The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Mexican Cartel Hitman Reveals Life Working As A PAID KILLER For Mexico's Most POWERFUL Drug Cartel

Episode Date: December 15, 2024

Ali Gonzalez, a former high-level hitman for Mexico's most dangerous cartels, reveals the shocking truth about life as a sicario. From his traumatic childhood and recruitment into the Sinaloa cartel to the violent reality of territorial disputes and his ultimate journey toward redemption, Ali provides unparalleled insight into the inner workings of the world's most powerful criminal organizations. This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: MANDO! Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with Mando and get $5 off off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code MITCHELL at https://shopmando.com #mandopod True Classic! Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at https://trueclassic.com/connect ! #trueclassicpod Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I was introduced to the killing game. You give me a pistol, you gave me a rifle, and you give me a group of men, and I'll do my job. You slip, and the government gets you, they'll deliver you to the rivals. They stripped every piece of clothing that I had, and they tied me up with bands from the back and from my feet. This guy grabs a bag, and he puts water in it, and he puts bleach in it, and he puts it over my head, and he starts torturing me. Ali Gonzalez has the wildest story I've heard since I started doing this podcast. He's originally from a small village in rural Mexico, but he grew up in Southern California where his family migrated to when he was just a little kid.

But then at age 16, after his parents' divorce, he decided to move back to Mexico, where he was quickly recruited into the armed wing of the Sinaloa cartel. For the next 10 years, he worked as a high-level hitman for multiple cartels in different regions throughout Mexico. Ollie reveals what life is like working for the most dangerous criminal organizations in the entire world. From how they're structured and funded, to the way they take over new territory.

Nobody has ever given us such detailed insider knowledge about the vast workings of Mexican cartels the way Ali has. The news and the podcast can all speculate about it, but Ali has lived it. And for more unbelievable content with Ali, including how he escaped the cartel, found Islam, and ended up living in England, go over to patreon.com slash the Connect show.

This is an all-time great episode. Get ready for it. Ali Gonzalez, right here, in the connect with Johnny Mitchell. Whoever can inflict more violence and commit more heinous acts is basically the one that's going to dominate that area. They're not going to bribe you. They're going to put fear into you and say, if you don't pay us, we're going to kill you.

They want to see if that person has the ability to pull the trigger. There's organizations that will literally dismember you if you kill someone that they don't give the order to. That's when I see the lights behind me start the flash. And I didn't even think. I just hit it. I was driving like my life depended on it. Then I parked the car, popped out, closed the door, and I started running.

And he pulls out a burner, shank, it's like six inches. And he passes it to me. And he goes, here, that's yours. Don't ever leave the cell block without this. He was the reason I made it out of that place alive. Well, why do you think that is, though? Like, why are different, what is, what is confrontations with the military like you see on the East Coast of Mexico? What does that have to do with Pancho Villa and the culture, the history of that?

area. The people are arreeros, you know, but they're braveros. They, they don't fear anything. They don't fear death, you know? They have that in their blood, like their blood boils to get into gunfights. I can say the same thing about the South with Zapatistas. My grandma is from a town called Aninequilko. If you know about Emiliano Zapata, he's from Aninequilko. They're descendants from Clavikas. They belong to the Aztec Empire. So we got that warrior blood in our, in running through our veins and it inspires you to get down, you know, when it's the moment of the moment that you have to get down. Yeah. But you have to be smart, you know.

Do you think the indigenous culture is more influential in these cartels in the south and in the east, rather than a place like Sina Loa where they're white-skinned and they're, they fancy themselves to be more. elite and educated and these high-level drug traffickers. We're not criminals. Do you think that has a lot of part to play with cartel violence? When you're talking about the military branch of the cartel? Because like you just said, Sinolaola is known for their trafficking, making good money. But they also need good soldiers, good military branch that's going to defend their line, to defend their territory.

Chihuahua and Sonora, Pancho Villa ran all through that area. So I think it's more about like, yeah, they are the high class regarding drug trafficking. But when in regards to fighting, they're always going to look towards the rural areas where there's more indigenous influence from older generations that have fought against the rural areas. where there's more indigenous influence from older generations that have fought against the Mexican government in their moment. And they're going to use you guys as the soldiers too. Yeah, definitely. Let's be honest, right?

There's a big class difference. Exactly. And I think a lot of people, like me personally, I've never dealt with drugs. I don't want to deal with drugs. You give me a pistol, you give me a rifle, and you give me a group of men and I'll do my job. Because that's what I prefer. It's never been in my likes to want to make more money

or want to send drugs to a different location. Like, that's not my business. So a lot of their elite fighters have that mentality. They're not looking to do what their bosses are doing. They're looking to make a name for themselves in regards with violence against other cartels. I imagine that you could be a cartel soldier, a Sicario, and never meet the people that you are fighting for. No, 100%.

Is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. Like how a privateer, somebody in the infantry of the army, who's first in, is never going to meet the president who decides to go to war, right? Yeah, most of them don't meet them. And they know, they accept and they know it, you know. I think poverty not having the means to make the ends

of make your family progress obligates you to do that I saw a lot especially in the rural areas of Sinaloa of Sonora of Guerrero, Michoacan you have kids that don't have the opportunity to go to school to middle school

because their families don't have the ends meet to send them to school. What do they have else? pick up a rifle and work for the cartel. Right. And what can a typical cicario or, is a soldier in a military branch, the cartel considered a cicadio? Or is a cicadio's more specialized hitman? Is there a distinction? No, I think it's just a general term for someone that, that dedicates himself to protecting the boss or the bosses or fighting the territory of the general. Who's a part of the armed wing of it?

Guerrero means soldier. Guerrero means warrior. Okay, Soldado is soldier. Yes, so there's real distinctions. There's the armed wing of the cartel and then there's the drug traffickers. People that put the money behind it. Influence it and, you know, make a dance on the strings. It's funny how those people that do the dance in the strings, they'll have meetings and they'll be drinking whiskey.

they'll be talking about business while their people are killing each other. They'll be having wars. They call it, oh, we're just having a little war. A thousand men against another thousand men. And the main bosses, they don't really care about their soldiers, you know? For them, it's just like a show of power to the other person. Like politicians. Exactly like politicians, you know.

There's an obsession with death in Mexico. There's no offense. I think less value on human life. than perhaps in the United States. I mean, I'm being nice about that. There is just clearly less of a care for life than in places like Britain or the United States. Do you think that has to do with the history of the Aztecs

and the bloodletting and something to do with Catholicism and the afterlife? Like, because clearly there's religious, there's some kind of religious undertones to the loyalty that a region will have to its cartel. Almost like it's the way that in England, there's this religious attitude towards your soccer team, right? Are you fucking Liverpool or what's the big one?

Help me out? Manchester. I doubt it. Because obviously... Like you guys are... My point is you're not... You don't seem scared to die. obviously there's a fear of death

but you know when you get into this business that there's a good chance you could get killed there's less of an individualistic attitude in Mexico than there is in the United States you're like that's the boss this is the way things are

we fight and kill they make money yeah it's just the acceptance of being a soldier you know having getting respect and earning respect from people that humiliated you when you were nothing.

And a lot of these people do it because of that, because of getting tired of being put down by other people that think that they're better than them, you know? It's more an act of honor, an act of valid, how you say? Validation? Yeah, validation, respect from their peers, from the peers. Right.

So it's the reason people join gangs. It's basically the same thing. Obviously, over here you're playing a totally different game than in the U.S. with gangs. You know, it's difficult. So you're from Guerrero. I love saying that word. Guerrero. I'm one of the few huados that can pronounce the double R in Spanish.

I take pride in that. You're from what city in Guerrero? Do you remember about the 43 missing students? I'm from that area, Coquula. That's a rural area? Yeah, yeah. That's where they found the 43 missing students and the ones that happened a few years ago. Yeah.

You remember about them? The kidnapped a bunch of students. Students and killed them. The cartel, the mayor of the city of Guerrero of Iuala had a problem with these kids because they were protesting every time they were protesting against the government. So the cartel that was there, it was Los Rojos. They basically were arrested by the government and given to the Rojas and the Rojas did their mess. What did your parents do? My dad used to work in a lumber company in the U.S.

And my mom was just a stay-in-home mom. Okay. So you moved to L.A. Your parents relocated to L.A. when you were very young. Yeah, two years. I have no memories of Mexico. Yeah. So you grew up, your formative years were in L.A.

Compton. Okay, so your dad had a good job or a working-class job. Yeah. Mom stayed at home. Do you have brothers and sisters? Yeah, I have one brother and two sisters. Okay. Yeah.

What was childhood like? You know, it was pretty good, you know, growing up in the American culture, you know, except for racism, obviously. But everything else was, we were living a dream. You know, I was living a dream because I didn't even know I was from Mexico. Yeah. My parents would tell me if anybody asked you, you were born in the U.S. Right. You're not going to have an accent.

Exactly, because obviously I went to school in the U.S. but are you and you're from the nice part of Compton I assume right the Mexican part we moved a lot so we were moving a lot we moved from L.A. to

Inland Empire San Marindino I've lived in Yucaypa Calamesa Redlands my mom's living there right now okay we were always moving

but it's you know that the school districts are different from L.A. to San Mrondino but in general, like obviously you got you got gangbanging, you got Hispanics against Hispanics, you got Hispanics against blacks, you even got living in Yucaypa, I even got to deal with skinheads, you know?

Yeah. With their type of, like, you don't see them in L.A. You see them more up to the north, predominantly white people to deal with them. But other than that, it was a... It's a different world, you know. Was it stable, though? Like, did your parents stay together? Did they, were you guys, did you have enough to eat?

When we were young, obviously, yeah, my father was providing for the family. My mom and my dad were Christians, you know, Baptist Christians. So they would take us to church. We would go to church and obviously they would try to keep us away from the streets and from gang life. Yeah. And I could say we were doing pretty well until my own father broke our family apart. He raped my sister, my own father. Our own blood father destroyed our family, basically.

And that's what basically kicked the domino effect in my life. Yeah, just destroyed everything. Of course. I was 13, bro. Yeah. How old was your sister? My sister was probably nine. Spring weekends are all about family, sunshine, and evenings on the patio.

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Okay, so your father went to prison? Yeah, yeah, he went to Avonel State Prison. Okay. He did 13 years in Avonle State Prison. Is he, that's it? That's it. That's what the U.S. government gave him. Huh. So he's out now?

Yeah, he's out. And I assume there's no more contact. No, no. Anything like that. Okay, so you were 13 when this happened. And from there, yeah, everything unravels. And by 16, you're back in Mexico. How did that happen?

Obviously, when the situation with my father happened, I turned towards the streets, you know, you tend to look for people that are in the same situation, the same boat. Naturally. Not having a parent or being from a broken family. sometimes being in my own home my mother would tell my own mom would tell me like

it was your fault that this happened to your sister because you as the oldest you should have you should have protected her or seen after her but in reality I had no idea what had to happen you know it just it's it's a memory that's stuck in my head and it's like if it happened yesterday we were sitting down I remember I was eating a bowl of cereals when my mom and my sister came out of the bathroom

my sister was crying my mom was crying And she tried to take us to a vehicle to try to leave because they were going to call it. They were going to call cops. But she wasn't telling us what was going on, you know. When I asked like, what's going on, she ended up telling us what happened. Your own father raped your sister. And having that, I think it's the trauma of living that at such a young age. pushed me to start getting into problems.

I was getting kicked out of school constantly. I got sent to county school, day school. It just got out of hand. Yeah, nobody can tell you shit after that happens, right? No. And what a powerless feeling. Did you blame yourself at the time? Not really.

I blame more God, you know. I think I would sometimes sit outside on my roof. We were living in an apartment complex and I would get on top of the roof and I would say, just look up in the sky and ask myself, like, why did this happen to my family? You know? We were good Christians because I thought we were good Christians, you know? My mom was pretty strict with us and I would think to myself like, why our family, you know? And like I said, that pushed me towards the streets. Obviously, you start robbing, steal. because understand that my mom had never worked in the U.S.

My mom did not speak English. She only spoke Spanish. The government obviously took my dad and froze his accounts. My mom could no longer get anything that belonged to him. Everything was seized. And they gave her food stamps, like a $200 food stamps for four kids. Yeah. Try that.

Good luck. And having to be the oldest and seeing your mom crying at night because she didn't have money to pay the bill. she didn't have money to pay the rent. Yeah. It was difficult, you know? Yeah. She had no work history besides raising you guys. Bro, she had never, like, she didn't even like my father, my dad didn't even want to show her how to drive.

She had to learn, she had to force herself to learn how to drive because obviously, you know, Mexicans have that machismo. They're very, very strict with, with, regarding their women. Yeah. And my dad was like that with my mom. And unfortunately, I was the oldest and I was the one that was taking all the, you know, this trauma in, you know? That's what led me to be in the streets. I was living in the streets.

I ran away from home because of the same situation, the same problems that we were having, that she would blame me about my, about what had happened and I would take it out on everything, you know, on school, on everything. I wasn't even going to school anymore. I was home invasion, you name me. Yeah, heading for the same place where your dad's at.

Yep. Wow. So what ultimately brought you to Mexico? Hanging around with the wrong crowd, you know. I've always liked guns. That's something that I've always been a fan of. Growing up in middle school, I remember the Marines coming into school and showing, you know, showing you the, what is it called?

They basically, they talk about their jobs. Yeah. Once you finish your high school, you can, you know. Exactly. Look at me. I got, yeah. They paid for all of it. And as a young kid, I was like, I want to be like, hey, you know, I have that in me, you know, that warrior class from, from Mexico, obviously.

And it would draw my attention. So I remember I was thinking to myself, like, I want to become a Marine. I want to become a Marine. But hanging around with the wrong crowd led me to start using weapons at a young age. and get involved in gun violence to the point where it was no longer safe for me to be in Southern California. Were you shooting at people?

You can say that. It's common in the U.S. and back in the day, the drive-bys and all kinds of that. And it's funny how they fight for something that's not even theirs, you know? Right, and there's no money in it. And there's no money.

At least people shooting people in Mexico, there's real money on the line. I always, that's so funny you said I always would think that. I'm like, there's no organization or reason behind this gang violence. There really never has been in America, you know? Like there's drug dealing and then there's like senseless gang violence. And sure, they sell little bullshit hand-to-hand drugs.

But yeah, it's all over identity and like something to do. And where are you from, what's your colors? Yeah. Stupid shit. That in reality, it's... Did you have like a crew that you were rolling around? Yeah. You were Sorreño.

Okay. Soreño is like the arm for those that don't know. That's basically the Mexican mafia. Soreinos are like the armed wing of the Mexican mafia. In the 90s, it became really popular. Yeah. You got Floreencia 13. You got Playboy 13 from L.A.

Right. You got all these gangs representing the 13, the Sour, you know. Yeah. And obviously, hanging around with Hispanics and being around with Hispanic gang members, you adopt that culture, you know, at a very young age. So when I started seeing that my life was basically going to the shit, where I was like, you know what, I'm going to try to make a change in my life. And I'm going to, my brilliant idea was go back to Mexico.

Dude, I think that every other week. Trust me. Brother, I don't know. I think I was too immature. I was too young to really open my eyes and see. that Mexico was not what I thought it was, and that the violence in Mexico was in a whole different level, you know? Obviously.

Did you catch a case or anything in America? No, no, no. Oh, okay. So you just, did you drop at a high school? I'm assuming you did. Yeah, yeah, I dropped that in. Okay. You had a plan to go work, or what was the idea?

Just try to, like, get away from everything that I had, that I had been building up in, in the U.S. like building up in problems. Yeah. And you're fleeing this awful memory of what happened with your father. I come to realize now that I'm more mature that at the end of day, I was running away from the trauma. Yeah. That was that I was carrying with me.

In my mind, I was saying, you know what? I'm going to head to Mexico. I speak English. I can go work at Cancun. I can go work in Acapulco. I can get a job as an English speaking person and just forget about what happened and start my life. And actually that's what I tried to do at the beginning. Where's the first place you went?

Toluca. I went to, I got, I came out in San Isidro, got in a plane in TJ and landed in Toluca in Estabar of Mexico. Okay. The state of Mexico, not the, not Mexico City. Okay. From there, I got a bus, went down to Guerrero to where I'm originally, like where I was born and realized that I was, I was up in the mountains where there's nothing. There's no light. There's no running water. There's nothing, man. Welcome to home. You're back home. Bro, it's what it's like. It felt weird. You know,

it's like, man, people in the U.S., they take for granted having hot water in their sinks, you know, they take for granted having actual sewer, how do you call it? Sewage? Yeah, sewage. Running, yeah, plumbing. Plumbing. You know, small things like that, having AC or or heating inside of their home. So you're from that kind of Mexico. Yeah, I'm from the mountains. We call that like third world Mexico, because there's really two Mexicos.

Mexico is an incredibly rich in certain parts, incredibly developed country. I was just in Mexico City. It looks like London in parts. It looks like Paris. It's, you know, you've just got like you've got Fortune 500 companies there.

You've got people that look like gringoes, right? And you've got law enforcement that's super capable when they want to be, you know? And then in the hinterlands, the middle of the country in the south, it looks like 1940. You know what I mean? You got the rural areas where there's no government, there's no police.

There's no infrastructure. There's nothing, but the town that the town that I was born is called La Monera. It's basically a small, it belongs to the municipia of Kukula, where they found these students. but from where I was born to Kokula, it's like a 45-minute drive through dirt roads. Yeah, mountains. There's only one actual transport that goes in in the morning and it comes out in the afternoon.

Right, it's a bus, right? It's a bus. And that's all you got. And a lady might have chickens on there. Yeah, that kind of like. What did your, so when you return to your village, did you still have family down there, like cousins or? My dad's family

So this is when my dad was in prison Yeah I went down to where I was born And I met my grandparents Obviously his parents Did they know what happened? Yeah, yeah obviously they knew what happened Did you feel some kind of way

Towards them? Not really Because they They weren't in favor or against Like in the U.S. I have his brothers were In favor of him saying Oh no, your mom

did it because she wanted to give it with another man. Oh, she's lying. Yeah, yeah. But down in the south, they really weren't. They really had nothing to say, you know. Okay, so they weren't. There wasn't a rift in the family. They were happy to see you.

Only in the U.S. Because I actually got into a couple of fights, went to break a couple windows when some of my uncles were basically trying to brainwash me, tell me, you know what, your mom did this because of this and that. Right. You know Mando by Mando. You know Mando by now.

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they grow pumpkin um you know the pumpkin seed yeah uh they grow tomatoes um what else peppinos cucumbers um amapola and marijuana. Yeah. So it has it. It's like there's temporadas, you know, how you say? There's seasons for every single thing. Yeah. But it's hard work, you know.

Yeah. It's farming. It's farming. It's real farming. Yeah. Do they grow marijuana to scale to then sell off to the groups? Yeah. Organizations?

Yeah. Okay. But they get paid pennies compared to what the organizations actually sell it out for. Yeah. And I imagine. now there's that's basically mostly died out yeah because there's no more weed racket in the u.s so you get there uh yeah tell us tell us what you did at first so at the beginning you know um i remember like first it was like i wanted to wake up and i wanted to go back to the u.s you know yeah

i was close in my eyes i was thinking like what did i what did i what did i get myself into like like i'm not about this life because obviously i had never been in in in rural Mexico um And I found it, I found the hard way that it's difficult, you know. I started working as a hand, like a handyman, a construction, making cement on the ground, hard work, you know, where you'd go back home and you'd have a fever of how hard the work was. And I saw that there wasn't no money. Like, you had freedom. Yeah, you could go smoke weed.

You can carry your, you can carry your shotgun, you can go hunt, you can go fish. because we got El Rio Balsas that passes by. So we would fish. When there was no work, we would go fish. When we didn't have anything to eat, we would go kill Iwanas, garobos, we call them. Basically the green, you know, the Iwanas that you see in Florida? Yeah. Black.

Wow. They're black. Instead of green, they're black. Imagine one of those in your kitchen. That's scary. They're pretty good. Yeah, they're delicious? They're good, bro.

How do you prepare them? Do you eat them like shish kebabs, like off a stick, or do you put them in tacos? You peel them and then you do them with comino and salt and on oil. And it fries up and it tastes good. Sounds pretty good. They also cut off his head and they put the blood of the Iwana into a cup and they mix it with Coca-Cola. And they say it's for your eyesight. If you're going blind, you can go get one of those.

I love a Mexican village, Old Wives Tale. I love that. Some crazy stuff. I love. And you know what? I fell in love with nature. I fell in love with being out there. but at the same time, I noticed that it's very hard because there's no money.

That's the difficulty. You really have freedom. There's really no, there's nobody that tells you don't go fish, don't go hunt, don't go drink iguana's blood. You know, you can carry a gun around. It's actual freedom. That's how most people used to live, but you got to survive. Yeah. Yeah.

So one scene that I wasn't going to be able to sustain it. to sustain my life. I was like, you know what? I'm going to move from here. I'm going to go out closer to Mexico City, try to find a good job. Some work. And I did.

I ended up moving to a state called Morelos. And there, I met people from the organization. Obviously, you see and you meet people that work for the organization in growing, amapola, processing the heroin. and obviously marijuana as well. And you're always like, you're just seeing how there is people that are coming up from that environment. But you also hear from those rural areas like Guerrero about people that kill for money. So we call them Mata Por Paga.

And that was something that drew my attention. Like I said, I always wanted to be a Marine, you know. I looked up to the military and I even tried joining the military in Mexico. I was told like I couldn't because of tattoos because of piercings because of my education. So when I would when I would hear these tales of old men fighting it out and and the courage that they had to do their business inside of me, I was like, you know what, I want to, I want to employ myself as a hitman. I want to see if I have it to, you know, to pull the trigger. Right. In Morelos, obviously,

life is a lot. You got a lot of more commodities, but it's still difficult. Were you in a city? It's not really a city. It's like towns, but you got more infrastructure. There's a lot more movement.

Were you approached by an organization, or did you find them? No. Because, you know, American Chicano's, American Mexicans that go back to Mexico, whether they're on the run or for whatever reason, they're prime targets for recruitment by these groups, whether that's to be a mula or a, you know, a matta por paga, you know, because you guys, you're not really Mexicans, you're Americans and you don't have any opportunities, so you get swooped up.

After being in Morelos and seeing how situation was, because you face a lot of racism, even in Mexico, not racism regarding your race. but more your class. There's a very high, there's no middle class in Mexico. You're rich or you're dead poor. Obviously, the situation is changing now. Right. Because you're starting to see a lot more middle class.

Yeah. But back then, it was like you have these, these people that try to humiliate you. So I looked towards the north. I'm like, if I can't go back to the U.S., I'm at least going to go to the border. And I head back to Mexicali, to Chicali. And in Chicali, I got a good job. I started working as a technical.

I used to work for AT&T in a call center using my English. And there's when I start meeting people that were working for the Senegal cartel, moving obviously drugs from a port to security houses in Mexicali. And if a lot of people know about the cartels, they know that Sinaloa has always had the border crossing of Mexicali has always been of El Mayo Zambada. Okay. So it's a desert and we call it the devil's butthole because that's how hot it gets. It's unbearably hot. Yep.

Yeah. Have you been down there to the desert of Altar? I haven't. Calexico, have you been to Calexico? No. but I've seen images and I know that it's it's hot and it is hot. People end up missing all the time. It's a perfect place for cartels to operate because they can do dirt, stash, kill people, and then flee,

and there's just no government that's going to be there to catch them. The government plays a part. Yeah, of course. The government plays this part. But that was where I was introduced to basically the killing. game, you know, the Matapurpaga. I left my job as a tech support agent because I don't know, I didn't, I didn't like the stress, bro, of being in a desk on a computer, talking to people from Florida, from

the, because we were, we were, we used to cover the east side of the U.S. And it was just stressful, man. It's like, this is not for me, you know. I ain't about to do this. So I started contacting the people that were working in that job, but also working for the cartel. And that's how I started. I got sent to Sonora to work for a certain person as a hitman.

Was he a boss or was he? He was a lieutenant. He was a, how do you call it? It was the one that was in charge of that area, a big piece of Sonora. So that's like a plot. Um, Lugartteniente. Have you heard of that name?

Lugarttenientes? No. So you got the main boss and then he has Lugartanientes, people that are in charge of certain areas, but they still respond to him. Right. Plasas. They're the ones that are in charge of several plasas, not just one. I see. So a lieutenant will be in charge of one plaza or two.

A Lugartteniente will be responsible for the... I see. He's like a general manager. of a region, regional manager. Exactly. A regional manager is a perfect explanation. And this is the, obviously the armed wing. This is the guy that has intelligence and is overseeing guys like you. Yeah.

And could you explain, so would you think this guy's reporting directly back to Mayo in Sinaloa or is there an intermediary between the boss and, you know, guys in the armed organization? How do you think that communication goes? You know? It's complicated because obviously you got certain factions that are loyal to Chapo was mine and you got other factions that are loyal to Mayo Zambala. But that faction and this person that I'm speaking about was obviously all the time responding to Al-Maiosambaa. What year was this?

This was back in 2011, 2012. Okay. So Chapo's still out? Yeah. It's still the cartel has a. It's still the cartel has. really bifurcated. Yeah, it hasn't broken. It was basically in their main, in their more golden arrow. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Okay. So can you explain how

violence, cartel violence is used to open up drug routes? Everybody hears that. Like, they're fighting over drug routes. But can you explain what the fuck that actually means? That means basically coming into a plaza that does not belong to you and to disrupt their whole organization or their whole structure of control. That means going from drug dealers to people that are in charge of communications to the supplier of drugs. And then you start getting involved with other hitmen, other lieutenants that are protecting the plaza. but basically it's whoever can inflict more violence and and and and commit more heinous acts that means if you record someone getting their skin their their their face skin to life to that degree that whoever can inflict more terror is basically the one that's going to show more power

to to to dominate that area. does that help the drugs pass through to the U.S.? There must be some kind of communication with government too, though. That must mean that whoever is in charge of security, whether it's the chief of police or the government over there, they must be taking your money now, right? Of course.

Like he's dead, you take my money, and this is how we get the dope through. Am I right? Yeah, yeah, that's just, that's almost all the government plays a part in a certain degree. they all have they're all they're all put in a certain place because they they obey orders from a certain cartel so let's say like you just said ahead of police of el pazo tejas he might he might respond to el carter del golf but you got cng that are coming in they'll go after the the main boss just to inflict fear on the on the government and say we're not fucking around right if you guys don't take our money we're going to keep on fucking you guys up Right. So it's...

And they might even get killed if they don't take the money. It's like Pablo Escobarces, Plata or Plano. And there's areas where they don't offer Plata. They just offer plomo. Right. Especially down in the rural areas like Michoacan, Guerrero. They don't... They're not going to bribe you.

They're going to put fear into you and say, if you don't pay us, we're going to kill you. Right. And so... So what was your first assignment? Well, what city were you in when you went to work? Was it Mexicali or is it somewhere else? It was in Sonora. Sonora.

So Sonora is a state. So do you remember which? Yeah, I remember. I don't want to say. Okay. Fair enough. It was near a border. Basically, the first things that they see in a person is they want to see if that person has

the ability to pull the trigger. They'll send you with a group of people to a certain city and they'll keep you in a certain location just chilling while they have other. people locating the target. They'll call you up at any time, at any moment, say, hey, you know what? The target's available. Get in your vehicle, get in your motorbike, and go do the action. They just want to see what you can do.

Yeah. Can you tell us about your first job? Yeah. It was basically someone that was running the drug distribution for that, that plaza that we were in. Yeah, it's, you can say it's. it's like anything, you know? The first time you do it, you're, you're nervous because obviously you don't, you've never done it. But I always put my mind or fix my mindset that it was just a job.

It's nothing personal, you know. I'm just there to do a job because obviously I want to continue my career in this. Because I had the, they gave me the opportunity to demonstrate who I was. So I wasn't about to let them down. But it was quick. it was just, it was, it was, it was, it was something, uh, how do you have been saying? It was up, in front close. It was, it was, it was a, it was a, I, I walked up to the person, basically, yeah. What kind of gun do you have? I had a 45. Oh, that's a big gun. Yeah, especially when you're

managing that type of caliber, you got to have, you got to be close to the person. Right. Because you ain't going to hit them from 10, 15 meters. You're going to hit no one. Were you, Were they outside or did you, did you break into where they were at? They were drinking. I see. I just, they just told me what kind of clothes he was wearing. Got off the car. I put men sin te la pistola, like they say.

Walked in and I just verified that it was him, pulled out my gun and just went at him. Just him? You didn't hit the other people at the table? No, because obviously the target was him. Yeah. There's organizations that will literally dismember you if you kill someone that they don't give the order too. I've seen that that happened personally.

That's interesting. They're very, even though obviously there are these horrific acts of civilians getting killed, Mexican cartel violence isn't like old, like Colombian style spraying everybody just to get one guy. It does seem much more like they don't want to touch civilians. This is what happens when you touch someone that's innocent. You're going to bring the fire on your own organization. Yeah. Because obviously government is going to make a blind eye if you kill another cartel

remember. Yeah, look at them. If you kill someone that is not a good person towards society, but if you kill an innocent girl, an innocent boy or an innocent bystander, you're going to have the whole government asking question, what's going on here, you know? Right. And they don't want, in Mexico, as we know, it's all about appearances. Yeah.

It's all this veneer of everything's okay. No, everything okay. No, no pass on nada. Exactly. No, no, so you hit him. How many times you hit him? Do you remember? four times like four.

And you're confident that it was a kill shots? You get basically explained how you're going to kill them. Okay? So before they take you to the city and they put you into a security house, they'll have you out in the desert training and they'll give you a rundown on how to engage a target. For those that have military expertise, they, everybody understands you're not going to headshot anybody. No.

You're going to reassure him in the chest. So they explained to us two, three in the chest in the torso, and you end up coming up to him and one in the head just to make sure he's dead. So that's the way that you... So they had you out there in the desert training? Yeah, yeah. They train you. If they see that you have Cormiyo, that you have that you're going to be. be a valuable asset.

We call that juice in the U.S. They'll pay people Green Berets, ex-Navy SEALs to come down and train you. You got the Guatemala, you got the Kaibiles, you got the Gafeis, ex-Setas,

that are no longer setas. Right. That obviously they'll come and they'll instruct you. Wow. Exactly. Wow. So you make, so now you're in, you proved yourself. Yeah. How old are you now?

I was like around, I was going to turn 19. Okay. So you made it about three years. Yeah. What's the average age? Was that about a normal age? I've seen kids that are 13, 12 years old that are killing people. Yeah.

Hmm. Okay. And there's opportunities to rise up within the, the armed wings of these organizations? you were saying? Yeah, it's, it's, they want to see intelligence, they want to see organization, they want to see leadership, that people follow your orders

and that you are able to demonstrate that you can, that you do good under pressure. Right. Yeah. So once I started putting in these, the work that I was putting in, I was sent to a different state

with a different group and they told me, you know what, we're going to let you control, a group of people and we want to see what you can do. Okay, so, but the whole umbrella is still Sinaloa, right? Yeah. Okay, yeah, obviously you're not switching sides or a different cartel. You mean a different group that is in, you know, either doing work in a certain plaza, right?

What state were you in next? San Luis Potosi. Yes. San Luis Potosi. Yeah, but what is? It's San Luis. That's a state? Yes.

state. Where the fuck is that? San Luis Potosi. I know Mexico. Where is San Luis Potosi? It's near Alascalientes. Okay. So this is way far away from Sonora. Yeah. Wow. Okay. What is Sinaloa doing all the way over there? Well, they have, they got people in Chappas.

They got, they got, so Sinaloa basically is the name of the, of the organization. Yeah. But the organization needs connection with other criminal organizations, with other groups that have their own infrastructure. That are local. But that they're still, they're making a chain with the bigger name of the cartel, Sinaloa. Right, right. Because you got, you got people that have to take care of the ports because obviously there's a lot of merchandise coming into the ports.

So you got people fighting down in, in Chappas, the ports of L'Acapulco, Quintana Ro. You got organizations that are big, that are, that have to have, they have to come. and speak to the bandits that live in these areas and say, so you're working for us or you're working for them. And if they accept the help, they get the, they get the, the rewards from it. They split in the whatever. They get, how do you say, appollo?

Help. They get help from the organization. So most of these smaller branches or smaller organizations, they might be in war with another organization, an example. Cartel of Halisco, New Generation. It blew up real quick. started expanding everywhere, right? So you had little organizations that couldn't defend themselves against them.

So what Sinaloa did was send people down to the South, speak to them. You know what? You're going to work for us. We're going to help you with people, with guns, with money to fight. Protection against the C.JNG. So what do they have? They have lives. They have people that they can volunteer to build the organization.

And that's how a place like Sinaloa and northwestern Mexico is able to operate thousands of miles away. in the south. Yep. I see. When you were up north in Sonora, like when you're working for this group and you got to go kill somebody, do you know,

do you know what you're doing it for? Like in the south in Chiapas, it's probably for people smuggling, right? But in Sonora, did you know, did they say, hey, we're going, we're taking this over because of this reason? They don't know. They're not going to explain to a basic soldier

what they want. It might be someone that, from the same organization that they just want someone taken out, you know? Right. And they don't explain why. And you don't ask why. Asking gets you killed, bro. I'm such a fucking,

I would get killed so quickly. The whole time I was down in Kulia Khan, Brian will tell you this. I'm like, how the fuck does it work? How does it work? And they're like, yeah, I'm like, how do you become a boss? They're like, well, you have to be like born into it. And I'm such an American.

I'm like, well, what if you want to start your own thing? Like it's got, you know what I mean? And it just doesn't work that way down there, you know? I guess I'm an American, you know? And that's why in America there is, there can never exist something like these structures in Mexico. Because whenever someone tries to organize, there'll be a dickhead like me. We'll say, no, no, no, no, I can do it better. Do you know what I mean?

Like, there's too much freedom in the United States. In Mexico, it's like, we take orders because of this. There's logic. You know, it's, again, it's cultural. It's economic. fascinating. So you're down now in I'm sorry. San Luis. San Luis. And you've got your own

responsibilities now. How long did it take you to earn that? A year and a half. Okay. Because I was the type of person that I'm not going to ask questions. I just want to make sure that the person that's the target is available and I'm not going to risk. Like I'm not stupid. I'm not just going to jump out

car and I like to be very methodical. Yeah, exactly. Because that's the only way you're going to survive in that game. Because obviously there's areas where you're operating where if you slip and the government gets you, they'll deliver you to the rivals. They won't

even report that they arrested you. They'll directly take you to the rivals and you don't want that. And you won't walk out alive. They saw that I wasn't dumb. I wasn't we have a saying in Mexico So losuevos, Teneruevos, gets you

kill really quick, you know? Because a bull has big old balls and healed, but you can easily get them to an ambush. Sure. So with balls, you've got to have a lot of intelligence to make it work. So they saw that I was really

efficient in what I was doing. And obviously, it wasn't that I was efficient. It was more that I was looking for a way out for my own in my own life. I didn't, I wasn't, I didn't have the, the courage to take my own life. You know,

I wanted to die, but I didn't want to die by my own hand. I wanted to die in, like, in battle. I wanted to die. Exactly. How much were they paying you at the time? Bro, you don't even want to know. Yeah. I do, but it's going to hurt. They're going to hurt a lot.

3,500 pesos. Fuck, a month? Kincenales. Every 15 days. Okay, so they were paying you 7,000 pesos a month? 3,500, yeah, 7,000 pesos a month. Which comes to how many dollars? It's like, probably like

$400,500, I think. Fuck, so that's probably, that's just more, that's probably just more than what you can make in the fields, right? Yeah, no, and in that moment, it was more than what you can make. Obviously, right now, a month, everybody's making above $14,000, but in that time, yeah, obviously. They adjust for inflation.

Yeah. Yeah, they have to pay you a little more or else people wouldn't do it. People won't do it. Because the minimal minimum wage, I think, is like $7. In 2020, they told me it was $7 a day. So it's a little more than that. But it's not great money.

No. It's just enough to basically. That's your pay as a foot soldier. Yeah. Then comes kidnapping, extortion. What do you mean? Most of these branches, these military branches, obviously they need to feed people.

Sometimes the bosses aren't going to be available. They're not available for you to pick up the phone and say, hey, I want to go. Nah, that's not how you're going to see them. That's why they've survived so long because they're very cautious on how they deal with stuff. So maybe you're a lieutenant and you're running out of money and you have to feed your people else your people are going to start running away. So what do you do?

You start robbing. You start extortioning. You start kidnapping. stepping people. Extortion, you extortion under the name of your organization. Protection money. Right. It's basically just extortion. Oh, so if you're a lieutenant that's in charge, a general manager that's in charge of a

couple of plazas, you basically get a bag of money from the boss back home and say, this is what you need for the next three months. But if they run out of that and something's going on with the boss, maybe he's on the run, maybe it's super hot, he can't get a hold of him. Fuck. Yep. Now, yeah, we got to go to the mattresses. And sometimes it's, sometimes it's even the bosses, bro, that they send you to kidnap people.

That's something that I didn't like from the organization that they send you to kidnap people. Really? Yeah. Like, let's say you're a, you form, you're a part of the money laundering of the other rival organization. So what they will do, because they know that you're money laundering for the rivals. They'll pick you up and or take your, your daughter. your son and then they'll they'll ask for ransom money right and and they'll make sure that they take everything that you got wow so you were involved in that i don't want to respond to that but

hmm i i saw i saw i saw it happen a lot and a lot of people are in prison for that and they're facing up to 80 140 years of prison in mexican prisons right that's one of the highest most crimes sentences that you can get is kidnapping. I thought Sina Loa prided themselves on not doing that. That's what they all say. It's propaganda. It's propaganda, bro.

Okay. I'm not, let me correct myself. It's not propaganda. Maybe Miles Sambadas closed generals, they don't do that because they got the money. Myos Mabada is a strong, important piece. And obviously his sons are strong pieces in the organization. and they've always they've always

distinguished themselves in having more class and ethics regarding kidnapping right so I'm not going to say they all do it but to a certain degree

on the lower ranks they all they all they all they all they all right and maybe it doesn't get up to the boss maybe they don't even know that their lieutenants are doing it wow because obviously they know that that life is not going to be forever so a lot of

of people, they take advantage of the opportunity that they're given and they try to assure themselves that they'll leave something for their family in case anything happens to them. Right. Yeah. So you're about 20, 21 now when you're, you've leveled up a little bit and you're in charge of a group. How much you're getting paid now? Do you get a little pay raise? Yeah. I was making probably like, like $5,000 every two weeks. 5,000 pesos? 5,000 pesos? Okay, so we got a bump.

And now they're giving you meth, free meth. Uh-huh. And if you want to sell it, you can make money, or if you're not, you can... I see. You can give it to, you can give it to your own people, but... I didn't know that worked that way. So that's pretty common for them to pay you in drugs to sell? In meth or coke.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. What's the biggest, did you sell it? I know you don't like drug dealing. I don't know. You didn't sell it. I know.

I gave it to the people that I have. Wow. Let them do whatever they want. So you're not... You weren't driven by greed, money. Drug use, I know, is rampant amongst cicadios. You know, we've, I mean, all we did was sniff coke with these guys when we went down in Kulia Khan, you know. Is that, because it's very boring.

Did you ever see them do meth? No. No. No. No. Meth is a no-no in the organization. Really? Yeah.

No meth. No meth. You can't even pick up a weapon if you're on men. Really? Yeah, no, no. They'll beat you down or they'll give you the tablop. Can you explain the tabla just for fun? The tabla is something, it's a two by four that has been, it's basically you're playing a cricket.

Right. It's like a cricket paddle. Right. With holes driven into the paddle so that when they swing that paddle, it doesn't catch any air. And when it hits you, I've seen grown men cry like little girls, bro. And I've seen grown men shit themselves. Like, really? That's how bad the tabla is.

Oh, so they don't, it's not like a frat for. You're just giving you five smacks? No. They really hurt you. They really hurt you because it's a disciplinary action. Right. And if you're like, let's say, an example, you have people that are selling drugs for you, they don't come with the quote of the month.

You pull them in, what's going on, this and that? They don't, they don't, you see that they're not taking it serious. All right. Pull their pants down. Right. Right. And that's, that comes before getting killed. That's like a warning.

Yeah, yeah. It's a warning. Damn. Do you remember it yet? Oh, damn. What were some of the things that could get you the tabla? Falling asleep in your guard.

So a lot of these military organizations, these branches, they always have to be on the radios. There always has to be two people awake hearing the communication of the codes of the chatter that the own organization has. So they'll have certain codes for certain

they'll have codes for like federal agents for federales for Estatales for state police military for marinos for Marines and you're always playing a cat and mouse game with these military and especially with the federal government

not the state government or the local government because obviously they don't want they don't want the heat they don't want to smoke yeah they don't want to smoke yeah so when you are when you are put as as guard obviously these kids are this morning.

They haven't slept right, two, three days. And they'll tend to fall asleep. And when they wake up, they see the tabla.

Fuck. You'll also get the table if you run away. And if you're in a gunfight ain't. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah, because you're expected to shoot it out, I think even with the cops, right? Oh, no, you kill cops. Um,

um, the only ones that you don't try to kill it's military. Right. They'll, they'll just get reinforced and obviously they're trained to do that. Federals and state and municipal agencies are trained to maintain order.

Right. Not to engage. Exactly. So when it comes down to that they're not following your rules, you'll engage them and you'll make sure that each one of them gets taken out and you pick up the winnings of the combat. You take the rifles, you take their pistol, you take their bulletproof vest, you take the radios, you take whatever you can. Was that pretty wild? So you must have been in some shootouts with cops. Oh, yeah. Was that pretty wild? You were like, dude, I come from a place where killing a cop gets you damn near the death penalty. And now I'm taking this guy's bulletproof vest and his gun. Like, as an American, it must have kind of blown your mind, right?

Yeah, because obviously you know that if you kill one, if you kill in a police in the U.S., they'll hunt you down. Obviously. Right. It's like it's a... To these kids who grew up in Mexico, it's normal. But did you realize you were like, I... Like, did you adapt quickly or did part of it in the back of your minds you think like this is crazy? I adapted pretty quick and I understood that I was no longer in the American dream. I was in Mexico reality.

That it's like it's not about like in the U.S., like they're scared of the cops. You can say so. They know that. Yeah. You don't fuck around the cops. In Mexico it's like they got a problem with you then we'll smoke it out. We'll ambush them, we'll hunt them down. There's a lot of footage of friends of mine and other members of other cartels

ambushing state police, municipalities, federals. In the state of Mexico, not too long ago, they killed 13, it was 13, 12 state cops and three judicial agents. Yeah. And I know the people that did that action, I know them personally. I was on the phone with them telling them, I'm like, why did you guys do?

You know? They raided our homes and they took my tiger because one of my friends was a boss there. He told me that they had taken his tiger. He had a, a Bengal tiger. What's it called? Bengal Tiger. With that with a collar with diamonds and spikes.

That's a good use of money. Bro, they would, feed their enemies to the tiger. Really? Yeah. Where is this? This is Estolet Mexico. Okay.

So as retribution, they would ambush these guys. Yeah. Wow. Just so they know. You would plan the ambush like two weeks and then you'll go spend three, four days in the mountains, waiting for the radio signal that, oh, the convoys coming down. Three, two trucks of state police. Get ready.

Line them up and get down. When you engage like the state police. police, for example, what are you guys armed with? You're armed with rifles. But what kind? Well, you got AK-47s, obviously. That's a staple name of the organization.

And you got AR-15s. Right. Five-56 NATO rounds. That's basically, those two are the main 762 and 556. Or don't make, the main army of any

organization. Obviously, they got 50 cows, but they don't use those on these type of ambushes. Yeah. What are the 50 cows for? They're more for cartel against cartel. When they got the monsters, when they got these homemade, what do you call them? Tanks. Yeah.

And they're having their wars, you know, that's why they're used. They're not going to waste ammo for 50 cows. So freaking expensive. Yeah, of course. They're not going to be just wasting it to try to kill a bunch of cops, you know. Do you remember being resupplied with arms? Like, did you ever have to buy arms coming in from the United States? Yeah, yeah.

You got specific individuals that that's their job. The job is just the market of selling weapons. Just to procure weapons. Yeah, and they'll say, they might even sell to your enemies. Right. And you don't even know because obviously their business is not involved in the cartel. Their business is the traffic, the... Now, how does that work?

Does it, it's Americans buying guns in the U.S., And then do they bring them to these gun brokers in Mexico or is it gringoes themselves selling the guns? It's a lot of Chicano, a lot of Hispanics. Right, because they can pass easily. So, I don't know if I'm going to trouble for this, but I have friends that what they do is they basically they buy a vehicle in the U.S., not a new vehicle,

but not an old vehicle. They have the Mexican government paid off, the immigration and obviously because they are U.S. citizens that are constantly crossing and have a legal business of acquiring vehicles to sell in Mexico

they become really good friends with the U.S. Border Patrol. So they basically hand over a little bit of money. They let the vehicle sit in the immigration for a bit and then when they get the green light from the Mexican side they'll bring the vehicle in

they say that it's to not pay the importation tax but it's not about the importation tax it's about what the vehicle is bringing in from the U.S. to Mexico. That's going to be ammo, that's going to be money and obviously weapons. That's great business for them. Was there ever any a time

was there a time where there was like a drought on weapons? Was there ever a time where it would be hard to get guns? Nah, it's never hard to get guns. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, no, you, just, always a market for guns. They don't necessarily have to, they don't necessarily have to come from the U.S.

Yeah. I've seen guns from China from China. Wow. Yeah. Do you have to retrain when you get a new batch of like Chinese weapons in? No.

Most of the, most of the people are already skilled and they already, they already know their weapons. But other than that, it's easy. Most of the weapons, that they do acquire are basically copies of AK-47s.

But Chinese fabricated. Right. So the only people that you guys ran from were the Federals, the Marinos. Military. What is the difference? Can you break down the difference between the Marinos and the military and then the federales? Because we hear feds.

FBI? It's the feds. It's like Federales. Okay. But... And those guys you can kill? Yeah. In Mexico, yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Silly me. Yeah. Yeah, no, but the military is like if you try, in the U.S. try to engage the coast guards or the, or you go to San Diego to try to engage the Navy, you ain't going to do anything to them, you know. So who are the Marinos, the Marines? Is that military? Yes, military. That counts as military.

So it's, it's, Eercito Mexicano is the Greens. The blues are La Marina. And you got the Fuerza Area Mexicana. But basically there's three branches. I know in the U.S. There's like five, six branches of different type of military. Right. But in Mexico, it's only two.

Marinos and Egersito. Okay. So those are the guys where if you got to, you either duck them or you run away from them. Or you're involved with them. I was witness where sometimes generals from the Marine would come in to these ranches and we would be sitting down with our weapons and everything. And they would be having conversations with the person that's in charge. and they would be giving them money to operate in the area that they're operating.

Right. So there's a lot that are crooked. Yeah. But I think there's more that are not crooked. Right. I've heard that. They have more ethical values. I think you could say it like that.

Harder to flip. Yeah, they're way harder to flip. Did you ever engage? Not engage them, but have to like shoot your way out of like a... A lot of times, brother. Wow. Yeah, it's with military, you just empty out a mag and you, you run it.

Book it, right? Yeah. Did you see any people, you see any brothers in arms get killed by them? A lot. Oof. I've, I've a specific friend that,

um, he had the, this guy had, had an encounter with the military and they blew his elbow. They blew his elbow. His, his hand was just, his hand was hanging off a tendon.

They, they reconstructed his elbow and they just looked like a big old piece of meat. They're like, they took bone from the back. of his butt from the color from from from back here and they reconstructed it right the cartel because obviously this kid was a was really a how do you say they had love for this kid the cartel sent a specific convoy to rescue him from the hospital they rescue him and at the end the military catches him again and they execute him yeah yeah because i think they they're not above just if they

catch you they're they'll just kill you right there right yeah or they'll torture you Oh, so they will commit torture. Yeah, oh, brother. You have no idea how the Mexican government works. Could you maybe explain it a little bit? So after my time as a, not no longer as a cicario, but as a hefe of cicarios, I start running into government. I start having issues with government.

The first time that I was ever apprehend, by the Mexican government. I was in a new city and I was trying to locate a target, right? I think it was a setup because when we arrived to the main Socalo, you know what Socalo is, right? I forgot. It's like a city hall. Ah. It's like a city hall.

We couldn't see this individual and we did like three, four rondinas. We came around a couple times and I told the driver, you know what, let's head back. because this is this looks off there they had put a retain um i would you call it a checkpoint they had put a checkpoint and uh towards our uh security house and we end up um crossing them um they pull us over i tell the the driver to step on it he and uh we we end up falling off the motorbike and i end up getting captured by the government oh shit bro i remember and this guy was a close friend of mind he asked me say hey I want to I want to start working for the cartel and I'm like you know yeah if you want to work I can show you this and that and I remember we were having we were having

dinner before this happened and I told them um whatever happens like I'm always going to put myself first to get caught by the government because I know that I know what I'm going to say all I need you to do is to make sure that you secure our tools right I mean now I'm talking about pistols about whatever we're carrying you get away with with with with what we're carrying and and I'll make sure that I'll sacrifice yourself. Yeah, yeah. Because I already understood the process of how the government worked. Telling him this, I remember we slip in a pavement because there was a lady wetting the pavement.

We slip. As we're slipping, I remember I grabbed them from his hair and I pick him up and I tell him run. And I give him the backpack with a 9mm, 17 Austria. And I turn around and I pick up my hands and the cops come and, come in front of me and they start pointing their guns and I'm like and I turn around and I'm seeing him running

and he goes boom he drops the backpack and he keeps running I was like damn they asked me why are you running why you're running I don't got a license

and that's why you panicked all because you didn't have a license I'm like yeah but inside of me I was like I'm gonna get fucked up right now and as soon as the guy picked the cop opens the bag

they're like nah this is the good one it's el weno it's the bueno bro they threw me in the back of the the truck, the car police truck?

Literally. Literally. Like they threw me. And they're like, oh, now you're going to see what's good. They start calling up their headquarters and they're like, we got them, we got them, we got them. In my mind, I was like, yeah, they're just going to take me to the processing of jail. Because I knew that for a gun, for possession of a firearm, it's not a big deal in Mexico. You can pay a fine.

But they did it. they took me to the basement of the headquarters. And I remember the chief of police comes down and he asks me, he's like, so how are we going to do this? Are we going to do this a hard way or are we going to do this the easy way? And I remember I told him, I'm like, well, what do you want me to say? If I speak, I'm dead. If I don't speak, you're going to hurt me.

So, da le d'le duro. That. D'ale duro. And I, bro, I swear I should. I regret saying that because, bro, they, they stripped every piece of clothing that I had. And they tied me up with bands from the back and from my feet. And me guaniar, you know, they put me on my stomach. And they tie my hands with my feet.

Right. And they're like, we're going to ask you again. Are you going to speak or what? I'm like, nope. Dallé duro. This guy grabs a bag and he puts water in it and he puts bleach in it. And he puts it over my head and he starts, he starts torturing me literally. I ended up, they ended up busting my eardrum.

They broke a rib of the kicks that I was getting. They tortured me to the extreme that they electrified cables. And because you're wet, you're getting beat up, you're wet, you're on concrete. they feel like they feel like shit being wet and having electricity run through your body in your private

parts and like they do it to the degree that it was bad you know what calis calida they use it in construction to make like a white paste but this cal

basically it eats your it eats your skin if you're working you have to work with gloves for those that know about Mexican culture, they know what Cal is, Cal will eat you up if you have humidity in your hands. They had a black bin bag

filled with Cal and they were going to put me inside of it and they were going to let the cal just go at me. The good thing was that their time ran out and I told them, inside my mind, I was obviously thinking my mind was working trying to think like, how am I going to get out of the situation? And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to speak.

I'm going to speak. Let me go. I'm going to speak. And they're like, all right, what do you got to say? Like, no, well, I'm working for this person. Just made a bullshit. Feeding them bullshit. Right. Feeding them bullshit. But in my head, I was like, you know what? If they're going to go out, I'm going to take them to my enemies because obviously I want to get my enemies. So I set them up with a rival, a rival's house because I wanted them to break in and obviously pretend that they had weapons and this and that. But it was just my idea was, okay, they're going to, they're going to have to, at the end of day,

put me in front of the judge and what are they going to say? Oh, we cut them with the weapon. So how am I going to break that? So I tell them, you know what? The security house has this, this and that. They go in, they break into the house. They don't find shit, but they bring out my enemy.

But his parents and family members were around and they saw what happened. They take them back to the station. And while I was getting taken back to the headquarters, they're like, you think you're funny. Like you think you're funny because obviously they knew that I had that I had just lied to them. Like you're lucky that we got to we got to entregate. You know, we got to deliver you to the courts to courts or else we would have taking you to the main to your rivals.

Like they were just trying to terrorize me. Yeah. They take me to courts and in the court they say that oh no, we got we had we found both of them. The guy that they went to take out of his house, we found both of them together. Their family came to testify to that no, they came and they. did this, this and that. The whole case was dropped because obviously they, they fucked up. Got caught lying.

So I kept on, I kept on working. I was I'm going to keep on working. That is savage. The problem was when I ran into them again. A year passed and I ran into them again. And they recognized me straight away. They're like, oh, it's you again. This time there's no, this time, this time there's no holding back.

As soon as I walked in, they kicked me in the balls and they started going at it. and they're like not this time you're not going to leave that easily and i'll say all right i got sent to uh i got um murder in first degree okay so let's lead up to that then because that's what's saying you to prison yeah right so but you just going back a little bit you're in the state of sorry son Luis San Luis um you're operating how long how long are you operating there for you would operate, we would operate a couple months, heat up the place. Yeah. And then we would move to another area.

Right. You can't stay in one single area and heat it because eventually the law enforcement, the law enforcement are going to start getting phone calls. Oh, we got a group of kids. So you got to be smart. You heat up a place and then you go work to another area. Right. Where'd you go after that?

To the south of Mexico. Jopas? Around there. Is there a reason you don't want to be specific? Yeah. But why were you specific with a place like? Because in those areas, I didn't work that much time. It's not like I didn't.

My reputation up in the north and in San Luis, I was basically starting. So the more where I got more recognized and where I was basically where I grew in power regarding the cartel. environment was down in the south and I don't want to get him well. Oh really? So that's kind of where you made a name for yourself. Okay, I'll talk around it. I'm not going to ask you to say anything incriminating. This is a weird question.

Was there ever a slow time? Like, is there ever a time within armed wings of the cartels where there's just not a lot to do? Like when a place is stable, you kill everybody or you kill the right people and drugs are moving through. is there a time where you're just like it's not much to do it's a slow month nah you take one head three pop up

it's a never ending game of treason envy and um how do you say this uh the you said this word you said this word

um having like the desire of of having more greed greed there's always work to do there's always people that are a problem for the organization. By that time,

when I went down to the south, I was no longer working for the, for the Cinala Cartel. When I ended up in prison, I left that branch. Are you allowed to just leave? When you're a hit man, there's people that go work for contracts.

They only work six months. They come back home and they might get an offer from another place, totally different from the organization. But because they're already, they're already, they're already trained. They already know what they're doing. It's like they don't, this is why I say you don't ask questions in that, in the environment. Right. Because you ain't going to get to a new place and say, oh, I was working for this guy and this.

You know, you just go do your job and that's it. Okay, so you can, even though you know the secrets, even though you know to an extent, you don't know the boss, but back and see the Lowa, but you know how this. territories being operated, you know where the safe houses are, you can just leave? The safe house is always going to change. Yeah.

There's no such thing as a static safe house. Right. The safe house will be used a month and after that month it's changed. You don't stay in a particular place. Right. A lot of these military branches

that work in the rural areas, the ones that I'm telling you that kill law enforcement. Yeah. They don't stay in safe houses. They stay in the mountains, bro. Wow. Did you ever do that? Yeah, yeah.

So you're camping out? Yeah. I did that after I got out of prison. Okay, so you were still... So when I was... When I'm talking about these security houses, I was a cicario, a low-class cicario, basically.

It's different when you're fighting in the city than when you're fighting up in the mountains. The tactics are different. The way that you operate are way different. Tell us about operating the mountains. Operating the mountains. Obviously, you have a, there's bigger groups.

There's more equipment. There's, there's more power. Obviously, when you're working for people up in the mountains, you're close to the, to the people that are in charge of the organization. You ain't going to find Chapo's mind in the middle of Kulia. In a middle of Kulikana. No, you're not going to find them there. All these people.

They love the mountains. Yeah. Mayo Zambada loves mountains, you know. A lot of... They operate on... They live and move around on ranches. Exactly. Right.

Just dirt roads. They have everything under control. They see who's coming in. Did you ever meet the boss? Do you ever get a chance to... I met a couple of them, but not Mao Zimbada. Do you ever meet Chapo or... No, no.

Mr. Leva, Leva, or anything? Beltran Leva, yeah. He met him. Yeah. He's from Quernamaca. He got killed in Quarnabaca. I ended up working with them as well with his branch of

So I felt Bertran Leva Had basically solidified Guerrero Acapulco and Morelos And Mexico City So he had basically solidified the The traffic of lorries or trailers

That were going from the south to the borders They were obviously Moving merchandise for the Sinalo cartel Right. This was before he got betrayed by the Barbie and all their freaking mess. All the mess happened. So he had built a whole corridor from the south bringing up drugs into the north. That's important.

That's huge. So he had all the federal agents bought off. Wow. In Mexico, you know, there's Carretera Libre and then you got the autopistas where the Federals are patrolling. Right. The major interstates. So he had basically solidified his connection to the interstates. Did you yourself ever were responsible for paying off Federales?

No, no, no. Who does that, though? Who is, are there actually people within the military organizations that pay off the government? There's people in the organization that never pick up a gun. Okay, so a guy with a gun, even a high up general in the organization, is never given money to a politician or a cop? So there's people in the organization that work for the organization. Yeah. But they don't incriminate, they don't belong to.

the military or they don't belong to any type of like how can I say this their job is to be that friendly face that can go speak to the politician that can go lure in police enforcement you know right that they're not a threat to them they can come in and offer deals they're the middlemen they're basically people that have good

good uh good they have yeah good mouthpiece They have good communication. Yeah, and there might even be lawyers. Exactly. They might even be accounts. Most of them are accountants. Right.

Most of them are accountants. Okay. So after you guys get all these towns in the middle of Mexico, Guerrero, you know, wherever it is in the South Chapas, wherever, you've got that pipeline. Then the accountants come in and pay off the people at the checkpoints. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay.

So you were part of this. Were you part of this kind of a solidification? for the Beltran Levas? I was working as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, a, as a, as a, as a, okay. But at this time when he had shit on lock. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Things were a lot different back then. Yeah. Because the SETAs were helping him, we're coming in from Chappas. And that's why I think that's why everything broke down because Sinaloa didn't want any deals with the Setas, but Alfredo Beltran was a good friend of the Setas. Mm. I didn't know that.

Yeah. But the other guys didn't want to do with them at all? They felt like he was going to associate with them to try to take out his counterparts, his counterpart, his counterparts in Bahia Rahuato. Chopo and Mayo. Yeah. Right. Because then we saw what the Zetas did.

They're insane. Yeah. Were you, was torture common among you guys? Like, did you ever have to torture people? Yeah, a lot of times. Wow. Trying to give up information. Yeah, exactly.

Hmm. It's all about interrogation and information. Yeah. It's all about intel. Yeah. Wow. That's wild. Even in prison.

When I fell in prison, I was still working for the organization. Okay. And in prison, the cartel has the last say in prison, right? A lot of people don't understand that prison. prisons in Mexico are basically a line of information. Let's say you're working for a rival and you get caught with a couple bags of crystal meth, cocaine, marijuana. You go into the jail, to the prison.

You might not go into the main yard, but the cartel has so much power that guys inside, like me, would come through those gates. The correctional officers will open those gates, get you inside where that person was with a smartphone, interrogate him, beat the shit out of him, take the information out and pass the information out to the people that are outside. Right. So it was basically the cartel would supply drugs to the prison. Yeah.

The prison would supply back information and obviously profit of those drugs. Right. Prisons in Mexico, they would sell anything between 50 kilos to 100 kilos of marijuana a month. Wow. Just inside the prison. Just inside the prison. Yeah. It's crazy how Mexican prisons.

Like I've never seen an actual documentary of a real Mexican prison. I've seen several of Elongo up in Baja California. Ain't nothing compared to the South and to the violence that these prisons can create. Right. Plus information. You get information about what opposition is operating when they go to jail and they've got their hooks in the people working in the jail and the inmates in there. Yeah.

Right. Sometimes the correctional officers will try to gain control of the prison and try to control it themselves and they get murdered outside of the prison. Okay. So how did you take your fall, the murder? I knew it was going to eventually it was going to catch up to me. I knew that I only had two ways. If there was getting killed in the streets or ended up in prison.

It went actually pretty well. You know, I can't complain. Prison for me was... You were in Morelos? In prison? Yeah. Yeah, Morales and Estabu, Mexico. Okay, so where did you catch the body?

In Morelos. In Morelos? Yeah, yeah. And getting caught, it seems pretty hard to get convicted of murder in Mexico, especially when you're working for an organization. We know this because we were just in Tijuana. And they were like, I mean, in Kulia Khan, it's a statistic. Yeah.

99% unsolved homicides. So how do you get caught for doing a body when you're part of this massive cartel? So the government needs to present work. Yeah. Simple as that. The government needs to present that they have detained someone

for whatever is it going on. Why? Because obviously the local government, the state government needs funds from the federal government. But in order to get their funds, they need a percent work. So what do they do? They get a stupid individual

that basically he got caught with several stuff and they'll give them the option. You know what? You help us testify against these certain individuals and we'll let you go. So he's a star witness. He'll testify in five, ten,

15 cases, people that he never has met and just basically reads something that is written. Statement that's given to them by the prosecutor. Exactly. Wow. And that's all the in the Mexican judicial system, all that they need to convict you of the murder is a testimony.

No scientific proof, no forensic evidence, nothing but just a testimony. And one person's testimony will do it? One testimony, the testimony. Wow. The amount of individuals that are in prison, with these testimonies that are star witnesses we call them because they have been in every case and they've said the same shit for every person.

So you think there's a lot of actually innocent people sitting in Mexican prisons? Definitely, brother. Wow. Definitely. You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but it has been adjudicated. Were you actually guilty? Did you commit the murder? You can say I did.

I wasn't there, but I gave the order to pick up the individual. because he had it was personal and I wanted to actually be there to take this individual for myself but this individual I think he already smelled

that something bad was going to happen and he tried to run for it and the guy's killed him okay did the trigger man go down too the trigger man was the witness you're kidding me how did he become the witness

bro like the story the story is so crazy that you're going to probably think that it's hard to tell but I'm going to tell it to you. So I'm working... The unbelievable in Mexico

is to be believed. I'm working for this different group in Morelos, right? I take these two brothers, I take them in because they're supposedly already experienced gunmen. I take them in, we do some jobs, and they demonstrate that they can handle themselves

and that they're doing their job. I get a phone call while we're sitting down in our safe house from their boss and my boss. They're like, do you have these two individuals there? I'm like, yeah, why? What's going on? Cut them up into pieces? No?

I don't do that to the people that are working with me. I'm not going to do that. How can I, like for me it was morally incorrect. If you've risked your life to work with me and you've shown me loyalty and for someone else to call me and give me a stupid reason just to cut you up

and use your body as a message for rivals. Come on. So I basically put in my hands in the fire for them to, save their lives, explain to them, you know what?

They called me right now and they wanted me to kill you guys, but I put my hands in the fire for you guys. They were accusing them of extortioning. I don't know if they did or they didn't, but not a great reason. I ended up saving their lives, right? Wow.

When we get caught, one of those brothers, he gets convinced by the, by the, by the, by the, by the, by the, by the, by the, by the, by the, the, the, the, the, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, because of him. I saved this life. He ended up saving my life. He ended up saving my life. on the long run. Okay. Because he was a start witness. In prison, we had a riot and I got transferred to a state prison far away from Morelos to a state prison. I got more power. I had an opportunity to get more people running the streets in mind, like on my behalf. And I prolonged my stay.

So normally in Mexico, you get sentenced from eight to a year and a half. I had already been three years in prison and I hadn't been sentenced because of the riots that had happened, the situation that was going on with the change of government. What year did you go down? What year was that? It was when... First got arrested. Andres Manuel Loposolador. Yeah?

Guy that just left the presidency? Got into power. It's 2014 maybe? He was six years, right? Oh, okay. Oh, so this is after the fall of Chapo. This is 2016? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. It was during that. I had already been there for a while. and when this guy, when this president won. So in the long run, I got to the point where I had people that were on the streets that they knew where his brother was. So I get, I get someone to get him and to get him on the phone. And I told them, you guys, remember what you guys, what I did for you guys? And that's time for you guys to repay the favor.

Make sure that your brother doesn't show up to the final, the final, the final court hearings. Yeah, court appearance. Um, trial. So you took it to trial. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I took, yeah, because they offered me. They're like, if you are, if you accept your blame, we're going to give you 13 years. Right. How many of those would you do? Like, is there any good time? Can you get out early? Mexico is one you do year. Day for day. We say. Okay. So, um, yeah, I spoke to them and they're like, you know what? We owe you one. My brother's on a show up. And I remember I still, I was on the phone with him and I was like, look, I'm being nice, bro. You know that I've saved your rest of life. But if you guys, if he shows up, I'm killing all your family. I was mentally trying to get on his case because they knew that I was, I've always been a, you can say a good guy. I'm not, I don't consider myself as an evil person. But if I have to get my hands with him, I'm going to get him dirty. So I made sure to intimidate him to the point where he's like, you know what?

Let me speak to my brother. They got back to me. They're like, no one's going to show up. So then they dropped the case? I was acquitted from murder. Oh, so you weren't actually convicted of murder. No, no. You were just in there sitting.

I was waiting for the sentence. Three years in a real... And in Mexico, you don't go to the county jail. No, no, no. They put you in prison with the convicted people. Yeah. And you're doing a bid like you're already sentenced, which is fucking crazy.

And you know, technically you're innocent. I was making more money from the inside of prison than from the outside. Okay, so tell us about that. Bananas. In prison, you got everything. In Mexican prison, you got smartphones, you got women, you got alcohol,

you got heroin, you got crystal meth. You got whatever you name it. You got it. because everything is between like everything's about money. So what were you running? How were you getting money? I was, I was a bodyguard for a crack cocaine cook.

Okay. So someone that was cooking crack cocaine, I was basically his, his bodyguard, you can say. I wasn't really his bodyguard. So what happened was that in the, in my old prison, before I got transferred to the state prison,

I saw that the, that the cartel wasn't going to help me anymore. Right? So first they put me a lawyer, but this lawyer was just telling me, you know what, I got everything fixed, don't worry about it. Let's go to the final court hearings.

I already got it fixed. And I would look at him and I'm like, I ain't stupid. You might fool everybody else that you got everything fixed. But unless you got something that's going to destroy the testimony of the start witness,

we ain't getting out. Right. Because I was seeing that it was happening to other cartel members that were getting fucked by this guy, by the same lawyer. And I reported it. I reported to the person that was above me.

You know what? This lawyer is kind of weird. So they didn't listen to me. So I saw that they weren't helping me anymore. Because at the beginning, obviously, they would send you some money just to survive. Because in Mexico, they don't give you anything. Mexico just gives you water and food. Your clothes

has to be brought by your family. Your toilet paper to wipe your butt has to be brought by your family. Soap to wash your clothes has to be brought by your family. So if you have no. family. If you're indigent and you got 12 years, you're going to be wearing these for 12 years, hope those last. I was washing homeboys clothes, like homeboys underwear, homeboys t-shirts to get a couple of pesos to buy myself some soap, some, to keep my hygiene up. Right. And I was working

wheat because I was obviously, I was, at the beginning, I was part of the cartel still. So I was getting special treatments from the prison, from the people that were in charge of the prison. I was getting weed and I was able to work weed. But then I started seeing like everything, there's always treason. The people that were there, they jumped with another rival cartel and

basically when I took the decision, you know what? I'm not with you. I'm not with them. I'm not with nobody. Just leave me the fuck alone. I want to do my time and I want to, and I want to bounce. Because obviously I knew that once your sentence, you're basically your life has ended. What age are you going to come out at 50, 60?

I'm like, nah, I'd rather stay chill and try to look for a way out. If you've been convicted of the murder, would you have done more than 13? How much would you have gotten? If I would have gone to trial, to trial, I would have gone from 20 to 30 years. Yeah. Yeah. So, and you can't survive that long with, if you're alone without killing. There is a lot of people that survive, but it's all about the connections and if you're a good hustle or in prison.

Right. So you were protecting this. Do crack cooks need protection in there? You're talking about a prison that has 12 dormitories. Every dormitory holds like 800 people. Wow. You're talking about a big city. Yeah.

So in the prison that I was in first, I left the cartel and I left everything. All right. I end up getting into a riot. and end up killing someone in from the cartel and we get transferred but i fought i fought for the people i didn't fight for no cartel right we didn't fight trying to take power and give it to someone else no right we were getting oppressed by the cartel that the the cartel that was having the power it wasn't my cartel anymore because these people had betrayed the cartel that i was working for right the cartel that i was working for had lost power so now these people were acting like the big like the big

right and they started stepping on people's right right Who is that cartel? Cartel Calisco, no general general population. And they start obviously oppressing the general population. It gets to a point where no matter how big your battle is, your backup is, they ain't going to stop the people from coming into the cell and killing you. Were they taxing everybody? Like what was the nature of that?

They were extortioning. Let's say you're a white boy, Owero. You come into prison. They'll send their people. They'll record some videos and send them to your family. If we don't get 10,000, 20,000, we're going to stab them. Yeah. They'll have you mentally, like, dole.

And they mean it. And yeah, and they mean it. And obviously, I had a good friend in the correctional officers. He was the chief of the correctional officers. And he knew that I didn't have family. He knew that nobody came to see me. So every time he would come in, he would bring me stuff. Like, he would bring me a soap.

He would give me some shampoo. And he just generally liked me, you know, a good going fellow. And I remember I saw him all stressed out. I'm like, what's wrong? Like, these motherfuckers, man. They're just putting a lot of heat on the prison I feel like things are going to happen This and that the next morning

He got killed outside his house The people that killed them The people that were in charge of the prison They were laughing the next day Like oh yeah My people went and they killed them this and that And they started going after a lot of people So they ended up beating the shit out of me

Because they didn't like me I don't know why They didn't like me And I ended up routing up Like starting the fire In the prison I started talking to the people are you with me or are you with them?

Like, we're going to, we're going to fight it out. We're going to get these people out. So you kick the riot off, basically. Yeah, yeah. Do you remember the day, how it happened, the moment it happened? Yeah, definitely, bro. And I, um, my, I busted a knuckle. So my, I have friends that don't belong to the cartel.

They are, they're good citizens of Mexico and, and, and they really have love for me. And they remember they went to, they visited me that day. And they took me a pair of pants and some Chinese food. I was so like I wanted that Chinese food so bad And while I was talking to them about the situation that was going on in prison Because it was tense like the atmosphere was tense These people come down and they take pictures of my friends and and they come up to us and they tell them Because you guys came to visit him when you guys go outside

They're gonna be waiting for you guys and you guys are gonna get killed Wow bro you're talking about Some civilians that don't know anything they were like literally shaking I go up to the to the chief of the CEOs and I tell him like hey you know the the number one rule in prison is respect visitors. You don't fuck around with the visit. You don't fuck around with the family. You can deal with whoever you need to deal with after the visit is gone.

But while the viz is there, it's the golden rule. You don't visit them. You don't threaten them. You don't, they're not involved in what's going on in the politics in prison. But they broke that, they broke that rule by taking pictures of these people. So the guy's like, nah, what do you want me to do this and that? I'm like, all right. If something happens to them, I'm killing you because I got, I also got people that are ready to kill.

So I threatened the, the chief of police. but I was already like, my head was already boiling. Yeah. And I remember they, they passed through myself and they're like, the tabla. They're like, we're going to see you after, after everybody leaves. You're going to get the tabla. And I was like, hey, I'm not, you ain't going to table. I'm me.

And I was like, all right. And I had some homies with me and like, are you ready? I'm ready. And I just signaled to some people that I had already spoken. Right. Because we had already organized it. We were just waiting for the moment. Or let's go.

Once the visit, the last visit leaves, we're going to pop open the cells and we're going to go straight to these people. Wow. Two people ended up dying. Were you guys strapped? You had your shanks? It was a small, it was a small prison. Yeah. It was only like wooden, uh, the, how can't like, like they're like little sticks. Yeah, yeah, like, wooden pieces of, of sticks that you almost like baseball bats. Exactly. Exactly. And your hands. Holy shit. And you and the people died because of that. Fuck. Um, and I got transferred to a state prison. So you killed somebody in that? Yeah, yeah. Okay. When I got sent to the state prison.

Were you charged with that murder? No, no. Okay. The cameras weren't working. That's Mexico. That's Mexico. When I got sent to the state prison, the one that I'm telling you that was huge. In my head, I was like, like, the cartel's not going to let this slide.

Like, they're going to come, they're going to send their people and get me because I knew that the cartel had people there in that prison. And I was scared because I was like, like, I don't have, like, nobody knew me. I didn't have anybody that knew me like that. So some 18th streeters from from L.A., when they take me to the hospital in that prison, they're like, who's Smiley? And I'm like, oh, man, here they come from me. And I turn around. And I see an 18th streeter and a Floreencia. And they're like, what's your name?

I'm like, smiley. And I was already like getting ready to fight. I'm like, man, it was going to get down. He's like, here. And he pulls out a big old ball of weed and a mil pesos. Wow. We heard what you did down there. You stick to you stick with the Raza.

You stick with the people. Whoa. I was that pretty dope to like see an American, like to like speak English to to. There must have been that kinship, right? Yeah. Like we're both fucking. There's that clecha that, the, um, the camaraderie, the solidarity between Chicanos, you know, chicanos that speak English and right.

And they try to help especially because chicanos, a lot of Chicanos in prison, they're looked down upon. by the cartel. Right. So they looked on it almost as like hueros. Yeah. Almost as gringoes, right? They looked at them like, but I fit in both worlds because I was part of this world and part of this world.

Right. But in my time there, I earned my respects because of what I had, what I had done over there in the other prison. And one of the cooks, he, he was from Guerrero. So when he heard about me, he came to visit me. And I was sleep, I was sleeping in a cell with 27 people, bro. I tied myself up to the to the to the to the bars of the of the of the prison to sleep because everybody was standing up that's how tight it was they had us like bro there was someone sleeping on the toilet like riding like just on top of the toilet this is the state prison this is state prison it was it was disgusting brother and I remember I was I was I was tying myself and I was trying to like put myself comfortable to sleep when I see this this brown Mexican guy with a um Have you seen Machete?

You know that tattoo that he has right now? Same tattoo, but it's a different. Danny Trejo. Like a Danny Trejo type of guy. And he's like, who's Smiley? I'm like, man, why do they come? Why do they keep looking for me? I'm like, I'm Smiley.

What's up? He's like, where are you from? I'm from Guerrero. I'm from Guerrero too. He's like, get your stuff. I'm like, what do you mean? Get my stuff. And the homeboys, he's one of those type of men that that likes to pluck his eyebrows, you know, keep him clean.

What do you call him? Faggots? No, no, he's not a faggot, like a metrosexual. Right, right, right, right. He calls me always, like, come to myself. He was living by himself, had a TV, a plasma TV, had everything. And I'm like, hey, I just want to let you know. I ain't gay, homie.

If you try to do something, we're going to get down. Because obviously I saw that he was kind of like that. He's like, nah, he's like, I'm a cook. From now on, you're going to roll with me. All right. And I became good friends with him. But then after that, I got into maximum security. And in maximum security was, I think,

the worst scenario that I saw in a prison right. 14 people died. Hold on. Which maximum? Which prison? In state prison? Oh, so it has its own maximum security. I see.

I see. This was known as the castle because the main bosses of Cartel, Halisco, New Generation, were located in this, this castle that no one went in, no one came out. Really? They had, they were managing everything from there. Wow. But I can't take credit for what I haven't done. I had only been there two weeks and shit popped off.

Wow. So you go into this castle. Everybody knows what you did down at the local prison. You know, like you fucking beat one of these guys of death and started a riot and stood up to them. Yeah. Disrespect, right? So obviously you must have been worried. I was worried, but at the same time, I was like, well, whatever is going to come is going to come.

I get sent to maximum security. The people that were in charge come and they start talking to me. they're like, so what happened? Explain to us what happened. And I'm like, I ain't no snitch, but these guys were like fucking around with with the general people, people that don't even have anything to do with their business. They were beating up, extortioning and just like being shitheads. Yeah.

Being jerks. Bro, it's like you, if you have the power, if you get the, if you get the, if you get the Chahoo-a-mini-weenies. If you get the Chariola. Chorola, what is? A chadola is basically like if, when you get that, when you get the, the, the, power to control. It's not to step on people.

Right. Because people are going to get tired of you step. Yeah. And they're going to rise up. It's to help people. Of course. So when I explain this to them, they're like, all right, it's good. And they didn't do anything to me.

They just let me be there. They just completely ignore me. So then why did shit jump off? They had done the same thing. I, like, they had already tired out the people in maximum security. To the point. It was my second week there and I was going to court when I hear out of nowhere just start hearing noises and people running. And my cellmate threw me an actual shank and he's like, come on, let's go.

I'm like, what the fuck's going on? He's like, after the people that are in charge, after the people that are in charge. As soon as I go down to the first floor, there's an individual that we used to call numeros, numbers, because he was all tattered from his face, all tattered from his head. he had his neck open and his his insides were out and he was just laying on the on the on the on the steps dead bro dead we get to the other section of maximum security the main boss was he locked himself in in his cell and he had a big old machete like this and he locked himself with the with the uh uh lock his people were also like trying to fight off the the general population that was trying to get him and i remember

But when I got there, I was like, I didn't know what the fuck was going on, you know. All I knew that, I was with, I was with my cellmate and I was following him. Had you ever stabbed anybody before? Yeah. That's a different. Brother, when you're in the cartel, you cut off hands, you cut off heads. Oh, God. So I had to ask because, you know, stabbing somebody is a different thing than, and a much more

personal thing than, you know, shooting them with this high-tech weapon. But, okay, so you would have, you had some experience with the knife. while all these people were arguing and and and going at it they tell the they tell the people of this individual put your weapons down we're going to let you guys go we just want him their biggest mistake was putting their weapons down because as soon as they the last one stepped down to the to the first floor like dogs bro everybody just went on top of them they had their faces uh smashed in people go like bro there was those rivers of blood that's how much people were murdered that day massacred them bro i'm telling you 14 i'll show you the pictures i got them on my phone so you can see

you don't think i'm bluffing all cg ng all on the web of holliesco guys we get to the main boss so he had a problem with my celly my celly had been slapped and humiliated um a few months prior but he had it he had it with this with this boss and he he comes to him and he tells him it's like now's the time to act like if you're the man remember when you slapped me and the guy I was hearing him say just watch when watch when the blacks come the negroes the custodians watch when they come they're going to put you guys in your cell and we're going to get you guys this and that my cell he tells me go get the go get the um he had a alcohol pure alcohol in in the cell he's like go get my alcohol and get bring the the bed sheets.

I go running back, bring them the bed sheets, and he starts putting them on a stick, and he starts lighting him up, and he starts pushing them into this guy's cell. He basically makes him, what's it called? He makes him breathe all the smoke. He passes out. He breaks the lock, pulls him out,

and he starts going out of his head. He chops it off, and he's like, come on, Smiley. Let's go play basketball. And we go to the basketball, court and he throws the head towards the loop and just go, quok, clok, quark, quark. Like, bro, you had the helicopters on top throwing tear gas, tear gas. Did he make the shot? What?

No, he didn't make that. His head was heavy. I tried picking it up and I was like, no, I ain't playing with this. Nah, Mexicans just can't play ball, dude. You guys are soccer people. Yeah, yeah. In the other prison, I had gotten my asswood by the government once the riot was over, right? Yeah.

In my head, I was like, if over there we killed two people and the government kicked our ass, there's 14 people dead here. They're going to massacre us. My friend tells me, you don't know where you're at. You're in maximum security. And maximum security is respected. I'm like, all right. You start hearing boots. The anti-riots come and they start knocking on the door in maximum security.

And they're like, everybody back to yourselves. and calm this shit down. The guy that organized the whole riot, he's like, nope, ain't no one going back to yourselves. And if you guys come in, we're ready to die. Bro, there was an 80-year-old man with his cane

and his shank like this. I was like, wow. Where am I? Like, for me, it was a dream because they had piled up everybody that they had killed in the main entrance.

I'll show the pictures so that you can show the audience what I'm talking about. They piled up the bodies and they're like, just want you to take your trash nobody has a problem here in my head i was like yeah like the government's gonna listen to us bro god is my witness they sent the um the forensics to pick up the bodies and they left us alone nobody got beat up nobody got hit nope nothing happened brother just go back to your program everything was back to normal we did we did we did get we did get uh left three days without any um

without any security like the cell doors were open because the CEOs were protesting outside that they weren't getting paid enough to go through this crazy shit. And they're right. I'll show you the pictures that I have pictures of the actual event and you're going to see the CEOs on their faces with all the inmates on top of them

with shanks and like they have them submitted, bro. Wow. They had them kidnap in other areas. God damn. What is this? Must have made the news, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. What's the name of that prison?

It's called Atlacholwaya. That's a tough one, but if you could spell it, Google it so you know he's not lying. I know you're not. No, I'll show you the pictures. You can show them. So you guys basically took out the guys that were making the problem, too. So they probably realized that as well to an extent. Obviously, they make a blind eye and they say that is just they don't want the heat.

They don't want the press coming in and asking questions. why did this get bigger? Obviously because you guys are giving them power to manage everything and that's why it happened. But it went back to normal and the people that organized saw that I was running around with the bed sheets. No, no, with the bed sheets when the guy told me. And I was basically, I was putting in work for, like, didn't even know what was going on, but I was putting in work. So when they see me, they're like, where are you from? I'm not from this part of the Mexico.

You got people? I'm like, yeah, I got people. It's like, all right, we'll be in connect. We want to work with you. Because they knew you were getting out, right? Yeah, yeah. So they knew that. I was coming up to my time where I was going to have my final court hearings.

Let's just for people, just let this sink in. This man has not yet been to court. Like, he hasn't been adjudicated yet. Nope. You're technically innocent. You're not guilty. And you've just been through like the craziest prison riot in a long time. in Mexico. God, I'm so glad America got colonized by the British, not the Spanish, bro. Anyways,

I had those two rights in that maximum security. The first one was 14 dead. The second riot was around six or seven people, but I did not. You had already been out by them. No, no, I was there, but I didn't take, I didn't take part. So how long, how long after this riot, another six months? And then the state dropped the case, right? Okay. So now what you, year are we? How old are you? 27. 26. So you're a grown ass man now. You're free from the cartel. Cina Loa.

You guys went your separate ways, obviously. Because if they can barely afford to pay you when you're on the streets, if you're in prison for a long time, they just forget about you. They forget about you. Okay. You're on a totally opposite end of Mexico. Where do you go from there? I had people

obviously working on the streets. and I had the connections to get the supply of drugs. I wasn't selling them, but other people were using my name. Like close friends of mine were using my name to get the product, and they were doing their business. Oh, so your name carried weight like that? Yeah, yeah. So I would get merchandise, like good merchandise from cartel.

They would loan it to us and we would sell it, distribute it. Where are you? Where were you doing this? In the south of Mexico. But by this time, I've earned a lot of enemies being in prison. So I would, I didn't know what to do, you know. I was thinking, you know what? We get offered by different individuals that, oh, come work for us.

We got the power. We got this. But nobody had the power. They had material. Yeah, they had marijuana. They had cocaine. They had meth. But they didn't have power, like power, power, you know?

They didn't have that brutal force of providing you with. 20, 30 people with rifles and equipment and go fight the war. They weren't no longer there. So I spoke to my friends and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to go to this last meeting and if I don't get any backup, we're going to have to leave because the South is getting hot. I end up going and meeting an important person for a cartel that's called La Familia Michoacana. Right.

And I work for them for two years. Okay. so La Familia Michoacana, they're kind of interesting because they've been able to resist incursions from the big cartels. The CJNG can't take them over. They work for this, the Cartes, Your Honor. Oh, interesting. Can you say that for the camera? Yeah, they work in conjunction with the CDS.

Really? Yeah. So they're like an associate of- Exactly. They're not the same cartel, but they're associates. Okay. What do they gain out of that? They get support from CDS.

Like manpower? Yeah, they get manpower and CDS gets, what do you go? How do you can say? Gets logistics from them. Like they will be able to put it. So before they were the where they were produced cocaine was in Colombia in the jungle. They're not doing that anymore. They're doing it in the mountains of Mexico.

And most of these mountains are in Michoacan, Guerrero, in the Sierra Madre of the south of Mexico. And they're producing. cocaine there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's pretty good cocaine. I never knew this. They're producing cocaine in Mexico. We have not heard a peep about this on the news. Not how long has this been going on? Is this recent? No, it's like five years ago, six years, like five, six years. So where do they get the coca, the leaf from, the Allah? They get, they still get the coca leaf, but they're, they're producing it, like they're, they're making the final product in Mexican mountains. Right. So do they get the base, the Basse from

South America, already in kilos, I assume, right? I'm not sure because I only know that that's been happening. Wow. So they're ally with it. So they're getting a lot of their product from the Familia Michoacana that's refining

it in the mountains, the Sierra Madres. Wow. Interesting. So you were recruited by them. You went with them. Yeah. This is around the pandemic time, right? Yep. Yep. What was it like to work as it for a cartel during the pandemic? We had to stop at the checkpoint where they would put the hand sanitizer and they would check you for the. Yeah.

We were grown men with military equipment would get off and go out and because the people know you, you know? Yeah. In order for your cartel to survive, people have to love you. Yeah. You can't intimidate people. Right. Because the same people will call the government on you. you will snitch on you.

But when you help the people, the people defend you, the people protect you, the people keep you hidden. But yeah, it was, it was all right. So how were you guys making money?

Like what was, because we all, we heard all these stories that like the cartel was like setting up their own quarantines. Extortion. Extortion. Mostly extortion and kidnapping.

Who are you kidnapping that's valuable? Who has money in Mexico to pay you? That doesn't, live in Mexico City? People that are like, they have big businesses. Avocado farms?

No, that's Michokan. Okay. Oh, so where, when you're working for Mituacan, where are you operating? What? La Familia of Michoacana operates in Estado of Mexico, Michoacan, Tierra Caliente, that's part of Guerrero and Morelos. Okay.

They operate in the mountainous region of those forest states. Okay, so you're in that. That's where you're at the time. You're straight up in the mountains. Yeah. I become a Lugarteniente for them. So now you're a general manager. You're looking after plazas. Yeah.

And I'm fighting plazas for them against the Cartel, Halis, New Generation. Right. Okay. So what are some of those, tell us about how it is being, now you're like almost made it, you know? How much are they paying you, first of all, to be a general manager? You get a good amount of extortion money and kidnapping money. So the kidnapping money that they get is sent to the boss. But like, let's say you're the general manager.

Your people did the kidnapping. You get a certain percentage of that. So like, let's say you got 10 million pounds, 10 million pesos. You're going to get 2 million. And you use that money to invest in your group and your people in your logistics and your communications. Because obviously you have to have communications in order to manage big areas of the states. So you're really responsible for like the budget. You're doing a lot of like really high.

level kind of management. For the area that I was fighting. How many were you involved in the kidnappings? No, no. It was in me. Okay, because you're way too high up now. You give permissions, basically. You give permission to, like, people would come up and they would tell you,

hey, I got this person that you guys might be able to get money from him. He has this, this, this. I'll set him up and you just give me a cut of what, I want a piece of what you guys can get out of him. Wow. And you say, yeah, go ahead. Adelante. Wow. Give us an example of a guy.

You just, yeah, like, who's getting kidnapped? Are they all civilians or do you also kidnap, like, opposition? Are those dudes just getting killed? Politics. Politicians that have robbed. Politicians that have been in power and now they're enjoying what they've robbed from the people. Right. Those were the number one targets.

You must have loved that. Yeah, of course. When you say robbed, how do they rob the people? They'll present a project. that they build a stadium and they they and and their brother owns the construction company and their cousin owns the the equipment and you basically see just a fence some some grass and they say that they wasted yeah and all that taxpayer money just yep yeah you know how I go to Spain with my family yeah fuck that guy so uh how would you hit him you just obviously get intelligence on him yeah

know where he's going to be would you ever have to kill bodyguards? Yeah, yeah. We've got into several, we had to get into several gunfights with bodyguards of these individuals. But you usually got them, right? Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. So then you take a video of them. Do you have to slap them around? You go after their family members. Oh, you get their family members? Of course. Yeah. Why do you want the big fish if he's not going to, he's the decision maker? Why would you want him? Would you guys take kids? No, no. You never take kids? Do you take women? No, I never took women. But they, they, they, they, they, they all. They Obviously, they do take women.

They're annoying. Mostly, you would go after men. Yeah. Men. I got your brother. Sons. Yeah. Most of them are, these politicians are old.

They're grown men that have been in politician for most of their lives. Right. They have grown children that are probably studying in a different state. And you know that you can get them because he thinks that he's safe in another state. And you go pick him up from there and you bring them back. Wow. And do you rough them up a little bit? Slap him around?

not really. You don't like, obviously. You don't really need to. You don't really need to because once they see the guns and they see that they're getting tied up, that's all you need. Yeah. Did you ever have to, did anybody ever refuse to give up the money and then you had to leave there? Yeah. So there was this individual that he had worked in politics, but he had also worked for a rival cartel.

He became a rancher. He would have bulls for game. Have you ever been to a haripel? Bull riding in Mexico? I haven't, no. So there's a lot of money in bull riding. Sure. So he had a lot of cattle.

He had a lot of, he had ranches and this and that. And we took him, we actually had to take him because his wife was the one that was managing all his money. We took him, but his wife didn't want to pay and ended up getting a bullet in his head. And it's crazy. Yeah, so that was mostly, because I imagine a lot of the drug trafficking slowed up. during the pandemic so we got to we got to start earning this way yeah yeah so there's a lot of car theft there's a lot of business there's a lot of um market for four by fours to sell to the cartel oh really yeah oh so that's another thing like guns that people make money on with the cartels

they love four by fours sure yeah because obviously they're in the mountains and they need right good good vehicles to manage. 18 cars a day. 18 cars a day and Tijuana get stolen. That's probably a low number. And all those go down to Kulikhan.

Right, right. So they're driving around stolen whips. All those whips that look brand new. They're all stolen. None of those. Like it's basically you ain't going to find a person that's involved in that game

with a clean sheeted card. Right. Right. Because you're not going to let the government know what's your name. Yeah. You own this vehicle. Right. You can't have your name on anything.

No, so you need to have cars that are ready to just stop. Right. And if you're working as a general manager, are you also allowed to have a side business where you steal cars and sell it to your bosses? Cool. So, all right. I think I see kind of how.

So it's actually when you're at that level in the military wing, it's better. You make more money having all these side hustles then you do on like a little salary. Yeah. Okay. So in this time, did you get married? Did you have kids?

I had kids when I was younger when I was 18, but I was never there for them because obviously the life that I chose. So I ended up not being in their life. Did you send the money ever? Yeah, yep. I would give them money, but I wouldn't never visit them. I'm not going to risk anybody trying to use that

as leverage against me. Right. So I didn't have any family. Even though I was in a high position, I didn't have any peace. I didn't have any, like, what was the point of making money or having money if you can't waste it? If you can't go out to the city and have a girlfriend because later your enemies are going to go after your girlfriend. It's too hot. And do you think people were trying to set up on you?

Yeah. Do you think there was intelligence on you? Definitely. I think that was one of the major reasons why I decided to just back away. because I saw that there was a lot of envy towards me and I saw that they were trying to set me up to kill me. Other lieutenants that wanted to take what I had achieved. They were part of Mituakana?

Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah, because so when I jumped in, there was lieutenants that had that area that I was supposed, that I basically achieved for them. They had been there for two years, but they weren't basically working the area. they were just

basically just staying in their safe their safe zones so when I came in I came in with everything and I would go into those dangerous zones and I would stay there for weeks

and put in work and then come back and show proof that I was working and show to these to Los Hermanos Las Quaga if you know

the two main leaders of the family Michoana Who are the It's the fresa the strawberry yeah strawberry and the fish.

Okay. Same. So, and they're the, the boss, those are the Misters. Those are the bosses. Two bosses. Wow. Are they still around? Yeah, they're actually, they're, they're, they've been, the US has rewards on them and, and they're still around them.

Yeah, they're down and south. Wow. So you had. Yeah, I met them in person. Wow. Was that something? Were you like, holy school? I mean, because listen, you had now been in Mexico for over a decade.

you had started off as this dispensable, just brown trigger man. And now you're meeting the bosses. Like, not everybody gets to meet the boss. Was part of you a little, at least proud of you, that you had survived? Yeah. Yeah, no, definitely. And I remember when I met the brothers, they were telling me their story like, oh, you see these mountains?

Like we started there. That's the same way of you. Like, we used to hide up in the mountains. And we used to, they were working for, La Familia Michoacana is basically a branch of Los Caballeros Templarios back in the avocado and the worst, the auto-defense, when they started growing up. So all that comes from there. They were basically triggerment for the people that were in charge in those times.

And now they're the ones in charge of their own organization. Right, right. And they had a good, they had a, I was well, like they looked they looked at me with like um respect and admiration because they're like you have no family you have like you have nothing and you're making a met like you're you're putting in work and you like you're using your intelligence he's like we send people to these areas they're like they don't last two months three months they get they get caught or they get killed yeah so you've been you've been coming up and done because but i knew the area like the palm of my hand

and i knew what i knew where to hit we're not to hit where to come out where to come in um so they liked that. You know, they really They respect the Juevos and La Mente, yeah, but other lieutenants

were kind of like yeah, they didn't like that I was I was bringing more people into the organization from where I was

originally from. So the organization like let's say the groups were half were from Michoakan, the other half were from Guerrero

but now they were from a new state where I was coming and where I was bringing people from Which was where I lost or something? Where I was recruiting people. And obviously it was more of us than them.

And obviously they didn't like it because obviously the boss would start asking questions. Like, why is it that he's putting in work and you guys don't show any, like you guys don't show any advance? Right. I'm only hearing about that you guys are doing this or doing that, but you guys aren't really doing anything. Yeah, that's typical. You're making them look bad. Exactly. So, yeah, they might have killed you or plotted on you.

Yeah, no. They were definitely trying to plot something. against me. So is it possible, given that, given that these guys, these brothers came up from where you did, is it possible that if you had survived and kept putting in work and you could have been a boss someday? Yeah, definitely. Wow. Imagine that. That is a movie, an American, a Chicano becoming a boss of a Mexican cartel. There is. There's actually, who? La Barbie was a boss. Sure. He wasn't, he wasn't the boss. the boss, but he was, he had a plaza for sure. He was a ruthless dude.

Pretty sure he was working for the gringos. Right. Yeah. Yeah, right. Did, uh, were the, the bosses, the brothers, were they also informants like most cartel bosses? I don't think so. They were just bandits. Right. They're straight out bandits. It seems like those are the, those are the hardest guys to get to, those guys that live in the mountains of Micho-Kahn and Guerrero. those are who really stay free because the government can't penetrate. It's just how are you supposed to get passed through all these checkpoints

of people that know the area that have grown up there. They have people on top of mountains with binoculars and radios, radioing in when the government is coming. So your group just moves and goes around them while the military is thinking that they're chasing you, but you're already two steps ahead of them. You should give us pictures like that area

thousands of miles, right? Yeah, it's crazy. these like almost un inhabited mountains. Yeah. And they're making coke up there. Like that is fucking crazy. Are they into anything else? Do they have meth labs?

No, no. They don't have meth. They don't fuck with meth. They don't fuck with meth. Because what, back in the day, I heard that back in the day when they were messing with meth, one of their lieutenants got addicted and he killed all his people in his ranch. He killed them all because of, oh.

He was just tweaking. He got tweaked out and he murdered them everywhere. And so they just said no. Yeah. We're not, no, go for, for, for, for, in his ranch. for meth. And not fentanyl either. Wow, that's interesting.

They're more banned, like I said. Extortion, kidnapping, avocado, extortion, and Coke. And Coke. For the Sino-Lowans. Yeah. Wow. That's amazing. Okay, so it's 2021, 22.

You see kind of the writings on the wall. And it sounds like you're getting tired. You're tired of this life a little bit, right? Yeah, definitely. You're tired of fighting. You've been at war for, I mean, you can only describe your life, the life of a cicario in a cartel as a constant state of war. Yeah.

You never get to relax. You don't. So how do you leave it all? I start questioning myself, you know, I start questioning myself regards of death. Because you're no longer afraid of dying. You're always dealing with death. You've taken life every day. So much.

And it's like you know you're going to die. But what is there to come after death? you know i was trying to my my my my my head was trying to put those pieces like okay you're ready to die and i had encountered several times i got ambushed by uh by the mexican government the um estatales they ambushed me and we got into a crazy gun fight i almost got killed i made it out because of the people that i was with um and that just put into perspective yeah you're going to go any any day now is it what you're doing worth leaving this world?

I started questioning everything that I was doing. At the end of the day, you got to understand that these cartels are cancer for society, especially for society in Mexico for the youth in Mexico. Why? Because they look up to you. They admire pistoleros.

They admire narco-trafficantes, you know. And it got to me when I went to where I was where I originally would stay. And a close friend of mine, a youngster that I knew before he could even walk. And now he was a 10, 11 year old. He saw me and he's like, I want to be like you when I grew up. And I looked at him and I'm like, no, you don't. What are you talking about, brother? You need to go back to school.

Like you have your whole life in front of you. You have your parents with you. why would you pick up a rifle and destroy your life? Because at the end of the day, my life was, my life was done. I had nowhere else to go. All I knew was to kill people, to be in that game. So that's why even after I ended up coming out of prison, I didn't leave.

I didn't try to make my life, you know, again, I went back into the same environment because that's all I knew. So that basically put me into that situation where are you going to die like a dog and die for something that has no honor? Because he has no honor, brother. At the end of the day, you're fighting for the rights to steal, to extortion, to kidnap,

and to poising your own society. And I said to myself, I'm smarter than this. I speak English. I speak Spanish. I understand a little bit more than most of these people. Right. Like I've survived most of these people. I'm not going to die here as a,

as a coward because at the end of the day I think I have respect for those people that get up every day in the morning and they go to work to put that piece of bread on their family's table those are the real gangsters for me like I look at them and I'm like yeah

like this guy chose to work hard to provide for his family we chose a non-ethical easy way to make money obviously it's not easy but it's not right at the same time you know because you're not You're not being beneficial for anyone. So at that stage of my life, I had the option of killing the lieutenant that was trying to kill me. And at the same time, killing people that almost gave their life for me, defending me, or do I just run?

And I chose to run instead of murdering people that had defended me that had fought for me. You didn't let anyone know you were leaving? Yeah, I did. I called some of my close friends and two people that were from the boss's area. So these two people were put in by the bosses to supervise everything. So basically they were just there to collect information and pass it on. Because the boss wasn't happy with what the other lieutenant was doing and the problems that we were having with each other. Yeah. So I called them up and I told them, you know what, like, I'm done. And then what do you mean you're done? like I'm done

I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm like you guys can tie me up and take me back to the boss not telling him personally

I don't want this life anymore these people had so much love for me that they're like nah you're good man you're good just make sure that if you're done

you're done we'll let the boss know what's going on because I had already gathered intel about what was really going on with this lieutenant

and with other rivals so he was basically trying to make a he was trying to make a deal for both of them to end up in my life basically and end the people that I have around me. So he was trying to make a truth with them to get me. So they had already seen everything and they're like, it's good you can go.

Just make sure that if you go, you're done. Yeah, don't come back. I did. I did. So where's the first place you went? Where'd you go? Chicali. Okay.

So you went back to the border. Back to the border. What was your thinking? What were you planning on doing? just trying to survive, I think, you know. It's hard to reintegrate to society, especially when you come from a world where a disrespect is handled right there and then with a 9mm, you know?

Everything's about respect in my environment, in the environment that I would live, trying to reintegrate into society where respect is no longer a thing among people, among a lot of people, no? Yeah. It's easy for them to disrespect. not knowing that they have a person that for disrespect will take your life without blinking.

And I fell into depression living by myself in Mexicali and trying to make peace with myself for leaving the people that I cared for. Because even though these guys were killers and you could say whatever you want for them, my loyalty was with them and I knew that their loyalty was with me. I respect anybody that would get into a car knowing that they might not come back. It doesn't make them inherently bad people. This is just where they come from and it's part of life. Yeah. So I understand that.

You're lonely. You're isolated. Yeah. And did you get a job or why did you not return to the United States? I was working as a bricklayer driving a bicycle. And in my head was like, bro, you used to drive these badass. cars with weapons on your side, money in your pocket, women in the back, drugs in the front.

What are you doing driving a bicycle and going to bricklay? Yeah. Wow. I would struggle with myself because architects or the people that were in charge of the construction site would come and they would try to like humiliate me not, not like inside of me. I was like, I could kill you. Yeah.

I was like, man, you better not test me. You don't even know. Bro, like it was hard. It was difficult to, it got to the point where I fell in depression. I fell in depression. I literally found depression. Why didn't you come back to the United States? I had a last connection with my family.

Like there was, we no longer had, like I grew, I ended up growing by myself and we separated. So we no longer had that confidence of asking them, oh, I want to go back to the U.S. I didn't have anybody. I chose the life I chose and I ended up by myself. So yeah, it's. How'd you end up in London, England? That's a crazy story, brother. You're the only Mexican in England.

That's the name of this episode. In my depression, I was looking for a way out because I had already gone to Christian churches, to Catholic churches, to Jehovah Witness, trying to find something that would give me peace. Because I knew I had committed. I had done a lot of evil and a lot of bad in this world. And in one of these days, it was the 25th. of December. In Mexico, you know, Mexico is very Christian and they celebrate Christmas, like I think no other place. They don't even move Coke over the holidays. Throughout Latin America, it's a fact. They take it off. You see, so me being by myself and seeing how everybody was in

their families, it just got to me and I was thinking to myself, like, why don't you just end your life? You have not done any good for no one. You have not, you've not done anything that's, beneficial for anyone. Take your life. In prison, in state prison, I saw a lot of homeboys that were there for kidnapping and they had 140 years of prison and they were never going to come out. When they wanted to die bro, they would tie themselves out from this height and they would sit, they would sit their butts and break their necks.

Imagine how much you wanted death to kill yourself from that height. Oh, Jesus. So I knew that if I wanted to die, I was going to be able to do it. So I started making my robe. I had some lasso in the apartment where I was living. And in my head, I was like, man, I'm tired of this life. I'm tired. I'm tired.

And I was looking where to hang myself. But at the same time, there was a voice in me that said, but you've never been a coward, bro. You've never backed out of anything. Like, look at where you're, look how far you've come. to die like a drug addict because I got hooked on meth, bro. I got hooked on meth in my depression. Before in the cartels, I had never touched meth.

Yeah. You know? And I remember I would make fun of people that would use meth. And now I was the meth user. I was the one in depression. I was the one trying to take my life. And in this scenario, I remember I had touched rock bottom, bro. I had nothing else going for me at that moment.

nothing else. Like when I mean nothing, I mean nothing, brother. My only thoughts were go back to what you were and get killed back where you are. But in my head, I had those voices that were telling me, you've never been a coward. You've always stood up and dealt with things the way that you need to deal with things. So I said to myself, I'm not going to hang myself today. And I sat down on my bed. And as a grown man, and with my balls in my hands, bro, I started crying. I started crying because I was tired of my life. I was tired of feeling all that trauma that I was just that was boiling, boiling up inside of me from my childhood to what I've seen to the people that I've lost in my life that were good friends, that friends that showed me loyalty and ended up

dying because of me. You let out 20 years of tears. Wow. It was... That's so good for you. It was difficult because... It's healthy, though. At the moment, I remember I asked if there's something that is truth, that has truth, guide me to it.

And I was talking to myself thinking that if there's anything higher, if there's a higher being that's listening to me, I'm not going to name me. I'm not going to say Jesus, Jehovah. I'm not going to say anything. I didn't even say God. Right? I just say, if you're out there and you're looking at me, and you see my position, I can't no more.

Guide me to something that is truthful. And God guided me to Islam. Wow. And in a matter of three years, brother, my life just flipped. Yeah, you look great. I have a new life. I have a beautiful wife. Yeah.

And I'm trying to do better in my life and trying to influence ex-cartel members and cartel members that are back in Mexico. that I still have respect for me that I still talk to on the phone I still talk to people that are in prison and try to share my testimony with them to reconcile with what they've decided to come

to become at the end, you know? How did you end up over here in England? I'm just curious. My wife is from here. How did you meet her? Through a podcast that I shared my story at my Reverse story, how I became a Muslim

and she saw it and she hit me up. She's like, where are you at? This and that. She ended up going to Mexico and living with me in Mexico for three years, brother. Wow. They tried kidnapping her, by the way. Oh, my God. In Mexiai.

Wow. Is she Muslim? Yeah, he's Muslim. Okay. So that was how that was the introduction to him. Yeah, yeah. And so you guys got to go to, you be back here, how long? I've been back here like seven months.

Wow. Yeah. Would you mind hanging out for the bonus episode? Just a quick 30 minute chat for the Patreon. We can show the heads, severed heads and talk more about. about like Islam. I'm fascinated. We've just been going,

so I think we've got to cut it off. But I love you, man. That was one of the best pieces of podcasting I've ever been a part of. I kind of a natural at it. Yeah, you don't have a book or anything. You want to shout out. No, not the moment now.

Well, God, that's something. Ali Gonzalez. You don't go by Smiley no more, I guess, huh? No. Wow. Smiley was left in Mexico. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably a good thing.

Yeah. Do you miss home? Do you miss America or Mexico? That's kind of more of your home now. Like I was telling your producer, I miss Big Bear. I miss going out fishing for some trout. I miss some stuff from the U.S., you know. I still have good memories from the U.S.

Obviously, Mexico, it's a bittersweet, you know, memories. but in reality I don't I know that my life is here now and at the end of the day what's what's left behind is left behind all right man well we really really appreciate you come by seriously for inviting me to this

too podcast did you enjoy it of course I did great I hope it helps you I think it's good to talk some of this out you know what I mean it helps so um Oleg Gonzalez truly uh truly uh

one of a kind story. And yeah, jump over to the Patreon. Patreon.com slash the Connect show. We'll just wrap it up and chat a little bit more. Thank you, G. I appreciate it.