Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Funding Cartels How America Caused The Fentanyl Crisis

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

Funding Cartels How America Caused The Fentanyl Crisis

Men that are highly educated with a profound lack of understanding is what has gotten this country to the position we're in today. With losing Iraq, we're losing Afghanistan, you lost 40 years with a drug war. 112,000 people died last year. 40 years ago, you had 2,500. And the same mistakes get continuously made. What are we talking about? What are we talking about? what are we talking about you wanted to discuss right I saw the email you sent me

did you read it no no but I saw it which is really I preface the whole thing for you laid it out and I agree I and I agree I'm wrong about not looking at it but I was very busy very busy well I just bought the the fifth season of entourage so I'm studying how Hollywood works by watching entourage Wait, I remember what it was. It was drugs. It was the expansion of drugs and how the federal government has caused this massive influx of drugs and made it into what it is today, as opposed to what it would have been had they just stayed away, stayed out of it. Something like that. Okay. Isn't that what did you? I'm sure you put it more eloquently. Yes, that's about right.

Okay. So what is it? Well, I wanted to start out with the personal act, though. Okay. Okay. In 1997, U.S. Marshals transported me to the federal detention center in Northern California. The government had already obtained multiple indictments charging me in multiple venues with participating in a wide-ranging drug conspiracy to distribute cocaine in crystal methamphetamine. Right.

The FBI and DEA, a few years earlier, had assembled a strike force to target what the government characterized as the roblest drug ring. The drug activity had issued in both of my federal prosecutions originated out of Los Angeles, where I'm from. Notably, some eight years earlier, the then-nually formed Sinaloa cartel had adopted Los Angeles as its American base of operations. A number of the individuals involved on the supply side of the conspiracies charged in both of my federal prosecutions were key operatives in the cartels' American-based distribution. The reason why I began with the personal anecdote is to illustrate an important point. Not one of the kilograms of fine distributed throughout the course of the conspiracy underlying both of my federal prosecutions was laced with the trial. Right. In fact, throughout the first 25 years of the Sinaloa cartels' existence,

not one kilogram of grain that entered the United States from Mexico was laced with marijuana. Likewise, the same was true with methamphetamine. Last year, there were 112,000 drug-related fatalities in the United States. 40 years ago, when the Reagan administration declared the modern war on drugs, there were only 2,500. How is the number of fatalities increased 45-fold in the past four decades, notwithstanding the federal government having spent hundreds of billions of dollars on law enforcement to reduce the supply of illegal drugs. I know the answer to that question, and it's not what most people think.

Okay. Well, I was just going to say they're just incredibly bad at it. What? Money? What is it? Well, as we get through our discussion, I'll lay it out for you. Okay. Last year, I was released from federal prison after serving 25 years.

Yeah. You've asked me to appear on your podcast to discuss the international drug trade and the structural changes to the market from when I was active. There have been fundamental changes. The drug markets from 30 years ago are very different than today. They share almost no similarity. Unlike other commentators, I bring a different perspective to the table. My views are based on not only my own personal knowledge,

they're also informed by the interactions I had with many large-scale traffickers while spending over two decades in federal prison. Right. Okay. That's not one. Oh my God. there's lots of papers okay do you want to make a comment or something at this point or how do we do this we're doing it right now this is it this is this is the podcast so um so i have no input i i mean

the main use in the united states began to rise in the 1960s prompting congress in 1970 to classify it as a controlled substance by 1980 king had been embraced by the social elite consumed in fashionable nightclubs in Manhattan and Beverly Hills and other wealthy enclaves. Spain had become a status symbol. A single gram of cocaine in New York City cost $600. Okay. Illustrating that point, in $24, that would be the equivalent of $2,400 for a gram. Right. Okay. In the days of Pablo Escobar, two powerful Colombian cartels controlled the grain market,

from cultivation to production in South America to transportation and distribution in the United States. Over 90% of the product being shipped to the U.S. was landing in Miami. In 1982, the Reagan administration created the South Florida Task Force. This was the centerpiece of our government's supply reduction strategy, which focused on disrupting to Colombian operations. One of the most critical duties that we faced upon taking office was controlling the influx of illegal drugs into this country. The South Florida Task Force, which we established under the leadership of Vice President George Bush, has, in the opinion of virtually all knowledgeable observers, been highly successful in slowing the, the illegal flow of drugs into the United States.

There were some 2,500 drug-related fatalities the year before the Reagan administration declared a modern war on drugs in January of 1982. As I indicated earlier, last year, there was 112,000. Likewise, according to the DEA, back in 1982, there were some 40 to 48 tons of cocaine coming into the United States every year. Now, that may sound like a lot. Right. However, just a decade later, once the math,

Mexicans took over the distribution, you had 80 tons coming into the country a month. Okay, so 10, shoot 20 times, 20 times as much. Yes, there was a 20-fold increase in just over a decade. More than 20. The numbers don't lie. Right. By every conceivable metric, the policies our government have put into place have been spectacularly a failure. Targeting the Colombian operations back in the 1980s was the first mistake our government made.

the DEA assuming they were genuinely interested in targeting the drug issue then the FBI and DEA should have ignored the Colombians entirely and focused their efforts on targeting the first line American distributor

and here's why the Colombians controlled both the production and the distribution aspect of the market but when any organization or business controls both the production and distribution what's that called? A cartel? It's called the monopoly.

Monopoly. Now, what's the defining characteristic of a monopoly? I mean, you have complete control of the market. Monopoly is engaged in anti-competitive business practices in order to keep the prices high. Okay. Now, think about it. If you're a government waging a war on drugs, don't you want high prices? Yeah.

Why don't you just let the market do what the market's going to normally do? Remember, when it started, it was $600 a gram. Right. When it started, it was like for rich people. That's exactly what it is. Look, by 1982, the Colombian distributors in the U.S. were paying their suppliers in Colombia $25,000 per kilo. Right.

That's over $100,000 today per unit. Okay. That's a high price for a product that is basically agricultural. Right. And essentially has very inexpensive chemical processing. The drug organizations in Colombia were generating over $100 million per month in 1982

making a whopping 700 to 800% profit per unit now why was targeting the Colombian operation mistake because the Colombians like all Monopolis had an incentive

to refrain from flooding the market had they flooded the market prices would have dropped it would have squeezed their fat profit margins right so that so so why did they

so they did flood the market no they didn't not when they were controlling both the production and distribution. But when the government got involved, they flooded the market because now the prices are super low in comparison. That's what I was saying. The initial mistake was in targeting the Colombians at all. You should have limited the operation to the American first line distributors.

Right. So you look, we live in a capitalist society. Nearly all of our political leaders, you know, espouse their love of the free market, their admiration for the free market, and their undying devotion to the free market. and yet all of these proponents of the free market system don't actually understand how markets work. Market participants respond to incentives. By successfully targeting the Colombian operations in the U.S.,

our government eliminated the players who had a financial incentive not to flood the market. There were 48 tons of smuggled into the U.S. the entire year before the government declared a war on drugs. That comes out to four tons a month. You went from four tons a month to 80 tons a month in just over a decade. right that's a 20 so that they're they're having they're having to put 20 times out

more product out to get the same amount of money in right so they're over they're flooding it because they're still trying to maintain the amount of money they're making flooding it in response to our government's actions right because if you'll notice and as we work our way through the conversation one they targeted the Colombian importation And that's where the South Florida Task Force was targeting, in particular, the small aircraft flying into the Miami area. So in Columbia, look, if you're sending 4,000 units to the United States every month, that's four metric times, you're going to produce somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,500. Let's say the government ends up knocking off 10% of the tights. Yeah, yeah.

They're going to get something, yeah. All right. Well, they're running a lean operation. Once the government started investing billions of dollars into its interdiction policy, what happened? The number of losses that Columbia has begun to sustain are enormous. 30% of the losses, 40%, 50%. So they just pump out more product. That's right.

Right. So in other words, the more product that gets intercepted, the more product they have to make. So the first unintended consequence was they turned around and drove the Colombians into increasing their production capacity. Right. Before they were generating 4,500 keys to get 4,000 into the United States. Now they're generating 9,000 to get 4,000 into the state. 12,000. Now you can say, well, that's not so big of a bad deal because they're still intercepting half of the loads.

Well, that's assuming they're not going to react. see the guys from Harvard the guys from Yale apparently they thought that the claimers are just going to lay there and take it in the ass right well they had a plan and so the purpose of our conversation is to illustrate how the government's actions

have prompted the counterparties to change their incentives so by successfully interdicting so many plights they, one, prompted the Colombians the scale of production. Right. Two, they prompted the Colombians to seek for an alternative route. Okay, which was through Mexico.

Yes. And once the Colombians to start sustaining 50% losses, they started looking for the alternative route. Now, notably by this point, two years into the South Florida Task Force, now you're talking to 804. You got the Reagan administration officials boasting to the media

that they had broken the back of the Colombians. Right. Whenever you hear a guy from Harvard or Yale or Georgetown going on about how they broke the back of their adversaries, you know you're about to get the horns. Right. Okay. Because that's when the Colombians said, okay, we're tired of sustaining 50% losses.

They went looking for another alternative. Mexico has served as a platform for smuggling for well over a century. Right. Beginning in the 1930s, the majority of the marijuana consumed the United States was imported through Mexico. Right. Before that, they smuggled alcohol into the states during prohibition. Being a smuggler, a contrabandista, is a long tradition for powerful families that live along the border. And they pass along their networks from generation to generation.

And so when the Colombians reached out to the Mexicans in the early 1980s, there was already a marijuana trafficking syndicate in Mexico, a powerful group called the Guadalajara cartel. They were led by a guy named Miguel Feliz Diardo. And so when Escobar and the head of the Calais Cartel, Rodriguez, contacts Diargo, they say, hey, we understand your... Can you throw some of our... Producing marijuana and smuggling it into the gringos.

A couple of keys of Coke along with those 40 keys of marijuana that you're shipping. Well, you know what I'm saying. Tons. I understand. But can you throw some of our Coke in that, in that shipment? And of course, and when they told them. It'll be profitable. Well, not just that, though, much more lucrative because the Colombians offered to pay $1,000 per kilo.

Right. Mexicans are making $50 a pound with the marijuana. So all of a sudden, they're making 20 times per unit. for a lot less for a lot less volume yeah and so of course Feliz Gallardo says of course

send it so now when the Mexicans begin supplying the Mexicans with the it's not at the 4,500 kilo per month number it's at the new higher 12,000 kilo per month number

right so two years into the war our leaders are claiming victory a year after that Yeah, it's three times the much product coming into the country. You'd have been better off not doing nothing. Abolishing the DEA, taking the tens of billions of dollars, and burning it,

and it would have been a more effective counter-narcotic strategy. All you've managed to do now is triple the production, and the climbers are making more money than ever. Why? Because the number of lows getting intercepted plummeted. Before 90% of the product was coming into Miami. The bottleneck. Right.

Now you've got a $2,500 mile border. you got three dozen ports of entry. I guess they're just coming through. Yeah. You're shooting into L.A. They're shooting at Albuquerque, into Phoenix, into Houston, San Antonio. All of a sudden, now the Americans like,

what, what happened? Tens of thousands of cars, which you can't search all of them. And plus tunnels. Yes. And so the, at that point, you would think that a reasonable individual

would say, you know what? Perhaps we need to stop and reassess our strategy because at the end of the third year mark, we've got three times as much product coming into the country. That's not the way the government works. That's not the way the guys from Harvard or Yale or Princeton work.

Right. I was just thinking we did a podcast earlier today and the guy had mentioned the Pentagon papers. That was, was it during a Vietnam, right? And for like five, six years they had,

prior to them being released, the Pentagon had known we cannot win this war. Yeah. And instead of saying, hey, let's reevaluate our strategy, they said, no, let's just keep throwing. We've got the industrial complex going. We've got we're killing. Of course, you're killing, you know, tens of thousands of Americans. But those are, you know, those are poor brown people. So we don't care about them. You know, so they just keep going and going. And let's just try and get it to a point where we can say we've won or we can at least, you know, negotiate or like it's been on for years. in years, you've known you can't win this war. Well, and that's, so why keep going? And that's essentially the problem that we've had. It comes down to essentially

no accountability. You know, all of these guys, they want to exercise authority, but they don't want to be responsible. Right. And, you know, a normal business operation when your objectives fail spectacularly, you can either change the goal or change the strategy.

the government does neither they just double down yeah I was going to say um you can't you just admit your take responsibility and uh because the guy from Harvard can't do that take responsibility that's

you get two a two level you know reduction you can't they just they don't and if you do it immediately it's another level it's a lack of humility where you know these guys generally think that

you know they're the best and their brightest right well i mean and they can't fathom that they're getting outsmarted by a guy with a great school education yeah yeah um yeah could could chopo even read like didn't he did chopo guzman couldn't he could he even read like well let me tell you about wakene guzman okay me guzman grew up in a peasant family he had a third grade education one of the most shameful demonstrations of arrogant I've ever seen is when our government bureaucrats were celebrating his apprehension

and being brought to the United States. Like every one of these goofballs come up there to pat each other on the back, acting like they took a big bite out of crime. But didn't stop and think for a moment. You guys have been chasing this man for 29 years. You have spent billions of dollars chasing this man. And for 29 years, he pumped hundreds of

billions of dollars worth of drugs into your country, amassed a fortune into billions. Order the murders of... God knows how many thousands of people in Mexico. Right. And so for you to sit up there and behave in such a undignified manner, you could go out, announce the arrest, and keep moving. That's not how they portrayed it. I've kept waiting for one of these guys to come to the podium with his headhead.

hung down in shame and tender his resignation after apologizing to the American people that it took 29 years to catch a man with a third grade fucking education. Right. You had a man that's functionally illiterate mocking you. And you know what they called him? In Monchi. It's in the law. It's a 500 mile drive from San Diego. Right. It took you 29 years to catch a guy with a third grade education 500 miles from our border. Well, we're about Maya. Never been able to catch Maya. how is that even possible just very circumspect right

and the but you know the point is they it was the level of celebration that I found to be right a little disgusting particularly because if you look at it how do the leader from other countries

view this did you think it's a celebration worthy of a celebration you think the Chinese were taking them 29 years to catch this guy how about the Russian they'd have bombed a whole other country I was going to say

they'd just Israelis would have sent their squads in to go get this guy yet it took 29 years for the DOJ to track this guy down

and then for them to celebrate in that manner was indicative of the way the arrogance the arrogance well also what what happens

when he who feels that void when he's when he disappeared years. You know what I'm saying? When? Well, you know, I guess, look. Are you saying he wasn't really running anything at that time? There's a misconduct. He was running his organization. Right. You know, the American media likes to use this term cartel. But in reality, it's a misnomer. First of all, a cartel is a group of men, a group of organizations that collude to control price.

They don't control price. They're actually competing against each other. Essentially, it's just a federation of organizations. It's a network of associations that band together for specific activities. Yeah. I was going to say they're actually infighting, but they'll be actually at war and infighting and still agree on how they're going to get this load into the United States. They'll still kind of work together in certain aspects. The importation from Colombian to Mexico. Right. The transportation to the United States. Once it gets to Los Angeles, it's a free for all. Well, I understand, but they're still, you're still, it's like the Sinaloa is using the new generation to do this, even though maybe they're at war.

No, no, it doesn't work. Okay. It's all in-house. Both camps essentially operate independent of one another. The only time that they have interactions, sharing common associates are with the Chinese. Oh, okay. I thought, I thought like the Sinaloa might have product that they need to move through these tunnels and they'll come up with an agreement. They'll use their own tunnels.

They'll use their own tunnels. Okay. Yeah. I don't realize that. I thought they were some, there were, there were certain times when they would work together. They, they certainly did. And there was a period about a decade ago where there was understanding between the two of them. Right.

But not now. Not now. Okay. And see, and part of the, as you get later on in our discussion, you'll see that the arrest of Guzman was essentially the death knell of what was genuinely the Sinaloa cartel. Didn't the new generation? weren't they the ones who dug the tunnel to get Guzman out of prison the one time he yes but that's because there's family associations okay well it's way more complicated

Guzman's wife is related to new generation leadership okay and so it's a family tie it wasn't cross-cartel activity and so you know part of the misunderstanding is this notion that it's all one big huge syndicate when in reality is just a group of independent organizations right Sometimes this group is working with that group. Oftentimes, they're competing against each other. Okay. And so when you asked the question, well, what happened after Guzman left? Well, when Guzman went away, his sons took over.

And that was essentially the end because, first of all, they're young. So the guys that are, you know, the 30 or 40 other organizations that were part of this loose confederation, they're not going to listen to some 29-year-old. Right. These are guys under 50s. Like, you haven't earned. earned that position. Right.

Your father may have earned it, but you haven't earned it. And where you had the final rupture was over for you know. Because Zambada and his people are old school. They came up

when the last time the conduct of Mexican traffickers provoked a response from the American government. And so there were rules that were put in place after the killing of a DEA agent

back in the mid-80s, Agent Camarena, where don't harm American law enforcement. Don't harm American civilians. Do not cut the product with anything that's going to harm the American customer. Right. And those concerns were addressed because what they didn't want to do

was kick the sleeping bear. Because when the previous leadership from the original cartel, the Guadalara cartel, killed Comedena. The response was just enormous. I mean, the American government sending bounty hunters into Mexico to snatch guys up. Reagan actually shut down the entire border.

There was like no commerce. And so the amount of pressure they brought to bear was so enormous that the Mexican government went and they arrested Cairo Quintado. They went and they arrested Fonseca. They went and arrested dozens of men to appease the pressure from the Americans. And so those mid-level operatives,

the Chapa Guzman's, the Miles and Bada, these are all guys under 30s at the time. Well, they learned a very valuable lesson. Do not awaken the slumbering giant. Right. Well, the newer generation, the younger guys today, the Mentos, Right.

Los Chapitos, Guzman's kids, they weren't around back then. That's why, when I said earlier, that the structure of the trade is fundamentally different because 30 years ago it was don't harm the American customer.

You don't need to maximize profits per units. Make up the difference in volume to sell a lot more units. Right. Today, the groups are so much smaller. They don't have the capital. You know, back 20 years ago,

you know, they were buying 20 tons at a time from Colombians. Well, today you've got a bunch of independent operators. Well, first of all, they're not, accumulating the product at the same price point because they're not buying in such volume. They're going to have to pay higher transit fees and they're getting smaller quantities.

So today, if someone's got 300 kilos of... What are they going to do? They're going to get 4,500 kilos of lidocaine, cut it, and then lace it with 30 kilos of... and send that to the United States. Well, it's become a gold rush mentality.

It's all short-term interests. Whereas the people that built the modern cartels structure they invested their lives into it right they were building something the last generations well the guys operating today aren't thinking generations right they're just thinking how do i cash in right now which is why you had the big rupture within sina loa where zambada and his people broke away from guzman's people and so today when you hear you know the government saying well the sinaloa cartel there's no sinaloa cartel there are a number of organizations who happen to be from

seen a law. Right. Many of whom are at each other's throats. And so what the American people normally expect to be the old scene of the lower cartel are the ones that have stayed away from but you're talking about Zimbada, Zimbada's pushing 80 years old. Right. His right-hand man's pushing 70. I mean, these guys, their time has passed. And a guy like Mencho who's in his 50, Well, he's not taking orders from some 80-year-old man now they may respect the guy But Mayo stays out of the way at this point he just wants to be able to enjoy his sunset here Right didn't he try and pay his way out of yeah he offered a settlement he offered a settlement He offered a settlement to the

Mexican government to pay him like an outrageous amount of money to say like just pardon me and let me live out the rest of my life and they were like now like he's like gonna give him i forget what it was how many you know whatever 500 million or something some outrageous amount of money they were like no it was the same thing that um didn't um uh didn't um god come on what's what's his name um he was in columbia they Pablo Pablo didn't he try to say i'll pay off the national debt yeah if you'll just just quash this whole thing and pardon me they're like no no but i mean that's Like, instead of him having to go to prison, let me just pay off the national debt. It's like, how much money have you got?

So. And so, you know, they're still operating, but it's on a much more modest scale. Because they're still focusing on primarily the old cane markets. Right. Well, the profits may be two or three hundred percent. Whereas for the new generation, they're focusing primarily on non-related, primarily on epitamine. Well, these are, you know, 1,000 percent.

profits per unit well plus haven't they diversified too now they're like they've got these meth labs that are massive you know these super labs too they could make their own product that so they don't even mean you know it's not like their their whole strategy is just where it was at one point you know where it was marijuana and then marijuana and coke now it's like marijuana coke yeah they're all polydrug at this point only the like yeah i was going to say the um although marijuana is now they're just getting it from the americans or growing it in And so to finish off the earlier point, it was by attacking the Colombian monopolies back in the 80s, you actually incentivized the flooding of the grain because when the

Colombians lost control of the distribution market, the Mexicans were able to step in. Right. Well, their incentives are very different because the Mexicans don't have a monopoly. They're middlemen. How does the middleman make his money on volume? But, yeah. So whereas when the Colombians control it both, They were restricting the amount of product

to keep prices artificially high. Once they lost control of the distribution, Mexicans will handle distribution. Just send us the product. But now the Colombians aren't, so now the Mexicans are saying send us as much as you can. Meanwhile,

the Colombians are delivering it to them in Mexico. Well, they're not getting L.A. prices. They're getting Acapulco prices. So they're paying $5,000 per unit rather than getting $25,000 per unit. So they're taking a 75% hit on revenue. But there isn't a corresponding drop the 75% of their expenses.

Right. So in order to make up that revenue shortfall, what do they got to do? Triple up production. Right. So they go from four tons to 12 tons a month in three years.

Two years later, they're at 20 tons. 10 years later, they're at 80 tons. Again, had you done nothing, it had been a more effective counter-narcotic strategy. Now, I can already hear

people in your audience or in the comment section saying, oh, come on, we're seeing hindsight's 20-20. Right. Obviously, the government didn't know that this was going to happen. Well, at some point, it's been too long of a span for somebody at some point to not have written a Pentagon paper saying, look, this isn't working. We need to change strategy. But then how do you sell that to the American public? In my opinion, the American public is, you know, they're used to getting their news and sound bites. How can I explain my strategy in less than 30 seconds? You know, so it's arrest more, you know, fight harder, arrest more of them.

And, you know, grab more of the product, whatever. And that's all manifestation, lock them up longer. That's all manifestations are the same problem. Well, I understand, but you can sell that. Yes, but you have to be a little bit more sophisticated. And so when you're saying, well, let's lock them up longer. It's hard to sell sophistication to a, to a public that is educated in the public school system of the United States that is basically designed to create factory workers.

Like you're educating people just enough to be drones. To be drones. To get a job, a W-2 job and do what Bill tells you to do, be trained within two weeks and work for 40 years and retire and get Social Security. Like that, that's what the system is. So to explain something sophisticated to that person who really just wants to work 40 hours a week, go on vacation one or two weeks a year, and watch four or five different sitcoms and play watches kid play you know whatever little league like like that guy doesn't like

it to explain a sophisticated um approach to a problem is well that's where the quality of the leadership comes into play the last time we had someone as a leader that was accountable was Kennedy you saw what happened to him well the point being here is when Kennedy won his presidency he inherited a plan from the previous administration to try to topple to Cuban regime. Right. Failed spectacularly in the Bay of Pigs. What was Kennedy's reaction?

He goes on television, says, hey, Buck stops with me, I was wrong, it didn't work. Fires the CIA director, fire everybody at the CIA and the National Security Council associated with this plan. Well, the parallel in 1985, five, three years into the drug war,

and you've now got a tripling of the amount of product coming into the country, Reagan should have said, okay, national, new drugs are, you're fired. You had a tripling on your watch. DEA director, fired. FBI director, fire. Nobody was held accountable. Right.

And once you had a tripling of the amount of product coming into the country created a lot of problems. Because the price of, the retail price, plummeted by 50%. And went from being $600 a gram to $300 a gram. Well, by lower into price, what's that do? Broadens perspective user base.

Yeah. There's more demand, yeah. No, not only more demand, because let's, well, look, wealth distribution in the United States takes into form of a pyramid. So you got a broad swat across the bottom with the poor. Right. A huge swat with the poor under lower middle class. Then you got about a 20%, 25% with the middle class,

and then you got 35% at the top, which represents your upper middle class and you're rich. Well, in 1982, it was only the very tip of time. Right. Well, so, okay, so you have a larger, you have a larger, a larger group of people that can afford it. When I say, there's no more demand, but now everybody can afford it. There's always a demand.

Yeah, so what happens is when the supply increases and the demand remains level, prices drop. So now it's at $300 a gram. Well, the Colombians had to come up with a solution because if they keep sending 12 tons a month, it's going to crater the pricing structure. Now, at the time, there was a guy in Los Angeles who was the head of, of the Cali Cartel Distribution Cell named Mario Villabona. And Mario's a very interesting character in that, you know, his uncle was one of the

main guys for Cali. And he had a network of customers, first-line American customers, several of whom were very prominent African-American drug traffickers in Los Angeles. Most notably, one was Michael Harris. Michael Harris later on achieved a measure of fame. You know, he operated under the moniker Harry-O. Well, he was the trafficker to put up the money that was later on used for, death row records.

Now I know Villabona and Harrison Prison I got to become well acquainted with Mario good friends with Mike and so I understand how these events occurred

because they're concerned because prices are cratering nobody wants to make less per unit so what they have to do they had to expand the user base well who's left the poor

the lower middle class the problem with the poor and the lower middle class is they don't got no money Right. But there's still demand. So what do you do? No, so that's when Mario spoke to some of the black guys and said,

you know what? We've got guys in South Central Los Angeles that have figured out a way how to market it to the poor. What they're doing is diluting the quality of the thing, making it cheap. And they're standardizing the doses, $10 a dose, $20 a dose. So while a poor person may not be able to come in and say, give me a $1,000 worth of material. They may buy $20 or $40 worth of material.

On the other hand, there's so many more poor people and lower middle class people that in the aggregate it's actually a bigger market. Right. And so Mario says, hey, it's not a bad idea. Let's run with it. Now, of course, the high-end people were concerned that they don't want to tarnish their brand.

And had the association of being associated with wealth. Right. You know how to wealth, upper class in this country don't want nothing to do with the poor people. They're not going to be doing the same drug that the poor guys are doing. Right. So they decided, you know, let's market it under a different title. Let's brand it differently.

So that's when they called it crack. So as a result of the government's policies targeting the Colombian distributors, you not only resulted in a tripling increase of the amount of product coming into the country, you had a cratering of the price expanding the user base, and then they came up with an entirely new parallel market that was even larger than the previous one, unleashing an epidemic. None of this would have happened. Had to come into that,

I've done nothing. Right. It's a classic example of the law of unintended consequences. Right. It's pure hubris. So now, remember at the two-year mark,

we broke in the back of the Colombian cartel. A year later, they're in full panic mode. Right. More product, more customers, epidemic raging out of control

in the country. So what do they do? They go to their buddies in Congress and said, you know what? mean business. Is that the war on drugs? That's toughen the penalties. We'll show these guys. Okay. Again, if you've caught the drift of our conversation, the law of unintended consequences says that whenever you undertake an action, you have to expect something happening

that is contrary to what you originally anticipated. And the third category of unintended consequences. It's called the perverse result. The perverse result is when the actions you undertake not only completely backfire, but they make the original problem worse. And so when you increase the penalties, what happens? I mean, you just, wait a mean, you just lock up more people. I mean, the price goes up. Okay. You make drug trafficking more lucrative. Okay. Every time you increase the penalties. You do lock up more people. You know who benefits? Mexicans. Right.

They want first-time offenders to get life. Why? Because they can charge you a premium to compensate for the risk. Every time they increase the penalties, they get a raise. Take away parole, they get a raise. Raise up the guidelines, they get a raise. Well, this is elementary economics. Price is a function of not only supply and demand, it's also a function of risk.

Increase the risk. increase the profits. So if the plan by raising the penalties was to decrease the drug flow, you've actually increased it. Again, unintended consequence completely backfires on them. What you did is now you made every 14, 15, 16 year old kid think, you know what, I can make a lot of money selling crack. It ravaged South Central Los Angeles.

Right. Because of this type of activity. This is a classic example of hubris. The Law of Unintended Consequence states that any intervention in a complex system is bound to have multiple effects, which almost always leads to results that weren't part of the plan. This law of unintended consequences serves as a warning against overconfidence and the illusion of control. For the past four decades, we have ignored this lesson. Our leaders, for the most part, have been highly educated men with a profound lack of understanding.

In other words, they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their little world. I try to show the schemers how pathetic. their attempts to control things really are and so as a result of these guys with their consistent scheming you've had a series of debacles which have proven to be ultimately catastrophic

and this happens not only in the drug contest but it's also rampant throughout the rest of our country and so for instance in 2003 George Bush and his administration decided you know what, we're going to go to war against Iraq. Right. Now, of course, Iraq had nothing to do in 9-11.

And they didn't have WMD, but you know what? We're Americans, we want to bomb some shit. So we're going. Right. The Russians said, hey, it's a mistake. The Germans, the French, the Israelis. Arab nations said it's a mistake. The boys from Harvard and Yale, they don't listen to them.

They're the best and the brightest. Right. So in March, 2003, American forces invade. the Iraqis what do they do take off the uniforms vacate to feel the battle well to the guy from Yale we won

right ten weeks after the invasion Bush is standing on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier what was it the Abraham Lincoln yeah he gives a speech to the American people telling them that we prevailed behind him on the bridge

excuse me on the on the island on the carrier's island right is a big sign mission of He tells the American people the United States has prevailed and... Today marks the end of major combat operations. Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. Do you realize that from that day forward we suffered 99% of our fatalities?

99% over the next what how many years oh the next decade oh decade okay okay 99% of the men and women that suffer catastrophic injuries happened after our leaders told us we won right we spent a trillion dollars in this third world rat hole cesspool of a country after we were told we won and what's even more illustrating how incompetent the leadership is ultimately who won the war I mean we're not in we're not there anymore

United States goes to war against Iraq right who won what Iraq right Iran Iran oh okay

today Iran controls Iraq okay so we spend a trillion dollars to give Iraq to our enemies that is the law of unintended consequences and it is that exact same level of incompetence that has gotten us to the point we are now today with

it happened back in the 80s you take out the Colombians you gave the market to the Mexican they just gave it to them just like we just gave Iraq to Iran no accountability the situations mirror each other exactly same thing in Afghanistan on the day that they announced end of major combat operations in Iraq they announced

in the major combat operations in Afghanistan. Nobody bothered to ask the Iraqis or the Taliban if they surrendered. Right.

See, the best and the brightest to go to Yale, they assume, whoa, they lay down their arms. We won. No.

Anybody with a lick of street smarts would have known when it gets, what they mistook as a win was the quiet before the storm. Men that are highly educated with a profound lack of understanding is what has gotten this country to the position we're in today.

With losing Iraq, we're losing Afghanistan. You lost 40 years with a drug war. 112,000 people died last year. 40 years ago, you had 2,500. You'd be better off just doing nothing. Right. And the same mistakes get continuously made.

And so it's that same kind of incompetence that causes us to lose all these wars, whether it's Iraq, Afghanistan, or in the drug war, is what led to the American bureaucrat running to the American politician and saying, hey, let's jack up the prices,

or let's jack up the penalty. That'll dissuade them. Yeah, no. Well, these people have not only a profound lack of understanding of how markets work, they don't understand human nature. The country on this planet with the toughest drug laws is China. They execute thousands of drug dealers every year.

They still have drug dealers. Got tons of drug dealers. Some of the largest operations on this planet are being ran out of Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Another country that slaughters thousands of drug dealers, Iran. They kill so many drug dealers. It doesn't even make the news. Massive drug problem in Iran.

Singapore, First World Nation, ASU drug dealers. You don't think there's in every one of those upscale nightclubs or in those casinos? Right. See, human nature being what it is, men,

particularly men with balls, are going to take that chance to pursue wealth, banking on them not being the one caught. Right. So unfortunately, Jimmy got knocked off. But Jimmy's an idiot. I'm smarter than him.

That's exactly the mentality. That's not going to happen. of me. That's, and what, you know, and if you look at the advancements that have been made just in the last six years, the majority of them are men pursuing wealth. You know, we characterize the, you know, the age of explorers. Well, that's actually a misnomer. When Columbus and those guys got on those riggedy-ass boats, they weren't exploring, looking for a new world. They're trying to find a route to the Indies so they could do what? Trade. Yeah. Make money.

No, because they're going to strike it rich. Right. If they can find a route there. Right. They got, you know, their plan blew up when they crashed into that continent in the middle. Right. But nevertheless, it didn't stop those guys from getting on those boats. They didn't know what to wait for them.

Hell, the majority of people on the planet still thought the earth was fled. For all they knew, they're just going to swim, you know, go out to sea and sail right off the edge. Or how many people left and never came back? It was extremely dangerous. Horrible deaths at Odyssey. And so none of those men knew what waited for them beyond the horizon

and yet every single one of them took that risk. There are millions of men like that in Mexico. Right. Or in Colombia. And so the notion that you're going to be able

to dissuade people by increasing the penalties was almost childish. The more you increase the penalties, the more drugs come into the country the more lucrative it becomes the more drug dealers you create now the most significant mistake that we made

when targeting the Colombian was it created a lot of leverage for the Mexicans for the first couple of years Colombians were paying Mexicans transport their product and so the Colombians would bring the product to Mexico

Billy Scarter would say hey Chopo take to Los Angeles at that point Guzman is just a courier It's a meal. Right. Well, he's delivering it to the product into the Colombians in Los Angeles. Well, after a couple of years,

Mexican was like, you know what? You guys are making a lot of money off our back. We're tired of getting paid $1,000 per kilo. What we want is to get paid in tined. We'll take 20% of the load, 30% of the load. And so now, Columbia's had no leverage. Yeah, if they back out, they've got nobody. They got nobody.

So they agree. to begin paying in product rather than paying in cash. Well, now for the first time, what you have are the creation of Mexican distribution networks beginning to operate in the United States. At this point, they're still more modest than the Colombians, but they start building out their own parallel running network. And so shortly thereafter,

when the boys from Harvard decide, you know what, we really made a mess of thing interdicting the product coming in for Columbia, let's target the Colombian distributors. Well, what they end up doing? They take out the Colombian distributors. What they do? They gave the market to the Mexicans, just like they gave Iraq to Iran.

Right. And all of a sudden, now the Mexicans are, hey, we already got our parallel distribution network. Just sell it to us. Well, now you had Mexican operations on American soil controlled by Mexican kingpins. Now, why is that important? but there's a lot more Mexicans than Colombians

in the United States. Mario Villa Bonas trafficking cell in Los Angeles, the largest on the West Coast. It's about six or seven men. Okay. That's his entire operation. When Sina Loa took over Los Angeles,

you had four different factions, each with five to ten distribution cells. You went from a half a dozen operatives to hundreds. So you just had to, this massive scale up. Again, as a direct result of these short-sided policies by these insecure

men who think, well, we're going to show them, we'll be tough. Right. Sometimes you've got to leave well enough alone. Now, that doesn't mean you don't target the traffickers, you just leave the Colombians alone. They could have just kept watching Mario and knocked off every one of his people.

But by taking him out of the equation, now Guzman says, hey, you know what, I'll handle it. He's already got his people. people in LA anyway. That's how they ended up with Los Angeles. It just fell under their lap. Once the Mexicans took over, now both parties had incentives to flood the market. That's how we ended up where we are today. So my question from 30 minutes ago is how do you fix it? How do you fix the problem? Oh, there's no fixing it. There's not faced over. This is just the way it is from here on Well, there are common sense solutions.

Scale back, slowly scale back. No, what you do is you lower the penalties. Okay. Because if you lower the penalties, you disrupt the pricing structure. No man is going to risk three or four years in prison to make $3,000 a month. Right. You can go to Amazon and make that. Right.

But you'll risk 10 years for a million. Right. I'm not saying legalize. I'm not saying decriminalize. I'm saying lower the penalties. because if the penalties plummet the profit margins plummet prices a function of risk

if there's no negative there's a very light negative consequence there's a very small amount of profits to be made well you're going to cause two things one the number of drug traffickers getting involved shrinks more importantly

the source countries to Colombians they're going to say no no no no no no shrink the amount of product coming into the country to artificially raise the prices Right. So by reinstituting parole and lowering the penalties, you're going to get less product in a year and less traffickers. Of course, our insecure leaders would never undertake that kind of action

because it opens them up for being soft-down crime or being weak. The problem with these insecure men is that they're not willing to take the position that, look, this is the smarter route for us to go. Right. And obviously, 40 years of evidence has demonstrated it doesn't work. Unfortunately, I don't think they're ever going to undertake that kind of action. Now, there are other solutions, but that requires a level of sophistication that we haven't seen. And so, for instance, when in 2001, when armed forces ran into invaded Iraq, Afghanistan,

Okay, 9-11 happened in September. We started bombing in October. Ground forces went in November. By December, the Taliban regime toppled. Well, we went in with what was considered a light footprint. There weren't enough men to occupy the entire country. So they had to enter into relationships with what the American media characterized as local warlords. Right.

Well, those local warlords were actually on traffickers. Right. So one of the largest was a guy named Hajee Norzai When Norzai had a 20,000 man militia The American government is paying Norzai Millions of dollars Keep his men off the field

At a minimum, don't support the Taliban Preferably join the new Afghani government He gets a position in the government He's the largest opium producer in the world The largest hacker in the world I'd probably open up some opportunities for him. It opened up a tremendous amount of opportunities for him. And so Norseye is able to become our man in Havana essentially.

And that's the kind of sophistication in American government would have to demonstrate. Say, look, obviously, you're not going to cut this deal with Mitchell. Obviously, miles out of the way, he's 80 years old. You need to find somebody who's like in his 40s, maybe 50, someone a little bit more sophisticated and come to him and say, look, what we're going to do is we're going to focus on removing these other operations. You are going to be the beneficiary. You're going to remain in position so long as there's no...

Right. Now, we're going to try to intercept all your other loads. That's the game. But we're not coming after you. We're going after that. And we expect you, on the other hand, to enforce it. now if you want to stop coming into the night's right now

go get chop old good's man out of prison put him back in Mexico tell me you got six fucking months stop the fentanyl how many people would he kill he'd have to he might have to let him know

there's a new sheriff in town yeah yeah but after the first thousand or so people get decapitated people will be like oh stop producing it right because 25 years ago

when he was running things nobody cut his product and so that's the kind of of creative solutions. Now, obviously, no one's going to go grab Guzman and put him back into Mexico. Right. But there are plenty of people

that are in their 40s right now who you can make this kind of an arrangement with. Right. And this is essentially what we did in Afghanistan. And what's interesting is, you know, we used Norseye for a few years. Then we double cross him. Right.

You know, another guy was Ahjee Han. massive co-cant trafficker. Same thing. Use him for a number of years. Then we double-cross him. They actually bring Norseye to the United States. Prosecute him in New York. Give him a life sentence. You know where he's out today?

No. Back in Afghanistan. They commuted a sentence. Give him clemency. When did that happen? That happened three years ago. They cut a deal. So as part of the

withdrawal plan they're saying send us back our men so that was part of the package right and so this notion of well the government won't get into bed with large-scale drug traffickers that's absurd that's how we controlled Afghanistan they literally contracted the largest traffickers to be the police force and when necessary to end a deal to complete the war those that we apprehended we actually gave them commutations and sent them home You have the combination order if you want to see it. No, I'm good. So there's no real clear solution other than putting people in power that can get rid of the

final that and take out some of their rivals. That's the only solution to the issue. The only solution to the issue is a coordinated effort where you're saying, look, we're going to enter into an engagement with a somewhat reasonable party. who understands that he's the beneficiary so long as there's no coming out of his production. Like the old Zambada organization

Right. You're not doing... Right. Go find one of their guys that are under 40s. They can't be Guzman's former organization because it's being ran by his sons.

They've gone all in on. Okay. And that's where you had the fallout, the big schism with Encinoloa proper, was over the final issue. Obviously, it can't be none of the new generation guys because they're all in us.

Right. And I just don't think that the government is prepared to even discreetly enter in that kind of an arrangement. I was just thinking they could just do it under the, you know, under the carpet or under the table.

See, part of the problem that got us to where we are today was the government, our government pursued a policy that was essentially decapitation. Now, they euphemistically called it the kingpin strategy. Right. Well, what they did is they started targeting the leaders. Now, the first one of these guys that they got that wasn't part of their strategy was Phileas Gallardo back in 89. Well, there were valuable lessons that should have been learned from that episode. Obviously, they had to get Philees Gallardo and the other guys

because they killed the DEA agent. But the consequence of taking this guy off the market resulted in the fragmenting of his cartel. There was no longer a top-down leadership. So now you had four cartels operating independently. So what happens when you start entering, when you enter competition into the marketplace, what happens? Well, what, the price goes up and what these, no. Price has come down.

Okay, you're killing. Stop giving me the opportunity to make a bad decision. Okay. Okay, prices come down when there's competition, which is why our country has a long tradition of anti-monopolis. Okay, I thought you were going to say, like there was infighting, drives the prices up.

No, see, on the American side, they gain market shares through cutting prices. On the Mexican side, they go to war. But that was essentially what happened for the first 15 years. Okay. And because the war was so egregious, our government, working with their lackeys

in the Mexican government, started targeting cartel heads. And this is where Guzman and Zambada really showed how devious they were. because they were the weakest of the four cartels and they were losing ground. You got the Zetas coming in with the golf on one side. You got Tijuana coming on the other side.

So they formed their federation as a holding pattern. Then Guzman reaches out to his lawyer in San Diego and says, hey, feed the Americans disinformation. Because he's paying for Intel. Right. Adiano's going to be over here. Boom. Now they go get him.

The DEA goes good. The EA gives the information to the Mexicans, the Mexicans go get them. Right. So they knock off, so what? So he starts, so Guzboan starts giving information to knock off the heads of the, of his rivals. Of his rivals. And so in 2002, they decapitate the Tijuana, Cardo. In 2003, they decapitate the Gulf.

In 04, what does? By 05, they're the last man standing. Because they're able to step into the void when there's all this chaos and capitalize on the opportunity to say, okay, now we're taking over. Right. And so the one group that really resisted was what happened in Juarez where it just turned into the biggest war zone.

I mean, there was more homicides in Juarez than there were deaths in Iraq. I mean, it was just all-out war. And so in 2006, there was a contested election where the president of Mexico was a guy named Calderon, he won. And in order to shore, up his popularity, he does two things that prior to that had never been done to Mexico.

He agrees to start extraditing Mexican nationals to the United States. Right. Well, that changes things. Because the Mexican nationals, as long as they're staying in Mexico, they can keep behind their business. They have a sweet time in prison. Right. Whereas you come here, you end up at ADX.

Right. So when these guys show up, Wett Obama, ADX, Ocel Cardinus, ADX. So that means now on the Mexican. Mexican side. They're not going quietly. Right. Second issue that they did is they decided to allow like discrete American military units to participate. And so they start decapitating the heads of these organizations. Now, they didn't learn the lesson from what happened with Felice Gallardo because when you decapitated back then, you created four cartels. Well, once you start decapitating again,

the leadership of Sinaloa began to fragment they kill Balta-Nleva they kill natural Coronel well these men control territory now I'm not saying these are good men but they're the kind of men that you need in place to control for the organizations

right and so when you remove Coronel from the picture what happens you got infighting right infighting yeah Yes, all of a sudden, you got 40 organizations, and they're all thinking, I'm going to be top dog. Right.

And so one of the groups was the group led by Menchal. They form an alliance, the old Valencia organization, forms an alliance with Nacho Coronel's nephews and sons. And all of a sudden, what do you have? The new generation. The new generation would have never existed had you just left Nacho Cordonell in place. Prior to 2013, was there any person coming out of Mexico? No.

Was there ever any coming out prior to 2010 when Cor Cornell was killed? No! So this is a product that's been around forever and yet these guys

never considered using it? No, you know, prior to 2015 all-related cases in the United States, nearly every one of them involve Chinese nationals is being produced in China coming to the U.S. primarily through the mail.

Well, in 2015, our government enters into an agreement with the Chinese government where their postal services were essentially going to work hand in hand. So China Post essentially becomes an investigative agency of the U.S. Postal Service.

So now the Chinese are like, okay, well, we're already shipping tons of precursor chemicals to Mexico, for the Mexicans to make methamphetamine. Why don't we just ship them to precursors and they can make the... And the cartels, different cartels have control of the...

ports of entry, so it's easy to get it in. Yes, and yes, that's exactly what it is. And that's why the new generation, all of a sudden became so powerful because they controlled the two ports. The two largest ports in Mexico on the Pacific coast are in their territory. So there's one in Kalima,

there's one in Micho Khan. So now you've got an enormous infrastructure that was already in place for all this massive epitome manufacturing. Now it is added to that. Just another chemical. It's just another load. Yeah, just a different mixture.

And so the growth of, you know, in the United States is a direct result of the American decapitation policy. You took out the guy who didn't allow it to happen. Prior to Guzman coming, getting arrested in 16, no cases in the United States from Mexico. Right. It had emerged as an issue in 13, 14, and 15 from the Chinese. You bring Guzman. All of a sudden, you know, you kill Coronel,

kill Belta de lava, Azul dies, miles 80, the old guard's gone. You've got these younger guys that are like, you know what, we don't need to make money on volume. We can do volume and maximize profit per unit. Well, that's where the f***les comes in where it's dealing with heroin.

They cut it. Dealing with cocaine, they cut it. Like, there's no reasonable way today, anybody could be involved in drug trafficking simply because you cannot attest to the quality of the products. You know, one of the reasons

why the government came down so hard on, you know, in my case, was because the product had impeccable purity levels. You know, nearly all of the seizures is in my case 100% pure, 100% pure, 100% pure. Well,

on the one hand, that not necessarily causes them to target you all that much more, but on the other hand, there's no harmful impurities. Today, you can't say that. You could be thinking you're trafficking in good fate and all of a sudden you're going to get charged with the homicide because some guy

ends up taking like you can't, the market is completely changed. Like it's completely foolish today to get involved with drug trafficking. Now, it may have been foolish 30 years ago because you get a lot of time, but today like how can't even think about doing a line you know what I mean you just it's just it's at the point now where but people do well and that's why you get 112,000 fatality last year I was

going to say well and that's also the thing is that you're probably just not going to be able to stop the end user if they're willing to take that risk every single time you're not going to be able to stop, unless you put them all into drug rehabs. And that's why you have to remove the people from the equation. Right. But remember, market participants respond to incentives. Threats don't work. By threatening, they command a premium.

You're just making more money. Right. You have to undermine the pricing structure. You have to make it to the point where it is now not in their economic interest to engage. In fentanyl. What that requires a tradeoff. We're not going to decapitate your faction. As long as you agree, we are going to decapitate all the rest.

That's the kind of creative solution that would at least get a handle on the situation to where you're going to see, you know, you're not going to stop people, obviously, from getting high, it's been going on for decades. But at least you're going to lower that number to the point where it gets back to being manageable. Right. You know, when I got prosecuted back in the mid-90s, you know, from the government's perspective,

it was a large case. You know, they threw all kinds of what I consider it to be a little bit disingenuous rhetoric. Mm-hmm. Because today, they're desperate to get back to Rossini levels. Right.

Like, you didn't know how good you had it. Right. Back in 93, 94, 95, 96. And that's why I think that in the end, it's going to take someone with a lot of balls a step to hell up and say you know what we're just going to completely change how we handle it but you don't yeah I was going to say but you don't think that's going to happen no nobody's going to do that no no because like you said it'd

be soft on crime they would consider it soft on crime I mean like I've always said like look what you ought to do is just like let these guys out of prison and just you know you know reduce the sentences dramatically make them all take some type of an art app program and then just take the money that you save and just make free free um free drug rehabs like if people want to you know they can just go to free drug rehabs and make it legal and then tax the living shit out of it make sure it's super pure and you know and then you know like to me now you don't have to rob you can be a functional addict you can go get a job in a factory you can still do your drug drugs, you know, it's just like drinking. It's, it's reasonably priced. You can do it. And if it

becomes an issue for you, you have a free drug rehab you can go to. And guess what? They can't fire you from your job. You're allowed to go for 60 days. You're allowed to get your, go right back to your job. Like, you can, the amount of money that they spend on prisons to give that guy 10 years, you can just let him go to a drug rehab. Yes. And that's, that's what you're saying is essentially what I was saying earlier. You're reducing to penalties. Right. Right. I'm just saying, But the cost savings aren't on the incarceration. It's on the law enforcement action. Well, I think it's all, it's across the board.

You're still saving money on that too. Maybe not as much because you can reduce, you can reduce the amount of law enforcement you need to enforce these laws. But regardless, at the very least, it's going to cut the fucking, the prison, all the prison by half, the prison, you know, budget for prisons in state and in federal prison by half because. It's like 60% of all the guys that are locked up for drugs. Yes.

I'm not saying nobody should go for drugs, but you would be able to really reduce the hell out of it. Well, you know, I agree. I just don't think that that would be palatable from the political perspective. I think lowering the 112,000 is the priority. No, I, okay. I mean, you're saying you can't sell that to the public. Yeah, you can't sell to the public. But, okay, if you take that out of the equation.

Yeah. Like, I'd give you an example. I mentioned this the other day, and there were just tons of people who were like, well, they tried that in Washington. They, you know, it's like saying in California saying, oh, we're going to fix homeless situation. We're going to make it. We're going to pay these guys.

We're going to give them places to live. We're going to give them fun. So what happened was all the people in the country that are homeless are swarming in there. It's profitable. They're like, there are guys they interview. They're like, listen, it pays to be homeless in California. And so they swarm in there. Okay, what I'm saying is,

and so guys are saying by legalizing drugs in like Washington State, they're like, that's ridiculous. It ruined this. Wait a minute. That's because people swarmed in there to take advantage of it. I'm saying there's nowhere to go. I'm saying it's across the United States. So nobody's going to swarm to California to be homeless

or go to Washington to be a full-time drug addict when they can just stay where they're at right now. So you're not going to have that influx. Is it going to change society? you know yeah maybe you're going to see people shooting up in public and you know but you can always arrest those people and they realize hey look if i'm going to do it i have to do it in my home i can't do it in front of kids i can't do it here i can't so those people they get arrested they go to jail for 20 days is it a long time no it's not a long time but 20 days is enough to disrupt

your life so bad you don't want to get arrested again yeah listen the difference between being arrested for three months and three years is is comparable the reason i say that is in three months, you've lost your house, you've lost your job, you've lost all your stuff. The same thing in three years from now is the same thing. You're basically getting out the same. So you might as well just give them three months. Why would I spend the extra money to keep you locked up for three years when the effect that's had to your life occurred at 90 days?

I don't need to give you three years or five or 10 or 15. I've disrupted your life so badly in 90 days that you don't want to go to jail for another 90 days. So to me, why would I pay for the whole three years? No. I mean, that's a reasonable argument. I'm not making it. I don't think decriminalization or legalization is on the table and I'm not even advocating for it. I'm simply saying there's a smarter way to operate. You're saying still arrest them. But don't give them 10, 15, 20 years. Give them two years. Give them a year. Give them. Right. I mean, in ways to me, I feel like it's, it's similar because if you're going to learn your lesson, you're going to learn it probably in two or three

years just like you are 20. It's not changing people's behavior. It's changing people's incentives. I'm not going to risk a inconvenient two-year prison sentence to make three or four grand this month. Right. But you will take that same risk to make a million. Yeah. Even if it's a 10-year risk, men will take it. And so you need to undermine the profits associated with the trafficking. Right, that's what I'm also saying is that by legalizing it, you're undermining the project, because the profits, because you could legally make this drug here in the United States, I agree, but I just don't think that's even on the table. Well, no, I know. I'm not saying it's on, none of it's on the table. Yeah. You know? Yeah, because no, nobody's ever going to do that. Nobody, because listen, the moment they do that and anything goes wrong, because it would be horrific for, it'd be a 10-year adjustment period that would be horrific. All kinds of. just like you said there would be all kinds of unintended consequences and anytime somebody still

died or something went wrong or there was a shooting or there was this or there's that it would immediately be like well you're the one that put these policies you're the one well i understand and it's horrific for about 10 years but in 10 years it'll level out and we'll be in Amsterdam i went to Amsterdam it was beautiful it was wonderful it was nice people could walk you could walk in and get cookies with marijuana in it and you could now but they don't have everything isn't everybody thinks oh well it's all legal it's not but you can't go in and say hey can i get an ecstasy bill they'll kick you out of the store and what's so funny too is they won't say like yeah there's a guy i can't kick you out they'll say get out what i'm sorry i can't serve you that that's

illegal that you need to leave you're like you're selling marijuana brownies what are you talking about you got gummy bears doesn't matter that's legal this isn't and it's so lucrative for them i don't mess with anything like that and even if you got arrested for it the penalties are very, very light. Yeah. Well, it's a much more rational approach. Right. And there has to be a number at some point.

Because when you go, you know, 106,000, three years ago, 109,000, two years ago, 112,000 last year, at what number do you say, okay, we have to change? Is it a quarter million? Is it a million? Imagine how much money would be saved. Like, I mean, I understand you're saying, oh, the panel, it's horrible. That's all I'm addressing. I understand. But I mean, let's face it.

We're not losing patriots here. So, you know, that's not a big deal. What bothers me is the money angle. Like, I want free health care, bro. I want free health here. And I feel like if you eliminate, get rid of the DEA, get rid of half the FBI, get rid of half these government people, then I feel like I can get free health care. That's what I want.

Okay? If we can get free health care out of here, or free health care out of this, that's a win-win. That's a win for me. You know, I'm not that concerned with the. the X amount of drug addicts that are, that are, you know, losing their lives. Like, I feel bad, but that's, bro, what you knew what was going on. So, I mean, I'm sure some of them are just nice high school's kids that I feel horrible about, but still. Well, you know, that's why earlier I made the comment that the market has completely changed

because today it's just a game of Russian roulette. Right. Because essentially you've got three guys with absolutely no skills, no training. using buckets and just mixing and sometimes the concentrations are going to be different and if you get the wrong batch or you know the wrong bindle the wrong gram

and that's why I think that at some point you're going to see the Mexicans taking upon themselves to say hey look we're willing to do this someone's going to do it because it's the smart move right Whether we accept that invitation, that's to be seen,

or discreetly whether we go to them. Like today you hear, there's a lot of people, particularly on the right, saying, well, we should declare them terrorists. First of all, they're criminals. Right. And so if you want to start sending American military personnel into Mexico, that's an interesting plan.

But on the other hand, they shoot back. You'd have to just take over Mexico, which is something I have advocated for, which you also have never. I advocated so hard in one video Colby wouldn't even post a video I mean I was saying go in and just

it's going to be just some mass execution That's why like when You know two Reagan's credit You know he shut down the border Right No one today is talking about that Right They're talking about bombing

They're talking about invading No one's talking about shutting down the border Why? Because Mexico has his captain Ever since NAFTA A lot of American companies Went and established their manufacturing just south of the border. So today, if we shut down the border,

you're hurting American companies. Right. And so we lost that ability to create that leverage. Your suggestion is back, back off, put some guys in power that will take care of it in Mexico. Yeah, that's my suggestion.

I mean, I'm sure you would have said it much more eloquently than I just said it. You want to wrap it up or? I can't believe that you prepared this for this. you we've got to we have to focus you in a way that can make you some money as opposed to you could have just rift this whole thing you don't even need those notes you could have done this without the notes without i wanted to have it logically progress and i can't logically progress with you because you jump around i i i try cut to the chase i cut to the chase look at i got

second order third order fourth order fifth order consequences and you're just like you need a channel to focus some of this energy. You want me to give you guys a clean copy it is and you can post the work product and say, we never got to it? Are you serious? No. Okay. I'm just checking. I'm not going to subject anybody to this. I've been through this.

Listen, the entire, he wrote essentially, he wrote the back story, a story I wrote called American Narco, which was the Carrie Lee Woolsey story. And Pete wrote, if I had written that story,

it would have been 7, 8,000 words. It's like 14 to 16,000 words because Pete wrote the backstory to the formation of the cartel and the evolution of the cartel and the creation of the federation and then kind of how it was dismantled. So there's a, I'd say 30% of the story, maybe 25% of the story.

is about just the cartel and the chain that marijuana goes through to get in the United States and how it gets here and how it ends up in Fort Myers to carry Woolsey and how he distributes it and how they met like so if we interread these two stories if I had written what Pete wrote like Pete would write this stuff up he'd give me six pages I would condense it two paragraphs he'd give me eight pages would be one paragraph he'd give me eight pages would be one paragraph. He'd give me four paragraphs. It'd be four pages, two paragraphs.

I mean, and every time, I mean, and I would say, Pete, I'm asking you to give me one paragraph on this. Two days later, here's your three pages. One paragraph. Well, I wanted to make sure you had enough backstory to understand the formation of the, you know, it was important that you, you know, and then when he would edit the, edit the stories. listen he's using fucking words i don't know what you're like i'm like i said you know well they combined this he's like it was more of a conflation i've never heard the word conflation in my life like what do you mean nobody if i haven't heard of it the people

that read this i promise you haven't heard of it you know and he just it was just it was insane he's like well when we write the book write the book we're not writing a book beat we're writing 10,000 words at mo it ended up being like 14,000 words or something 15,000 words. It was, you know, it was, it was good. It was a good story, but not because of him. He wrote so much information on every single aspect. It could have been a book, but, you know, we trimmed it down because the main story is about, you know, Carrie Lee Woolsey, but it is super cool.

The backstory is super cool, too. Well, the parallel storylines, give it the gritty nature of the story. So, but what's so funny is when I handed it, or when I sent it to, when I gave it to, not Carrie, but when I gave it to Danny.

Danny. Danny sweep. Swoop. Samuel sweet. Sweet. When I gave it to Danny, like he didn't like it at all. Because he's like,

It makes it sound like we're working hand in hand with the cartel. Like, but you were working hand in hand. He's like, but, but, I'm like, I mean, you were working with this guy that was with the cartel. Right? Well, yeah, but it makes it sound like, didn't you go into Mexico and meet cartel members and go to one of their warehouses? With a hundred tons? Yeah, that Pete didn't suggest it. You told me there were hundreds of tons.

It was piled up to the ceiling. it was you met with this guy like you told me that he's like yeah but you i really didn't like this angle it makes it sound like we were an integral part of well that's what your indictment says like that's what the u.s attorney said that's what you know and he's you know so he read it he said by the third time he read it he said i read it three times i read it once had a conversation with me let a couple of his buddies read it he read it again a couple weeks later he read it again he came back and he said man it's an awesome story i just did never thought of of doing a parallel story you know a sub story of the of the cartel and how the product is created how it evolved

how it ends up in the u.s how people like us are intricate in that chain but once he read it and realized it and thought about it he's like yeah you're right there's nothing without a guys like us without someone like us to distribute it and sell it to dealers and traffic it like there's no like you're right and not just that it was the same thing with carry carry was always like it was like you know i don't know 50 100 pounds well i have the report they caught this guy with 300 pounds maybe 300 he was always down playing down playing down playing and it's like he's like i've never been seen you know this much weed i mean yeah okay well the the indictment says it was 14, you were called with 1,400 pounds.

Maybe, maybe. I mean, okay, yeah, yeah. You obviously ordered the 1400. You know, I don't know why we have to put that. I don't know why, you know, why are you focusing on, I especially don't like that you put half a ton. That's unreasonable. It is half a ton.

He's like, I don't, I don't know what you're doing here. Like, I'm being honest. Like, you're the one, you know, they didn't give you 12 years because you were selling dime bags. You know, you got 12 years. He's like, well, the mandatory minimum is 10 years. You didn't get the mandatory minimum. You got 12.

So you can't even say that I should have gotten three, but I got 10 because that's the minimum they could give me. No, you got 12. This is where you fell on the guidelines. He just, I don't think he ever really liked the story. But Danny, and listen, everybody, because I actually went to a party in Fort Myers. We went to Danny's birthday party. I have videos. of it. I'm going to show you the videos in a minute. But I went to his birthday party, which was

insane. Like, just, it was a rock. There was not, it wasn't like it. There was a rock concert. Like they're friends with like, and I'm going to say that guys, it's, he's like one of their next door neighbors and one of their good friends. Like one of them's like a member of like Metallica or something. And so they have these guys come. And then one of them's another guy who's like with like Leonard Skinner or something. They come and they perform. They had a full set like whoever does his stuff came out there was a full concert set i mean it was insane they had a ferris wheel they had it was it was the most amazing thing they had women walking around on stilts juggling and blowing fire and it was like this is insane doing um they had like glow sticks

and all kinds of so and it was all at night so but everybody that came up to me they'd go hey you wrote american narco and i'd be like yeah they'd be like yeah they'd be bro great fucking story man that i never really understood the story until i read that like i knew he got arrested but i had no idea so you know not that he wasn't already in this little town this town fort myers not that he wasn't already like a celebrity in the town but then when that they read the story now his celebrity became even bigger yeah because now the the back story he's a musician if you read the article he's actually a musician

an amazingly talented musician he gave a concert just before he left at Coleman and so in the in the story this is funny in the story he talks about being in San Diego

and they went to a Mexican bar and these bars are massive canteen it yeah it's huge right and his cartel contact, Apple, goes to the guys that are playing, the, what were the Mexican band? Banda. Yeah, and says, hey, this guy's a singer. Like, he has a band.

He's a singer. And they call him up on stage. And he's like, no, no, no, I don't say. They're like, ah, you got to sing, you got to sing. He's like, no, no, no. And he's like, no, you wouldn't, I don't sing. You wouldn't know any of the songs. And the guy goes, do you know, what was it by Scorpions?

What was the name of the song? Do you remember? It was, oh, my guys, it was hilarious. That was such a great scene. The band leader asks Carrie, do you know the scorpions still loving you? And Carrie goes, I actually do know still loving you. He was like, you know, I don't know a lot of their songs, but I do know still loving you. So Carrie gets up on stage.

He said, they've been playing Mexican music all night. He said, I, he said, well, the lights come on. And he said, so the lights come on. He's like, so I'm blinded. I can't see the crowd. He said, and I'm thinking, they're not going to like this. So I start off with still loving you. I start off the song.

He goes, and as I'm singing and singing and singing, and he said, it goes, you can kind of hear them in the background, but I can't really sing him. He goes, he sings the entire song. And he said, when it finally comes up to the point to the crescendo or whatever, he said the light's dim and I look out and can see all the Mexicans staring at him and he's like you know he ends it

still loving you know how it ends and he said it goes dark and he looks out and he said they go and they just scream like just massive massive eruption he said he said listen bro he said that may have been like the pinnacle

of my life like that may have been the most he played he played with three doors down he played with Lenny Kravitt and he said I couldn't fucking believe the way these guys went nuts he said it was amazing it's just

that's the best scene in the story and that's what I'm saying when I had that discussion with those producers the other day that's the scene they said they were talking about his thing being a like a one episode and they said but honestly

I said do you understand how many people I said he can get that were involved in this whole thing that carry can that can be interviewed is you you've got 10 people 12 people that's not including DEA agents everybody else and I and I said I'm telling you they went they said you know that one scene and I was like the I said the you know I go still living you yeah I said the bar well I said the bar scene where he sings and and they were like the guy goes listen he said that was amazing he said that was an amazing scene I said and he goes and then when carry afterward is you're

talking to him and he his discussion went Manzanian No, no. No, no. His discussion with, with me. Oh, with you. I just wanted to be a rock star. Yeah. He's like, I just wanted to be a rock star. He was, I don't know why that wasn't enough for me. And he said, any tears up when he's telling me this, telling me about it. He said, bro, he said, when I read that, I'm telling you said, it hit me hard. He said, hard. He said, he said, that scene alone is amazing. He said, that's worth a, you know, a three part documentary. I said, bro, I said, I'm telling. I'm telling. I'm telling. I'm. I'm telling. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I telling you, this guy can get you 10 people to interview. He's a legend in that town. They love it. And I'm talking to people like, like Danny's hit me going like, I'm like, hey, I talked to a guy and walks off. Danny walks up and hits me. He's like, you know, that's so-and-so. And he's like, from the story. And I'm like, is that the guy that was on the couch. And I'm like, oh, my God, that's the guy. I'm like, I can't remember names. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, he's like, oh, listen, half the guys are here. He's like, this guy, this guy. Some people have moved. moved away they can't make the party but they listen tell them about the first scene is he familiar with the story no where they show up with the RV and they start pulling out oh yeah yeah yeah yeah that's I open it with the um the RV showing up well it what happened is he bought some weed from one guy he got like half a pound then it was a pound or two pounds he said then the guy shows up one time he escalated to about a couple hundred pounds yeah yeah yeah I'm saying it would but it went from like

half a pound to maybe two pounds. Then it's, he asked for like 50 pounds or something. Or no, 20 or something. The guy shows it with like 100. Yeah. And then he comes and the guy's like he, so he reorders it. And the guy shows up with an RV. And he's like, oh, the guy goes, come in, come in.

He walks in the RV. He's like, okay. He's like, okay. He's like, I'm wondering like, where's the, where's the weed? I'm supposed to get like 100 pounds at this point or something. They guys like, yeah, watch. He goes up to the console in the RV. he turns this and pushes this button and you hear this, like a little air thing.

Hydraulics center. A little square, a little 12 by 12 square of carpet. In the middle of the carpet, he said, raises up. And it's just a pole. He's like, huh, okay. He's like, it's kind of cool. Guy reaches down and grabs a pound, pulls out a pound. Like it barely fits through.

But it's tied to something, to another pound, about six inches between him. So he pulls it out and pulls that one. and gives it to him and pulls another one. You know, they're like, I think they're cutting them or something. Hands that pound to the guy. Pulls another one out, hands that. So then they're kind of running back and forth for the house where they're going to put it. Then it's, then it's another pound and another one.

And he goes, now we're a conveyor base. Now there's three or four of us running back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Before you know it, he's like, it gets to a point where it's, it's more than 100 pounds. Then it's 200 pounds. Then it's 300 pounds. then it's 400 pounds it's piling up because we got it piled up on the first it was like the the um the table then it's on the ground then it's on the furniture then it's here he's it's like what 1,400 pounds or something like that he's like literally he's like I can't get rid of this much

I can't get rid of it oh no it's going to be okay it's like I can't pay for this much like no no no I'm fronting it's okay you're good you're good for you're good for he's like they're freaking out like freaking out he's like I'm thinking oh my god they're going to kill me they're going to give me 1400 pounds I can't move that much I don't I don't of course he does but his one buddy is when the guy drives off his one buddy's sitting and it's his house it's his buddy's house because he lives in the middle of nowhere he's laying on the couch going um like almost

passed out and he said he's having a panic attack and he said all he kept saying over and over again it's like I can't be a part of this Carrie I can't be a part of this I can't be a part of this I can't you got a half a ton in his living room he's got a half a ton of fucking of marijuana but Kerry was like I I moved it very quickly Because he was shocking how quickly I moved it. He's like, you know, he's like, I mean, the guys that were taking a pound are now taking, you know, a hundred.

And but yeah, it was, it's a great. The whole story is great. But yeah, that may end up being a three part, whatever, you know, maybe. We'll see. So we, so Zach and I, we did a video reviewing my Dateline episode. Uh-huh. It, it, and the worst thing was, so was that Zach, the whole. whole time, like Alice and Arnold would come on and she'd be like, I mean, I met him and I just, he,

you know, he was so, she was, you know, he was, he was, he was a nice guy and he, what did she say? She said, he said, you just need somebody to believe in you. And, and so Zach, and Zach goes, aw. And I go, and I look at him. And then two minutes later, she said something else and he goes, oh. And I go, hey, stop with that. Stop. He's like, poor Allison. I go, stop. Stop. The whole time, he's like, we'd stop and he'd be like, did you really do that? No, this didn't happen the way it happened. That's not the way that.

He's like, you're a, you're a scumbag. The comments in that, the comments in that video are overwhelmingly just hilarious and. Yeah, it has like a, I mean, the like a like over a thousand. 1.5,000 lives. It's hilarious. To dislikes? Dislikes? Is that the ratio?

Well, it's like a normal video that got that many views would not have that many likes. Yeah, it's only, it's got 40,000 views, but it's got like a thousand thumbs up where people like like the video. And then the people in it and what I talk, I explain about, they do talk about the single mothers that he would find single mothers. Yeah, targeting them. Right. And I was like, that's not what happened. That's not. Listen, you have to understand at the time.

That was a key, big. issue in the media like we have to protect single mothers so they made me look like and Zach's going was Allison a single mother I'm like yeah she had and then he'd sit there and he you know and then Rebecca blah blah blah and he'd go single mother and I'd be like fuck you man it is hilarious but then people are in there like Cox boy Cox in those single mothers what's up with this dude I mean the guys are just going but they're hilarious the comments are hilarious Okay, so Jess, single mother. Like, you know, they were, yeah, dirt bag.

Does she watch this? He didn't watch that one. Why? You know why? Because of acting, because they showed Allison. Okay. Which is the one that you plied with diamonds? Yeah.

Rebecca Howlke I didn't play None of them bother her Because they're all in their 50s So Yeah Listen they get you know My age younger and cute

But then it's a problem Yeah If they were It was a 32 year old That was a 32 year old Hottie I don't know what I have to move out of the house

Why are you making Thomas? What are you doing? What are you talking to her? She's a guest on the show Who is this girl that said said, said, you're so handsome. Who's that?

I don't know. It's a comment on a thing. I don't know. It's a comment. I don't know who this person. She said, you're handsome. Who is she? Who do I know who she is?

Her name is Bunny Rabbit Blue. I don't know. Who's Bunny Rabbit Blue? I don't know. He's wrong. I don't know. He knows. That really is that is what I'm feeling with.

Like she'll get, she'll be driving. She'll think about something that she thinks I would, that's something Matt would say. Get angry. Have a argument in her head. Get over the argument and then come in or come in mad. And it's like, what are you upset with? I was just on the way here or this happened.

I thought that's something you would do. And the whole argument in her head. It's like, I've done nothing. She just manifests the whole thing. Sometimes you'll have the whole argument, have the discussion, realize it's wrong, and come in and then tell me about it in the car. Does she apologize for it? I'm sorry I got mad at you.

But I know it's, you wouldn't, I know it was just in my head. Oh my God, what's happening? Hey, I appreciate you guys watching the video. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button. Please hit the bell so you get notified of videos like this. Please leave me a comment. Share the video to anybody that you think would be interested.

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