Yeah. But I'm actually calling my brother. And man, man, you want. The battery dies. The battery dies. But what I'm hoping is maybe he got to hear enough.

I don't know. Or if that happens, you know, we, it's not his first rodeo. Like he knows how to kind of peep, game. Okay. So I get taken down to, to BSO, to the main jail in Broward County. Now, my case was all DEA, so it's Feds, right?

And they wanted to leave me on the state level, which I don't know how they pulled that off, but I did four, my entirety was four years detained in BSO. I should have been in the federal system. Right. But they said that I knew too many people in the federal system, It's only a matter of time. I'll run into somebody or something,

and so they kept me in the state. But now I know. They kept me in the state because it's harder time. To fight your case in the county, in the county jail. Right. Because that's at the end of the day, man, that's what I had four years in county. I fought the case for four years.

So they hit me with conspiracy to traffic. Okay. Right? Just conspiracy. Never seen any drugs. Never sold any drugs. This is never, yeah. Conspiracy to traffic.

That's all, that's what they hit me with and stuff. So I'll finally get booked, right? I'm leaving booking. And, man, as I'm leaving booking, you know, how they have all the holding cells and things like that, my brother's in one of the holding cells. Oh, they went by the house? Yeah, they hit the house. But they don't know he's my brother. Oh, okay.

So now I walk by, I see my brother, which, oh, that was painful, man. And of course, my brother puts his hands on, like, yo, and, you know, we both just said, yo. I'm talking nothing, but now I'm like, man, dang. You know, now this is serious. So I'm like, geez, the rea... For whatever reason, I mean, we know the reason and stuff. They put me and him, so he gets booked too, but under the alias, his name, right? He already began to cut his fingerprints.

Right. So every time they were fingerprinted him, he, he, he, would get a partial match with his real identity, right? But it would be like 40%, 50%, and they needed 90% for it to be like a legitimate match. Right. Right. And he would just keep, and they ended up putting us in the same cell, which we knew, right, you know, like we should have been like co-defendants and, you know, you'd never put

co-defendants in the same cell or whatever, but they did it to say. So we knew that that cell was most likely bugged. Right. Right. So now when the deputies are, you know, taking me to myself, he's already in there. And so we ended up being in there for five days together. Right. And when it, so we would just talk about sports and things like that and never, you know,

stuff like that. Whenever we not talk about just something serious. So, you know, you had the little pencil in the paper. You were a grew up in Puerto Rico? Yeah. You've been to San Juan? It's been to San Juan. Yeah, of course.

It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I learned all about Puerto Rico. And we would just write each. So something important, we were right on a piece of paper, show our, you know, read it, and then we take that paper, crumble it up, and eat it and swallow it. And then finally they broke us up, but they would always come back to him, you know, and say, hey, you know, we got to do reprints.

because it would always a partial match but we knew we only had a matter of time we only had a matter of time you know before it's going to get to that 90% because one thing is okay he messes up you know

two fingers these three have you know have a a 100% match but now these two so eventually then these two are going to be good he can't you know like it's we only had a matter of time

yeah and stuff so now but we are being treated as co-defendant so he's going to court on his one thing, and I'm going to court on my other one. This is where it gets a little legal and stuff like that. I'm thinking, how am I going to get them out of this? But I did come up, I said, well, they want me to talk, right? Let me, I started, you know, you're in there.

You talk to other people who have been in there, and you start kind of learning the system, which that's where I think my dad went a little bit wrong, as smart as he is. Should have learned how the system and played the system. You know, that's one thing I did do. I learned the system and I said, okay, I'm going to talk. So then I said, I told my lawyer back then I had a, he, actually my case made him,

he was a recent state prosecutor. We just turned to a defense lawyer and I was his first case. And that case put him on after that. He does really good. And so now, so I tell him, yeah, let's, let's, I'll be willing to cooperate, but under one condition. you know that you got to let my roommate go. Right.

You got to let him go. I mean, he doesn't deserve this. The guy just came in like, he moved in two weeks ago. You got to let him go. And of course they're like, well, why you care so much about it? You know, I'm like, doesn't deserve it. You want me to talk? You want me to start, you know, all this other stuff?

Let him go. Let him go. You got to let him go. That's my only condition. And they went, they okay. They started signing off. We're going to, boom. The next day I call my lawyer, verify me.

He goes, yeah, yeah, your roommate. My lawyer didn't know it was my brother. Right. Went back to Puerto Rico. He goes, yeah, yeah. They released them. He's been released on conditional, you know, monitoring and stuff like that. He's got to check in.

But he knew the game. He knew. He knew. He knew exactly what he did, you know. Once they told me, he was out, and I verified it on the street. Yeah. You know, and that he was no long. in in Florida per se right now it was it was my turn right now they had like okay you know

who you know they started bringing in pictures of people and who do you know where can we start how what what case can we and all this other stuff now by that time on the 45 day I don't know a little bit about law the 45 day speedy speedy trial law Florida because I had a two million dollar bond. Okay. So I know there's a, I know there's a speedy trial law. I didn't know 45 days. Is that enough in the state?

In the state. Okay. And since they put me in the state, exactly. So they put it in there because you can't have a high bond, $2 million where you can't bond out. And you also can't just sit in jail all day. They need to file formal charges. Yeah.

And I kept checking every day and they would never, yeah, they arrested me under conspiracy to traffic, but there was never no, I would check every day and there was no formal charges filed, no formal charges. fault, which means there's no discovery. There's no formal charges, no formal charges. So I tell my lawyer, hey, we're coming up to that 45-day thing here. I'm in here 43 days.

He even said, what? He goes, you're right. He goes, I'm going to put in a motion for your, you know, for a speedy trial, which now, because they haven't, they haven't filed formal charges. Right. So they can't keep me with a high bond. It's basically to protect you from

sitting in. Yeah, yeah. You can't just hold me under no charges. No, yeah. I mean, you're accusing me of this, but let me see the, you know, why. Right. And we go to court. I'm in Rock Corp down in BSO because, you know, minimum mandatories. I was facing anywhere minimum amount 15 to 30 years. All this. I'm on Rock Court, which is one of the toughest judges, and he granted the speedy trial motion. So what, they have two days? No, they had an oral army released on my own recognises. Oh, okay. had to by law.

And I remember in court, when my lawyer runs over, he goes, what do you want to eat for dinner tonight? And I'm like, no, why? What happened? You know, things sometimes happen so quickly. Yeah. And I'm kind of just learning like the legal jargon and all this other. Not my experience, but for people that are lucky.

And now he's like, that's it. Yeah. It doesn't drop the charges. Yeah, yeah. It just means they can't hold. You know, they got to let me go. They can't hold me. They have it.

And he's like, yeah, I'm going to call your family, man. You're going home. You know, what? I couldn't believe it. But, man, I will tell you this, those 45 days hardened me. I was, and I had made some connections, and I had now learned. 45 days hardened him. No, no, no, well, not hard to be it that way.

But I mean, harder me to be, to be more evil, like, you know, to be more conniving. Yeah. Was the bank job still waiting for you? Oh, no. No. No. They raided the bank the next day. Did they?

Yeah. After my arrest, they raided. And they questioned everybody. And everybody, they were like, no. Like, never nothing suspicious. They were like, no, no, no. I never caught a charge on the line or on the nothing, nothing. Nothing, nothing.

All they had me now was on this conspiracy with this guy, right? I get all reward. I think I'm going home. I'm supposed to go home. Oh, so you're not. Get back to the cell. Give away all the comments. You know how it is, waiting for them to just say, pack it up, Carmona.

But like I said, I'm already in my head. I'm like, oh, my, right? Nothing. Two in the morning, three in the morning. Two in the morning. You got to know it's over. Oh, no, no. You're hoping the mic is just going to say, Carmona, pack it up.

Because they're going to let you go. They might come get you at four or five in the morning, though. They might do that. Wake your ass up. Yeah, you never. Like 10 in the morning the next day, I call my lawyer. He's like, what are you still doing in there? I said, I don't know.

They have him call me. He's like, what? He goes, call me back in an hour. Call him back in an hour. This is where Tampa's going to get interesting. Call me back in an hour. Call him back in an hour. He goes, you won't believe this, man.

He ain't getting out. I said, what happened? He goes, they filed another trafficking charge for you in Hillsborough County, Florida. He goes, what have you done it? I said, I don't know nobody in Hillsborough. Happened to be. It was the original case of the guy who tried to set me out. So to hold me, the DA asked the state,

yo, we need some time. Don't release this guy. And they put me into the guy who set me up's case about trafficking 10 kilos up here in Hillsborough County. And I didn't know nobody. Right. But it was not to release me. They didn't want me to go.

Which now, I mean, things happen. So two weeks later, I'm on that white van man coming over here to Hillsborough County. I remember being booked in. Orient Road jail. Orient Road. Been there many, many times. Not for my own. Well, I have been there on my own,

but I also, to drop off money to Zach. Fucker. And then I, the Vulcanburg, he sent me to Falkenberg. Been there many times. But man,

let me tell you, I didn't know. And on this one, I had a discovery because those charges had been formally filed on that case. But, you know,

the guy turned informant. And as I'm reading the discovery, I'm like, where's my name in there? Like, where is all of this? But all they did was they bought time. Hillsboro lent itself to, so the DA, the statewide, because I had a statewide prosecutor now.

Right. Because now it was like two different. There was a case in Broward County, and there's a case in Hillsborough County. And I have a statewide prosecutor, but it gave them time now to get together and file formal charges for me in Broward County. Okay.

So I only served in Hillsborough County like almost like four months. And then Broward County refiled the charges finally. Right. And they brought me back to Broward County to face that conspiracy. By now all this is going on about about eight, nine months of me being detained as has gone by. And in total, four years, Matt. You sitting there four years to fight in the case? Because all they would do.

is every, they would kept, they kept asking for a continuance, the state, and all they would do is every six months, just come visit me, are you ready to talk? Are you ready to cooperate? No, okay. And I guess they never figured, they probably said I would last that long in counting, but four years and they would go periodically to my mom and dad also. Are you ready to cooperate to help your son out? Right. And of course they, neither of them would cooperate or nothing. But yeah, they would go. My dad told me, yeah, they say, oh, now it's your youngest son. Not even for your youngest son?

Your youngest son's facing 30 years. My dad told him, well, he knows what he did. Why are you coming to me for that, you know? Right. And, yeah, so in four years. So they're four years detained in county fighting the case because, of course, a $2 million bond. Right. So what happened after four years?

So after four years, we're going like every six months. and I'm with the same judge. And this is where like redemption or God comes in. Thankfully in Hillsborough County, this is why I needed to come to Hillsborough County. Hillsborough County is where that hard and heart I was telling you, how I got, but I didn't know nobody in Hillsborough County. I didn't know, no.

So now I'm not getting visits. I'm not getting nothing. I actually have a problem with one of my cellies. It's a different world than Hillsboro because most, most of the deputies in South Florida, Spanish, African-American, things like that. Talking in the 2000s in Hillsborough County, most of the guards are white. Yeah. Red X.

Right, yeah. Good old boys. Good old boys. And, you know, they'll look out for their own good old boys that happen to be, you know, in a jumpsuit. Right. And stuff. So my first Selly, when I was in Fulginber, well, actually in Orient, happened to be

some, you know, some guy from Alabama. and all this. And he started making this ruckus in the cell at night. He started just yelling like obscenities through the door. Ah, you're that saying nothing. If I catch you on the street, I'll whoop you and all this. You just hide behind your badge and all. And I'm just, I'm in the top bunk just like, oh, man, like, this guy's going to, like, get

it or whatever. When the, when the guard comes over and opens, you know, opens the door, they blame it on me. It tells me to step out of the, you know, and the guard happens also to be. you know, like a redneck and stuff and starts asking me, is that you making all that ruckus boy? That you? And as he's talking, he's like spitting in my face

and all that. And you know, the first rule. All the other ones are looking through the door. Did you fuck that that fucking redneck bubble? He's talking shit. He said some stuff about your mother earlier. Yeah. And I was like, no.

He's like, well, then who's doing it? And I said, I don't know. There's only two of us in the cell. Yeah. If it ain't me. Does it sound like my voice? He wanted me to like, point. And that would have been, you know how that.

Yeah, then everybody hates you. Then everybody I must make, all this other stuff. I get 10 days no for that. And that's where, man, I get broken. I am broken, man. In that whole... Ten days? I get 10 days in the whole.

No, but at first I was in the whole, I did 45 days. You do 45 days? Yeah. What did you do? Huh? What did I do? Oh, it came out in the front page. that I had bribed a Hillsborough County, a city council member.

He actually was a commissioner by then, but when he was a city council member, I had bribed him. And so it came out that I had bribed him. And so the guards thought I was in trouble. So they interviewed my lawyer and they said, so this guy had been, they interviewed my lawyer and they said when Mr. Cox was first spoke with the FBI, the first person they asked him about what, and the guy's name was Kevin White. First person they asked him about was Kevin White, which was he was a counselor, I mean, a commissioner, city commissioner. So he was probably already being watched. That's kind of like maybe, you know, no, they had a case against

it. Exactly. But so they, so the reporter, they said that. So in this whole article about how Kevin, how I had given like $25,000 or something like that to Kevin White. To his campaign. I'd given this money to him. And so, okay, fine. They're saying he's involved with Cox is what they're saying. And which is fine. That's fine.

But then when they talked to my lawyer, she's like, FBI or Mr. Cox was helping cooperate with this guy or with the FBI against this guy. And so, you know, the, the, the prison sees that, the newspaper. It's front page. They read it. It's got my fucking picture on the front page. So now they got that. And so they read that and said, oh, no. They throw me in the shoe for 45 days.

And then when I'm in the shoe, it took them about 45 days before they came to see me. Yeah, you couldn't be in general population. Yeah, that's what that. And they were like, you know, listen, you know, this is bad. I was like, I was like, bro, I said, listen, if you scream snitch on this compound, half the fucking compound is going to turn around and look at you. And he goes, it's much worse than that. He said, trust me, 50%. He said, it's way worse than that. He said, but still, you could be in trouble. Are you worried? I said, I'm not worried at all. I said, we could ship you. I said, I don't want to get

shipped. My mom lives down the fucking street. No. So he's like, all right, well, I'm going to, I'll get you out of here. I'm going to put you back in general population. I said, okay. I said, well, was that like the end of the day? Oh, no, no. He's that would be another week or or so. Like, I was like, fuck. 10 days Yeah, yeah, now I go Give me 45 days before I even knew what, no, it was about 30 days,

about 30, 30, 35 days before I They talked to me And then I was another five or 10 days before So it was about 45 days total I did And wow Yeah, but listen to our shoe You had a shower in the shoe And you had a bat

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I only had towards the end of my thing. I only had one or two roommates the whole time. I was 30 days before I even had a roommate. Yeah. Compared to Broward County? Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, that's a luxury.

One time up here, I had one man sell. I didn't even have a cell. Oh, nice. What are you talking about? What are you complaining about? No, once I finished the 10 days. Oh, okay. Because this is what would start happening.

In my case, a lot of the debts would start looking at, like, my rap sheet. And even they would start asking, what are you doing? Like, you should be in the feds. Like, and of course, like, you know, like they would think, they would think, oh, his dad. And they would know, like, they would look up, I guess, what was on then. They're like, man, your dad's in jail, your mom's in jail. And like all the, so the word usually on the compound was like that I was this, you know, like this huge, not going stuff like that, which that was me. That's my dad and stuff.

But it carried it, you know, and it helped me out. Why aren't you in the feds? Why aren't they? Because money laundering, I mean, there are state money laundering charges. Mm-hmm. But why do you think they're not bringing you to the feds? Do you think it's just because you said it's just harsher time? You thought that it was easier to break me.

Yeah. And they used the excuse that I had too many people who I knew in the federal system. And it's only a matter of time I'm going to, you know, like run into somebody or something like that. Okay. And that's why I think, and that's why the judge allowed them to keep me in the state level. But I know the state level was he's not going to last three months. Right. Because everybody tells me, look, I never went to prison.

Yeah. Never, you know, stuff. but everybody got, so I'm doing four years in county. And you don't know how many times guys will come in there, get like a one year, two year bid, get out, commit another crime, come, and I'm still in there. Yeah. And they would be like, Carmona, how are you still?

Bro, I'd be crazy. You have no wreck here. You have no this. The food is really bad. Four years of that. But man, God just gave me that piece. And that's in that 10, in that 10 day that they put me in the hole up here in Hillsborough, I had no personal property.

They didn't allow me. All I could do keep in there was a Bible. Oh, yeah, okay. That's no good. I was able to read. I was reading like a book every other day. I was reading nonstop. Yeah.

No, that's all they allowed me to have when I was in the solitary, right? When I got back out, yeah, of course, they gave me back all my property and all this other stuff, but in there. But, man, that was the blessing, man, because, and I was never raised to be spiritual or not. My dad's an atheist, actually pretty much until still, until. to this day, I never, I was, I was broken, man. Just thinking, I'm figuring I'm going to get now. I'm thinking I'm when, now I'm up here, now I'm in the hole.

And I'm spiritually, like, just broken, broken. And I finally just humbled myself and said, you know, if this is true, you know, this, this is where I can really need you. And I just started reading the Bible, man, and my life changed, man. I didn't start my thinking, just my life changed. And when I got out of those 10 days and things, I just, man, I felt peace. I just felt a different way. I actually was able to finally forgive my parents.

You know, I carried a lot of that. All those years, I carried a lot of that resentment and things. And I wanted to always blame this is happening to me because of them. Right. You know, which in reality, in a way, indirectly. It sounds pretty much like it is. indirectly, but I also put myself in certain situations for these things to, you know, come around me. And that's what the bio helped me to start recognizing, looking inside of me and seeing just how evil and wicked I was, you know?

I want to sit there and say, oh, at least I'm not putting, you know, dope and stuff out on the streets and all this other stuff. But, man, I'm helping facilitate, you know, all this other. And it just, it just has changed my life, man. And ever since then, man, I've just a different man. It's just a different man. So if that's what it took, if like that's the purpose, you know, to get, for God to get my, because he searched for me. I didn't search for him.

But if that's what it took me going to Hillsborough and for all over to go through this, for me to finally acknowledge my evil ways, then glory be to him, man, thankfully. That he did it because who knows, if I, if I didn't change, I probably would have. If I would have got out on that ROR, oh, no, man, I would have been, I probably would have caught a bigger chart. Like I'm telling, I came out now with more evil intentions in my mind. And knowing a little bit now how the system works

and how the informants and all this and what they can do and all that kind of having about, you know, those 45 days to kind of see all that and how it works on the inside and all this, and you're going to let me out. And nothing on the bank went down. Of course, I won't be able to go back to work at the bank and all this other stuff. So imagine what would I logically probably have done?

I don't know. Murdered someone? No, probably gotten into a life of crime. Oh, okay. Like I myself selling, how is what I would be making a living? What I'm saying? I wouldn't have been able to. You know, there's other jobs.

Yeah, but now, you know, I have that open case. I mean, it's going to be on my record. Right. So four years, how does it resolve itself? they drop the charges? So after four years, right? The judge now, he keeps seeing me. So it's every six months.

And this judge, he's in a wheelchair, Kaplan. And he's now, it's like, God touches his heart. Like, before he used to look at me, like, you know, and of course the state would say, oh, and you should see who his dad is, and all this, all this, all this, all there, and of course, okay, because he would never lower the bond. Yeah. How many times we put in a motion for reduction of bond than nothing?

Finally, he's like, look, what is, It's almost four years. You keep asking for a continuance. He doesn't want to cooperate. What are the facts? Let me get the discovery. All this other. Let's proceed forward.

Yeah. Monday, we either go to trial. We start trial. Right? But then all of a sudden, now the state starts producing. And all they had, they had edited.

They had a bunch of conversations. But all the conversations were I'm telling him, no, they'll come in here. Like even when he came into the bank with the undercover, None of those were nothing. They just had three recordings of me on the phone saying, yeah, let me see what I can do.

Right. Call me tomorrow, all this other stuff. But they were also following me for two weeks, right? So the judge asked them, let me review. So he took a recess. He goes, I'm going to review one. He wanted to review the logs of when they were. Because the DA then came, said, oh, no, the honor, we also have logs.

We followed him for two weeks prior to his detainment. We have a whole bunch of, you know, incriminating and all this. So he says, okay, let's all take a recess. Because he was adamant now that this is going to get resolved now, or we start trial Monday. Right. Right. He takes the recess. He comes back like 30 minutes later.

We're all back in there. So he goes over the log. He goes, what incriminating? All I read there is that you followed him to work. From work to the gym. From gym to public. from here to here. I don't see nothing, nothing incriminating.

So they're just like, where, where? Like, why did you even raid his house? And one of the de-agents said, oh, we had a gut feeling. I mean, look at the family history. What would you think? I mean, why wouldn't we and all this? And God touches his heart. You know what he told him?

He said, well, the law doesn't work with gut feelings. Yeah. And now he threw out all the evidence. He threw out all the evidence. They couldn't even use the recordings or nothing. the norm. He threw, he goes, there was no read. He goes, I don't see nothing. He didn't. He hasn't done anything. Right. So, so by now, now the state starts coming, okay, well, they, they, they tell my Lord, what he do seven years with four years, time served. Well, he takes,

and I'm like, no, no, no, 10 years probation. All that. I'm four years, so I know how they, you know, how all, you know, and I say, here. So I give my lawyer the man, they're not going to suspend my license. I'm not doing. probation. I'm not doing, I'll plead no contest, but all of this has to happen. If not, I'm ready for trial on Monday, which now sometimes I regret, man. I should have just taken it to try. I don't see how, but on a conspiracy, exactly. You don't know who's on that jury. And if the jury is made up of average, decent, hardworking citizens, that means that they're not that smart because the average American is just not that sharp of a person. Like the jury should

not be made up of your peers because your peers are just not that sharp. They believe anything the government says. Correct. They believe anything the government say. If you're sitting at that table, 90% of them think, oh, well, they arrested him. He's got to be guilty of something. Like, that's just what they think. Exactly. So it's really up to you to prove that, you know, that the government's lying. And they don't want to believe that. Nobody wants to believe the government's lying. Yeah. They put up four informants that all said that he bought drugs.

There are no drugs. There's no photos. There's no tapes. There's no nothing. Yeah, but the government said, it's like, oh, fuck, we're done. You're done. And of course, you know, they'll put the informant on the stand. Oh, no, no, they're all going to say you bought, you bought and sold drugs.

You were helping laundering money. You were at all the big meetings. You were on the jets. You were flying around. You've got a palatial mansion in, in cartel territory somewhere in, you In Mexico right now, or no, sorry, in Colombia right now, you're, you know, like, it's like, the fuck is going on. It doesn't matter.

They'll believe it. And, you know. Yeah. So I sold them. I said, I'll plead no contest under these conditions. My lawyer even said, man, now you're pushing it, bro. I don't know. I saw this.

He came back. He said, yeah. Now, I remember the statewide prosecutor. So we agreed to it. I remember she comes over. What was her name? Catherine something. She comes over and she warns me.

She goes. if you ever, ever, as far as a conspiracy for a grandma, anywhere in the United States, because she actually came, this one came specifically from Washington, D.C., he says, I will personally put you away for life. She was like, you got, I don't remember those words, I was like, okay, but four years, I pleaded no contest, time served, and all this, and I got out.

I took four years. then those four years, it was a blessing. Like I said, it was a blessing. I, you know, gave my life to God and started doing Bible studies and English and Spanish. That's what I kept my time doing in there. That's how I kept myself busy. You know, just doing the routine exercise, wrote the book Zeal. Right.

Because what I would do in there is I would write poetry. I started actually writing poetry for the guys and stuff like that and all this. Let me just say my time was also a little bit easier because when I went down, I was never married no kids, nothing like that. So, plus both my parents are also locked up, so I don't got to worry about their well-being. My brother's the one that now he's out. He actually, so he actually, he gets another name.

Right. And he goes to Alaska to work on the fishing boats. Yeah. He goes, he works there, hustle for like, you know how those, you go out for like three or four months, you don't pay no food or not? All you got to do is have a valid social. Yeah.

You know, they don't care. And most of those, that's what they, most of those guys are whatever. So, but. I think there's, where there's two kinds of, what was the person said in that movie, there was a movie called Insomnia and the chick, this chick in the movie, the police officer says, you born here? And she goes, no, she said, I came here. Really, you came up here?

And she said, yeah. And he goes, why, why did you come up here? And she said, there's only two people that come. come to Alaska. Those that are, like those that are, like, I don't know what they, she said something like those that, you know, are escaping their past. Correct. Or those people that are looking for adventure, something like that.

There are two kinds of people who live in Alaska, the ones who are born here and the ones who come here to escape something else. I wasn't born here. I wasn't born here. That's what she says, yeah. That's great. Yeah, that's great. I hate to say, it's a great line, but I couldn't remember it.

But yeah, it was a great line. So now you will believe what happened to him. He's in Alaska. Been doing that for two years. So remember, he's got a whole other identity. And you won't believe this, man. So he, you know, so you go out for like two or three months. And when you come back in, they weigh the amount of whatever the catch is and stuff.

And then they divided amongst the crew and all that. And it could be anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000. Yeah. You know, so he gets off. And I guess that name, that other identity that he got, from, you know, being a, from a Puerto Rican stuff, it looks like somebody else was using that name and never an owed back, the IRS back taxes.

So that whole check gets garnished. He gets off the plate. I mean, he gets off the boat and that whole check gets garnished, man. And so now he's like, well, I can't keep using this name. Yeah. And by then, now you got to understand now by then,

9-11 has happened, all of it, and that connection, with the papers. Yeah. They actually, you know, I had to mention this,

they actually, there was a time because, you know, 9-11 is 2001. I go in in 2000. There was a time when the DA

didn't even want me now to work for the, you know, to turn in narcos. They wanted to know to give them who was giving me the papers.

Okay. Because they eventually, guess what, they eventually, they got the match and they knew he was my brother. Okay.

But he was already long gone. It took like a year later, they came back and they sat me down and they were like, we knew now that that roommate was your brother. And he looked familiar. And he, you know, they wanted to know the driver's licenses and the birth certificate. They're like, who's who wears it? And they said, forget about turning an article. How about these people on this side?

Of course, I didn't work with them on nothing, stuff like that. But so now when my brother gets garnished, there was that connection. I had fought after two. It was, it was done. Like, it's too hard now. Oh, you were, I guess you were doing it a little bit different. I guess you were, when you said you were making up the identities and stuff like that. I mean, sometimes it was, they were synthetic identities.

And sometimes they were homeless people. So I'm just, there's really identity theft, but you're still in the identity of some guy who's living in the woods behind a Walmart, you know, so you can basically use it forever, right? Like he's not, if he gets arrested, it's for, you know, it's for being drunk in public. They hold them for 10 days and then they just release them. They don't even put these guys on probation. So you can be three states away and have four houses and be paying his tax, paying taxes under his name and everything else. And you have a driver's license, a passport, everything.

He's never going to, you know, the only thing is is he's probably going to pass away before you. you. So what you really have to do is find that guy and lure him to a house somewhere where you've got a grave dug in the back and then just shoot him in the head and drop him in the grave. And then you don't have to worry about him dying. You can just take over his identity. I mean, I heard. Oh, true. Yeah, because then we know desert and stuff like that way. Then you have to worry about him getting arrested for something. Or there's a warrant out for you because he's, you know. Yeah. And then you plant like a dead dog above him. You build about three feet of dirt and then you put a dead dog above that.

And then above that you put like some some tree, some, some endangered tree on top of him with a little plaque that says endangered cypress, you know. With a gopher turtle. He put some endangered birds and a bee, some endangered beesness hanging from the tree. Never dig here. Oh, bad. But yeah, so by then, yeah, there was a. Good amount of time where they now were just harassing me about the, you know, how do you get these papers?

And because after 9-11, the 2001, they were really worried about terrorism. And terrorism and stuff like that. So when that happened, my brother, you know, that Connect was no longer there to do that. I mean, he just went back through Mexico and went back to Columbia. Been there ever since. Happy. But now, Beijing's changed a lot. I mean, Gene ain't what it used to be.

So, you know, speaks good. English, all this. So he's happy now. He's happy there. He says, I don't need to come back to the U.S. for nothing. Hey, Gene. I wonder if you were, if you got a plane ticket in someone that's illegal in that country to go back to the country, would they stop you and arrest you or would they let you

get on the plane and go? Like, ultimately, this is what we're going to, what's happening. Do we circumvent that three-year ICE? I think they do that. I sentence or do we just let this guy's obviously going back? Like do, would they let it to go back or they go ahead? Nope, got to grab you and put you through the whole system. Or do they just let him fly back?

Like if he had jumped. Maybe like self-deport in a way and then when if he tries to come back in. Yeah. I've been here in five extra years. I made a mistake. Didn't realize I was head overstep. My boundaries by that much and or my visa by that much time. I'm ready to go back.

No, no. There's a warrant. We're going to take you. No, no. I'm going back. I would think that probably not. They probably grab you arrest you three years later. You're back at the same airport,

getting on the same plane going, Jesus. Yeah. So, yeah, I could see why you would go through Mexico to get back to Columbia. Yeah. So he goes back to Colombia. So, yeah, so now my case, probably after four years in county jail

finally gets resolved by the grace of God. And, you know, my life has changed. So whatever happened with your mom and dad, like when did they get out? Are they still? Oh, yeah. So my mom, yeah, my mom gets out in 2003. Okay. And then my dad gets out in 2008.

They reconnecting, of course. They're both deported. Oh, okay. Yeah, they can't come back here no more. But right as of right now, they've divorced. They've separated everything. And, you know, they've gone their ways. Okay.

You know, I still go to Columbia from period. time to time three or four months because my brother too is down there and stuff and but yeah everybody's retired there's can't say they there's enough to live lavishly right how they use and stuff but enough to live comfortably and let me tell you um it my my dad's hardcore silence it it took a lot look how many years i mean he's been out since oh wait he finally gave me the green light to talk about certain things and to even get green light from people down there. And actually he's always been against it.

But at the end of the day, he says it is your life. You didn't choose it. You know, go ahead and do it now. And that's, you know, part of igniting the fire now to publish it as he's also kind of giving me the green light, you know, a mumbling green light because to him he's that hardcore old mentality. you just, you know, you don't show and tell. This thing, when I get out, so we were talking about that earlier before the podcast,

and that's when the mortgage boom was happening. Oh, okay. And all this, because now it's 2004. It's kind of like just took me two years, but yeah, I started doing mortgages and flipping homes and things like that. So a little bit based on your testimony, I related to some of those things. And I actually remember never did, never false. I'm telling you, God's changed my heart.

I don't want to get even close to anything like that. But what I did do on certain properties that I would flip was pull out the equity to fix them at the closing. So like what you said, you know, I'd go to the owner, somebody who's distressed or a divorce or whatever. Hey, I'll buy it right now for $80,000. I know it appraises for $150.

Yeah. You know, I can get a loan for like maybe $130. So there's $50. It's going to cost me maybe back then $20,000 to renovate it. Yeah. You know, so then I've, in the front end, I pocketed 20, and hopefully when I'll sell it, maybe I make another 10. And that's, and pretty much that's what I did until, of course, the market crash. Yeah.

And stuff, and then all of that. And then now, I own a car dealership. I've been doing that for 14 years. Where's the cartilage? And Palmino Beach. Oh, yeah. Pompano Beach, Florida. And I've been in that business, and God's been good with that.

So it started off very, very slow. well, small, you know, to a little office and no parking. And now I have, you know, it's like an 80 car lot and stuff. And just been grinding it out in that. 80 cars. Yeah, that's a good size. That's pretty good, don't you think? Isn't that a good size?

Listen, I don't know a guy who makes a good living flipping like 10 cars. He's not a year, but he's constantly got. like eight to ten cars, listen to what he does. I'm sure you know people like this. Like they put them, he's got people where he puts it like in the parking lot. He knows people that they have businesses and he'll put a vehicle there. He buys your vehicle. It never goes in his name.

Correct. Right. So he puts the vehicle out there. And then he, he details the hell out of it, cleans it up, you know, as much as he can. And then he puts it on all the apps, the free apps and everything, whatever. puts them on the app and then sells it. You know, his goal is to make like $1,000. But he's always got like 10 of them going.

Yeah. You know, all the time. He's always got 10 of them out there. And this is all, that's all he does. He's a hustler. I'm, I'm, I'm sure he's making $100, $150,000 a year just doing that. By law, you can only put three cars a year in your name. In your name.

That's why he leaves them open. Yeah, he leaves them open title. He explained that to me. I was like, what? Mm-hmm. Yeah, but there's a lot of. Yeah, there's a lot of people that that's the hustle and things like that. So I've been doing that for 14 years, got into that.

If you're doing it legitimately, you're showing up business. With finance, A lot of, yeah, and all that stuff, yeah. And sometimes I think, I think about, man, why didn't I know about this dealership? Because, man, you could have longered a lot of money through a deal. Yeah. But no, nowadays, sometimes I'm like, Lord, forgive me, man. He's just already thinking about. There's always some guy out there who's taking cash for the vehicle.

You know what I'm saying? Like we'll take a chunk of cattle that will like work with the local kind of drug dealers. You know what I'm saying? Those guys. And those guys do great for like three, four years. And then at some point somebody gets busted. And always I know. Yeah.

Suddenly the DEA is like, how are you driving a $30,000 vehicle? How did you pay for this? Oh, yeah. The guy down the street, he does this for everybody. Really? Yeah. Yeah. It's no good.

It's no good. It's no good. It always seems good until you're standing in front of a judge. Correct. You know, and you're just like, Okay, I'm going to lose my dealership. I'm going to lose my house. I'm going to lose everything.

I'm going to be out in like 10 years, starting over from scratch with nothing. And for 10 years, I'm going to be thinking, what did I do? I could have made a 100,000 a year, legit, but no, I had to make 150, and now lose 10 years and start over now. Even before the dealership,

I opened up a barbershop, and I always thought, you know what? You know, you look at super cuts, but I was like, man, I could conquer the urban world. There's not like a super cuts for the urban style, but kind of like what you said, it's a whole cash business. And then most of the good barbers in the urban world are street guys.

Right? You know, in a barbers shop, let's say you have eight barbers, two of them are serious about it. There's the profession. They make good money. Then the other ones, yeah, they know how to cut hair, but at night they're partying it, then this and that. And it was going very good for me.

but now you start hearing about in the barbershop everybody from all walks of life going to a barbershop yeah right so you so you have your you're you know the the high um drug dealer the street level guys the this the that that you start hearing your barbers are selling wheat out the back of the store or all and i just said man i can't take this risk yeah they're once somebody's stupidity and then, and like I'm saying, I'm not, it's not, I'm just saying, you just, you know, or you never know when that one customer comes in there who, the DA's watching, all of a sudden they run my name and, oh, this guy again. He's the ringleader.

He's the ringleader. He's the ringleader. Oh, my. And I just said, duh, I got to get far, you know, and it was, it was good. It was good. You know, lucrative cash, nice. Nice. I'm not going to say it was life changing.

Yeah. But I was like, man, if I could, with one, I could only imagine I had, at 10 of these. At the end of the month, each one's make $2,000 a month cash on each one. It's a lot of management. It's a lot of management. But it's a lot of management. But that's what I mean. The thing that's scared, I said, no, eventually somebody's going to do something dumb.

And somehow I'm going to be, I just already had that bad taste in my mouth. And so I sold that. And, yeah, I got into the car business. And when I wrote Zeal, so this book, what is, what is Zeal? So zeal is actually a word that God uses in the Bible. Okay. It means passion or desire. Yeah.

And God always asks in the Bible, like there's a scripture in Romans chapter 10, verse 2, where God says, people have zeal for me, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. And that, when I would read the Bible, that word always stuck in my head. Zeal, I just like it just stuck out, but it basically means passion or desire. Okay. So like before, me and you both, we had. a zeal for what? The love of money. When the Bible said, the love of money is the root of all evil, right?

I always wanted to come up with a different way to make money. And now my zeal is, you know, is that. God said, I wish they would have a zeal for me, like how we have zeal for other things in life. And so that always stuck out with me. And it's been close. 17 years ago, during the time when I was doing the mortgages and things like that, just being connected, you start meeting one person or another and stuff.

Simon & Schuster almost published. book and it got also greenlit with Lionsgate to be made into a screenplay for a possible movie and everything. But then the market crashed, the same 2008, 2009. And, you know, that affected a lot, you know, a lot of banks. And now they didn't have the funding necessary to continue and it got scrap. So that was 17 years ago. That's when I kind of put zeal up kind of in the shelves and said, what am I going to do now and started the car dealer business. And now 2025 was like the slowest year in the car business. And my 14 years has been as slow, but weird how God works.

And it's giving me the time. And I just, I picked Zeal back up. And it was already pre-headed and everything. And I just, now you have social media exist back then, none of that and all this. And here I am talking to you, man. Unbelievable how. And this has happened, has transpired in just in a matter of what, five or six months. You've been on here, Johnny Mitchell.

Johnny Mitchell, the Connect. Yeah. What's, I want to say, Honor Among Thieves. I almost said, Dinner Thieves. Honor Among Thigs with Nelson Rodriguez. You know, he's South Florida boy just like me and stuff like that, trying to, you know, doing his thing.

And I am. Any other ones? Yeah, in April, I got another one out in San Francisco called The Pool. It was actually like number two last year. And now the Christian podcast. are starting to catch wind a bit and things like that. So it's in God's hands. Hopefully it'll one day because the story,

I've only told, what I've told here, Matt, is only up to chapter 20 in the book. And there's 52 chapters in the book. There's 32 more chapters to go. That's even crazier stuff. Because like I tell you, in the narco world, I mean, I have aunts that were even bigger than my dad in the game and stuff. Nobody no more.

Nobody no more. Everybody's done their thing, tired and stuff like that. But I always say there's going to be prequalls or things like this. But that's what I'm saying. But what I've led up to here right now is up to only chapter 20 of the book. And there's still 32 more chapters to go. I try not to talk too much about the. violence and things like that, but that's in the book. I'll leave it for people to, but at the end of

the day, it is a story of redemption. It is how God in the midst of this whole narco world can still even redeem somebody raised in all of that and how God can still rescue somebody in all that was deep, deep, deep into that, not wanting to me. We don't pick who our parents are. Right. You know, you're born into it. That I, would I want it? No, but it's the life and now I own up to it. not ashamed of it. You know, I don't glorify it anymore or anything like that by all means. But God now put me in this situation. And if hopefully this allows me a platform now to go and help somebody else change their life,

then glory be to him. Because that's, in my church now, that's what I do. I'm part of a prison ministry. And I go back into the prisons and help the guys. And if there's somebody that they really listen to, because when I go in there and I tell them, well, My dad's been in prison, my mom's been in prison, my brother's been in prison, I've been in prison there. All these, they're like, dang, well, they'll listen.

Right. You know, it's, it's coming from experience. You know, so, and that's, and that's, that's my motivation now is to, is to, it's, that's my calling. God has called me to go into those barrios and those hoods and the prisons and talk to these people, man. He's put a zeal for me for that. And so it's, it's, it's opening. doors and I don't know where it's going to end or how far it's going to take me, but he lit that fire. After 17 years, that's five months ago. He lit that fire now for me, myself, to publish

the book. And let's see what happens. Hey, you guys, I appreciate you watching. Do be a favor. Hit the subscribe button and think a bell. So hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this. Also, if you want to read the book Zeal or get in touch with Christian, we are going to leave all of those links in the description box. So you can go there. You can click on the link by the book. click on the link and you can get in touch with Christian. I'm sure that there's some kind of an email system or something there where you can email them or leave a message.

Also, if you want to be a guest, we're also going to leave our link to our website. So you can be a guest. You can go on our website. You can click the Be a Guest, fill out a form, leave a short video. We will get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you very much. See you. Do you love dogs?

Of course you do. So join me, Rich Napolitano. and listen to the Dogon History Podcast. When you talk to someone about their dog, you have probably seen the sparkle in their eye, heard the joy in their voice, and felt the love in their heart. People, including me,

talk about their dogs like their children, because that is how we see them. They are members of our families, our households, and they give us joy that enriches our lives. We have come to know and love chihuahuas, beagles, and German shepherds, and all the dogs that have been at our side as our best friends. But they weren't always as we,

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