Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Buying Illegal Firearms as an Undercover ATF Agent

Episode Date: June 4, 2023

Buying Illegal Firearms as an Undercover ATF Agent

Hey, listen, the stuff's inside, but these guys don't want to bring it out. So I go out here. Normally what you do, he should wrap it up. You bring in the car real quick and we're done. I get the hell out of here, right? And he said, but he wants to come inside. And I was like, and I know there's more people coming in. And he doesn't know that I know that already.

So I'm almost like, no, dude, I don't want to meet anybody. I said, no, it's fine. And I said, okay, what do you give me the money? And I'll get it for you. I said, no, I'm not doing. What's going to happen is you're going to walk with $3,000. And I'm going to have a bigger headache to deal with to chase you and everybody else Who just stole my money?

Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I'm going to be doing an interview with Ignacio Estabon, and he is a former, yeah, retired ATF agent who was undercover. He has had a really interesting life, and yeah, so check it out. I mean, honestly, I just basically start, like, at the beginning, like, you know, like where you were, where you were born, you know, how you go up and kind of, like, Like, you know, and how you got into, you know, how did you become an ATF? It was something you were always interested in, that sort of thing, you know. Where were you born?

Yeah, yeah. I was born in Los Angeles, in California, but raised in South Florida in Miami. And, you know, I've always had some interests in law enforcement, obviously. You know, you grew up in that same times. I was born in the 70s, and I grew up when I was younger in the 80s with Miami Vice, right? and I'm in South Florida, right? How cool you've seen Don Johnson, you know, you're watching the cool cars of Ferraris, right? You're thinking, man, that is pretty cool.

So that always was, you know, obviously in the back of your head and you're looking at that, but never thought I would ever do that kind of work, really. I kind of, you know, thought it was cool and I like the guns, I like the training. I like putting out of these bad guys and the cocaine cabboys were huge back in the 80s. Well, years later, you know, I go to college. I went actually up not far from where you're at, up to St. Leave University. It's a Catholic University, and I got my degree in political science and history. Then I come back to FIU in Miami.

So now we're looking about the mid-90s, and I get, I'm working my degree in international relations, and I was doing to a law school. I accepted dual law school in Lansing, Michigan, Thomas Cooley. And, you know, the farthest thing in my head, but I'm seeing the prices, how expensive law school is. And this is mid-90s. It's a lot more now, obviously. But even in the mid-90s, and I didn't have a, I had a scholarship in college. I played tennis, number one for my school, but it was going to cost me about like about $30,000 a year, right? $30,000 a year, three years at least.

You have housing. You have to get your loans for all that stuff. And I'm thinking, and I know how competitive is law school. And some people are saying, man, that's a lot of money. But I already have my degree, very athletic. I was shooting. My dad taught me how to shoot early in life will go to the range. and my dad was a gun.

So I'm copying with a firearm, right? I'm athletic, and I'm thinking, wow, and I noticed Internet just started, right? This is 1995. Windows came out, and I didn't use it in college, but I said, man, this is the future, right? So I got myself a computer, and I taught myself, because people always said, what are you doing? What's emailing? What do you do? I got myself a Yahoo account, people are prodigy, right?

People had no idea what the stuff, dial up? What are you doing? And it's like, well, this is the future. And people are like, no, I don't think this is going to last. I think, no, I think this is going to be. Listen, I wasn't one of those guys. I was like, this is going to catch on. This is, people are not going to spend their time online?

What? What are you talking about? And I was like, oh, no, I think it will. Especially when I saw everybody pumping, especially you get government jobs. That's why I want to say when USA, that's one of the reason I went on there because USA jobs was available to look at what's opening. And I was interested in going with customs. So I applied for customs, right?

They were looking for Spanish speakers, which I grew up Miami, my parents. are Spanish-Cuban. They came, grandparents from Spain, went to Cuba, and after the Castro Revolution, they came to the United States. And they lost everything. And they have my family that started over again, and I'm fortunate enough to be in this great country.

And I've done quite well within one generation. The wealth they lost in Cuba, I've done quite well in this country. And it's a very fortunate, great nation that we live in. And I talk about that and my books also. So I work on that, and I put in there. And so they need people because in Miami, in Miami International Airport, most of the flights, 85% of them come from Latin America, right?

So they want the customs officials to be able to engage and speak Spanish because it's easier to cast people who are mules or smuggling drugs. You have to know what you're dealing with. And I grew up Miami, so I grew up with all the different cultures from South America, from Latin America, from Mexico, a lot of my friends. So I knew all that. And I spoke Spanish. So I put in for the jobs, right?

And I got it pretty quickly. customs. So that was something where I was going to law school and I said, this is better because now I'm making quite a good money. I'm going to have a good pension, right? I'm in law enforcement and I really enjoy, it is satisfying what the kind of work I'll start doing. So you start there at the airport, you get your cut your teeth into like password processing, and then I make one of their elite teams with customs called a contraband enforcement team. And at the time the 90s, in Miami, South Florida is making some of the biggest seizures in the country, right? You know, you still have the Cali cartel, you still have the Medellin cartel,

and they're still pumping a lot of drugs. And I don't like what the Mexicans are going to do when they take over. They're doing it, the schoolway with cargo, they're doing with ships. They're doing with the Florida and the Caribbean. And that's how they're getting it through to, especially in Florida. So it wasn't uncommon, you know, after you on the job. You know, I was saying, or you're saying back then that's how they're doing it, or you're saying that's how they're doing it now.

No, no, back then, back then. The Medellian and Cali, all those guys have collapsed, and now the Mexicans, and I've written books about how strong they've got. And they're almost more powerful than the Columbus ever wore. You know, you talk about El Chapo, El Menthal's, and I'll go into that also how strong they've become and how they've changed the game completely

and how we have to change, you know, and I've written about that, too, of my experiences. So I get in there, and so, you know, I'm now in the middle of the drug war. You know, I'm the front line, you know, with customs. So what do you do? I mean, what does that detail consist of? Yeah.

So Miami has a ton of cargo that comes in through Latin America, right? And also passengers, a lot of it coming in. And my job in the border, you know, border authority is everything that comes to international is subject to search, right? I don't need probable cause like I would later when I became an agent, which is a complete different game. So it was a lot easier to make seizures and make arrests because when you come in, you have your questions, people can be searched, and you figure out what's going on right there.

And with cargo side, it's everything comes in, and especially from Latin America, transitive country, it wasn't uncommon for me to see, we're going to seize 850 pounds of cocaine that was coming in in group of fish that was coming from Guaiquet, Colombian drugs, going to Columbia, going to Ecuador, and then be shipped because within five, six hours, it's in Miami. And the corruption was really bad in South Florida, right, at the airport. You had the rap workers were dirty, you had the longshoremen were dirty, you had a ton of corruption. The money's overwhelming. And that stuff was never going to go where it's supposed to go. It gets ripped off, right? It has the bill lading, right, where it's supposed to go. But those stuff never go. When you got that kind of fish, when you look inside this major grouper, you get a kilo Coke next to a block of ice. That stuff was going to get taken out. And that was not uncommon to see 600, 800 pounds coming in and get ripped up. And that's what we got. So what does that tell you, the stuff that got in? A lot.

Yeah, what stock can call it? A lot. A lot. And they knew that was the quickest way to get it in because the demand back in the 80s and 90s, and still today, unfortunately, is enormous for cocaine. I always said the way to stop the cartels, if people stop using the stuff, right? If people got the treatment, the cartels are out of the drug game, right? It's over.

That's it. We win the war on drugs. The way we win the war on drugs and what you audience to know is from within. from within. But a lot of these bad countries are weaponizing cocaine, especially the Nicholas Madurals from Venezuela, right? You've got the country who are really enemies, they're communists, enemies, and they're selling cocaine because they know that does damage to our country, the workforce, the people, their future, and everything else. Cuba, was it? Castro said it was the, he said the pink menace, or he said that was the best

way to undermine the United States was through the importation of drugs? Yeah, what would have us from Venezuela? He used to do that. Oh, he died. Yeah, for Venezuela. Cuba saw, but Castro did not want to be called a trafficker, right? Because he saw what happened to Noriega, right? Back in the late 80s, Maddoge, when he got involved, the U.S. end up invading and bring him over.

The former president of Honduras, Hernandez, he was a big-time drug trafficker. He just got extradited to the United States. Maduro has been indicted. So I thought I had read something about Cuba, like Castro. wasn't like involved in it but he was allowing for short for a period of time he like allowed planes to land or fly through fly through air air space and then he caught up with him and then he was like okay we're done with that yeah yeah he didn't want to get caught up with that but he would tolerate some things but not on the island I said because he didn't want give the United

States a chance to break him in because it happens to world leaders all over they get involved in the drug game it's a conspiracy against us in the United States and we've had the Casol and we extraded these guys and bring him over. And El Chapo is a perfect example of what happened to him when he found a guy extradited and now he is in the Supermax in Florence, Colorado. And he was a very, very powerful guy and not so much. So I'm kind of that fascinating view, front line, right? I'm meeting a lot of people because we make a lot of seizures. So I'm networking with the FBI. I'm networking with ATF, especially DEA, customs. At a time we're Department of Treasury and after 9-11, everything changes, right?

You know, everybody changes. ATF will end up going to justice. Customs will go to Department of Homeland Security. It would leave Treasury. So a lot of things change. We're making a lot of good seizures. Once they were kind of strange were like people who would swallow, like the pellets. Yeah.

The swallowers. We would get a ton of that. I mean, it is really, I mean, we got a lot, but a lot also got through. And it's really sad because some of these. people were peasants, right? They would get used, or they say, if you don't do it, and these are the cartels, they go on these villages, right? And they pretty much forced these guys to do it,

or they're going to hurt your family, kill the family. Some got paid. I mean, I found it the guys who went, let's say, if you were from, you know, Miami or you were from Puerto Rico and you end up flying to, you know, Kali or something like that, you stay there for three or four days. Like, why are you there? What was your purpose of your trip, right?

And the purpose of your trip was to swallow these pellets. And I got really good at it. I mean, you could easily have two or three pounds of cocaine in you or heroin. Heroin really started picking up in the 90s with the Colombians, right? And that's a lot of money, a lot of dope in there. But the problem with that is something if it leaks, it would be getting a plane. It's so pure, you're not going to survive. So we get calls a lot of people who are dead on arrival.

They're on the planes. We've got to clear them up. It's not easy to pass either. So if you can't pass this stuff fast enough, even when we catch them, We would have to take them to the hospital of MIA and give them these laxatives, and it still takes a while to pass it. These cartel members, if you make it and you're in one of these hotels, which happens all the time, you can't pass the stuff fast enough.

They'll put a bull in your head, they'll gut you, and they'll take the stuff out. So a lot of times they were lucky that we caught them because it was not a good stuff for them. And even then, sometimes they still need surgery. Stuff wouldn't come out. I mean, it's, it's risky, it's sad, it's horrible, see these people. And this is something I'm seeing firsthand. You know, a guy who almost has said, man, this is the war on drugs. This is how it looks like.

This is what's going on. It becomes normal and natural. You feel bad because you're being used, right? And there's much, it's much sexier from, from Don Johnson's point of view. For the Don Johnson point of view, it's much sexier. He's got the Ferrari. You got the Ferrari, which is cool. He folds up, remember he would fold up the suit?

Do you remember the jacket? Oh, yeah. Yeah, the cool colors, right? Yeah. So far, your version of it sucks. The version is work. Right. That, yeah, yeah.

A lot of work. That's true. Is that glamorous? But you're satisfied, at least you're stopping that from going to somebody else that's got maybe hurt their life, that part there. So you see a lot of that. Miami, it's just a ton of that. You'll put it in the stems of flowers. I mean, talk about the detail of work, right?

You'll howl them out and fill them all up. That's impossible. I mean, it's really hard, unless we had intelligence or a great dog to really hit that because the X-rays are hard to reach. So they would do crazy ways you could imagine to smuggle stuff in. They were hollow out tiles, you know, for roofing, I put a kilo in each one. I wrote a story about a guy that's what they did. They had the concrete pallets and concrete tiles that they were.

Yes. And came in with pallets. Yes. That's a level of corruption because that's not really going. to where it's supposed to go. That's going to get ripped off. And let's go other places. So that's how corrupt it was in 80s and 90s and beyond. And things have changed now. And I'll talk a little about that. What happens? The collapse, you know, Escobar was killed. The collapse of the Midian cartels. And then the Mexican cartels stepping up and working with the FARC, which is now

changed. Even they changed now. And now they have a different name. And they're working with them. They bring the Coke to them. And Mexico takes sort of all distribution. They handle from there on. They take it all. They don't have to worry about that. You just make it, we take care of it. We go into Colombia. So the Mexicans pretty much are running Colombia in Central America. They're not just in Mexico.

They're all over the region. And then, of course, in top of that, you have the collapse with the communism and socialism that's taken over the region, which really paralyzes the whole country. That's why we really have to keep an eye on what's going on in there. So I made a lot of contacts, and I said, you know what, this is cool. I don't mind doing this kind of work, but I wouldn't mind. So they dealt with a lot of agents, investigators, to take it to a next level, which is what you do as an agent. I'm not stuck to the airport now.

As an agent, I get to go all over the country, all over the world, right? Make my cases, but there are probable cause and stuff like that. So I network a lot with FBI, ATF, D-EA, and Customs. You know, it makes sense since I was ready with Customs, I would just go over as an agent, right? Since I've worked a lot of these guys, but they didn't want to give up a lot of their inspectors because they know it's hard to fill those positions, so they didn't want to hire. So I had to go with other agencies and put it in for them

because it's not fair to me. I wanted to be an agent. I wanted to be an investigator. I want to do other things. So eventually, ATF was the fastest one that picked me up. You know, within that time within Department of Treasury, I get picked up with them. And then a year later, at 2000,

I get picked up as an ATF agent and I'm more in Tampa Florida. Nice. So I've, for clarity purposes, so here's what, you know, because just, This is what I understand. So, and I only understand this because I've written several stories. I wrote a story called American Narco. And, and so it, so you're saying, like, right, as a custom agent, like, you find this,

you find the drugs and you're like, okay, then you're notifying somebody else because, and then they're setting that, trying to either follow that, that, you know, the, that, that, that, that, that drug shipment and bust the guys. Is that it because it'll, let me give, can I mean an example. the story I wrote they had shipped in marijuana in these tiles and they allowed the shipment like they picked they delivered the shipment

and these guys loaded it into their warehouse sat it there for like a week and there was a tracking device inside the thing and so they start unpacking the whole thing and suddenly there's this black box with a little light on it

and these wires and they're like oh shit they throw it they run you know but of course by that point they're pulling up and they they dig is up yeah they bust them like two days later they come and raid their house or something their houses and stuff but so at this point with customs you're just saying hey here's what we found and they're doing the rest of that you wanted to actually be the guy to go the next level right okay yeah well i just got you're fine what the next level is yeah because they're customs and was inspectors right that's the term i think it's changed now but the term used to be customs inspectors we had

arrest authority and you did everything else and And then there's the agents, the criminal investigators, that go and you give them, hey, I just had this huge seizure right now with this fish, right? 850 pounds. All right. We can sometimes help set up surveillance within the airport, right? Close to the airport, the warehouse. But if it's going, let's say, to New York City, right?

Well, they're taking it from there. Yeah. They're not going to New York City. I got to stay and do my job and do the next shift and get some more dope this coming in because, you know what? It doesn't stop. they knew if they they they factored those losses in because that's part of doing business

right with the Colombian cartels they just they just keep on bringing it in okay hey they got this one guess what we just got out 4,000 in and that doesn't that it's it's good so I wish so we picked up with

a TAM because you don't know right you take a chance sometimes they may say to the southwest border sometimes you might have to go to New York City or a big city where it's really expensive. I got fortunate enough I stayed in Florida. I went school like since St. Louis University up just north of Tampa

where you are, Pascoe County. And I started working from there. And I was fortunate that group I started a lot of guys worked undercover. Because you can't just go into undercover work cold like that, right? If you do that, you're going to get hurt on it. I mean, you can watch all the Miami advice you want

and watch all the TV shows and Donnie Brasco. And that was also very popular back in the 90s. Remember Donnie Brasco with Al Pacino and Johnny Depp? Yeah, you know, you watch all this stuff, but it's one thing on television, right? Like you said, one thing, the real world. And the real world is you've got to know how they can be. Like I said, I grew up in Catholic schools, right?

And now I have to learn this world. I learned a little bit for the drug world, which is fascinating. But now I've got to work face to face undercover where I pretend to be like these guys and how to fool some of these guys who are hardened professional criminals. That's all they do and make them think I'm one of them. Did I have nothing like it? I was going to say, which is, you know, like you said, you watch it on TV and people think, oh, I could do that. No, you can't.

They spot you in a second. I used to joke around, you know, with the guys in prison. Like, you know, they just be walking and they see me and they say, hey, Cox, what's up? And I go, I can't call it. And they just start laughing. They go, stop. I did that. I did that good.

They go, no. It's even worse when you do it. They're like, you're not even close. You can't come close to pulling out. And you can't. You just can't fake that. You know, it's hard. It's a real, you really have to become an actor to be able to fake.

That's true. To be able to fake that. You have to be good at it. It takes time. It takes time. You've got to practice it. And it takes years. So I had good mentors, right?

I watch a lot. And you develop your own technique, right? You watch this guys. I spoke Spanish, so that was an advantage. I make sure my English was broken I didn't sound like that I just came back a cool a year's on you right

right so you have to call up I let my hair really long I think I seen you some pictures I don't know if you saw them yet I haven't said I've seen him yet yeah I'll check them out all right I say some pictures my hair was long

and a big beard I didn't want to get all the tats some guys said because when I got out of it I knew I'll be done with it right I want to go back to who I was I don't want to be saying oh great I got this now people with what the heck's wrong with this

said that was never me. I never really cared for it. That wasn't my thing. So I wanted to fake enough. The beard's okay. The hair was long enough. You do the accents. You get to know the culture.

Getting to know these guys. It was easier to deal with people. If they were not Spanish speakers, you tell your story, who you're working with. You say, hey, these families are looking. The cartels are looking for guns, right? Because they are.

And my job here is to be said ATF. He's to buy a lot of guns. And these guys, I don't want to find any paperwork. Right? Because I don't want to show up in those shop. You put my information in there, right? So these guys will sell me guns off the street, untraceables. And you pay a premium for that because that's what you want.

And a lot of these guys have horrific criminal histories. So I dealt a lot with repeat violent offenders. I dealt a lot with gang members, armed drug traffickers, international firearms traffickers, domestic firearms traffickers. I dealt with armed home invaders, cases for murder for hires. So that was ATF's niche. What does ATF do? Alcohol, tobacco, firearms?

Well, it's a small A for alcohol, a small tea for tobacco, a huge F, and the immediate E for explosives. So we do a lot of gun cases. And you know, say, a lot of gun. And that's what ATF is. And so I found that fascinating. And I knew something about guns, but man, I became an expert on pretty much a gun control act, NFA National Firearms Act, and all the different weapons from machine guns, silencers, pipe bombs. You know, ATF is someplace called with old training.

ATF stands for all the fun because we would do a lot of shooting. I mean, I trained in handguns from pistols, revolvers, my M4, which is a short barrel rifle, right? I had shotguns. Yeah, sometimes short barrel shotguns also we were shooting. So we trained a lot of different weapons. And then we also went familiarized in case to come across different machine guns. We know what we're doing, right? Got to make sure and check all that stuff out.

So that's what we did, ATF. And if something's early enough, you have to cut your teeth. You know, one of the guys who worked with, he was Puerto Rican, and he was involved back in the 80s in a shootout where he had a sick 9mm, the bad guy had a 6-9-millimeter, he fired the round, and his round went into his gun and plugged the barrel. So he's like this, and the run goes like this.

It's like 1 a million. Damn, and Hyaliyah back in the 80s. So it can get ugly and wild, so we had a good time. We had some good stories, and I learned a lot from him, and he'd been Puerto Rican, and I saw how he tackled things and all that. So I developed my own style. We worked a lot together, and then I grew up. And then, you know what also helps having good informants?

You have a good informant, which way I developed a lot of these guys. They can pretty much, you walk on water. It's that goal. You say, hey, he vouchers for you? There's some more questions. Let's do business. Hey, he said, you're the guy. Okay, man, this is what you want.

No question is asked. And boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, this is what these guys do. but if you have a bad informant who's playing both sides it'll destroy your investigation you have to have them accountable so you really and once you that's why I like to once I have the introduction

I cut them out yeah done and I want to do with a drama with an informant they can ruin your case I put too much hard work because ATF is a very smaller outfit than the FBI or DEA right we have less than 3,000 agents I think 2,800

right FBI has four times that enormous size so we we just can't delegate hey I need you to do surveillance I need you to do undercover I'm the case I do everything I'm the the undercover I'm the case agent right I deal with property I deal with my own intelligence workup I wear all the different hats because you have to because we're a smaller outfit if you want to do the bigger cases now I want to small you don't do that right I was going to say the informant thing I'm I'm researching a story right now and it's like it's

funny you know you do all the incident reports you read through the incident reports and the first thing they do like literally obviously this guy got busted you know he got he got he got busted i think he got no he got busted for i think it was for a gun actually and then he goes and he makes them they they have him make a a couple of meth buys you know and just he's just wired like he's just wire they're just control buys then they have him eventually introduce you know his his boss, which is the undercover, then the undercover goes with him on a couple of buys. Sure. And then just the undercover buys.

And then they cut the informant out. And to me, like having been in prison, I realize that the problem is, like, if you're a whole, you can't let him keep buying. You can't let the, the, the, um, the, um, informant keep buying because first of all, he's unreliable. He's got a record. And then what happens if he gets busted? for something else, you know,

you can't put him on the stand like it was since then, you've been busted for this and this, like, and he has a huge incentive to lie and the agent doesn't. So, you know, you want to be on the stand, you want it to be the agent. That's right. The clean jacket. He introduced me. Here's what I did.

I bought a kilo over the course of the next month. Yeah. That's the best way to do it. You have to because, and unfortunately, some of these guys have drug addictions, right? Yeah. and they keep on doing stuff they get messed up

and they're not right where they're high right and they do stupid things so those are the factors you've got to get into that's why I was fortunate some people don't want to do undercover work now for everybody I just I like it I really decided I kind of like playing the role I like and I deal with

all kinds of people I just tell you about the variety but I also tell the variety of people from different Hispanic groups different blacks different other European groups right. A variety, a variety of people. And because it worked and what I was doing. It makes sense. It's based on what's really going on. The cartels have people. They need guns, right? And by the way, not only buying the guns, but I also like selling some drugs on the side, what else do you have for personal or for other use. So I buy doping guns. Sometimes you come across some other stuff. Hey, I have also some body armory. Look for the body. Yeah, I'll take some ballistic arm. It's amazing what people start telling you and what they do and what else it leads to. I'm also doing this too. Hey, this guy is also into explosives or into

this. Oh, hey, this guy's selling all cigarettes without tax stamps. We do those cases too, a lot less but yeah, we do all that stuff. So it really opens up when people talk and they feel confident with you you get a lot of your friends. And I had everything, like I said, for trial purposes, I want to make it like

a movie, right? I wanted the jury to feel comfortable. First I had to make the prosecutor for comfortable. And once he feels comfortable, they're the jury. you hear that yes can you hold on a second sorry I don't know what that is but here's just I don't even know what that is but here's the funny thing about it this is I'm speaking with you is my wife's ex-boyfriend was arrested for um he had a

dispute with a guy over I'm pretty sure I think it was drugs or something and he made a bomb oh no and left it for the guy it didn't go off oh my gosh that's crazy um but he ended up going to jail for it and like he's on like the no fly list and so every time i get a package and i walk out my first thought when i see the package is yeah what too please let this guy please let this really be from Amazon and I keep you know it's so funny gosh sometimes I get deliveries it's like it's just it's just there and I always I'll I don't unwrap it my girlfriend comes and I'm like you're unlocking it you're you're opening that it's it's not a comfort a lot of people get into making these pipe bombs right and they tighten them up in there but it's also very dangerous if you

don't know how you do it right they count some with the flit too early and explode so they have damage it's it's very volatile I actually had a I actually had a friend that was making a pipe bomb when he was like 15, 16 years old, and it exploded, blew his hands off, the shrapnel, like, he bled out within a minute. Oh, no. But, but he died and, you know, just a kid, just being stupid, you know, thought it was cool, had made a couple small ones, and just playing, never once thinking to himself, like, hey, this could be it.

This could be it. You understand what you're playing with, right? Like, this isn't a joke. No, this isn't, like, playing with, like, firecrackers and stuff like that. it's even you might lose your finger or something you're not careful with it but a pipe bomb that's no joke and then these guys get really nasty with it some of them put like shrapnel inside to really do some serious serious damage so yeah so that's the kind of case i wanted to do i wanted to make sure for the jury and for the prosecutor that we had good video right i wanted to make sure it is

clear so watching a movie i wanted the jury to see okay this is the evidence watch the movie And that's a big difference you see between the federal side and state and local, right? Especially with the local sometimes, it gets a little bit different. Federal, we have a little more time to take our time with the case, make it the strongest case we can against as many people as possible. That's why we have a little more time. And it's different. That's why I like the federal system. We have a chance to really make the cases bigger and stronger.

And we have good prosecutors. That's a lot of them are career prosecutors, and they really know how to make good cases. So that's what I did. I wanted to make sure undercover-wise I had sometimes with informants there's always issues with the equipment sometimes

they could be messed up and everything else they're not professional right they didn't go to school for this they don't understand case law

they don't understand they don't understand you know this is what they do this is what they're involved in you don't want to bring someone who is not involved in this kind of work

they're actively doing this they're predisposed this is what they do and they have the history of doing this Right. So these are all the factors you got to come. As a professional, you bring that to a table. And informants are, I'd say it, necessary evil, right? Because they are the eyes and ears in the street. I can't live in the street, right? The reality is I pretend to. Right. And then I go back to the office. I get a lot of paperwork. I got to go to the prosecutor. I got to deal with evidence. I got to talk and give a briefing. So it's a whole different world. And you just show up. But the good thing about them, even though I would cut them out,

remember their eyes and ears, they can still tell you, hey, I heard so-and-so had some doubts about you. I need to tighten this up a little bit. When you come back with me and let's have another conversation with them, make sure you vouch for me

and make sure, hey, this is the guy, man. There's nothing to worry about. So those are the things. You keep them a distance, but you still have, make sure that they're listening what's going on. That's important.

Because the last thing you want to do is get cut off guard. And I was fortunate enough, I mean, there's always some hairy close moments, right? but you know you're going to have and I'll give an example and I put it in my book ATF undercover which I talk about and this happens and I did a lot of work in Pascoe County and I had an undercover apartment in Westie Chapel I had I did I live I know I know I did I used to live there

West Chapel then move down south when I first I'll start working out there a lot cheaper than Tampa when I in 2000 I know what 54 is completely different than it was 20 some years ago. Well, I live off 56. You know, 54 turns into 56. But yeah, it's even further. Like, it's a 15-minute drive to 75 from where I live. It's like living in the Truman Show, though.

I mean, it's the houses are, everything's brand new. Everything's underground. You know, all the houses look, I mean, it's, it's a great area. Like, everybody, it's funny, on my street, there's two, sheriff's deputies there's like an insurance salesman there's a couple of bankers like the only i'm the riffraff on the street so you're not 56 you're not too far from land of lakes either then no no very very close very close yeah michael i don't i guess yeah i got to i got to know uh pascal really well from making the cases so i got to know pasc don't know how much you know

Pascoe County but I got to know all the way to Newport Richie Port Richie the Hudson area even across New York Tarpen Springs and going to Zephyr Hills so this takes place, not to say this story here this happens in Zephyr Hills Ziffert Hills people who don't know Zephyr Hills or Date City

at the time I was working I would say it was back in 2000 to 2012 and this story takes place on 2009 2010 so that's this is the Dade City Pascoe I'm talking about and the Mexicans were picking it up right they're moving moving a lot of meth. There's no more meth labs. There's still some, but now they're bringing

a lot of the meth from Mexico. They're just piping it in. And that whole era became a big pipeline. Right. Which I was saying. I think a lot of drug drugs and a lot of Mexicans still out there, which this is where everything's changed a lot. And this is a trailer. I meet with this guy. He's a career criminal, a drug trafficker where I had an informant to make introduction. First time me and him and him are sitting the car together. I meet him off 301. And we're going to drive to these trailers, shady trailers. predominantly Hispanic, right? And he's talking to me,

he's giving me his history, said, man, yeah, I'll get through these guns and other than that, but I used to move a lot of Coke, a lot of product. I was moving two or three easy kilos a week. I was like, okay, so I said, if you tell me, I mean, he just got out, he wants to get back into the game, this is what he does.

I said, okay, so he took me there, he's a non-Spanish speaker, and he takes me to the trailers, and he said, hey, this is my guy here, he has the guns. Some guys give a heads up a little nervous about this. They say sometimes guys who buy guns a lot are feds. I said, no, I'm no fed. Of course, you have to deny that.

You got me. You got me in there. It's over. Let me take you back home. No, that's going to happen. So you deny that. And he goes in there. And I talked to his guy who's there, Hispanic, bullhead, right? And we're talking a little bit in Spanish. He's testing me out, which is fine.

And he goes, he goes in a trailer. So him and I are sitting outside in my truck. And I see more people. We get out of the car and he's on one side I'm on the other side and I can see there are a lot more people going on the other side of the trailer a lot more people going inside he can't see that I can see that so I can see that so you're going to have instincts to say listen I just met you guys the deal we're supposed to be doing is for AK 47 with 75 round drum two glock pistols almost an ounce of meth for a little over $3,000 right and I don't feel comfortable goes

hey listen the stuff's inside but these guys don't want to bring it out so I'm talking about here normally what you do, he should wrap it up. We're bringing the car real quick, and we're done. I get the hell out of here, right? And he said, but he wants to come in. You go him inside. I was like, and I know there's more people coming in. And he doesn't know that I had allowed already.

So I'm, I'm just like, no, dude, I don't want to meet anybody. I said, no, it's fine. I said, okay, what do you give me the money? And I'll get, I'll get it for you. I said, no, I'm not doing. What's going to happen is you're going to walk with $3,000, and I'm going to have a bigger headache to deal with to chase you and everybody else who just stole my money, which that was going to be a rip.

So I said, I'll give you five minutes, I'm going to sit in the car, either you bring it or I'm out of here. Because that's the beauty of being the case agent and the undercover is that I don't feel the pressure. Let's say I was just the undercover and I'm working for somebody else working in their case, right? Something you feel the pressure you want to make it happen. For me, I'm both. And if it happens, great. If not, I got a lot of work. I got other people I'm dealing.

I got you today. I got someone else tomorrow, right? So I don't ever felt that kind of pressure where I had to do. make it happen because I don't I want to go home at the end that's that's the most important thing no deal is there five minutes later a Honda Odyssey pulls up guy pops up with an AK 47 same for a round drum so uh him and I talk he sells me the gun I take a look at it I gave him the money for that and then he has a backpack another friend I brought him and he's he sells me the glocks with the uh the crystal map I saw hey dude

next time just keep it between us and I don't want to deal with this circus next time and you understand and you understood that so what what i think it's testing me right so why would you go why if if the a k wasn't in there they showed up later like why am i going in the trail like why what do you think they were trying to get you in the trailer for i think they want to rip me off oh okay i think they i think they want to rip me off that's what i think they want to take my three thousand dollars three thousand four dollars and hit me he said hey man this could be easy hit right here and we don't have to sell anything because you don't know some of these gang members by the way these aren't average oh these these these

is a trailer shitty trailer and zephyr hills there's a lot of gangs in that area i want you to understand a lot of Hispanic gangs a lot of gang members sell a lot of meth a lot of heroin on to you i don't think you up for hills and that's like that at all i mean it's it's very you know rule like you know what i'm saying it seems like it's read read my book, and I'll give example after example of that area, go in there and stuff like that. It is hot. And that's when I was there.

I think it's kind of worse, what I've seen, because the cartels have just gotten stronger. When I was there, they were coming up. You know, Chapo was good. Senloa is strong. But now you have the rise of C.J.N.G. Yeah. Alisco New Generation Cartel.

Yeah. Major rival for Sinaloa, right? Helmenschel. He's now the big player. Cervantes, right? And they're going to war. And all these guys, you know, El Chapo, El Manchal, give your audience a little background, all these guys came on absolute poverty. I mean, they were selling avocados and oranges in the street, and now risen to make big drug lords

where their assets are over $50 billion. And that's corner to the Mexican government and the U.S. government. So you tell me they're not making drug lords in Mexico, where these guys, and most of these guys are illiterate. They dropped out of school when they're in the fourth or fifth grade. Right. But what are they good at? They're good at killing. Yeah. And they're not afraid to kill. Yeah, they're brutal. They're brutal. It's a brutal Is it, El Mio, which was

Chappos, who basically started the Sinaloa, right, with, and then El Chapo kind of came in right after, but I was going to say, El Mio, like, I heard that he still drives like an old, he's worth, you know, billions and billions or, you know, whatever, and he still drives an old pickup truck.

That's smart. Around town. Like, you know, like he's not, you know, he lives in a, you know, different places. And, you know, same thing with El Chabo. he's always all he's really he's really good at survive he was up until the united states got him you know but he was really good at at surviving you know through brutality and just forth thinking like

always really that on the escape route always be thinking don't all keep staying in the same place change change locations you know that's what el el chapo was nicknamed also as rapido the quick one he was the master of the tunnels right right i remember that great tunnel he had the second time he was captured underneath the prison? Unbelievable. Now, you know what's funny about that? I had read that, like, the area that was where the prison is,

it was actually the new generation that was in charge of digging, even though they're rivals, of digging the tunnel. But at that time, I think at that time, they were still 2050, yeah, they began to go a little bit sideways. Now, that is

now, but it would get a lot worse. But what a corruption. That's one of the things I talk about is that we don't have an equal partner in the war on drugs. The corruption in Mexico is so unbelievable. And that's the reason I bring that up because during the trial for El Chapo in New York,

it was brought to these government witnesses, testified that El Chapo offered, this is before Lopez Obrador, the president before that with Peña Nietzata. He offered him of a bribe. Nieta won allegedly, according to, to court documents, he wanted a $250 million payout, so we won't look for El Chapo. They said, you don't worry about it. You can be a fugitive for another 15 years, right?

He said, no, I'll pay you $100 million. And allegedly, witnesses said testified, he took it. He took it. So if the top of Mexican government is on the take, then we have no chance. This is the battles we're fighting. You know, you see case after case after general, attorney general. I mean, just keep on getting arrested for being involved in money laundering and involved in all this stuff here. And this guy Helmensch out of CJNG he was former law enforcement.

He was out of Halisco, right? He was involved in. A lot of these guys know the game. They know it. And he's the same way we were talking about at Mayo when I was reading Guadalajara because now it's the battle for Guadalajara, which is where a lot of stuff is going on.

But he looks like he's won because they're trying to split. You know how everything is? Everybody wants to be king. right yeah one day you're the king they want to take you out right almencho had guys he brought in that was former millennium cartel guys that split right um and they want take over and um this guy's name is um uh scaped him right now but if if you look at the videos he has him tortured right wrapped up kill him and then left the park bench is this is what happens when people betray um Mencho, right, and stuff like that. So right now it seems like he still has the lockdown in Guadalajara, which is very important for him. And he's the same guy that you're talking about Amayo. He likes to live modestly. Not like Escobar, right? I lived in that big palace, right? Everybody knew where he lived and where he was out, but he brought, he bribed everybody. These guys have to look key. El Chapo's bounty was five million, right, at his peak when he escaped the second time. After Sean Penn and Kate Del Castillo interviewed.

interviewed him. If you haven't seen that interview and video, man, you guys need to check that out. Rose Dole magazine. That's great. Unbelievable stuff he's. I can't believe Sean Penn did that because you don't know. Yeah, that, you know, listen, they don't care.

El Chapo didn't even know who he was. Like, he's probably thinking, well, my celebrity will probably help help me a little bit as, or keep me safe a little bit. No, it won't. He didn't even know what you are. No. I would not have done that. That could have got a really ugly. And they almost caught him after the interview because they were tracking the Mexican actress Castillo's phone. The U.S. authorities were tracking and just missed him barely. Just barely.

It will take a few more years to finally catch him again. And they will not escape the third time. Not escape a third time. They obviously realized like, look, we're just not going to be able to keep this guy here. We have to send him to the United States. And that's so sad because you know what? Now we have the costs, right? Now the U.S. tax dollar has to pay for keeping this guy for life, feeding him, the expenses, illegal, everything we pay because the Mexican government so corrupt, they couldn't do it themselves. And it's case after case like this.

Very sad. I think, you know, it's funny. Like I, first of all, people are always, you know, oh, the, you know, like the U.S. government's corrupt. Like, look, there's some corruption here and there. Like, you have no idea what it's like in other countries. That's true. In other countries, it's, look, and not just that,

It's like, look, you're paying, you're a police officer in Mexico making $6 or $700 a month. Nothing. That's nothing. Like, I get it. You shouldn't, you know, you shouldn't be involved in corruption. You should be, but it's hard not to be, not only for the money, but it's dangerous. Like, if you end up being a cop, like it's kind of like the, what was it, shoot, I was going to say, there was a movie about it. El Cholo, what's his name?

Cholo was a guy who, his rival, they got wrapped up and executed. Look up his name. El Cholo, look at the video. He, he, he's getting, you see the guy from C.J.N.G. behind him in masks. And next thing you know, he ends up in a park van. She did the pictures, wrapped up. He was tortured. And said, this is what happened to El Cholo, the traitor.

He don't play. He don't play. It's just, it's a horrible situation in general. Yeah. So, you know, when you were talking about like the higher up, um, upper echelon of the government, I have a buddy named Juan Sanchez who was in Venezuela, right? He was a Venezuelan citizen, came to the United States, started doing real estate, doing very well. 2008 financial crisis hits. His subdivisions, the development start going under, he needs money.

So he goes to Venezuela and he starts pitching to Venezuelans like, hey, you should invest. and so people in the government invest basically the equivalent of the U.S. The head, like the U.S. attorney here, right? The U.S. Attorney General in Venezuela ends up investing with him. Multiple people in the government investing, but he finds out later when Juan gets caught.

The money they're investing is money they're laundering for Mexico. For the cartels. for the cartels through Venezuela they give it to Juan Juan loses the money oh no and now they're threatening to kill him he actually goes back to Venezuela

they kidnap him for four or five days he eventually escapes gets on a plane flies back to the United States but when he gets caught he eventually obviously cooperates he cooperates and the FBI comes in and the

the CIA comes in he said they never said CIA but they never showed badges anything my lawyer told me I think they were CIA. They come in and they say, listen, we looked at your phone. We see phone numbers and names in here of people that we've had indicted from Venezuela that are in the government. And so they start asking him, you know this guy, you know this guy. He goes, yeah, I know that guy.

And they said, we've had him indicted on a sealed indictment. We can't get him. But, you know, so they asked him what happened. He tells him. And he says, do you want me to get him to come to the United States? And they go, yeah, but he's. he would never do that. He's not that stupid.

And they go, and Juan goes, no, no, he's that stupid. He goes, you don't get to become, you don't get that high in the government without being, you don't get it through brains, you get it through brutality. That's true. So he contacts him because the guy had asked him to try and get him a travel permit in the United States so he could bring his family into the United States

to visit Disney World. So he contacts him, sends him an email. No, no, not side it. But his visa had been denied by the state department. He said, all you have to do is have the U.S. Embassy write him a letter saying that it was a mistake and it's been approved and he can come. They wrote him a letter. He said literally, we're talking about three days later he's on a plane, flies into Miami, and they arrest him in the airport in Miami. with his family thinking they're going to Disney.

Disney will. No. No. No. No. And no, he's going to the slammer now. You know, what happened is he rolled over on a bunch of people. He ended up getting like four years or something and got back out.

Oh, did it? Massive, massive indictment. These guys do. Like, at that level, you got to cooperate. You got flip. You got to turn. One thing I've noticed, all these guys, too, because if you don't, you get the hammer. You get slammed.

the most time so yeah you're going to yeah yeah talking about Venezuela man Venezuela it was Nicholas Maduro now it's a narco state it has become a now he he's not a communist anymore

remember him of Hugo Travis this guy's no communist this guy it's all about making money but the people suffer he keeps him suffering this guy's a dictator he's a narco dictator he's been indicted by our government and to bring more but you know what upset means a little politics here but we'll

talk a little bit of everything my book's all about this by Joe Biden that threw him a lifeline administration to see if Chevron go back there and get oil pumped up because we don't want to deal with the Russians right we're tired of the Saudis well stuff he's done and you know Mahan bin Laden so it's like we want to work with the Venezuelans who's all the stuff this guy's done he said that's atrocities to his people if you're not about him you're you're done and And that's why Miami, you know, has been transformed with the Venezuela's coming over. Like the Cubans did, you know, from the 60s on, the Venezuelans have brought a lot of money. Doral, I'm from the middle of South Florida, has changed immensely with the Venezuelans.

But a lot of the money has come over, transformed it. So that's what you're seeing. And people say, well, man, America is it. Yeah, the United States has issues. I live in Virginia now. And I was fortunate enough to, I like to travel like history in my background. You know, I told you political science in history. I went to Mount Vernon

and I've gone to Monticello Mount Vernon's Washington's home and then Monticello Jefferson's home and I visited there and even it's true 1797 you know Washington had just finished a second term will not run for a third term

does not want to be seen like King George or a dictator he says even then it applies today we had issues you know there's no perfect democracy it's not perfect system but it's the best is out there and I think it applies today the same thing

it's not perfect people we're not have a perfect system but it's the best it's the best that's out there trust me i've seen i've studied the politics internationally the corruption yeah we're going to have corrupt officials we're going to have problems but it's the best that's out there um so that's where we're at with with the corruption and in mexico's but the mexican government it's probably worse i think it's stronger than than the columbians war because their reach is all over central america it's all over south america and they have a lot of people in the United States. And they're reaching not just in customs officials,

not just with politicians, but you see it deeper and deeper in our country because the money is so big and so out there. And the corruption is big. It's corrupt here, but they're corrupting here. So what are our solutions? We need to deal with the problem with that treatment. We need people to get off it.

We need people to work on their addictions because it's just going to get worse. And they want to, like Maduro said, like I said, they're weaponizing cocaine to help destroy. this country. They think it's going to fall like a rotten apple from within. People are going to fall and break

and that's what they're trying to do. So it's funny. So I wish why can't I remember the name of this book? I used to know it too. And trust me, somebody in the comment section will tell me the name of the book. It was actually

came out probably 10 years ago, maybe 15 years ago. And it's there's a like a an evangelist like a like a like a preacher super rich preacher his son gets caught he has a security detail right like he's got several of these mega churches he has a security detail and one of the the lead security agent or security person in charge of his security detail is a former DEA agent that had to retire because of brutality like he had been caught multiple times like in you know he was he'd been written up he finally retires well the I'll call him the preacher the preacher's son ends up getting caught

like smoking I don't know smoking doing drugs or something one of his friend ODs on Coke or something I forget what it was but he he's upset and he ends up venting to this former DEA agent

so his security you know a head of security so his head of security he's like he says how much money do I give you know every month every year he's like oh like a million dollars to

these programs and he goes he says is it even helping he's like no it's not going to this is going to do nothing and he says well what can end this he said well you know it's so out of control that the government can't they just can't it's everything they do to try and keep it stemmed if you could get it pulled back a little bit then they could probably get a better handle on it and he said there's an idea we used to kick around at the DEA and he said well what was that he said if you poisoned the drug supply, then the, the, the, the, the hardcore, he said the casual users aren't the problem. He says, casual users would just stop.

He said, but the drug addicts, he said, they would have to seek some kind of rehabs. Any rehab, yeah. Right. And so they end up, he ends up going to somewhere, and who knows where Brazil, I forget where it was, but someplace, and he ends up finding this chemist, and he ends up getting these mushrooms that allows them to poison. poison the drug supply, right, like Coke. And he, of course, he gets a bunch of retired DEA agents, you know, friends of his to help him.

There's a group of like six of them. And he ends up poisoning a whole bunch of drugs. And what happens is the hardcore users, they inhale it. And then if they do enough of it, it ends up breaking down and shutting down their livers. And they die. So they end up doing this on a massive scale. Oh my gosh And I listen

It was And of course What happens is it works But the problem is What he tells a preacher is like You know there will be Some people will get sick There may be a few deaths

And he knows The reality is there's going to be thousands And there ends up being tens of thousands of death Because they do it on such a massive scale And This is fiction It's fiction Yeah it's fiction

But it's a great book I mean keep on how much I read when I was locked up. It was this, it was just really well written, researched, you know, how much was possible, I don't know, but it was, it really, you know, and the guys got the statistics and the whole thing and you, you really realize reading the book, like, what a massive issue it is. Oh, it is.

And another, another way to attack it was when you're seeing here, you see in Virginia all over the country and started with marijuana, it's been, it's getting legalized. all over the country, right? Recurational use. You take the Mexican cartels make a lot of money cultivating marijuana. So you take that away from them. That's going to hurt their profits a lot too. So I think marijuana, you're seeing it.

I mean, I know Florida is just medical, but I know Virginia got it approved for a recreational. So it is going all over in the northeast, the Midwest, of course, the West Coast, up and down is approved for recreational. So that's where you're seeing it. It's going that way. I think marijuana, you know, Thomas Jefferson didn't even go marijuana in Monticello, right? Founding Fathers.

I mean, marijuana's been around for hundreds of thousands of years. People have been smoking it, right? You know, it's not my thing. I don't like getting high. I like smoking my lungs. But if some people, that's what they want, like cigarette smoking. I'd rather not be around it, right? I'd like to eat away from that.

I don't like to be around any of that stuff here. But some people like it. I think the edibles now, I think are legal in every state. It gets you high, those edibles? right have you seen that that's everywhere now yeah I mean you know drugs were just never my

my thing but I but this is the thing I'm I definitely agree that you know to me look if you took the money they spent on the prison population and you made going to rehabs affordable and you did

more education and you legalize a lot of those substances I think would alleviate the problem considerably, and it would be detrimental to the cartels. Absolutely, because then you're taxing it here. We're making the money, right? The states and the federal system.

So you have to eliminate marijuana from being a Schedule I banned substance, right? That's the first thing, because you can do all the things at the state level, but if you're still a, you use marijuana, you want to buy a firearm and an FFL, federal firearms licensee, you show prohibited. You can't do that because you're still a drug user, right? So if you're a drug user, you can't do that. Marijuana is still on the list there. So a lot of things, I know that's passed in the House of Representatives that needs to be approved

in the Senate to start making this nationwide because I've seen it firsthand. I think we're wasting time in the judicial system, clogging judicial system, when you have these petty cases, ATF went after the worst of the worst, right? The most violent. That's what you have to focus on. The most violent repeat offenders, armed traffickers, armed home invaders, guys who want to commit murder for hire, you know, international traffickers, that's gun traffickers. that's what we have to focus

that now guys who have some weed that want smoke and they're doing this on the side I mean all the places want to have

a ZT policy zero tolerance that's a waste of time that's you're clogging the system on these people should be treated for health issues not criminal

they shouldn't criminalize these people in my opinion this is coming for guys that's been 26 years in law enforcement who have seen it right

I just think it is a waste of our tax dollars it's a waste of time and we're building more prisons we need to focus on and the court system gets over one limit also. And you don't want any of that.

So we have to be smarter. It's marijuana, yes. Hey, we learned the lesson from prohibition. I wrote a book about it, right? The rise of the outfit here, the Chicago crime bosses. And that's what made Al Capone. That's what made these guys of violence

because it was illegal, right? And then once we legalized it, well, it goes to that. And all of a sudden, the government's making the money, right? They're getting taxed. And everybody can enjoy themselves. You're not being criminalized

for having a beer or drinking whiskey, which was ridiculous. ridiculous, right? The same thing, in my opinion, should apply to marijuana. The other drugs a little bit tougher deal with, but we have to come up with solutions. But marijuana is the first gateway, I think, with that. Because, I mean, everybody in college, you want, you see how many people in college have to go sometimes with really bad areas to get some weed, right? Right. End up getting hurt, robbed. You just go to the store, right? It's illegal. We have to be smarter about it. Obviously, I don't want to be around it. I don't want to smell it because I went to

Kingston for do some work for training, and everywhere in Kingston, you can smell it. The Ganja, as they say. The Ganja, man, right? It's everywhere. I really don't, I didn't care for that smell. That's wrong. Kingston in Jamaica, right? Right, Kingston, Jamaica.

They have a lot, they grow a lot of wheat. They call it Ganja over there. Oh, listen. And you know, there's places in Jamaica. You can't even go. Oh, that's true. I mean, the government doesn't go. like we were when I went to Jamaica it's funny I was I was on the run and I went to

and we were to have the taxi driver he's like driving us around and we were like hey let's go here let's go here and he was like yeah you can't go there and he was like listen he's like the police don't go there like you definitely aren't going there we he's like we're not going there in my cab and it was like wow it's like it's that bad like what even the police don't go he's like no it's that section that area is completely um owned and operated by this one gang to make them possibly

whoever try. Yeah. Yeah, they just had a huge arrest I think about five, seven years ago. Guy's name was Coke, like from cocaine. Right. Yeah, and the people in Kingston were rioting because he obviously, you know,

they provide a lot of work and, you know, it's like an Escobar type, right? They also give a lot to the community just like Choppel did, Guzman. They give a lot, they help a lot. They know the little people, they want to care to little people. So they kind of help.

the little people a lot, because they work for their organization and do stuff like that. That's the same mentality you saw out there in Kingston. Yeah, a lot of people just want to go, if I tell me go to Jamaica, I was going to maybe work there as an attach, but once I saw first half to two weeks there, how the conditions were, no way.

I wouldn't bring my family, that's for sure. And I definitely wouldn't go to my family in Mexico. Also, because at the end of my career, I promoted, and I went to ATF headquarters, and I worked at two years, and I was helping briefing the the director case with

one in command for the central region who now is number two command for ATF right now. So that's a good contact that I have in working and talking and briefing some of the most sensitive cases that ATF was working.

So, and then I was going to maybe travel to Mexico, but then with the issue with Lopez Obrador was going on, who was the president of Mexico, they renounced our independent community status, its agents. So you think I'm going to go to Mexico

and they don't want to carry farms. So they don't want you armed. They don't want you to have to my community and I'm going to be kidnapped with my family? I said, no way. I said, I'm eligible to retire. I did my time up here. I enjoy my career.

Thank you so much. And then I got into writing. Right. I did a nice trip in writing. Well, I've been, you know, writing like this by a year and a half now since I've been retired. But I used to write a lot of reports.

sports, right? You get good and really detailed in writing a lot and a lot and a lot. So I said, and I always have a thing for it. I like reading. I'm always fascinated with, you know, history and political science and current events. I'm always reading information. So that's what a lot of my books are. You know, I got fiction, nonfiction, but I do a lot of politics. I do about organized crime. And I realized, you know, when I started writing, and I'm here to promote anybody, but, you know, I had a family member. She was in the publishing industry for over 20 years, right? She had, She got laid off, and I was talking to her, and she said, you know, it's hard at the time, you know, COVID was still around, right? And it was such a huge backlog. And I said, you know,

you might want to look at Kindle with Amazon because you can self-publish. Yeah. And you don't have to wait for anybody, right? And you get like 80-20, those are digital books, like 7525, right? So, you know, screen on both ends. It's screen for my pocketbook and the screen for the environment. We do the digital books, right? And then I'm now doing audio, too. And shout out to Sean Milo for that. We'll both know him. That's a great guy. And that should be coming out my book.

If you're not, maybe it's a big reader. And I've been told a lot of people would rather listen to it. Yeah. And it's a great, great story. I encourage people to listen to these books and go audible. It should be out, hopefully, in about a month or less.

It'll be out there. So I looked into it and it worked for me because I go at my pace. I do whatever such matters. You know how it is. A publisher, you get rid of the middleman who only cares about making money. I'm always, they're not about always making money, it's about putting something out there which I wanted to talk about, read about.

Right. I was going to say also, you know, as a writer, you make like, you'll make $6, $6.50, $7 on a book that you sell on Amazon. And if the publisher sells it, you're making $1.15, a $1.35. Like, you know, and look,

I got a, when I was locked up, I got a book deal. They were in Barnes and Nobles. You know, that's great. like how exciting is that that's super cool but in the end like six months ago this is five years later six months ago is the first time i actually got a small check from them by because it took that long to pay back the advance they gave me they gave me like a $3,500 advance and listen in prison 3500 bucks is a lot of money but you know it just took that long to even pay it back that's ridiculous now you would have made a lot more money we'll

with Kindle for sure yeah yeah I like doing all I mean and I enjoy just like I did my cases I wore many hats I played out with my books I do my own book covers I do my own editing I write the material I choose what I'm gonna write about I just did a book they just came out I think I forward to you on Facebook a messenger on the Jim Jones right in the in the in Jones town on the massacre because it's now 45 years and I want to do a little bit deeper dive in that and I found some pretty interesting things in there and mistakes that were made and I thought things, and I also give my opinion, right, based on my expertise. Right.

There's a worst U.S. cult mass murder in U.S. history, almost 9, oh, 950 dead, right? I was going to say almost 1,000 people, something like 150 kids or 200 kids or something. How many kids are that? More of that. That's horrible. You could hear, if you haven't heard the Jim Jones tape, because he recorded the whole thing. Yeah, yeah. Should hear that.

Horrible. Horrible, my kids are crying and everything else. And the mother, his wife, Marcellina, her name was, she's telling him because these are his kids too. He's poisoning. He said, let the kids live. And he goes, just like this, he goes, mother, mother, mother, please. You know, he's already crazy. Mother, please.

Like, very sarcastic and nasty. Like he says, you know, children hurry because he already killed the congressman, right? He had his go out already killed the congressman, Leo Ryan, and his entourage, NBC, and everybody else, Washington Post. They gunned them down because they knew they had to. 20 defectors. He knew it was over. It was over in Guyana. And then he said, when they came back, said, hey, some escaped. He knew it was over. He knew they're going to come down, put him in jail, shut it all down. And he was so selfish. He'd rather, everybody killed themselves to make that statement. He called it the suicidal revolution, which is insanity. All these people's

lives that came in in for a better life, lost her lives. Drinking the Kool-Aid. That's what's drinking the Kool-Aid. It wasn't even Kool-Aid. Flavorade. Flavorade. But poor Kool-Aid. Poor Kool-Aid got hit with Kool-Aid, drinking the Kool-Aid this whole time. I was drinking the Kool-Aid.

What was there? Kool-Aid. Flavor-A. But I was going to say, the problem is everybody always faces, everybody always focuses on the murder, right, right? The mass suicide. Even if you remove, if you remove that, though,

his rise is amazing his ability to manipulate is amazing and the fact that he starts Jonestown and then the senator shows up and they they realize the senator they realize what's happening I'm sorry Congressman's going to go back to the United States he's going to he's going to tell everybody they're going to obviously send over the troops and grab these guys

it's coming down but then he actually sends his guys to kill him That's unbelievable. And they do, like, that story, that's the great thing of what, what I love about, I love about nonfiction, you couldn't come up with that. No. Like, that is so bizarre. It's, you know, the term, you know, truth is stranger than fiction. That's true.

I agree. If you told someone that and it hadn't happened, they'd be like, yeah, bro, that's just like, it's, it's too out there to believe. Sure. I agree. Like, that's just too. And it, but it happened. It's an amazing story. He's another guy that grew up,

but I didn't know his background until I recent. This is recently why I do stuff like this. I love researching nonfiction. I love them. I've done a lot of these. So if you like what we're talking about, check out the book, please. It's on Amazon.

It just came out. But with him, he came out of absolute poverty. Yeah. Object poverty. I mean, out of Indiana, right? In Lynn, Indiana, his father was a World One veteran

who suffered serious, serious chemical tax. You know how the war was in the trenches, right? Yeah. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't work. Couldn't do anything. Guy was disabled, pretty much. And the pension was horrible back then.

And then they had the Great Depression. They lost her home. The government, the company, the mortgage company ceased it. And the family had the buy them a shack. And they lived in a shack with no plumbing and no electricity. An absolute horrible situation. So that's why I think he needs to find something. And I think that's what he,

found, you know, religion and ministry, his, his cult, because he would obviously perverse it completely. And he would end up, you know, the people's temple was, ends up being a cult pretty much. Because to join, you have to turn all your finances to, right? All your money goes to him. He'll take care of you. He'll find your housing. And he took advantage, and I hate to say it, it took advantage of a lot of minorities and a lot disadvantaged people, right? And a politician, because he came up with integration, right? he was one of the first guys integrating the churches with blacks and whites and everything else

was unpopular in Indiana right he ended up going to San Francisco or of course very liberal out there became very popular he would help get votes for the mayor in 76 Walter Mondell and Jimmy Carter was there any help California go blue right so he can be forward so that's why they were embarrassed

humiliated right angry they didn't want to a full investigation on Jonestown. But this guy, Ryan, he was a Democrat, but he knew there was something wrong. But this is where I criticize him in the book a little bit. When you know this guy is so unstable, right? They had already information, affidavits, and defectors,

that they were already doing mock drills like this, drinking the Kool-Aid. They already trained them that if this happens, this is what we're going to do. They have people what they call White Night Drills where they have gunfire over their heads. So they would just stay down and they would drink the Kool-Aid. had all this cyanide prepared for this.

So you don't think... But I don't you... Look, but I hear what you're saying, but if you were telling me that, I would be thinking, that's crazy. It's too crazy. Like, that's not going to happen.

Like, that's never happened. Like, I mean, in the, in history, it's happened. But it's so unbelievable that an American citizen and that a group of American citizens would have done this or that anybody would follow or anybody would follow through, like, okay, he's doing it, I get it, he's out there, but that's probably not.

It's not going to happen. And who's going to kill a senator? That's not going to happen. With a senator or congressman? Congressman. Not just a congressman, but the entourage that's with him. The staff, yeah.

The staff, and there's one lady who was his staff member, she survived by playing dead for 24 hours on the strip there until the army came in to rescue her. she played dead for she had five bullet wounds aside her she just wrote a book in a great interview i haven't seen her talk about it uh she gets very emotional now she took over his old position like 10 years ago so now she's a congressperson from that from that district okay yeah yeah unbelievable stories but you know what a lot of people didn't commit suicide but what the investigation shows they wanted to leave they were they were the guards his his what he called

the red because he's a communist and those who don't know he he he's a hardcore very much Marxist, Leninist, communist. He hated this country because obviously the racial issues, he called it pretty much a racist, fascist nation, right? And he wanted to set up this Marxist utopia out there in Jonestown. He was big, Fidel Castro. He was a big fan of the Soviet Union. He even had Soviet officials come in and say,

this is the perfect Marxist utopia that have set up here. And they congratulated him. They went out there and said, man, you've done here. But at the same thing, these people were pressed. he hadn't worked 12-hour days he fed him rice and beans while he ate like a king and at the end

those who didn't want to commit suicide the gun squad what I call him the Red Brigade came up with injections and injected everybody in the shoulder with cyanide and you see that and so a lot of people

were murdered and to me when you're brainwashed like that you're being murdered because didn't some of the people even try and run off into the woods and stuff and they were shooting at them Mark. No, they didn't, you can't, you can't, no escape. You have to die. When he said it's time to die, it is time to die. There was no, like, hey, this was a man. Now, these people were murdered. I mean, a lot of people say, you know, especially children. And they have no, no saying it. They were forced to drink that, small children. They were killed. And they were a lot, I think of 200-something children that were murdered. And they're including his own children. And his own wife even protested and said, this has to be a different way. And then it, then it goes, mother, mother, mother, mother, mother, please. You know, he goes, mother, you know, he goes,

like, you know, he gets, he's already in that crazy psycho world. And he tells children, we have to hurry, children. We have to hurry. We have to send a message to the world, the suicidal revolution. I mean, he was just off his, I mean, who is the right mind? We'll see, because he wants to send a message. And he didn't take the Kool-Aid himself. Sinai, he shot himself in the head.

Did you, well, so I forgot, I'm going to butcher this guy's name. The guy who wrote Fight Club, a Chuck Paholnik. I know I bushered his name anyway he he wrote a book called Survivor and it talks about a mass suicide and he he talked about several mass suicides in the book but it's very much written in the same vein as Fight Club you know he has that real choppy writing style which is great because that book really moved along he also talks about like that's a great book with about multiple different types of suicide talks about heaven gate heaven Heaven's Gate. Heaven's Gate, yeah. Yeah, that's mass suicide, but nothing like, like, nothing compares to, you know. There's nothing.

We've never had it. It was the worst mass murder until 9-11, right, with Americans, right? I see that. So, and with that, so going back to my point, I thought the Congressman made a mistake. I know he had a history of being very proactive. He's a Democrat. And remember, this guy, Jones, helped him. the Democrats win the 76th election, the national election. He helped it win a lot because he

was key getting the votes out with African Americans because he had an integrated church. He was a socialist. Remember, and there's a very socialist area. So the State Department did not give him a lot information while I was reading. According to the staff members survived, what really was going on because remember, they have people already saying about all these defectors saying, hey, dude, they're doing mock exercise. They're torturing people in there. If you stand up anything, they'll put you in this hotbox. They'll put you underground. They put you in a well. They really torture people. You better get on the program. There's no escaping. There's no leaving. This is what they're doing to you. So I think it was a big mistake. Him knowing what's going on there, knowing these guys are

armed. He knew they were armed. I personally, as being common sense, is I need the guy in the government to help me get me security, protection. He went unarmed. He thinking that the media guys, Oh, you know, I have NBC with me at the Washington Post. They're going to, he's not going to shoot us with the media here. Yeah, kill everybody. This guy's not following the Geneva Convention. Like, I guess you're reporters or medics.

Don't you know I'm a congressman? Yeah. I don't think he can't. Yeah. There, man. And he's, he care. So that's the thing you can never underestimate your opponent. Never underestimate.

Yeah. Be prepared. I think he would have. If he would have had the Army or at least some representatives and they saw the evidence, I think they could have arrested and taken him there and he would save those lives. I think he was just approached the wrong way.

And at the end, knowing that kind of person, how volatile he was, how could they not think that would not trigger that after he'd been practicing that, right? He pretty much said that's what he's going to do. Arrogance. So that's my criticism in the book. If you read it, I blame a lot of the card administration at a time

for obviously he went out there as a congressman he could do his own investigation right different bodies of government you have the executive and legislator legislator but they should have give him some support and protection because he was set up to fail he was set up to fail and they fail badly and look what we have the consequences so something you got to really think about this guy and he really there's a reason why he went he created jolestown because he was this close again picked up in the u.s for obviously tax evasion he really didn't have a church he had all this protection as a church, but it was a cult and he was stealing and he was abusing.

He would rape the members. He would even rape males. So he was involved in a lot of bad things. So he knew his time was coming. That's where he set up Guyana. I think originally he wanted to go in Brazil. But it was easier for him because Guyana was a British colony,

a foreign British colony, English speaking. And it just worked out easier for him to go to Guyana, which at the time had become a socialist nation also, very communist. So that's another issue. they have to deal with so interesting read if you like what we talked about i think you'll like the story of jim jones if you don't know much about it a lot of the younger generation i've noticed doesn't know anything what happened in jones town so read about it you'll be shocked and the video

his video is taped the death tape you got to listen to that about of the brink of a madman with a thousand people jumping off a cliff yes um well shoot i was going to say something too when you were talking I was thinking oh I know what it was it was the it kind of one of the things you were talking about finances is it reminded me of um of uh uh David Koresh

oh Waco yeah yeah he would have everybody he would have all the women and everybody go and get on food stamps and get on you know like that that's a big thing with the cults one of the things they do is they they immediately have everybody sign up for you know they call it what they call it bleeding the beast they call it like bleeding the beast where you sign up for all the subsidies and all that you get as much as you can of course they all live there and he of course you know

he's got air conditioning he's eating well they're all he's like a king yeah yeah that's typical with this communist you know socialist system look at nicholas maduro you look at fidel castro you look at shing ping in china you got a little get kim young in in north korea they abuse the people little people, they think this is better for them. No, this is the best system out here, folks. Don't get conned into that. This is the best system out there. Nothing is perfect, but it is the best system. At least, you know, you can work your way up. You want to get you in education. You want to do things. You can make something in your life here. And it happens. One thing you can never take away from you, I tell people this all the time, is your education. They can never, no matter what

happens, they can never take your education from you. They can't take your drive from you. They can't take your determination from you. That's built within you. No matter what government happens So educate it and be free and there's a lot of brainwashing and be a person, ask questions, get different sources, don't just accept one source. And unfortunately these people did that, right? And you see the communists do that.

And he was very good at propaganda and brainwashing where you weren't allowed to get other information for other sources. It was his source information, healthy diet every day that way. Castro did the same thing. CCP does the same thing in China and are written about those books

in China. They like their one-party system is our way or the highway. So it'll end up one or three ways for you. Either their death, imprisonment, or they're going to kick you out of the country. That's a reality. That's the reality. We live in the 21st century.

All right. That's depressing. So, all right, so. But true, though, right? You really brought the, you really brought the dinner of the show to how. I mean, but but, but, but, but, but, but, but, we're it though. We're the shining light here.

So, hey, good thing is, we're living the good country. Be happy you're born in communist China or Venezuela or North Korea. That is just, I've ever seen the videos out there, man. That is depressing. See that. So those are the books, also all the kind of books I've written about. So I have such a huge for almost, no, I just did 60th. Jim Jones is my 60th book.

I just did my 60th book in a little over a year. So it's pretty cool. You can find it. Now I'm doing the audible books. should be coming out. That should be coming out within a month on ATF undercover. And then I'm doing more with Sean. We're just doing the one of mass shootings. We just started that one. So some of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history. And based on my background, solutions to that. I mean, that could be a show within itself, what's going on in our country with mass shootings. That's

depressing for me. And how we can stop and how what we can do. I don't know if you've seen the video or not. And I talked a lot of people about this. I've done shows about this. Ovalde, Texas, What happened, Rob Elementary? No, I haven't. Yeah, you have to look at the video. 77 minutes while the shooter's in the classroom killing the students and teachers while the police is outside. Oh, okay.

Yeah, I've seen bits and pieces. You know, see the whole thing. It is really, all of it's out there now. And what's really upsetting, and you've got to watch this in the audience to look at this, one of the officers, female officers, you know, they forget they have the body cams on, right? Right. and another guy was recording her

because everybody has it off and I guess she had her off but he had his on and they're outside they are already finally it was the feds it was the border patrol the attack unit came in there

and it wasn't the locals the other ones went in there and there were I think they were like 15, 20 miles away and they responded and they're the ones that came in the classroom and they're the ones that killed them who killed the Rommels inside there

it wasn't the locals to stay outside she said he said it wasn't your daughter in there and one of the guys are saying, no, no, my daughter was a BPK, but if my daughter was in there, I would definitely have gone in. Whoa, come on. My daughter was in there. The other people's daughters, children weren't good enough to go in there? I mean, that's what you serve and protect.

This is what the call is about. When you've got that kind of situation and kids are dying, one of the girls were calling 911 to saw her teacher get her head blown off, right? And the other students are dying, bleeding in there. It says, please come and help using the teacher. phone, right, to call 911, you stay outside the classroom because, oh, he's got a rifle. We have handguns. Well, they have nothing, right?

Go in there and get a shotgun. You got shotguns. You got everything else. Those are the kind of things I talk about work. You need people who are teachers who are willing to predict. Teachers are willing to die for the students. Some of them were showing the students at the end, taking the bullets for the kids. They want to fight.

And they'll just like after 9-11, we had the, what, after the pilots, right, taking over the airplanes. They had the option to be armed, right? Where's the point where we're probably have to do the same thing with administrators, teachers, the same thing, because some police officers happen to Miami and Parkland, they stayed outside, right? And Cruz ends up, Nicholas Cruz, ends up killing a lot of the students and teachers inside

because he has a rifle, right? I understand it's not a fair fight. You're a handgun, he has better range, it's faster, and he's got through your body armor, but these kids have nothing, and the teachers have nothing. And staying outside, that's being a coward. after shoot training you've got two people in

you can do and you address the guy because that's what that's what you're supposed to do so I address a lot of that books are coming on Audible soon it's already on that and I talk a lot of scenarios

what we've learned what we haven't learned and the problems we have and we may have to become more like Israel to protect ourselves because the response time is too long and if a lot of these places don't want you armed

well then you have to do something about it because this doesn't end we just had another one in Michigan State right it just seems like every week there's a new active shooter as we speak right now Matt there's somebody else who got triggered

it's going to do the same thing because we have a mental health crisis in this country that's unimaginable and on top of that easy access to weapons that's that's the problem that's a depressing thing about 21st century America right now

and I put that in my book here it's no solution because the only other solution is a good guy with taking on bad guys with guns right letting everybody be armed and because in Indiana a few months ago in a foot court in a mall

a guy had armed himself in the bathroom he started shooting but somebody was armed to see a weapons permit and addressed them and killed them yeah you never see that video though that's not the push no no no no they're going to push

other stuff so those are things I want your audience to think about good conversations serious topics we've taken on but that's what I write about things are happening and solutions my back especially with ATF, my back with guns and stuff like this, it's really things that shouldn't be politicized by the right or the left. This is about us, right?

Our family, because nobody wants their kids kill them. Everybody wants to have their peace of mind. I have two daughters, safe at school. That's the worst case scenario. You get that call. School got shut down. A madman's, it's in the looser, and they do nothing. Post nightclub.

I mean, it's just case after case that police don't go in sometimes. Post nightclub, they spend like 12 hours. Well, he's a member in the gay nightclub. The guy is shooting everybody in the gay nightclub. I mean, they wait for the SWAT team. Well, the people are in the bathroom, and he's lining up in the stalls and shooting everybody. Why aren't they going in? So it is just one after another.

And I pick apart each one. So it's an interesting read, what we have to learn, what we have to do. And it's about people being armed. These gun-free zones, Matt? Yes. The bad guys are going to victimize you because they're not. thing. That doesn't change a thing. No, they're going to be armed. They know that's

easy pickings. Because I've done a lot of shows with guys and, you know, just my own history who have a history and that's what they look for. You know, they look for the bank doesn't have the armed security guy, right? They look for the place in the mall, which is nobody armed, no policing or the theater. These are things we have to be prepared for. If you outlaw guns, like, you know, outlaws, like, you know, look, let's face it, criminals are not going to abide by that. No. They're not going to abide by that rule.

oh, we're not allowed to have the gun, oh, well, then I won't. What are you talking about? If you're willing to commit a mass shooting, you're willing to break the law, the gun laws. And you're going to, there's just too many guns. There's two, you'll never get rid of all the guns. No, we can't get rid of the gun. The United States is the biggest manufacturer of weapons in the world.

Yeah. I mean, the Europeans have come here. I mean, you have Glock, used to be made in Austria. It's made in Georgia. Sixth Hour, which is made in Germany. It's made in Northeast. H&K, also in Germany, they've come here because we're buying it all.

America. I mean, I have my collection, too. But you have to protect your family because if you expect Cole 911 and the police who come to save you from home invader in your house, they'll hold your breath. Yeah, no. You better get your concealed weapons permit. You better practice. If you haven't shot your gun and that's the first time you're going to shoot it, that's not the time to learn. You better be competent with it because you're going to be pumped. You're going to be drilling. You got some crazy coming at you. You have to be ready how to use it and defend your staff. Because the worst thing is you see somebody do something bad to your family and you wish you could stop it. Just listen I just listen for a guy retired law enforcement of what I've seen and hopefully people can learn and just passing some wisdom on

what we can do. All right. That's awesome, man. Are you ready? Yeah, we're good. Yeah, I just, you mean, do a little promo on some of them?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, absolutely. I usually say that, you know, obviously I'm going to put Colby, which is, everybody watches this, knows who Colby is. Colby will put, you know, the book links.

Like, if you send me the book links he'll put your book links um in the description oh great of the of the video so people can just go to the description box you know they just hit the button and boom it'll have a whole list where they can just click on it bring you straight to your amazon account or your your amazon book and yeah i'll i just have an amazon author page all my books i'll just sing you the amazon author page that i have it's a great one so i let my i'll let the audience now also i do also have a Amazon author page, too. You can Google it. I'll go, obviously,

go on Amazon, which is my name. I think it's there, Ignacio Estabon. And you can see all my books, 60 books, from fiction to nonfiction. I also do fiction books also, which is fun, reads. I also do pictorial books. And I think you're really like, if you like

organized crime, I have a lot to do. This is a true crime channel. I have a lot in organized crime. My personal experiences dealing with Biker Group, but I haven't even talked about that yet. So that could be another show down road if you want doing the one percenters doing the outlaws the hell's angels the mongles um i've done books on yakuza i've done books on la gangs i was in la for eight months between the bloods the crypts of mexican mafia i've done books of ms 13 manasal at trucha so there's a lot of stuff here

if you like this stuff obviously done books on the mafia Castro the mafia and the history of the mafia in havana the rise in fall the mafia and havana led to rise in las vegas and i talked all the political side because family they were there they experienced it and uh you see it firsthand what's going on there so a lot of cool things please look it up and have the audio stuff coming out on audible ATF undercover and hopefully they get the other books out there through Sean all right yeah we'll definitely have to do some of those like actually just do a show just on that one category you know on like one category of like the acusa do one on just like the biker gangs like that sort of thing that would be because we were kind of all over the place but um but yeah that we could we could definitely

do that. It was fun. Hey, if you like the video, do me a favor and hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this. Leave me a comment in the comment section. Also, I am going to leave all of the descriptions. Well, Colby's going to leave all the descriptions in the description box. And I really appreciate you guys watching. And also, I've written a bunch of books that are on Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, and Audible. And I'm even going to have Colby leave several of the trailers for the books right after this so you can watch the trailers for several of my books and go to Amazon and buy a book or buy an audible or however you know or not listen to this up to you whatever I appreciate you guys watching though

and thank you very much leave me a comment and I will respond to your comments see you using forgeries and bogus identities Matthew B. Cox one of the most ingenious conmen in history, built America's biggest banks out of millions. Despite numerous encounters with bank security, state, and federal authorities, Cox narrowly, and quite luckily, avoided capture for years. Eventually, he topped the U.S. Secret Service's most wanted list and led the U.S. Marshal's FBI and Secret Service on a three-year chase, while jet-setting around the world with his attractive female accomplices. Cox has been declared one of the most prolific mortgage fraud con artists of all time

by CNBC's American Greene. Bloomberg Business Week called him the mortgage industry's worst nightmare, while Dateline NBC described Cox as a gifted forger and silver-tongued liar. Playboy magazine proclaimed his scam was real estate fraud, and he was the best. Shark in the housing pool is Cox's exhilarating first-person account of his stranger-than-fiction story. Available now on Amazon and Audible. Bent is the story of John J. Bozziak's phenomenal life of crime. Inked from head to toe, with an addiction to strippers and fast Cadillacs,

Boziac was not your typical computer geek. He was, however, one of the most cunning scammers, counterfeiters, identity thieves, and escape artists alive. and a major thorn in the side of the U.S. Secret Service as they fought a war on cybercrime. With a savant-like ability to circumvent banking security and stay one step ahead of law enforcement, Boziak made millions of dollars in the international cyber underworld, with the help of the Chinese and the Russians. Then, leaving nothing but a John Doe warrant and a cleaned-out bank account in his wake, he vanished. Boziak's stranger-than-fiction tale of ingenious scams and impossible escapes, of brazen run-ins with the law and secret desires to straighten out and settle down

makes his story a true crime con game that will keep you guessing bent how a homeless teen became one of the cybercrime industry's most prolific counterfeiters available now on amazon and audible buried by the u.s government and ignored by the national media this is the story they don't want you to know when frank amadeo met with president george w bush at the white house to to discuss NATO operations in Afghanistan. No one knew that he'd already embezzled nearly $200 million from the federal government. Money he intended to use to bankroll his plan

to take over the world. From Amadeo's global headquarters in the shadow of Florida's Disney World, with a nearly inexhaustible supply of the Internal Revenue Services funds, Amadeo acquired multiple businesses, amassing a mega conglomerate. Driven by his delusions of world conquest,

he negotiated the purchase of a squadron of American fighter jets and the controlling interest in a former Soviet ICBM factory. He began working to build the largest private militia on the planet, over one million Africans strong. Simultaneously, Amadeo hired an international black ops force to orchestrate a coup in the Congo while plotting to take over several small Eastern European countries. The most disturbing part of it all is,

had the U.S. government not thwarted, his plans, he might have just pulled it off. It's insanity, the bizarre, true story of a bipolar megalomaniac's insane plan for total world domination. Available now on Amazon and Audubord. Pierre Rossini, in the 1990s, was a 20-something-year-old, Los Angeles-based drug trafficker of ecstasy and ice. He and his associates drove luxury European supercars, lived in Beverly Hill's penthouses and dated playboy models while dodging federal indictments. Then two FBI officers with the organized crime drug enforcement task force entered the picture. Dirty agents willing to fix cases and identify informants.

Suddenly, two of Rossini's associates, confidential informants working with federal law enforcement or murdered, everyone pointed to Rossini. As his co-defendants prepared for trial, U.S. Attorney Robert Mueller sat down to debrief Rossini at Leavenworth Penitentiary, and another story emerged. A tale of FBI corruption and complicity in murder. You see, Pierre Rossini knew something that no one else knew. The truth. And Robert Mueller and the federal government have been covering it up to this very day.

The devil exposed. A twisted tale of drug trafficking, corruption, and murder in the city of angels. Available on Amazon and Audible. Bailout is a psychological true crime thriller that pits a narcissistic con man against an egotistical, pathological liar. Marcus Schrenker, the money manager who attempted to fake his own death during the 2008 financial crisis, is about to be released from prison, and he's ready to talk. He's ready to tell you the story no one's heard.

Shrinker sits down with true crime writer, Matthew B. Cox, a fellow inmate serving time for bank fraud. Shrinker lays out the details, the disgruntled clients who persecuted him for unanticipated market losses, the affair that ruined his marriage, and the treachery of his scorned wife, the woman who framed him for securities fraud, leaving him no choice but to make a bogus distress call and plunge from his multi-million dollar private aircraft in the dead of night. The $11.1 million in life insurance, the missing $1.5 million in gold. The fact is, Shrinker wants you to think he's innocent. The problem is, Cox knows Shrinker's a pathological liar and his stories of fabrication.

As Cox subtly coaxes, cajoles, and yes, Khan's Shrinker into revealing his deceptions, his stranger-than-fiction life of lies slowly unravels. This is the story Shrinker didn't want you to know. Bailout, the life and lies of Marcus Shrinker. Available now on Barnes & Noble, Etsy, and Audible. Matthew B. Cox is a conman, incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for a variety of bank fraud-related scams. Despite not having a drug problem,

Cox inexplicably ends up in the prison's residential drug abuse program, known as Ardap. A drug program in name only. Ardap is an invasive behavior modification therapy, specifically designed to correct the cognitive thinking errors associated with criminal behavior. The program is a non-fiction dark comedy which chronicles Cox's side-splitting journey.

This first-person account is a fascinating glimpse at the survivor-like atmosphere inside of the government-sponsored rehabilitation unit. While navigating the treachery of his backstabbing peer, Cox simultaneously manipulates prison policies and the bumbling staff every step of the way. The program. How a Conman survived the Federal Bureau of Prisons cult of Ardap. Available now on Amazon and Audible. If you saw anything you like, links to all the books are in the description box.