The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Inside The CRYSTAL METH Cartel: Drug Kingpin Exposes Secrets Of Mexico's Most POWERFUL Meth Cooks
Episode Date: January 18, 2026In this episode, a former drug trafficker "Fernando" breaks down how crystal meth from Mexico’s most violent region flooded small-town America — and how he lived at the center of it. Raised in ...a multi-generation trafficking family tied to Michoacán, Fernando reveals how meth labs in Mexico, tight-knit immigrant networks, and overlooked U.S. towns created one of the most devastating drug pipelines in modern history. From burying cash in the ground to moving hundreds of pounds before age 20, this is an unfiltered look at the business, culture, and consequences of the meth trade. Fernando discusses: -Why Michoacán became the epicenter of crystal meth -How cartel families expand into small U.S. towns -The economics of meth vs cocaine -Gambling, narco culture, and “front” businesses -How federal cases are quietly built for years -Life inside federal prison and the cost to family -Why leaving the game is harder than entering it This episode is raw, detailed, and brutally honest — a firsthand account of how an entire system operates in plain sight. This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: The Wellness Company! Visit twc.health/connect to get American Made Ivermectin. Order your 6-month supply today and use code CONNECT for $30 Off + FREE shipping. USA Residents only 🇺🇸 Ava! Take control of your credit today. Download the Ava app , and when you join using MY promo code CONNECT20, you’ll get 20% off your first year—monthly or annual, your choice. Betterhelp! You can’t step into a lighter version of yourself without leaving behind what’s been weighing you down. Therapy can help you clear space. Sign up and get 10% off at https://betterhelp.com/connect. Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 How Michoacán Meth Changed Everything 02:14 Meet Fernando: Family History in Trafficking 07:11 Michoacán's Cartel Culture and Drug Routes 10:49 Growing Up in a Narco Family in the US 15:36 This Episode Is Sponsored By The Wellness Company 17:15 Why Michoacanos Move to the US Drug Market 24:08 Volleyball, Gambling & Community: The Social Side 30:09 This Episode Is Sponsored By Ava 32:24 Drug Dealing, Customers, and Cutting Product 42:09 Transitioning from Cocaine to Meth 47:41This Episode Is Sponsored By Betterhelp 49:04 How the Meth Market Works 53:19 Cooking, Stretching, and Selling Meth 01:00:13 Family Roles, Buried Money, and Prison 01:10:05 Life in Prison and Staying Connected 01:21:03 Getting Busted & Prosecuted 01:31:36 Culture, Resourcefulness, and Prison Life 01:41:00 Reflections, The Present & Trying to Go Legit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Once the mess hit, it was always.
They grabbed people by the hairs like never before.
Everybody had men.
If you were from Hichwakan, going delivering 10, 20 pounds, everybody built a wealth.
Today's guest is a man we'll call Fernando, a career drug trafficker for La Familia Michoacana,
one of the oldest and most established drug cartels in Mexico.
The state of Mishuacan is the most lawless, crime-infested region in Mexico.
Drug lord El Mentiono, founder of the Halisco New Generation cartel, is from there.
And while not as well known to the outside world as cartels from Sinaloa or Halisco,
Mituquacan is a bigger net exporter of drugs to the United States than those other two places combined.
Their biggest product is Crystal Meth, which they cook non-stop in kitchens throughout the remote Tierra Caliente region of Miju Khan.
In fact, when Mexican cartels first monopolized the crystal meth trade in the early 2000s,
it was ice from Mituacan that began the epidemic that swept over American cities.
And that's where guys like Fernando come in.
Fernando grew up in a family of drug kingpins
and spent his childhood going back and forth
between Michoacan and Fresno, California.
Throughout his childhood,
Fernando's family migrated to different small towns
from Washington State to South Dakota
in order to open up new drug markets.
Then, when he was only 16,
Fernando's father went off to prison,
so he and his brothers took over the business.
They flooded a small South Dakota town
with thousands of pounds of pure crystal meth
shipped directly from the bosses in Mituqan.
They made millions of dollars
and contributed to one of the most gruesome drug epidemics
in the history of the United States.
Fernando gives fascinating insight into the narco culture of Mishuacan
and exposes the connection between that region
and nomadic drug trafficking families like his
spread out in small towns throughout the United States.
And for a bonus episode with Fernando
where he tells jaw-dropping stories
from when he actually lived in Mexico,
check out that Patreon.
on Patreon.com slash the Connect show.
All right, you guys, get ready.
This episode is Puro Michwa Khan.
I give you Fernando right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell.
So tell us what makes Michoacan unique from the other narco regions in Mexico like
Sinaloa?
It's position that where it's at is terrain and it's it's
It almost crosses half the middle part of Mexico.
And you got to go through there to get your drugs from Colombia,
wherever it is, they, you know, they bring them.
Yeah.
And they had different ways of getting it through the mountains, through the coast.
That's their position they hold.
Yeah.
their knowledge of the terrain, their knowledge of people, of the government, and all that.
Yeah.
Because it all comes down to, like, the government, their sons are like, I mean, the, the cartel sons, now they're the new politicians and stuff like that or their dads work together.
And that's why it's so, it's so embedded.
Yeah, in the culture.
Did you see cartel land?
documentary. No, I haven't. About 10 years ago. So it was basically the Knights Temblar was a super
brutal cartel and massacring innocent people in Mituacan. And so there's this auto defensa, right?
This self-defense group, right? So self-defense groups are almost as common in Mituquiton as
cartels. And so what they did is they strapped up. They got
they got local police to become involved.
They got permission from the citizenry.
And basically, they wiped Knights Templar out.
And then what do they do?
They turn around.
They turn into Los Villagras.
That's right.
Los Villegra,
which is now one of the strongest cartels in Mexico.
But only in that area.
Only in Fiava Caliente.
Remember we were talking about the four letters?
He can't get in.
Like, he can try as hard as he wants.
He can spend as much money.
He can throw as many bullets.
But he can't.
And you're talking about Mensho,
biggest,
biggest kingpin in the world
of the Halisco cartel.
He is from Mishuakan,
and he's taken all the other regions
in Mexico, basically,
but he can't take over Mutsu Kahn.
He can't get his birthplace.
Yeah, and that's one thing about
people from Mishu Kahn.
That's very sacred to them where they're from.
Yeah.
Like, we're very proud people.
Yeah.
Yeah, there is this, like,
religiosity, this religiosity to
drug trafficking that the people of
Mishu Khan have. Like they're very connected to the earth
and they view
drug trafficking almost as like their birthright.
Like it's their, it's its own country
and this is how we feed ourselves.
It's through meth. So we will defend it.
Yeah. And then also how many
how many families have been dying?
against each other, like, it's like, it's a blood thing now.
That's what it is.
It's just where they're just, oh, you killed this person.
I'm going to kill you worse or I'm going to kill you worse and this and that.
And they don't care who it is.
Right.
Families getting wiped out like nothing.
So your father is from Apatzingong.
Yep.
The city in Tierra Caliente in Michoakan.
He got started in the drug business with marijuana with your grandfather.
I believe, right? Yep.
He, he, um, he, um, they had, um, acres of, uh, plot of land and what other ways to use it,
but to grow something that makes money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's how they began.
Before cartels, it was just like weed growing families that knew each other and they would,
you know, share land and they would basically sell tons of it to either their people or,
other gringoes, whoever was coming down to pick it up from
America. George, that dude, he used to go out there. He used to
get a weed from out there. Who's George? George,
that young, George Young.
Oh, George Young. That's when he started. You see in the movie how
he goes and sees those Mexicans dudes or whatever. They were from
Michoacan. Yeah. I didn't know that. Wow. So Michua Khan
maybe had even better and more abundant weed than they had in the golden triangle in Siena Loa?
Wow.
Yeah, I would say so.
That's wild.
That's wild.
Yeah.
That's wild.
Now, what age did your father immigrate to the U.S.?
And he moved to Fresno, where he eventually had you?
Do you know how old he was when he did that?
I don't remember, dude.
I don't remember how old he was.
He was in the 80s?
He was in the 80s.
I was born in 85.
So basically, I couldn't, I don't remember.
It was, yeah, I mean, I really never paid attention to, you know, my dad's age and stuff like that.
He, you were talking to me off camera about Michua Khan, they don't, even though they produce a lot of drugs there, they have to work.
with cartels that control the border regions.
So Tijuana and with the Ariano Felix,
Sinaloa, obviously, now it's Halisco.
They control most of the border.
So what that's done is it's caused a lot of people
from Mituu Kahn who want to get in the drug game.
They have to immigrate to the U.S.
to really make that big money
and sell it out here retail
because the border.
is already, where the big money is made in the hop, crossing the drugs, that's already
sewed up. That's already monopolized by the people that have the border regions.
Yep. Basically, yeah, they have to come out here. And here, like we said earlier, you got to look
over your shoulder constantly. Out here is stressful. Out here selling drugs, man, it sucks.
It's very stressful. It's a lot of money.
and but it's very stressful.
And you were saying like how
Mitroacanesis will,
first of all, they all talk.
Wherever there's a community
of Mitro Canesis in the U.S.,
everybody will know whether that's
in Atlanta or Fresno or Yakima, Washington.
Everybody knows somebody
from all of those different little communities, right?
Yeah, basically,
kind of like,
if we would have went to move somewhere,
we would have moved somewhere where we knew there was people, oh, this person's there.
Oh, yeah, you know, like, oh, my cousin.
My dad would be like, oh, my cousin or somebody, we would just go right there when they were
at and he would just put up shop, basically.
Set up shop.
You hit the area up.
Yeah.
And that's all your dad did growing up when you were a kid.
He didn't have a job.
He was a drug dealer.
Yeah, he was a drug dealer.
He was, he was a drugder, basically.
So he started off in the 80s in Fresno where you were born, where you grew up with Coke.
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Yep.
Right?
And you said back then he's dealing with the Sinaloa cartel.
Like you don't think he was dealing with the Mituwa Khan families anymore?
more? Well, I mean, they, they're the, they're the, they're the, seen the lowest got the power on,
they got, they got the power on Coke. Mm-hmm. They do. And they have a certain percentage of
any drug coming through there. So it has to, it has to be, you got to go through them. Yeah. Yeah.
You got to go through them. What was growing up like, you were a spoiled kid, you said. Yeah.
It's funny to think about like Mexican immigrants in Fresno being spoiled.
but you guys, you always had drug money.
Yeah, no, it was definitely fun.
I mean, having the new Nintendo or whatever it was, Genesis or whatever it was,
I had, I mean, every Christmas I had like 10 presents.
And it was just, yeah, it was, it was good stuff too, like good presents I used to get.
So, yeah, I just, I, I, I would, that's,
I was, it was embedded in me already.
It's like, oh, I want this.
And I didn't even have to think of,
oh, what did my dad have to do for me to get something?
I never had to, like, worried about that.
I would, he'd be like, oh, he would tell my mom,
go buy him, whatever.
And, yeah.
Wow.
And we had every movie.
We had every big TVs when we were young and cars, all that.
Wow.
And it was like sixth grade or something when you discovered what your dad did
where the money came from?
Yeah, somebody told me, he's like, well, how do you think you got this?
And I'm like, well, my dad works.
He has a company.
He has a lawn service company.
That's how I got.
He's like, no, he's not.
He's a drug dealer, like in front of everybody.
And then I just shut up and froze like, whoa.
But it made sense.
It was something I was like, whoa, okay.
It's kind of like I knew it.
But it really clicked in me to like, okay.
Did you go confront your dad?
No, I never did.
Huh.
I never did.
For what?
You know, thanks to that.
I mean, we had big lavish parties back in the day.
We had all sorts of stuff.
We had a great childhood.
I mean, playing soccer.
I mean, we would go eat everywhere.
I mean, anywhere.
And, yeah, my dad always with a big, a lot of cash.
Yeah.
Yeah, basically.
he was something else
and then he had a lot of girls too.
Oh, I'm sure he did.
Oh, yeah.
He had, when he passed away,
he had about like a bunch of older ladies there.
At the funeral?
Yeah.
I'm sure your mom again, thrilled.
Yeah, no.
Well, my mom, one thing about my mom,
I mean, she's like, she care about us more than anything.
I feel like she loved us so much
that she could
she could
she could literally
forgive him
whatever
for all the
all the stuff
for whatever
and then my dad
was a good guy too
he she would
her family
was always
they were poor family
and he would
hand them cash too
I mean
my dad wasn't
he wasn't stingy
at all with the money
that's another thing
I feel like
he lost so much money
because he was in
he was drunk
and he was gonna make
stuff happen
and everybody was gonna have fun
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he wasn't very organized with his money.
Right.
When my grandpa passed away, that's why he had so much because he would finance all his stuff.
Like, okay, I'm going to buy 10 cows.
I'm going to buy this and put this into work and do this.
And that's why he accumulated some of stuff because, I mean, he basically, you know, he was,
He was like you said, you know, like, yeah, he was like a fuck up, you know.
So your grandfather was like the smart one.
He was the investor.
Yeah.
He was the one that took the weed money and bought land.
But he didn't get into the Coke game.
No, my grandpa, no, no, no, he did it.
Okay.
No.
Do you think that most Michua Kinesis in the different communities around America,
the ones that are here to sell drugs?
Do you think they came here with the purpose of setting up shop?
Or did they come here, you know, just like any other immigrant,
here to work and to have a better life.
And then they just, you know, met connects in their community and got back into the game.
Basically, it's a lot of them come with that promise of, you know, oh, hey, I'm going to send you
over there.
You're going to help this person.
They, you know, they pay for their, when they cross.
And then they pay it off, I guess, or whatever they have going.
and they come with that idea that, oh, I'm going to be helping somebody do illegal shit.
Like, you know, they're going to be in there, you know, cooking up badges and putting shit back together.
Right.
And, yeah, and going delivering 10, 20 pounds to somebody in the car.
And, dude, it's scary.
Without no stash or anything, just driving to somebody.
And it's like, yes, man.
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Okay, so people from Mutual Khan immigrate here,
and their dream, their American dream is making money from drug trafficking.
There's no, there's no two ways about it.
I mean, that's the easiest route.
And do they get sponsored?
Do they get sponsored by people in Mutuala Khan?
whether they're part of the cartel or their cooks or something,
they say, hey, I'm going to pay for your,
I'm going to pay a poillero to cross you,
and then you're going to go to Atlanta and start moving it.
And I'm going to get you your product in a week.
And you're going to, you know, you're going to make this much,
and they're like, okay, and yeah, they come out here.
But most of them are in prison.
That's why you see so many people in prison from Yichuacan.
Of course.
You know, basically they're all,
they're given a promise without not thinking of the wreck, you know, to what's going to happen to them.
I think they know.
I think they know by now.
They know, but it hits.
They know they know once they're in there, you know.
Like, oh, shit.
This is what I was really getting into.
You were telling me, like, once you guys find a market, usually like a small town, don't you think?
I mean, I know Atlanta's a huge hub, a huge city.
Don't you think that Micho Caneses go to like the smaller regions of America like Fresno, like Yakima?
Don't you think that attracts them a little more?
Yeah.
Few Falls.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where you were put in hustling.
Yeah.
Why do you think they go to these tiny little regions as opposed to like L.A.?
It's like a new girlfriend, basically.
You know, like, hey, untouched, you know, something nice, you know, something new.
Nobody's, you know, I'm the first one here and I'm going to fuck the shit out of it, basically.
So it's like no competition.
No competition whatsoever.
Yeah.
Not, no competition.
You're moving stuff at your pace, at sure what you know you can do and you're saying up your, you're your own boss, basically.
Right, right.
So you're the one bringing in all the weight and everybody else.
You basically set the market price for the people that are dealing it for you.
Yeah, and not, you're just going to have haters like, man, you know, that's it.
Right.
So you got to really worry about just your haters.
You don't have to worry about, oh, I owe this person this much, or he's going to kill me,
or this is going to happen, or, you know, your losses are your losses, basically.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's kind of why, do you think that's why the Mitroa Kinesis got into meth and shifted away from Coke?
it's because they didn't have to rely on, you know,
Colombians or other Mexican cartels to get the product.
All they had to do was get the precursors, right?
And they want their money.
Coke money is, I mean, if you get it fronted,
hardly anybody's going to front you.
I mean, people do front you, but it's like, I want it now.
It's like now.
It's like, yeah.
And with them with meth, it's like, oh, you know, it's,
we have 20 more.
You know, we have 30 more.
We can always get more.
We can always get more, you know, oh, whoa, whoa, you lost five.
It's okay.
Don't worry about it.
You know, water under a bridge.
Just pay me when you, you know, you can make it up whenever.
Well, because you were telling me when you first got into it,
a pound of meth was like a thousand bucks, right?
Or something like super cheap.
It was about when I got in it, in it, it was a little bit more expensive than,
I mean, now, now it's gone down.
It's crazy.
Crazy.
It's, it's, yeah, it's crazy.
We started at about 4,000.
We used to pay for a pound.
Okay.
4,000.
And we used to put, yeah, we used to cut a whole pound into it.
We used to put a whole pound into a pound making 100% profit.
Wow.
And just ounces.
And how much could you sell an ounce of that for?
A thousand.
That's what they were going for.
Wow.
So you buy a pound of pure crystal meth for,
$4,000, you turn it into two pounds. So that's, that's 28, sorry, that's 32 ounces. And you sell
each of those ounces. So from a $4,000 investment, you made $32. So your profit is $28,000.
Yeah, man. And you had them moving back and forth, constant, constantly. And in that time,
it was like, things were, they were a little bit, it wasn't like it is now.
I mean, shit, now it's like it's everywhere.
Yeah.
It's everywhere.
Back then, it was like, it was in, in transporting it all the way from out there to
few falls is, yeah.
It's definitely, yeah.
You guys were the first ones with it.
You guys were on the ground floor.
Yeah.
The ones that actually commercialized where you could just go and get an ounce like nothing.
Yeah.
Not like before.
It'd be like, oh, I don't got it right now.
Or people, but not us.
We had it like that.
Do you think Mituwa Khan is the biggest supplier of meth to the U.S.?
Like, do you think they started that phenomenon?
Oh, yeah.
Definitely.
We, that's our shit.
Yeah, that's our shit, man.
Yeah, man.
Halisco, yeah, man.
Wow.
You know, not to say nothing about them, but, you know, they got the little wave.
Yeah.
You know, and one thing about us, we, we go.
We go.
Right.
We really, we really enjoy that.
It's in their blood, like literally.
So your father, as you were growing up, just to give people an idea of how much money these little communities were getting, tell us about the gambling and the Mituquakan, the volleyball, and the card games.
A lot of people, even people that know about Mexicans don't know about these small little communities and the gambling that goes on with Mexicans in the,
the U.S.
Yeah, man, that's, that's definitely something, something that I thought it was ordinary.
And, I mean, and, yeah, like, nobody really, like, knows how much Michoacan and even
Sinai, how much they enjoy volleyball.
Volleyball.
Volleyball.
Yeah, volleyball.
Bolly, yeah.
And it's different, though.
It's not, like, you know, like that or whatever.
Yeah, you know, like shirtless white boys in California, playing volleyball on the beach.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're fat Mexicans with man tits.
No, well, I mean, they...
All due respect.
Yeah.
No, yeah.
And the thing is, they'll be selling stuff.
They'll be like, you know, playing or whatever.
And they'll be like, oh, hold on.
Oh, that's my client.
Just right there in front of everybody.
Like, it was nothing.
Hit the licks.
Yeah.
While playing volleyball and got about 10,000 in the line.
Yeah.
A lot of money.
Wow.
A lot of a lot of money definitely, definitely flows around that.
Right.
These, yeah, so every community with Mitroquenesis, people from Mitroquacan have these little
volleyball centers.
We have one here.
In Austin.
Wow.
And this is kind of a gathering point for, for drug dealers, too.
This is where a lot of them meet.
The bar for the mercenaries and stuff, you know?
Right.
In a way, yeah.
Like the Italian mafia, New York had these social clubs.
Yeah, you know, they had their hangouts, you know.
Right.
I don't know what they do, delis or whatever their thing is.
Yeah.
But yeah.
And you guys had the volleyball courts.
We had the volleyball.
And everybody brings their kids.
It's like something.
I've been playing volleyball since I don't even remember when I started playing volleyball.
Wow.
And yeah, it's a big thing.
I mean, everybody wants you to play.
If you're really good, yeah, they want you to play.
And they're betting on the games?
Oh, yeah. Definitely, definitely betting a lot of money in the games.
So gambling is huge in the Mexican mutual con community.
Yeah.
You guys are always betting on something.
Yep, definitely. Well, in prison as well.
You know, like, we love gambling.
Do you think that comes, you know where I think that comes from?
You know, the indigenous people of Mexico, whether it's the Aztecs or the Mayans or whoever,
you know, they were like rampant gamblers.
Really?
Even in, yeah, a thousand years ago, they were betting on shit.
Even, you know, using seashells as money or, or beads or whatever.
Not even gold.
I think it's in your blood, dude.
Yeah.
I think for too.
And I think we look at it like material, material stuff.
That's why it's like, ah, whatever, you know.
Yes.
It's like you guys are driven.
Mexicans are driven to make money.
And they take the biggest risks to do it.
But yet when you get a bunch of money, you don't, you enjoy it.
You don't, you don't, you don't, uh, hold on to it, squirrel it away.
You just, you use it for life, for fun.
And they want to take it back to Mexico.
And, and, you know, that's where they know that they're going to be, you know,
they could, they could be drinking till like eight in the morning or, I mean, like, you know,
till like two, three in the morning with the, with whatever music you got blasting.
Yeah.
And nobody's going to say anything.
Do you think a lot of Mitro Canesis, when they hit a lick in a small town in America,
they start wiring their drug money back to the old country?
They must.
Yeah.
They do.
But there is no future going back over there.
Everybody starts making their families here too.
Right.
As well.
I mean, they can't, I mean, they establish, I mean, they do all that,
and then they don't even go back to mutuality.
on or something.
Well, they do when they get caught and they get deported.
Yeah, but I mean.
But their families stay here.
Yeah.
So basically that's, you know, that's where they're playing the roots because
right.
Out there, some of them don't even want to live out there because it's so bad.
So much violence.
So much violence.
And they basically just, they're like, oh, I'm just, I mean, I already spent so much money
out there anyways, you know.
But, but yeah, no, they definitely do.
They send it to their.
of their fathers and mothers they got out there.
They take care of them.
But like I said, the whole thing changed where they just want to, they just want to, they just, one, it's like a false narrative they have in their head or something, thinking that they're going to, oh, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to enjoy this.
And yeah, they don't enjoy it.
They don't enjoy none of that, none of that drug money, none of that stuff.
They don't enjoy it because, like I said, they're looking over.
shoulder.
They don't want to buy cards because it's too flashy.
And it's also true.
I mean, that's how the EA starts looking at them.
That's how they start looking at them.
So, and your father, as you're coming up, your father's a, he's a gambling, he goes from a
gambler to a gambling junkie.
But tell us about some of these, these after the volleyball games, some of these card games.
Yeah, no, the card games are.
are crazy. Has been played for thousands, like, hundred, depending on who's actually playing.
But, yeah, you can walk away. You can become a millionaire at some of these games.
Wow. You could really become a millionaire.
So these are, like, high rollers.
High rollers, yeah. And where I seen that a lot was in Washington State.
That's where I think my dad developed a worse gambling habit in there.
Do you think that was, is that because there was.
the more Mexicans getting meth money?
Yeah, definitely.
That was, everybody, everybody had meth.
If you were from Hichokan, you know, everybody built, built, built a wealth.
That's why you see so many little stores,
Michoacana, La Michwana, or, you know, this, than that.
That's where they all get their, you know, their little starts and stuff.
Right.
Is owning those stores as fronts?
Yeah, basically.
Right.
Or do they try to go legit?
Or restaurants too?
La Mishuacana.
Yeah, yeah.
Every town has one.
And it's like,
Michoacan,
they do make the best food.
Uh-huh.
They make,
they're definitely,
they definitely,
people really use La Michwakan for food and stuff.
They use La Michwacana or something like that.
And they're not even from there or something like that.
They're very famous for that.
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some good credit so your dad could lose 50 $100,000 in a car game I mean he has gone he's
gone to that point yeah he has and like I said when and the losses were losses they were
How many guys like your dad were in Fresno growing up?
Like on the level of like your dad?
Was he the man or do you think there was other...
There was other dudes from Mitu Khan also kind of like moving like he was.
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I think back then there was, there was more people like, like probably more because the game
wasn't as touched as it is now.
Right.
So they basically, they basically, anybody could have had, you know,
The wave hit, everybody was eating.
Yeah.
Everybody was eating.
Yeah.
Now, who were his customers?
He was getting kilos and then breaking him down and giving them out to retailers.
Was he dealing with, like, gang members?
Like, who was selling this shit for him?
He had people he knew from Ichwakan, like, he's workers.
Right.
He's workers from Ichwakan.
And they were the ones in there.
In the trap, they were in there, you know.
Wow.
Yeah, they were the ones in the gritty.
They were the ones in the greeting.
My dad...
So your dad would call down to Mitu Khan and say, send me up some kids?
Yeah, some of those white ladies or something.
Or, yeah, or, yeah, basically.
Send me up some soldiers to sell the shit out.
Yeah.
I mean, not really because, like I said, you're your own boss.
When you're working out here.
Like, one thing about my dad, he was his own boss.
He didn't have, you know, to like, oh,
this person, he probably didn't even know where it was coming from.
He just somebody, hey, here you go, boom.
Yeah, but who was he working with?
Like, I'm saying he didn't speak any English.
Is he giving it out to Mexican-Americans, or is he only dealing with people from the old country?
Where a tweaker is going to be a tweaker.
So, I mean, and he's going to have money, so it doesn't matter.
Honestly, I think, like, it just whoever goes to him, and that's basically it.
Yeah, yeah.
So then he switched from cocaine to heroin in the 90s.
Can you explain the difference between, I mean, we know the difference between heroin and cocaine,
but like the different ways that like heroin gets imported to these small towns and then a guy like your dad,
how does he sell that out?
But basically he knows somebody like he'll go and be like, oh, I need this much.
they'll front it to them
because that's another thing
that we do get a lot of fronting stuff
like every time we
we got any product or whatever
it's always fronted
because your dad was so well known
he was known as like a solid dude
his credit was good
yeah his credit was good
to this day I still got
I could get credit off of that
to this day
real oh yeah man
wow so you still
you know your dad's connects
my cousins and everyone
my whole family
Like my whole family is from out there and it's like one family.
It's like, oh, hey, I need a car, this and that.
There you go.
So you still have family moving in Mexico?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
So tell us about that heroin money.
It was black tar heroin?
Yeah, black tar.
Okay.
And it was, it's like the waves it hit here.
You know, like the 90s, how heroin just took over.
Yeah.
And then, like, before you know it, this new drug, or like, right now, fentanyl.
Right.
Or even, like, cocaine coming back, you know.
And, yeah, it's, I guess it's all to the people's taste.
And I mean.
Of course.
Well, I remember just being from Portland, Oregon, hearing about this thing, black tar heroin.
It was so scary.
They were like, yeah, it's Mexican.
The Mexican sell it.
It's black tar, which I've heard is actually weaker heroin than, like, the pure China
white shit.
But that's the stuff that comes from, you know, Sinaloa, Michoacan.
Guerrero.
Guerrero.
Guerrero is the big, big.
Really?
Really.
Yeah.
Guerrero.
That's why.
The mountains out there, they grow poppies feet.
The poppies.
Yeah.
Right.
Out there, that's their game.
That's making a comeback because they're making it hard to get precursors for fentanyl.
So now you're starting to see a lot of raw heroin seizures at the border again.
So Heron.
Opioids will always...
Yeah.
You can't just say, oh, we're killing fentanyl dealers.
Oh, what, are junkies going to stop getting high?
No.
No, they're not.
I mean, what's worst?
I mean, fentanyl or heroin?
Fentanyl makes heroin look like you're on a diet.
Oh, he's doing well.
He's doing heroin.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, good for him.
You only take, you know, heroin today, you know?
But your dad never did drugs.
Oh, yeah.
You know, he did.
He did, but he didn't do just.
Coke.
That was his thing.
Oh yeah.
And he drank.
And he drank.
Yeah.
And cigarettes.
That was,
that was he's thing.
But gambling turns out to be the worst drug for him.
Yeah.
That was the worst addiction for him.
Man,
that was one thing.
I think he would,
I think we'd be wealthy if it wasn't for that.
I mean,
it sounds like this guy blew millions on these card games.
Yeah.
Wow.
And on the partying.
Right.
And then, oh, not being home, just,
he would send people to go pick up money at
the house.
Wow.
He,
my,
one time my mom
told me
the story
where one of
my uncles went
to pick up
he had,
he had taken,
I think like
$50,000
or something
like that with him,
you know,
just to have on him.
And then he had
like another 50
or something
stashed in a box
under his bed.
And he used to send
one of my uncles
to go pick up,
go bring me
$10,000.
Go bring me
another 10.
until my mom got fed up.
You know what?
You're going to get in trouble.
So here, give him all the money he had in there.
Like, just don't come back.
Like, you know.
And he was at the car game.
And he was at the car game.
He was sending people to go pick up money.
$10,000, $10,000.
Wow.
Yeah.
Wow.
And within hours.
Within hours.
Losing 30, 40.
I mean, my dad literally, I wouldn't say, lost a lot of knowledge because of that because of one thing.
If you are into gambling,
You know how bad it is when you're on a on a bad streak.
On a lot of bad streak.
Yeah.
If you're dear, oh, man, that's, that's worse in finding out you, somebody's fucking your girl or something.
I feel like, yeah, man.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Definitely, definitely worse, way more expensive than doing drugs.
And the stress of it, too.
Yeah.
But your dad was so thorough.
He was so tied in with the, the noticos, with the bosses that he could just say,
on broke, send up another 20 pounds.
Yeah, probably eat, yeah.
Wow.
And then make it up and keep on going and gambling and keep it going.
And he was just stuck in a place where he couldn't get over unless he did a drastic change.
So you saw money growing up in the house.
You saw these huge amounts of money.
I used to go into his box.
He had under his bed.
And I used to be like just playing with the money and stuff like that.
Just stack some money.
Yeah, just stack some money.
Crazy.
And it's crazy because as we kind of started having money,
we would used to do that to our little, like our kids and stuff,
like my little nephews and stuff.
We'd be like, I, with a cell phone and like,
just money all over and stuff.
Yeah.
You guys are like hood rich.
Yeah.
But nobody knew about us like that.
I mean, like here in the United States,
because like I said, you're always worried about,
oh, you know, yeah, you should have thought about that when you lost all that money.
Right, right.
Yeah.
Now, did your dad ever get, like, did he ever get robbed?
Did you guys ever get threatened?
He had a black list.
Not a, I don't want to say black list, you know, so people can kind of understand.
But he had a list.
He had written down about two million worth of what people owed him.
That's in heroin back when it was heroin.
Wow.
When he got arrested.
People owed him $2 million.
Yep.
He had it in a, he had it written down.
This person owned me.
20, 30, this person, 100.
Wow.
Yeah.
Wow.
Now, one single person paid one penny.
After he went away.
Yeah.
After he went away.
And that's when we moved to Washington.
Okay.
But hang on.
So he had, how many people, I mean, that's like, how many workers do you have?
Dozens and dozens of workers?
No.
I mean, once a trap is bumping, you got, you could have one person there and he's just going to be
constantly just moving.
Right.
And he would take like, oh, he's got a, well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think heroin comes in like four packs, like four ounces in a pedas or something like that.
A pedasel, yeah, a pedas.
Yeah, a pedas.
Four ounces.
So he'll probably have like 20, 20 of them and then he'll like, you know, like, oh, let me take this to him or three or four over here and this like that.
Just moving up, just putting them where they got a, you know, kind of like Legals.
So he would get his ship fronted and then he would front it to the treas.
And so the credit can build up and there's a there's cash flow issues.
Yep.
Right, right, right.
That makes sense.
Now, with Blacktar heroin, do you cut that or that's already ready?
No, they do.
They cut it.
I don't know how they cut it.
Okay, but they do cut it.
They do cut it.
That's, yeah, they do.
Mitoquo knows how to cut.
We, we, I know how to, I'm still to this day,
we used to cut so much coke.
It was...
You used to cut Coke?
Yeah, we used to cut Coke, too.
We used to make out of a key, what, we take out 40%, 400 grams and just put it in 400 grams of cut.
What kind of cut?
Explain that.
It's acid, it's a, it's like a, it's a supplement for bones.
Like, people didn't have problems with bone, with their bones.
Right.
So that's basically, that's what they use.
It's like calcium.
Calcium, yeah.
Basically, you break down a whole key.
You put it where it's like kind of like a kind of like a little, like a little grainy, not too powdered out because that's how you lose, but a little bit grainy.
You know, I remember being like that with a sauce or something, you know, trying to just like dad.
And I was only sex young.
You had the shaker, the sifter.
Yep, shaker.
The sifter.
Yep.
And basically, you break it down like that.
You mix them both like that.
You know?
And then, and then, you make these molds.
You make a mold like this to, you know, for, so you can reshape it again.
You put a bunch of towels, those blue towels for painting and all that stuff.
You put it in, you, you mix it up with some acetone, the two, you know, the, you know, the
powder and the vitamin for the bones.
Why the acetone?
Is that just to make it lock up?
To lock up?
Okay.
So it can, you know, be, and you got to make it kind of like a, like, like, like,
like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,
reshape it again into a thing like this, you know.
You put it into a pan?
It's, it's, it's, it's, it's like, it's, it's like, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
you know, you know, emulate an actual brick.
Yeah.
Then you have to push it down and, you know, nice and, you know, um, um, um, um, um,
hard, you know, where it like reshapes again.
Right.
And then we, what we used to do, the selling thing was the stamping on it.
We used to restamp them again.
Okay.
So what was the stamp you guys were getting on your Coke?
It was, you remember those old keys, like the, the ones they used, like the skull keys or
whatever, you know, the, yeah, those kind of keys, you know, those, that's how we got,
that's the stamp we used to get from Sinai.
Okay.
That was our stamp that we used to get from the guy we used to get.
Okay.
So what we would do, of course, we're going to, you know, we're going to reshape it again and everything.
We used to steal, like, from the license plates, like the last three digits or like two digits.
Just all for show.
It's all for show.
Of course.
Put it in there.
Then you wrap them, wrap them.
Oh, man, I used to hate wrapping them with just different things.
Basically, you know, bags, you know, like siploc.
You, what's called?
The Food Savor ones, you know.
Yeah, we put them in there.
Then we take tape, black tape first.
We used to do it like that.
Just tape it, tape it, tape it.
And then we would use brown tape around that.
Why the different tapes?
What is the purpose of that?
It's all aesthetic.
It just makes it look nice.
Like, oh, you know, these dudes really.
Right.
So you want your customers to think, oh, wow, this hasn't been touched since the border,
since it came across from Mexico.
I see.
It's all in the presentation.
Right.
And then,
which defeats the whole process,
but we used to do it.
So we used to put a V on the,
with something sharp,
with a knife for a sudden,
we cut it up,
and then put another thing on it.
So somebody could be like,
they open it and be like,
yeah, man, this is a good shit,
you know, and they're like.
Oh, so you open it,
you gave them,
if they wanted to put a key,
in there a knife, they could take a little sniff.
Yeah, and, you know, to give it a good, like, just a good presentation.
Yeah, give it a good presentation.
Wild.
And how did you know that 400 grams was the right amount to take off?
Like, how did you know that, that, okay, the market, people are still going to buy it,
even when it's only 60% pure?
But the code we were getting was the bomb.
No, it was, yeah, they were, they were like, like bone gray.
Right.
Not the fish kale.
All these people got the, oh, the fish got, the real ones are the bone, bone color kind of like a keef.
So it's like grayish.
It's off white.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So like those are more pure.
Right.
Both were the ones we used to get.
Right.
So your customers were fine.
If you're getting that and it's 95% pure, you're taking 400 grams off of it.
Now it's only 60% pure, 55.
But that was good enough for.
for your customers who are paying, you know, wholesale price for your shit?
Yeah.
Wow.
But they get too expensive.
I mean, at the end of the day, it gives too much work.
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slash connect. So how much were you buying a key for and then how much were you passing it off for
after you cut it? About 18.5. We used to get them. Okay. I used to get them 18.5. Okay. And then how
how much you selling that key for after you break it down? Same. Same and just make, well. Oh, I see.
And then you just keep the 400 is your profit, the 400 grams.
So, like, basically, let's say I get 10 keys.
I'm going to make 4 keys out of that.
That's the profit.
Right, right.
Oh, shit.
So now off of 10 keys at 18,000, say, call it 20.
You might let them go for 15 just to make it faster, you know?
So you made 65 Gs, though.
Yeah.
Okay.
Wow.
And you were 17 doing this?
Yeah.
Probably 16 or 17.
So your brothers were already in the game.
You have older brothers.
You're the youngest male of your siblings.
Yep.
Did your brothers, are they the ones that brought you in and showed you the game, how to cook and how to package?
Well, it started where they had me as a lookout.
They would be downstairs in the basement because it's South Dakota.
There's basements.
Right.
So you guys have gone from Fresno to Yakima to now.
South Dakota.
Yes.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Are you the only Mexican family?
No, there's Guatemalans, but there's also Mexicans, but rarely.
Right.
Like, you might see a Mexican, right.
It's not like here or out there in California.
Like, you might see, be like, oh, what are you doing here?
You know, like, did you feel when you were just walking around, you're like, all right,
we got to be, we got to be on our toes here because we stand out.
Did you feel that kind of racism?
Not racism, but you know, like, if I went to Abatengong.
Oh, definitely.
You're going to have eyes on you.
Right.
Yeah.
So did you have that?
Did you feel that in Sioux Falls?
Yeah, definitely.
We had people call on us just from driving on the car.
Yeah.
And yeah, like they would call the cops on us and they would pull us over and like, hey,
what are you guys doing here?
Right, right.
So you guys had to be on your game.
Yeah, we had to.
Okay.
So you guys were now getting Coke.
from the Sino-Loa cartel.
Were they coming from?
How are you guys getting them all the way up there?
Well, we used to get them out there in Atlanta.
Okay.
You know, in Lawrenceville, out there.
Okay.
So Atlanta is like the hub.
Atlanta is like the hub now,
especially for meth,
but it sounds like Coke too.
Well, there is, you know,
there's a big,
like preference out there in Atlanta.
Mm-hmm.
Then there is a meth preference out there in South Dakota.
Right.
But you guys are getting Coke still.
We're still on the Coke.
So how were you guys, were you guys driving it up?
Yeah, basically driving it up.
Would you drive yourself?
Would you drive them yourself?
I used to be with the driver.
So you guys are in South Dakota, you would drive to Atlanta, and that's where your connect was.
Yep.
And then you drive it back.
How many keys would you have in the car at a time?
Maybe five, ten, maybe.
Was that, you nervous?
Are you sweating that drive or did you just put it out of your mind?
Oh, dude.
Oh, man.
It's like, it's one of the worst feelings, man.
Just like, just in the back of your head, you know you might get pulled over.
And then having that and just, yeah.
And then if you get a cop behind you, but we used to have two cars.
We used to have one in front and one in the back.
And a couple of times we had a swerve in front of a cop.
For real?
Yeah.
We had to like get in there because he was going to get pulled over.
and we just like, oh, we lost control.
Oh, so you were in the spotter car.
You were in the spot car.
Yeah.
Wow.
Spotted.
Sometimes we would take turns.
I would, you know, go in the front or I would drive or, but it was four people.
You know, we rotated each other.
Right.
You guys are a little team.
Yeah.
Okay.
So then you get the keys back to Sioux Falls, but now there's no competition.
So you guys can just basically cut it almost as much as you want.
Um, yeah, but also it took a big hit.
The blow took a big hit in the like early 2000s.
Blow took a hit.
And what they started doing was mess.
Why did blow take a huge hit?
I mean, I know meth got huge, obviously, but I'm just curious what?
For the same effect, I think that the amount of power meth brought with it.
I mean, I mean, not power, but the, um, what happened?
was cheaper and you got endless supply.
Right, right.
So it was basically easy transition.
And then with people that you're dealing with,
you're not dealing with anybody else, but yourself.
With other people, you're like, oh, they want you to keep moving.
They want you to like, oh, this ain't no end.
No, we're not stopping.
You got to keep going.
Like when you're dealing with Coke.
Yeah.
You might get killed, I think, in the Coke game easier.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Because like I said, everybody's greedy with the Coke.
Everybody's like, not, you know, like, I want my money.
I want my money like that.
Right.
You know, and it's like, oh, man, you know what?
It's a headache, basically.
It's a headache.
So more people were just were selling meth,
and that's why it became such a huge thing
in these small towns all over America.
Because more Mexicans like you were bringing it in there.
Oh, yeah.
And I took full advantage of it too.
Okay.
So you were moving Coke for a while.
By the way, your father now had already gone to prison, right?
Well, he went to prison.
He had came out.
But he wasn't in the game.
At that point, he was just, you know, he had a regular job.
He got a job.
Yeah.
What did he go to prison for?
What were his charges?
And how long did he do?
Well, I think it was just, it was a just re-entry or something like that.
Because when they busted that place,
he didn't get charged for it.
Because they didn't even know who it was.
Okay, what happened?
Well, they were out there in a house out there in the boonies,
and all of a sudden they see a big helicopter.
So my dad starts running.
And then one of my uncles took, you know,
saying, oh, he took all the falls for it.
Okay.
How much product do they find?
Just like.
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Some pieces, because this is heroin.
You know, that's when he got butts in and that was, yeah.
Oh, okay.
And just probably like five, six pieces, but it could have been more at some, you know,
that was just how much I was at the time.
Oh, so they didn't find the mother load.
No, no, no.
And then we had a very strong rule about make sure you make a hole so deep where your hand
can barely, you know, all the way from your hand, you know, so he can bury it.
Like, we were firm believers in we buried a lot.
So you buried a lot of products.
Everything.
Okay.
I probably still have product out there in South Dakota.
and probably to this day, it's still there.
Right.
You know?
We just always been affirmed believers in that.
My dad with cash, I mean, when he got arrested, they went to our house and they had the whole backyard just full of holes.
The DEA had a bunch of holes all over the house.
And they didn't find nothing?
They didn't find nothing.
Because they went into our house, but my dad never kept something in the house.
So he just got busted for illegal, being an illegal immigrant.
Because nobody told on him.
He actually didn't even have to be there.
That's the part that really messes them up.
I think if he didn't have to be at that place,
he just went because he was partying and, you know.
But he never took a, so all those years of dealing crazy weight,
he never took a charge.
Never.
That's fucking crazy.
That's legendary.
That's never.
I mean, that was the closest he got,
but he only got like two years or something like small,
like a year or something like that for,
whole different other charges, nothing to do with drugs.
And then did they deport him after that?
Yeah.
And then he snuck back in?
We went to live, he took the whole family, went out to live to Mexico.
Okay.
I got you.
For like two years.
And then you guys snuck back in as a family?
I mean, not me.
I didn't know what happened.
But all my other siblings, they did.
They had to go through the mountains and stuff.
Not me.
Really?
Not me.
I got papers, baby.
Yeah, yeah.
So you, so little old Fernando just walked across the board.
Fernando, you know.
And then your other siblings had to fucking sneak across with a coyote?
Yeah.
Well, shit.
My mom, one time she had to sneak me in, like, through the mountains and stuff.
And I had papers because they didn't have nobody to, like, cross me over.
To escort you.
Yeah, nobody to cross me over.
So, man.
My mom, like, we, I remember that I was like five years old.
We snuck back into the United States.
Where did you cross over?
I remember being in a hotel room in Tijuana.
And just waiting for the money for the pollo and, you know, trying to get it to him.
And I remember my little fat-ass of eating hot dogs, all sorts of hot dogs out there and stuff like that, you know.
And just being in the hotel room for almost a week because it was a whole week just in the hotel room.
Just waiting for the word.
Just waiting and just remember being in a room for like a whole week.
That really unites a family.
That really bonds a family illegally entering a sovereign nation.
Yeah, my mom used to, she used to like a widener plants too. So yeah, no, my mom's definitely a, she's definitely a thug. My mom is. Yeah, you know, Mexican women are soldiers. Okay, wow, that's wild. So you guys ended up in South Dakota when you're a teenager because your dad died and this is, you had family out there in Sioux Falls. So this is the first time that you got into the game.
hustling, you're cooking up keys, repackaging them.
Tell us about the meth.
This is the early 2000s.
This is when, just for some quick drug history,
this is when they put the ban on buying unlimited amounts of pseudofed.
So, because what used to happen was white people could make it.
They would send their junkie friends into pharmacies all over the place,
and they would just buy up all the pseudephedrin pills.
And then they would, you know, make them in buckets and cook them in trailers.
that's that biker dope.
Yeah, that, yeah.
That's a nasty speed biker shit.
So they made that super illegal.
They cracked down on it.
And this is what gave Mexican cartels the monopoly on it.
Because then you guys started cooking the purest rock known to man.
Yeah, definitely.
So how did you guys get linked up?
Who was your original connect in South Dakota?
When we were in South Dakota, we used to get from,
from out there in Washington State,
we used to get a lot from Washington State
in the beginning when it was crank
because that's where a lot of, like,
when it was crank, it was different.
It was like, it was cool.
But once mess hit, it was over.
It was, it grabbed people by the hairs, like never before it.
Right.
It turned everything upside down.
Right.
If a young he didn't know what to do with crank,
forget about mess.
It just took them over the edge.
Yeah.
That's when, like you said, you know, with all that, the crank was cool.
And you were making a lot of money with the crank too.
Right.
But Mets money was definitely being there in the early stages as well,
was definitely a blessing in a way.
Your connect, was that family?
Or was that also Sinaloa in Atlanta?
No, no, no, no, no.
I mean, Sinaloa, no, we would never deal with Sinaloa, like after the,
the stuff we went through with the Coke.
We put them to a side.
Right.
Yeah, man.
Right.
To this day, I still don't trust people from Sinaloa.
I mean, but for my own personal reasons.
What happened with the Coke?
It was just too much stress, like, threats.
And like I said, meth came into the picture.
And it was like, it was hard to get off those 60% keys now.
Don't get it twisted.
Like, it's hard moving shit that's not good.
Right.
Of course.
So it's like it's a no-brainer.
You know, we just, just, you know, got a different product.
Who was your plug?
Who were you buying the meth from?
It was probably somewhere in Metswana.
That's like that.
Who was your plug in the U.S.?
Where were you picking it up from?
It was probably just uncles, stuff like that.
Some of my uncles.
Okay.
But they're all my uncles.
Yeah.
They're all uncles.
They're all uncles.
Like everybody knows each other out there.
Yeah.
They were driving it up to you all the way to Sufault.
All the way to Atlanta or something like that.
Okay.
Up to Atlanta, they would drive it there.
And then from there, we would drive it up to us.
Right.
And then we got, you know, we got money and we got a little bit of money.
So we had people just driving it for us.
I'm like, fuck that.
I'm not going to be driving all that amount of hours for.
Because you're getting crazy money.
But I was never scared.
And it wasn't that.
It would be lazy, honestly.
Okay.
So you took a, you got a pound of meth for four grand.
How do you turn that into two?
what is the cooking of pure crystal meth?
Like, how do you even cook up huge rock?
How do you even stretch huge rocks?
That's the blessing of not having no competition.
You can cook it.
We were doing it the nastiest way to ever, man.
There were times where we would go and deliver ounces or something,
and, like, the cut would melt in my pocket.
You know, they're like, oh, dude would be like, no, man.
man, that shit sucks, you know, whatever.
And I'll be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, no, definitely.
I know, I'm going to go get you something.
Like, you know, I don't, I believe, you know, I forgot it.
You know, I forgot it or something.
Wow.
That's how, yeah.
But they were taking it because nobody else was selling.
Okay, so what do you, how do you stretch it, though?
Like, how do you stretch pure, cooked up meth?
It's, it's just vitamin.
It's a flexible vitamin for horses.
We used to do it the nasty way where we just, you know,
we would just liquefy the in the stove,
liquify it,
and then just make some sheets like cooking pants,
like cooking pants.
Then we just put a thin layer of that stuff,
and then that thing kind of like crystallizes it.
And then you can kind of replicate what it actually looks like from that.
Well, I don't get it.
You just, you make, you join them together,
but you don't have to cook, like, it's all got to be cold, basically.
So you had the mess and then you make like kind of shards out of the, you know, the cut.
You try to like crystallize it and then you just mix them.
Oh, I see.
I see.
Okay.
So it's not like you belt all of it down and then and then heat it back up.
Okay.
Now, that's what we did.
But I heard you could do that.
But it was knowledge.
Like everybody kept the secret back in the day.
Right.
Everybody was like, oh, man, I got a, I'm not going to give away my secrets like that.
It wasn't, that's what it was really hard.
Okay, so you would take this horse tranquilizer or this horse medicine, vitamin, and then essentially just bake it and then try to make it look like the meth.
And then you just scramble it all around.
And then, yeah, and then it would just, it would vaporize like nothing, but, you know.
Right.
Yeah, that's, that's, yeah, that was it.
And so you could take 448 grams and turn that into an extra 448.
Yeah.
basically, sometimes even more.
Wow.
We used to have, I remember me and my brother used to have so much cut that we would be like
have like four extra ounces just, you know, just did we didn't eat.
So we'd like, ah, for the house, just throw it in there too.
And just, you know, we just, that's how we did it.
Killing them.
So you're selling, and you can sell a thousand an ounce.
Yeah.
Holy shit.
Back then it was a Mexican weed too.
Oh, a lot of Mexican weed.
So you were, hold on.
So you were, and how many pounds are you picking up per trip?
We started small, probably five, but then that went up to 10.
And then we, our stash could only hold so much.
Also, that was the problem.
Our stats could only hold so much.
So we give, you know, five, ten.
That was 10 was pushing it.
But 10 pounds of meth, I mean, that's, well, you do the math.
You're making 28,000.
Hold on.
let's do this math here.
4,000 to buy it, a thousand an ounce, that's $16,000.
So you make 10 pounds of meth, make about $160,000.
Oh, yeah.
Wow.
How fast can you move it?
When it's hot, man, you don't have enough time in the day.
You don't have enough drivers driving you shit.
You don't have, I mean, yeah, it's, yeah.
And then it's just, I, I don't have.
I mean, you don't have enough time in the day.
Oh, that is, that's the drug dealer's dream when the demand outweighs the supply,
when you're like, I, I got to get more.
Man, that's, that's a, that's a way dream.
And are your customers white?
Yeah, most, yeah, all the way.
How did you, how did you make, how did you make customers?
You know what I mean?
Like, how do you broach that?
Because obviously, you know, people who aren't white, think every white guy's
cop. How did you, how did you start getting your name out there in a place like South Dakota?
It's, it's like, it was a fate, too. Like, once it hit the market, like, mess hit the market,
it was like, oh, yeah, you want to try this mess type deal, you know, whatever. And then it's like,
most, I had a bunch of friends from, from school, like here and there, but mostly were just
people you use, like, you socialize with. Right. So, hey, try this.
and then they know a bunch of people
to want to buy it
and then they turn into dealers.
Yeah, yeah, basically.
And yeah, it was just,
you got to take a chance.
When you're getting fronted,
you got to pay and you got to always take a chance
and always take a chance
because that's how you get the rewards.
Yeah.
Because one of my best customers,
I met her at the gas station.
she looked at me, I looked at her, and I was like, oh, you're a tweaker.
And, you know, you've got to, yeah, you got to have that inside.
It's something that I always know.
No, I'm like, oh, yeah, I can get some weed from this person or, you know, or whatever.
You know, it's like, yeah.
Well, that's how, in my experience, I saw the people in the county jail.
Most of the people there for selling meth were also tweakers themselves.
The only people who weren't were the Mexicans.
they were the ones
supply in it.
So were most of your customers,
most of your dealers also using it?
All of them were.
All of my customers were using meth.
All of them.
Yeah.
And they hated me.
Why?
So much cut that I put in the stuff.
Yeah.
So they hated me.
And they used to say,
we'll pay $2,000 just don't cut them.
Sounds like a no-brainer, right?
Yeah, but I mean, the people you work for,
they don't like, I mean,
not that you work for them,
but, you know, some of the people you work
with, like, um, they had, um, people, family that from where we're from in Chakan,
they, they owed, they had a big bill. They had to pay like a $2 million dollar bill.
Man, we, they probably, yeah, they'd feel a life too. And, um, and, um, had a bill. What did
that mean? Uh, they had, they had, uh, they owed like $2 million to the family. Yeah.
And mutual con. Mm-hmm. And they had to pay it or.
He's going to roll. Yeah. You know, and they took a chance of,
We, you know, and unfortunately we should have made more money, but, you know, it is what it is.
But yeah.
So you guys could move 10 a week?
Oh.
More than that?
More than that.
Wow.
More than that easily.
Wow.
So you guys are literally the only Mexicans doing this in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
I think, yeah, ever to do it like that.
Wow.
To actually get away with, I mean, yeah, it's like a highway, highway, what do you call that?
It's like a robbery.
Highway robbery.
Yeah.
That's what it is.
Were you, yeah, what did you think?
I mean, I know you grew up with money, but to see all this money coming in, it's like magic, right?
It's like magic, but at the same time, I've been around with so much money, even to this day, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm like, oh, you know, it's like, I don't know.
If I have five bucks, I'll five bucks, I'm going to spend them on something, you know, just.
Do you think you made more than your dad?
He had a long stretch.
He had a long stretch, but do you think you made more than him in, you know, in, you think you made more than him in,
certainly in like that short a period of time.
Oh, definitely.
Like crazy.
Killed it.
He was like,
everybody was like,
what?
So this day I still got people
hitting me up,
what's up with that out there,
you know?
And it's still out there is, yeah.
Did your uncles back at Mituu Kahn?
Did they hear about how good you guys were doing?
Well, yeah.
I mean, my mom used to send them money all the time.
I thought they did.
Wow.
So was anybody,
was anybody a big narco from your,
your family that was in Mexico at this time?
No, no, no, not there.
No, no.
Because, yeah, no, I remember back in that, and we never hear no family of Michoacano back in, when
we were held, like, nobody.
So it was really just drug dealers from, you know, just drug families from Michoacan
before the, before the cartel actually became like this organized, militant.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a whole different.
Like, you know, it's like, militant kind of group, you know.
Right.
And the set that were, like, in, in that.
sense, they were the ones that, yeah, they were the ones that really put that harsh.
Brought that kind of culture.
That kind of culture.
That's true.
Yeah.
That is very true.
I mean, yeah, you had a fairly sad, but they were all family.
They were all by their last name or, you know, El Chapo, you know, but yeah.
Then he had make Sinaloa and like all the, all the cartels or whatever.
Um, okay.
So, so you guys are making just money hand over fist.
Are you burying any of this?
or you you count now?
Like when you get $100 grand in his profit,
like what do you do with that?
You burying it all over South Dakota?
Yeah.
Wow.
Basically like your gardening,
acting like you're gardening.
Yeah.
How do you keep track all that?
Sometimes you forget.
Yeah.
One time I couldn't find $50,000.
Oh, fuck.
I was losing my head because this is at the very end.
You know how it is.
Like I was losing my head.
I was crying.
I was a kid.
So I was almost crying, dude,
looking through this, you know, and I was sure enough, I think it with somebody, and then
fortunately I did find it.
You were like, how old, 18, 19 years old?
About 18, I think I run this time.
Wow.
Wow.
How many pounds of meth do you think you moved in your run?
Oh, man.
At least 300.
Yeah.
At least 300.
It was a lot.
Damn, dude.
You guys had a million-dollar operation.
Yeah.
Fuck, dude.
Says you and your brother?
Or your two brothers?
That was, because remember how I told you my brother got arrested?
Mm-hmm.
How he went with charges of just having, he only had cut like that stuff.
So he went away for that.
After that, that's when I started myself, just myself.
I was like 17 when I did it myself.
But I already had the whole playbook, you know, I had what plays to run,
everything.
And it was just people doing, doing what's it called,
because they knew there was money.
So you were running this whole operation yourself?
Yeah, there was a point where I had to.
Wow.
Because that, I mean, like I said, you couldn't trust nobody.
Like, you just couldn't.
What was like the end goal?
Like, I know you're 18, you're barely, you're still a child,
but like, what did you think, you know,
I know a lot of people go to these different spots
and they expect that they're going to go to prison.
So they just hit it as hard as they can
and they make as much money as they can
and try to send it back to Mexico before they get arrested.
Did you think that was going to happen to you?
No, honest, being young like that, my dad,
just like, oh, we should all just go back to Mexico and like, let's go.
And, like, you know, I would never had that.
I just wanted to keep on making money.
So your dad wanted to go back to Mexico.
Yeah, but I didn't.
I knew already I was going to, yeah, I knew I was going to be.
You're getting too much money.
You didn't want to go back.
Yeah, I didn't want to go back.
And plus, the way it's out there, man, I can't.
I'm in that way I do, I do, uh, I like my McDonald's and stuff like that, you know?
Yeah, they don't have McDonald's in Mexico.
Not enough at Shingan.
Franchise it, bro.
Yeah, right?
That's, they don't, yeah.
Every, every Mexican cartel needs a white guy to just be like, bro, stop being retarded for one second.
Anyways, no offense.
No, no, no, no.
That's true.
Definitely.
Or somebody smart enough to, you know, a Jewish guy.
or something.
Yeah, I don't even think it takes a Jew to be like, maybe we should invest millions instead
of gambling at all on card games.
Right?
I'm not a Jew, but I can see how that makes sense.
It's a lot smarter.
It's just easy money.
How long did this run go on?
Probably I was 15 when I started helping my brother all the way until I was 19.
Okay.
Okay.
How long did your brother go away for?
He went away for, he got a 12 year since, he went away for 10.
Okay, so your brother went away to prison?
Yep.
For what?
Conspiracy of selling 500 grams or more of methamphetamies.
And he got as the head, you know, the main guy, they give you extra time.
So he got 142 months, I believe.
And that was out of South Dakota or somewhere else?
South Dakota.
Okay.
So you took over the big.
business, but were you worried, like, about getting popped now that the area was hot?
Well, that's the funny part about that is a week before I got taken, my mom had crying told me,
oh, you want to end up like your brother?
And, like, you know, I'm like, man, I ain't scared about 10 years.
I told her like that straight up.
I wasn't scared about getting time.
It's something you, you know, that you always have that.
that that that's going to happen.
I mean, that's what every drug deal you do.
You know, hey, what if it's, you know, you just get,
they get bum rush you and, you know,
DA comes in and scoops you up.
So yeah, that's, that was something,
but I was, I was, I was ignorant.
I was, I was ignorant.
I just didn't care.
Didn't care.
Yeah.
And sure enough, I got sentenced to 121 months.
Okay, so you're 19 when you catch your case.
Oh, how do they build the case?
like when you saw the discovery paperwork,
did you have, I assume some of your workers were telling on you?
Well, I got set up by the guy who, one of a good, well,
this guy I used to work with, this white guy,
he called me up saying he owned me like 20 grand.
He owned me like 20 grand.
And then he didn't think nothing of it.
He's like, hey, yeah, I got your money.
And then he wanted more work, more like he wanted like two pounds.
and I was thinking about taking them,
so what I did is I'm like, no, I'm not going to take it.
I'm just going to go over there real quick.
And I'm driving there.
I see I'm driving.
I pull up to a green light.
I look over and I'm like, man, this guy's a detective.
You know, these guys are a detective.
I'm just thinking too much, you know,
not thinking nothing really serious, you know, for what it really was.
I pulled up to his house.
I remember getting out of my car.
I see a red GMC come up to me and says,
D-A, motherfucker, don't move.
And I tried running, grab me, and, yeah, put me in the, put me in there.
Yeah, well, what other evidence do they have on you?
Do they have control buys?
Did they have...
They had, yeah, but, you know...
There you go.
They had a, they, well, it was a conspiracy, too.
Great.
What about the conspiracy?
see how long have they been building the case?
They had been building it for
since I was probably like 16.
They out there were building that case.
For three years?
Yep, three, four years.
Holy shit.
They had you.
How many sales did they have you on?
They had me about,
probably, I think they had,
they had,
they had two,
two,
just two of them,
but that was more than enough.
There was a, one of us,
that I'm on the camera.
I'm seeing myself like, oh, shit.
Really? Yeah.
Literally.
Are you selling pounds?
Yeah.
I had, you know, I had two pounds, and I literally got off.
My customer got off.
She was in the front.
I was in the back talking to her.
She gets off, and then I get off, and I go behind her.
And, yeah, and we go into the motel room.
Sure enough, she gets busted on, she gets busted on the way from coming from Sioux Falls
to this place called Mitchell.
where she used to work at.
And yeah, and that was one of them.
And that time it was two pounds that they, you know.
Right.
So now they have you on over 500 grams.
Mm-hmm.
Huh.
Then that guy also proved a point about that I said, yeah, on the phone, yeah, I'm going to take you two pounds.
Like, they went crazy looking for that two pounds that never had.
I never had.
So they raided your house?
No.
Oh, just your car.
No, no, no, no.
Right.
They didn't know about my workers I had or anything like that.
Wow.
They didn't know anything like.
They didn't even knew where I lived.
But that's enough to get you eight, nine years in prison, just four pounds of meth with no priors?
Well, he did say also he added on to how much I, how many sales he had or they both, you know, they ended up saying snitching to probably like a hundred pounds, you know.
Right.
for how much weight they moved from me.
Right, right.
So that's just your main workers that were telling on you.
They told on me.
Yeah, they're not there in South Dakota.
It's like not that hard to distinguish somebody, you know?
Yeah.
Damn.
Damn.
So they hung you.
Well, you know, they gave you, what, a 10-year sentence?
Yeah.
It was first ever time being locked up, too.
So it was my first sentence ever.
Right.
So I didn't have no priors.
my brother didn't have no priders neither
I think that's why they gave us the low end
and I mean you know
we copped out to the
to that in our first offense
no no
no priors like I said too
helps out a lot
hmm damn that's brutal
so do they find but they didn't find
any product really no they didn't find
no product or money
not no money neither
that's good
you know that pisses them off
oh yeah
When they can't find anything, they try to push the government to give you more time.
That's my theory anyways.
They try to prosecute you harder because they know you got a lot of money and when they can't get their hands.
Because all they do is just put that in their pocket.
Or they go declare it and then they use it to buy guns, more equipment, new cars.
Like, what they want is your money.
And so when they can't get that, I think it really pisses them off.
Yeah, like if you give them, oh, I live here, for sure that place is getting rated.
you tell them, you know, where you're at or whatever, oh, that place is getting rated. And then I can
be like, oh, I stay with my mom or dad, you know, I couldn't be like that, you know, and basically
they, they, they were mad. They were mad. They were mad because I couldn't say anything,
too. It's hard, it's hard when you have family involved, I want to say, or people that know your
family. Right. And then that's one thing we didn't, we, like my dad never sniffed.
snitch. My uncle's never snitch. I mean, I couldn't, I couldn't, I just couldn't.
Do you think that's why the Mituqan people are so successful at drug dealing? Because you guys
are always dealing with family. So nobody, people are less incentivized to tell on each other, right?
Yeah. And that's why you, you front too. That's why you always, like, oh, let me front this
real quick. Why? Why? Well, because you want everybody to get money. And then, and that's, that's
something off your back. You know, and it's, who,
has 20, 30, 40, 40 grand to like invest. Oh, you know what? I'm going to put 30, 40 grand into
selling drugs. Nobody thinks like that when you can just get everything fronted. Right. I get it from
you, I know you can sell it. So here. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Now, did you, your dad went away to
prison with two million dollars owed to him. Did you have any money owed to you? Yeah, I had a lot
money owed to me. How much money was owed to you? About 90 to like 95,000. Okay. So a lot, but not.
No, no, not too much. I mean, you're making that a week. Yeah, I was. But, uh, did you owe your people in Atlanta?
Uh, no, because I started buying wholesale. I just started buying. Okay. So you would, I was just paying at the end. I was just like, I'm not going to.
Right. I'm not going to owe nobody. It's a lot cleaner that way, if you can afford it. If you can afford it.
So your re-up was like, if you're picking up, what was the most pounds you picked up?
Most pounds, probably like 10, but because of the sizes of the stash where you put them in,
that's all it holds.
How was your stash?
How did that work?
It was a, we used to use a lot of like toruses, you know, four tortoises because they had this plaque in the back in the trunk that you can like take off.
and you can put it back on
but just with like
you could erase it like nothing with
not erase it let me say
with like oil and stuff
you could like blend it all in
with all the dirt and whatever
and yes that's how you did it
one time we had a
coming from Atlanta we had a car
we
we fucked up
10 pounds
because it was raining and you know how out there
it rains really bad
and the
It went over the, over the tires, the water.
Oh.
And it just like that just killed everything.
Whoa.
So all the meth got soaked.
Yeah.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah.
Because that's a tiny little car.
And it's really low, too.
Right.
It's low.
So, um, so.
Did you guys have like dog proof?
You know, did you guys try to like spray it or anything like that?
You know how like the cartels they put, I think, chili water with like chili powder in it.
And then they spray it on.
to the units because the dog hits it and it recoils.
We, this is the way we, we wrapped up our stuff.
We, um, we would use, we would use a lot of coffee.
Hmm.
Coffee.
So basically we would just like wrap it up, put some soap, some Ajax, put some soap,
wrap it up, some Ajax, some soap, I mean, some coffee, just like that until you, yeah,
that's how.
And then you lift up the panel of the Taurus.
You take it down.
Do you take it down?
You take it down and then...
So you get under the car and take it down?
You got to get under the car, yep.
Did you have a guy who helped you in Atlanta?
Did you guys have...
Were you able to do it yourselves?
Yeah, we did ourselves, dude.
You did it ourselves, man.
Show me a Mexican that can't find the fucking panel of a tourist, dude.
Oh, man, yeah.
That was the easiest.
Somebody was like, just randomly like, yeah, just put them in there.
I'm like, what?
I went under.
I'm like, holy shit, yeah.
Wow.
Okay, so then you drill it out?
Yeah, well, yeah, basically just drill.
It's like, you know, bolts.
Right.
Just drill them out and then put it down.
And then you just use, like, oil or something, you know,
or, like, just to, like, blend it in.
So it doesn't look too fresh, you know.
Oh, so you guys were using new, new cars.
Yeah.
Well, tourists back then, yeah.
Oh, okay.
So you want to make it look like, I don't understand.
Oh, well, you know, like cars, how under them, they're all dirty.
Right, right.
So you're going to tell if somebody moves or if you think they're going to know.
You're going to know if somebody's taken off a panel.
I see.
You would know right away.
So you would blend it in.
I see.
Yeah.
Or stuff like that.
Or also just to like, so you don't see the bolts, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So everything's, you know, just blended in.
Okay.
Basically.
So, so.
So, yeah.
It's such like a Mexican narco drug dealing culture is like, it's like everybody's, it's a way like Jewish
people talk about money.
and real estate in New York.
You guys, that's how Mexicans talk about it.
Everybody's always talking, like,
oh, hey, here's a tip for how to conceal meth.
Here's a tip for how to stretch Coke.
Like, do you know what I mean?
It's a constant, like, it's like a fraternity.
Like, yeah, like, it is.
Wow.
And then, then you just...
Like here, this is how you do it.
You bury money.
This is how deep you got to bury the money
so they don't find it.
Yep.
You know, it's these like...
You know, the traditions that are passed down from generation to generation.
What kind of acetone to use?
Yeah.
What kind of, where do you get those, what's it called?
To compress it.
What do you, you know, just stuff like that.
Right.
Yeah.
Or, hey, I seen this car, you should get those license plate or whatever.
And you get stuff like that.
We're pretty good at being.
How can I put it?
Resourceful.
Yeah.
resource for yeah and then like I said it's it's something that we we grow accustomed to
I don't see nothing bad people selling drugs like I mean that's the job you know
right my own business right yeah there's no stigma around it yeah like oh that's just what
that's what they do drug dealers why because they demand it people demand it it's not his it's
just his just a business yeah it is and um yeah basically
That's how I look at it.
Was your mom disappointed, though, now that she had two sons in prison?
Oh, definitely.
I mean, probably just misses us more than anything.
Right, because now your dad is gone.
Yeah.
More than anything.
Yeah, that was the...
The hardest part.
The hardest part, yeah.
Now, you did eight and a half off a 10 to a 10-year stretch.
How was prison?
It was...
How was being in the feds?
Were there a lot of Michua Caneseezes around there?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, especially around that time.
Like, everybody was getting 20, 30, like, nothing.
Everybody was in.
And they all came from Washington or Atlanta.
So I'd be like, oh, I'm from this little pueblo.
Be like, oh, you know this person?
And everybody, it's like everybody.
It's like a tribe.
It's like, yeah.
It's like somehow everybody knows somebody.
I've seen people that I knew from the streets.
I'm like, hey, what are you doing here?
I didn't see you in a while.
Well, I'm here.
Now you're in the feds.
Yeah.
And now, do you run Pisa?
Yeah.
That's what you're...
Okay.
Even though you are an American.
Yeah.
You're born here, but you're running with the wetbacks.
Yeah.
No offense.
We love you.
You know what it.
You know, it's a way to demarcate people.
That's what a Pice is.
It's a Mexican immigrant who gets caught selling drugs.
It's, but I mean, in there, you know how it is.
You have to, you have to, you know, I mean, with Mexicans, oh, you're tough, huh?
No, no, no.
You don't know what tough is really being tough.
Like, you're, you're, they're going to be trying to be, like, you know, like,
how can you swim against a wave?
You know, it's like, oh, you're getting fucked up.
You, you ain't, oh, you're Christian?
No, don't pick up the Bible now.
And like that, I wasn't, I was never a cholo.
I was never into game banging, none of that.
I was never into that.
I was into the selling drugs, getting money, getting big money.
Do you think most of the pices there were there for drugs?
No, a lot of re-entry.
A lot of re-entry.
And those were the ones that were fucking up.
How so?
They create a lot of problems.
Is that because they're not real criminals?
And they don't have that much time.
Right.
So they don't care, you know.
Right.
Right.
but you must have had a lot of respect in there just from your name and for you know being so young being
this kingpin yeah being young and mostly that basically that um just being young and knowing the
knowledge I had and going back to the people you know that um they knew about me too I had people
that knew about me yeah I mean that was the point I got like I had calls when I was there my dad
Hey, here, you want to talk to this person?
I'm like, no, fuck, I want to talk to that motherfucker for.
Seriously?
They just, wow.
Yeah, because they were like, oh, I'm trying to get some money, too.
So people were still hitting you up when you were in prison for the Connect, for work.
Oh, yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
I've known people that went out to South Dakota and became millionaires.
Just off, just going out there and like, I'm going to see what's out here.
Wow.
So they took your idea.
They found your, they filled the void.
Yeah.
I mean, somebody has to.
Wow.
It's a lot, yeah.
Now, the money you buried, were you able to get your people to access some of it so you could live in there?
Yeah.
No, definitely.
Okay.
I would have breaking out of prison if I had to get that money.
Oh, you're smarter than your dad.
You didn't gamble it all away, though.
I didn't get a lot of time, too.
That's the thing.
Right.
Because I developed.
I gambled a lot of it when I was locked up.
So you guys were playing that same game that your dad used to play?
No, I was playing poker in prison.
Okay.
You know that table.
You know that table with, you know, everybody gets there.
And there was a lot of people with a lot of money.
They're doing a lot of time.
That's the only way they can, you know, that you do.
I go to sleep owing like $8,000.
And like, not even sleeping, just waiting for the card or dreaming about playing cards.
Or one time I remember I lost like a hand, a pot that had like,
10,000 in it.
Wow.
I remember grabbing the cards and like,
I was so mad and I just threw them and I went, I went to my room.
I was mad.
Yeah, man.
It was, it was.
Damn, you got the itch.
Yeah, I got it.
Like your father, dude.
You guys got that gambling bug.
Yeah.
That's so crazy how much money there is in the feds that there's $10,000 card games in
prison.
Yeah.
And, yeah.
Are you playing with other races or are you just at the PISA?
Well, PISA, I'm PISA, so I could, I could gamble with other.
racism. I mean, nobody, as long as you don't, as long as your troubles don't bring any,
any drama to the card, they don't, you know, yeah. Who, who was running at the institutions
you were at? Who was running the card games? Who own the card games? Mostly, um, it was a lot of
white guys. A lot of white guys. They were the ones. They were the ones. Yeah, man, a lot of them.
Is that just because, how does that work? Like, if you have a big enough bank,
that gives you the advantage, right? Because you've got the money to pay out if people win.
Is that the key to having a game in prison?
Yep.
Okay.
That's basically that's it.
And reputation too.
I mean, you're going to be like, oh, I'm going to open up a card game.
No, no, you're not.
Why are you going to open a dog?
You're not.
Yeah.
You don't have good people with money.
I mean, they're not going to go to another person.
If they don't know you.
If they don't know you.
Mm-hmm.
I ended up not paying.
I ended up paying only like five grand one time.
But then I also lost like $800 every week.
So, I mean, you had to be pain.
Every other week you had to be pain.
Right.
Or once you're, I mean, ain't none of that.
Oh, commissary hit, no.
You know, or, oh, I just got my spending limit back.
Nope.
You got to have people outside handle that for you.
So you couldn't pay with stamps.
Well, I, you can only have so many stamps.
and then they did a big crackdown.
I remember they did a big crackdown
where people were losing, you know, books.
Huge books of stamps.
So if you lost, like, if you lost 10 grand
in a prison car game, you would have to have your people
on the outside, pay cash to that,
whoever owned the games, people.
Or have somebody, you know, put the money in there.
On the books, right?
Oh, fuck.
Did your family outside say something?
Were they like, hey, Fernando, you're,
you got to stop this, dude.
Yeah, no.
Like who was running things for you?
Who was looking after things for you on the outside?
Yeah, no, definitely.
You can only imagine.
I'd be like, man, don't worry about it.
Just send me that.
But, yeah, my mom would be the person taking, you know, finance my stuff, you know, when I went away.
Were you making any moves while you were in prison?
Like, moves still on the street?
Like, if you knew somebody that wanted something, needed something,
could you facilitate deals from cell phones in there?
No.
Well, I can say, yeah.
No, yeah.
I also ran a car table myself.
At the end, I ended up, you know, making money like that too.
But definitely being in a camp, being in a camp, I used to have people drop off, you know, stuff there.
Oh, the camps are rampant with drugs.
Or also people be like, hey, I'm going home.
Oh, where are you going?
Oh, well, you know, oh, you're going there?
Oh, here, man.
You know, hit my boy up.
You know, quick little number I give them, you know.
Yeah.
Make them make money.
So, and you just take a little piece of whatever.
You know, they look out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Here and there.
Right.
I just had a network where I could put a lot of people on, you know.
But it's like, yeah.
You're putting them on through your connect in Atlanta.
Yeah.
Or depending where they were going, because I could reach out to Chicago if I had to.
I mean, I got a lot of Mexican, like a lot of people from each of I got out there, too.
In Chicago.
Yep.
In Chicago.
and there's a lot of a lot of people out there.
Black guys, like, you know, they want looking for,
they're looking for, like, the next Coke connection or something.
And I'd be like, yeah, you're here, hit up my boy.
And then he would just, you know, take care of you.
Yeah.
So you had connects, your coat connects in Chicago, meth connects in Atlanta.
Do those big connects ever get busted, to your knowledge?
Kind of like, probably, I would say they either smart enough or they're probably in prison too.
I'm doing.
Those are the organization.
So if one guy goes down, they send more people.
Yeah.
No, I still know people out there.
Yeah, definitely.
Still working?
Oh, yeah.
I could just go right back to it if I wanted to.
What year did you get out?
I got out in 20, 2013.
Okay.
13, like January or something like.
No, no.
It was a summer.
So it was like June July or something like that.
And you can roll back to South Dakota?
To Fresno.
Okay.
Yeah. So you're back where it all began.
Yeah.
That's where once we got arrested, that's where my mom decided to move back to out there,
saying, oh, it's going to be better.
Imagine going back to California saying, oh, I don't want my, because I still have a younger brother, you know.
He does his thing, you know, he's not like us.
But he basically, she's like, oh, I'm going to move out.
I don't want this one to go to prison too, which could have probably happened.
She was all scared of a few falls.
Right.
She's like, it already took two of my kids.
You know, so she's like, and I don't want to take any more kids.
Wow.
Do you ever go back to Mexico?
I haven't been to Mexico.
I've been to the border.
I've been to Juarez and out there to Tijuana a couple times.
Yeah.
So you've got cousins in the game on the other side?
Not right now.
Well, for the fact that a lot of them, a lot of people,
you know, it's just the violence.
And they're all fucked up too.
They're all messed up into drugs and all that.
Not people I would trust.
Wow.
Wow.
And then do you have any family left in Mishua Khan?
Yeah, we do.
We have a lot of family out there.
Wow.
Yeah, we, I'm actually playing a trip here pretty soon too.
What's the game they tell you?
How are people feeling in today with what's going on with Trump?
and I mean, he's basically just killing everybody
and doing whatever the fuck he wants.
What's the sentiment right now
amongst the cartel in Mituakhan?
Just business?
Right now they're really scared.
Because a lot of people can say whatever they want,
but the DEA, it's been to out there in Mituakuan
and the little, little, they take it some people
of like some big heads.
Like they've been going out there
and extrading them back.
They're an extraditing a lot of people from out there.
A lot of people don't talk about it, but yeah, like,
they're extradizing people from out there,
so everybody's all scared.
Well, Cartel Unitos, that's the new target.
Cartel Unidos, that's what I keep seeing.
They got huge bounties on those two brothers,
and they're sending all the meth.
They're sending all of it, man.
It's something that people also, they, they're,
they don't feel bad.
bad, like, they'll see somebody, you know, they're even looking for it.
And it's, you know, it's like, it's been, it's been indebted into so many kids and stuff.
Yeah.
You know, they, now they just don't, they don't have feelings worse.
I like that.
To the violence.
To the violence.
I mean, they're scared, of course.
You know, they're scared.
People are scared, but it's just, it's like, that's what they're used to.
Yeah.
That's what they're used to.
Yeah.
Wow.
That is really crazy, man.
Fernando, we really appreciate you coming all the way out here and blessing us with that story.
That's some different shit, dude.
Oh, yeah.
What are you doing these days?
What do you do with yourself?
I just take care of my son, you know, trying to grow this company, this weed company out there in Cali.
You got a weed company?
Well, I'm trying to.
But it's a lot of technical, you know, margins and stuff that I got locations and stuff because depending what.
what law that's right now.
Yeah.
Trying to see if I get something going with that.
Other than that, just enjoying.
Do you ever think about getting back in the game since you are so connected?
Right?
Every day.
Every day, right?
Sometimes I'm like, man, you know, it's very, it's definitely a part of me as well.
So that's, that's, you know, that's something that, it really is.
Yeah.
It really is.
You're a third generation.
Mishwa Khan drug dealer, man.
Yeah.
And I'm trying to permit myself from being the fourth.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
All right, brother.
Well, thank you again.
All right, man.
Appreciate it.
All right, guys.
