The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - "She Had To GO"- Marijuana Boss Reveals Life In Sinaloa Cartel, Wacking The D.A., Life Sentence

Episode Date: April 12, 2026

From surfer to cartel kingpin… then a 60-year sentence. In this wild episode, Mark Branon shares his unbelievable rise as one of the biggest marijuana traffickers in the U.S.—moving up to 30,000 lbs across the country while working with the Sinaloa cartel. From flying loads over the border to building million-dollar smuggling operations, his story sounds straight out of a movie. But everything changed when a prosecutor targeted him… and he made a decision that would haunt him forever. Inside this episode: -Running multi-ton marijuana operations coast-to-coast -Working directly with cartel networks in Mexico -Close calls with DEA, informants, and betrayals -The attempted hit on a prosecutor that went horribly wrong -How his own lawyer flipped and helped take him down -Life sentence, prison politics, and eventual release This is a raw, unfiltered look at the rise and fall of a real-life drug boss—and the consequences that followed. Go Support Mark! https://thrivingagain.health/ This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: StopBox! Get firearm security redesigned and save 10% off @StopBoxUSA with code CONNECT at https://stopboxusa.com/connect #stopboxpod HelloFresh! Go to https://hellofresh.com/connect10fm now to Get 10 Free meals + Free Nutribullet® Ultra Plus+ 2-in-1 Compact Kitchen System (a $189.99 value) on your 3rd box. Free meals applied as a discount on the first box, new subscribers only, varies by plan. Disclaimer: Must order the 3rd box by May 31st, 2026. Cash App! Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/1ekoiacn #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Cash App Green, overdraft coverage, borrow, cash back offers and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 Meet Mark & His Wild Story 01:55 Mark’s Early Life & Upbringing 07:07 Surf Culture & First Steps into the Drug Game 14:40 This Episode Is Sponsored By StopBox 16:20 First Bust & Learning Prison Networking 19:24 Smuggling by Air: Thrill, Guns & Close Calls 25:01 From Air Drops to Cartel Connections 31:09 Working with the Arellano Felix Organization 38:38 Cabo, Corruption, and Building a Double Life 40:12 This Episode Is Sponsored By HelloFresh 41:55 DEA Surveillance & Cat-and-Mouse 54:59 This Episode Is Sponsored By Cash App 56:22 Transition to Sinaloa & Rafa’s Crew 01:03:30 The Art of Moving Major Weight 01:10:06 Logistics: Networks, Stashing & Scaling Up 01:17:08 Downfall: Betrayal from Within the Crew 01:26:01 Legal Nightmare: State and Federal Cases 01:34:35 The Prosecutor Plot & The Botched Hit 01:45:41 Legal Proceedings Get Dirtier 01:52:47 Conviction, Prison, & How Mark Got Out 02:08:04 Release, Reflections & What’s Next 02:22:21 Closing Thoughts & What’s Coming in Part 2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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anything a thing. I had the best connection and the best buyers. They were telling me you can't bring enough wheat, and it started getting good. How many pounds did you get up to? 30,000 pounds. I just immediately draw on him, put the gun to his head. You ever talk about me? You're dead. I put the prosecutor under surveillance.

The hit goes down. They arrest my lawyer. Now he's my fucking co-defendant. Yeah, I don't have a lawyer now. They're coming with murder for hire, useful a firearm and a crime of violence with a silencer. All the weed charges, all the laundering charges. Cooked. This is Mark Brannon.

aka Dago Mark, a San Diego Surfer Bro who worked as a top marijuana distributor for Mexican drug lord Raffa Caro Quintero throughout the 1980s and 90s. Mark's journey is absolutely insane. He comes from an upstanding military family, but from a young age he was selling drugs, first cocaine and then weed, which he excelled at. He worked with the Ariano Felix organization from Tijuana, before switching over to the Sinaloa cartel and Rafa Quintero's crew. Mark had semi-trucks filled with thousands of pounds of Rafa's weed moving across the country

every week like clockwork. By the early 2000s, he was all set to retire from the game when a vindictive Arizona prosecutor built an illegal case against him based on the lies of a single informant within his crew. So what did Mark do? He decided to have her whacked. That's right, he tried to kill an Arizona prosecutor and he almost succeeded, but the hitman accidentally killed her brother. Gangster shit. After a long-drawn, out legal fight, Mark was eventually sentenced to 60 years in federal prison. And this prison experience is somehow even crazier than his time on the street. Authorities accuse him of becoming a high-ranking shock caller for the Aryan Brotherhood. And that interview is going to be in part two, which you can get

early over at patreon.com slash the Connect show. Today, Mark is a newly free man and has just launched a peptide company which is revolutionizing the health industry. A link to his website with all that information will be included in the description of this episode. Ladies and gentlemen, just when I thought I'd heard it all, that's when Mark came along. This is an absolute movie. Dago Mark, right here on the Connect with Johnny Mitchell. What's up, everybody? We got Daego Mark on the podcast today. Do me a quick favor before we get going. Make sure to hit that subscribe button, turn on the alert bell, and if you love the episode, leave us a comment, really pushes the video out. All right, take care. Peace.

You basically came up in the most thriving era in California, the 70s. Yeah, 70s and 80s, 90s on. I was there almost my whole childhood. But before that, I traveled a lot. I mean, I was a military brat. So we were Panama, Central America. I spent a lot of time there. Key West, Camp Lejeune.

I'm actually on the Camplugin lawsuit for benzene poisoning, which causes extremely aggressive, aggressive, irrational behavior. So that may be a way to explain, you know, like some of the things that took place in my case. Like, you know, I got convicted of hitting the prosecutor's house and shooting her brother, you know, and then overturned it. Right. After 20 years.

Because by all accounts, you should have had a thriving, legitimate life. Your father was a successful author. Yeah. High ranking success in the military, the Navy. And you grew up in the best place in America. San Diego. Yeah. So you landed there basically when you were 12, from 12 on, that's where you were.

Yeah, I landed there and was enrolled in San Diego High School, which was like fast times at Ridgemont High. It was, you know, my best friend at the time, Todd Martin, who was like the number two rated amateur in the world, was looked just like Spacoli. I mean, looked just like exactly. That was his nickname or gluefoot. But yeah, but surfing around him and eventually moving into his. was mom's house when I rebelled and moved out was like how I got good at it, you know.

So you were a surfer, bro. Yeah, I was on the surf team. I competed in a lot of events and just didn't see there was any money in it for me. Back then, you were not getting paid good money to surf. I mean, the best surfers were lucky to make $40,000 a year, you know, so it didn't interest me. You were like a thrill seeker, it seems. Yeah, I have an adrenaline issue. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Because you're a teenager now. you're surfing. This is part of your culture and this is what kind of brings you, introduces you to the drug game. Yeah, I mean, when you grow up in San Diego or any border city,

for that matter, you're going to be exposed to it. And, you know, there was competitions where we go down to K-55s or Baja Malibu, you know, in San Miguel and do, you know, surf contests and stuff like that. And, you know, weekends, you'd roll across the border, go to Baby Rock, you know,

all squid roll. all these clubs and, you know, so you're, it's, you see the drugs. You see guys out of nowhere. You're like, damn, that guy's got a brand new four-wheeler. And he's like, you know, he's got a lot of cash. And, you know, come to find out he's slinging bricks of Coke. And Coke was expensive back then. It was like 33 a key, 38, you know.

San Diego. Yeah. It's wild. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of times we would go to Miami and get it back then, you know, make a trip across. It was good, Coke. I mean, it was quality.

So you got, how old were you? You started selling a Coke or weed first? What happened was in high school. I was like a late bloomer. I never even smoked weed until I was like in my senior year. And a couple friends of mine, two guys, Mike and James, they worked for what we call whalers, like a couple big drug dealers that lived in Rancho Santa Fe. And they were kind of gophers, you know.

And those guys were smuggling a lot of coke, a lot of tie weed. You know, I'm really good friends with one of the biggest tieweed smugglers ever. Warren Anderson Blackie. He just wrote a great book called Stone Free. He's a really good guy. And I think his book's going to do really well. And so those guys in the 70s and 80s, you know, the Coronado Company, you know, Lou Valor, the school teacher in Coronado, had other kids smuggling for him. And, you know, that was the thing, you know, big tie weed, you know, a lot of coke importations.

And, you know, when I saw my friends working for those guys, all of a sudden, they're driving, you know, Oh, I got the Dino Ferrari. I'm like, well, the fuck do you get that? You know, oh, it's my bosses. Or they're pulling up in like a F-350, four-wheel Ford all tricked out with back then. Let's see, it was Bose sound system. You know, I mean, it was insane, man, to see. And I just saw the dudes that were in that fast lane.

And I was like making fins at surf surfboards Unlimited, Bane Finns Unlimited, excuse me. And, you know, picking up jobs, moving furniture. And I'm like, fuck, you know, like, this is going nowhere. and, you know, and hoping to win a contest to get paid. And, yeah, I got into a, I got approached by somebody that was in the surf industry, nameless, that gave me my first little ounces of Coke and then eventually quarter pounds and then kilos and, you know, and it just moved on from there. Did you grow in the game?

Were you selling it to surfers at first? Or how do you? Just people I knew, you know, like, and I lived in La Costa when I moved out, which back then was known for like, you know, La Casta's always been known in Carlsbad. It's on the border of Vincinnitus. It's always been known as, you know, having mob tised the money. And, you know, there was a lot of Peruvians and Colombians that would come into town. And a lot of dudes were working for them. And, you know, I was working for some people right there. But they were working with the cartels. I wasn't at that time. What year is this? This is 82. I graduated high

school in 81, started slinging right after high school. Got it. So you're about 19. Now in 82, our Mexican cartels now starting to take over Colombians, or is it still mostly a Colombian import? It's mostly a Colombian thing. I mean, you know, I mean, of course they're there. I mean, that was when the Mexicans really started putting it down, you know. I mean, come on. You had the most vicious, you know, guys in Colombia, you know, and, you know, the Ochoa brothers, you know, Carlos Slater and them, Pablo Escobar, you know, and they're just like whacking judges and everybody. And, And they were the ones that said it, but the Mexicans, they ain't got nothing on the Mexicans now.

I mean, it's so brutal down there. Like, it's brutal. So was Tijuana a route in 82 when you first started? Yeah, I mean, the plaza, yeah. It's always been controlled by certain people. And eventually, I ended up working with them, the Ariano's. Now, in 82, where the Ariano was running Tijuana? I got involved with them in the early 90s, late 80s.

So, yeah, I'm, you know, what they did before that. but that's when, you know, I was introduced to one of their lieutenants eventually. Now, this is after I've already done prison time. Well, prison time. It was low custody. I got sentenced in 85 for my first cocaine case. And back then, before the Sentence Reform Act, 86, you could get caught with five bricks and get two years. I mean, now it's a 10-year minimum mandatory, but I didn't, I got called with like a quarter pound of Coke eventually.

You know, I had a money, all the money that I had from my stash house I just brought home. So now I got the Coke with the money, you know, rule number one broke, house full of guns. I was raised around guns. You know, I had like a gnarly ass collection of guns in the house, you know. They got bricks, Coke. Yeah, and bricks and guns and money. Yeah, what's even crazier is that day I was, I was shooting indoors at Shooters Emporium and Escondito.

And I was driving back home. And so I decided to stop an elephant forest, which at that time was undeveloped. And I had my HK91 and my big stuff, my three. and stuff and I wanted to be outside. I don't want to shoot those in a range. And so I was out shooting and so long story short, Elfin Forest back doors La Costa. So I go home and I had like this tri-level condo

where the garages were on the bottom, you walk up a staircase and then you get to the next floor on the next floor, so they're pretty cool. You know, La Costa's no, anyway, when I came back from the shooting range that day, they were all in my house. And it's crazy, I had a 9-11 SC, which back then was the most dope Porsche.

And I pulled in and I got out of the car and I throw my 44 wheel gun Smith and Weston over my shoulder and I grab my HK91 that is now halfway hanging out of a paper bag, but it has a paratrooper stock that goes in. And so I grab that and I grab my stuff and I walk up to the stairs and it looks like a Stephen King movie, the outline of the door. Because the light in the garage was out. And as soon as the garage door shuts, I kind of scoot it over. And I looked up and I took two steps and I smelled cigarette smoke and I don't smoke. And I like paused and I'm walking up the stairs. I got a machine gun in my hand.

I got a fucking wet suit over my shoulder, and I got a 44-wheel gun in a holster. And so I said, fuck, it's probably one of my horrid girlfriend's friends, you know. So I'm like rolling up there. I opened the door, and it was full of agents, and they're like, freeze, motherfucker. And it's like, he's got a gun. And I'm like, fuck, no.

And none of them are loaded. They're unloaded. I just got back from the range. Almost got killed right then and there. Yeah, they had every ride. They could have shot me. I didn't justified. And, you know, it was just, you know, I was young.

and that's the first time I got busted. Spring weekends are all about family, sunshine, and evenings on the patio. Before everyone arrives, I stop by my local Total Wine and More to grab a great bottle to share. With such a wide selection and the lowest prices, it's easy to find something amazing for everyone to enjoy. If you're not sure what to pick, their friendly guides can help. Find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and More. Stop total wine and more in store or online.

Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. B-21. And you had a quarter pounds enough to get you a Fed case. Oh, yeah, with the weapons and the money, I had like $180,000 in cash in those, too. And then, you know, a lot of weapons. Yeah. Yeah.

Back then the other feds were picking them up, you know. Yeah. You know, they had been told there was this rat, you know. This guy, Andy, that worked here, they had a shop, were surfboards and he was wired up and uh one of my loud mouth partners went in there oh yeah brand of this brand of that i can't get it but he can and they didn't even know really too much about me and you know they just showed up and they caught me red-handed pretty much i guess back in the day a quarter pound of coke was a lot of coke yeah well there was also three empty of the

corrugated plastic boxes that the kilos came in right you know i was loose man i was i was i was getting I was, you know, I was partying and, you know, going to clubs and, you know, seeing a lot of different girls. It wasn't tight. No, not like it was later. Because later, as you'll see in the story, like, I never got caught with anything. I've never, they didn't even know where I lived. You know, I mean, I never had any evidence against me on this case that I got 60 years for. So what did you get sentenced to the first time?

Nothing. Two years. Okay. Yeah. Where'd you go? I was at MCC. I was going to do my time there in San Diego. the high rise and then I ended up in Boron Federal Prison Camp with like eight months I had to do after

I left MCC and and it was just insane it was like a country club you know swimming pool the child hall unbelievable way pile mostly white-collar criminals but back then you'd see like I was there with a lot of Hells Angels that just got fresh tenure sentences you know you know some some pretty cool ones Ron Dyer uh who's the other one um got Hammer you know Hammer was gnarly like in those guys you know, and back then, you know, I kind of was like, whoa, you know, now I see those guys in the feds. And, you know, it's, you know, they're just another dude to us because in the feds I kind of went up the ladder a little bit. But I'll respect, you know. Those lows are such networking factories.

Man, I went in there and that's where I, that's where I ended up meeting my best connections, you know. And when I got released, I was on special parole. And back then, special parole is different. Like you had to do every bit of it. Like they wouldn't bring you back. If you violate one day, you know, you'd be two, I had three years special parole. You could be five days from three years violate you. You got to start over again.

Yeah, if they violate you. And so it was kind of tough. You could almost do a life sentence on that type of parole. But like I've said in another interview, I mean, it took me 60 days. I met a guy said, I can load your planes in Kornavaka. I bought a Cessna 206 and started flying loads right into Palm Springs. right out in the desert behind Palm Springs and just didn't give a fuck. Like, I was like, I want my money back.

And that's like the thrill-seeker part of me or the MK Ultra's benzene. I sucked in too much of in my baby bottle, you know, which makes you kind of a little more aggressive. But yeah, and I just started going, never stopped on parole. On parole. It made it for 16 years straight, smuggling, never got caught. And you're flying in loads of weed? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, strictly weed. Yeah. This is for all the gun owners that watch my show, and I know there's many of them. How many of those guns are legal? Well, only the Lord knows and the ATF. Check it out. You're going to want to listen to this message, okay? This is one of those products.

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And after you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. Again, that's stopboxusa.com. Use code connect for 10% off your entire order. And do make sure you tell them that our show sent you. So how was that racket? It must have been incredible. Well, I mean, it was cool, you know.

My pilot is someone that's very, very close to me. I don't really want to put his name out. He's related to me. But he, you know, we were running them things, man. He would be flying that plane underneath crop dusters out of the border. underneath them. That's how low we were hitting the pan. Yeah. And then, and then, you know, but back then you could

get away with it. You could file a flight plan and say you're going somewhere and just divert, you know, and it was easier to change your flight plan in the air, whatever. And, you know, it was exciting. It was some thrill secret shit for real, you know, kind of like point break a little bit.

You know, like it was, I but when I was young, you know, I made a name, you know, I was helping refuel a plane coming up from Columbia with about 200 pounds of coconut in the middle of nowhere near guero negro and luckily i had the state of mind to bring an assault rifle rather than a shotgun which is what the big homie local told me to bring oh i go to 12 gauge or he had when i said do where are we going to be you know we're going to be in the what's it like i mean we're in the middle of nowhere right and

you're in mexico yeah at that time we went down to refuel on grow negro that's about half it's about a third of the way up from cabo about two thirds a way down to cabo it's in the middle of Baja, you know, on the, you know, on the peninsula there. And, you know, and it got heavy, you know, I mean, we were hand pumping 55-gallon drums of gas into the tanks. The thing was a flying bomb, had floor tanks, wing-tip tanks. It was no seats, just coke, you know. And so, you know, some guys started driving from a distance to pilot. Luckily, he was a Vietnam pilot, you know, experienced, you know, out of combat. And he saw the dust trail way off. He goes, we got company. I got company, and I ended up pulling that HK91 out, and I got the other guy.

My refueled team is pumping like a motherfucker trying to fill them tanks. And all of a sudden, I hear a bullet go by, and one of them's got a Quirno, AK-47, out the window firing at us. But I had a bipod on an HK-91, and I laid that thing on the top of the truck, and they were fucked. I mean, they were bouncing up and down their cars, and I had steady shot, and I've been shooting guns since I was a kid. you know, so I stopped him, we'll just put it that way. Yeah, they didn't make it to the spot. And then when everything happened, we had to like, the Vietnam vet was a gangster, man. He's like so calm, you know, he's like, fucking get all the paperwork out of the car,

take the rest of that fuel, burn everything. And we had a like a, like a, it was a Chevy Blazer pulling a small Boston whaler. And, you know, we had to burn it all. And I had to dive in the plane, you know, on top of the plane. Coke and I'm scared to death. I mean, I'm 18, but I'm in survival mode, you know. So I made a name right then and there. Like as, you know, I mean, I mean, look, you can put the most scared person in a situation and sometimes they're going to fight harder. Like I've got into it with a lot of dudes inside the cell, you know, knife fight with a guy in a cell. That's gnarly. You know,

fist fight, whatever. And I've, some of the guys that I thought would be a walkthrough weren't, you know. And, you know, and some of the guys I thought were super, all that ended up being lames with paint jobs just a bunch of tats on them not tough at all you know I grew up fighting I mean I grew up in the garage box with my brothers and and I was a pretty game dude I used to box and and I used to go to bars when I was 19 with my older brother's ID and you know fight grown man and I had a pretty good history of that but you know I've always you know I don't know I like to think you know I have good morals though I mean I really do I you know yeah I was back then I sold cocaine you know but as life went on eventually I just became

strictly into marijuana smuggling because marijuana is not a destructive drug it's legal everywhere now cocaine is terrible meth fent fentanyl liquids out there like I couldn't with a clear conscience flood communities of that shit and think that oh yeah I worked hard today and I earned it but you know but smuggling vast quantities of weed is you know that's tough you got legit I eventually got to where I had false walls and 18 wheelers, but I started out just rent you know, rider trucks and then we'd build a false wall and load it with furniture and there's all the weeds in the front. We did it pretty technical even for rental trucks, but I've smuggled from California and Arizona to New York. Like that was my money getter, you know, back then. You

could buy 500 pounds, 500 a pound for high quality Mexican weed. As soon as it hits in New York, I get cashed out for 1500 pounds at 800. Do the money. math, that's 450,000 and 30 minutes. And it's like, you know, I got up there. Okay. So you went from flying in loads in that little plane that you bought. How did that evolve? Well, we lost the plane after a few loads. We lost it in Deming, New Mexico. And at that trip, the Mexicans in Kornavaka didn't have the refuel. Like, goddamn, you know, they couldn't even get that together. Like, we just want you to have gas when we land, you know? And So we had to top off the bird, the plane, in Deming, right before crossing.

And my pilot was there. And the EA ran up, whoa. And they found, you know, he had like 60 grand in cash, but he had stacks of boxes of these, you know, Ziploc bags and special ones, you know, that run through a machine and, you know, seal bags. And so there was clear no seats in the plane. I mean, it was a flying bomb, you know, floor tank. You know, bladders on the floor, tip tanks, no seats, just like the one that had the cocaine. I mean, so they know what's up.

They snatched the plane, snatched my pilot, threaten him. My pilot's a gangster. He shuts his mouth. But they got the plane the money. And so that was like, fuck, that was a setback. And that's when I kind of got going with the guys in Mexico direct and T.J. I started getting loads from the guys from the Arellano Felix's and, you know, those guys around 90. Right.

Yeah. You know, and they had a lot. The problem with their weed was it was inconsistent. Like, you know, it was never like, like the stuff I ended up getting later in Scottsdale, we'll talk about. The reason it went so good was because it was, you know, it was from Sinaloa. It was Rafi Kintero's crew before he went to prison. And they just had like skunk weed, man. And they packaged it right with beautiful packing machines, silver mylar bags.

But to answer your question, yeah, that was when we lost the plane was what I said, you know, I got to go get me my own contacts here, let them deal with crossing it. That's a heavy logistical nightmare. And you know, and you pay a little more for it, but, you know, you're not, you know, you're not dealing with as many factors. Right. Okay. So you started dealing.

How did you meet, you knew the brothers, Ramon and Binghamie? I knew Ramon, but I knew one of their lieutenants. I don't want to name him because he's still out there. He got away. Is he still out working? No, he found God. but he was, they actually grabbed him one day. It's another story for another time,

but they actually grabbed him and held him and tried to get him to set me up. And since I had like 800 grand of his money, he just held tight. They hit his house in Newport Beach. And he had this flashy house. His wife's driving in Newport. It's gold all over.

He's driving a brand new Ferrari or whatever. And so our Mercedes. How did you guys meet? We met. That's the guy I met. I met him through a mutual friend in North County. and he knew I was slinging, and I was living in a leaving hang, which is by Rancho Santa Fe, on a horse property, and the guy introduced me to him and told me who he was linked with and said,

yeah, this is the guy, man, this is, this guy can make you big. And I was like, yeah, cool, bring him up. So at that time, you know, they were crossing a lot. He didn't have a case. He never had a case. And so I met him and, you know, we started doing things. And that's when I started getting like 800, 1,200, 1,100 pound loads of weed. and putting like 100,000 down,

they'd reaffront me a lot of it and moving into New York City, you know, and New York at that time. That's when I got the hustle down, you know, west to east, you know, and anyone who's a smuggler knows, that was the lick. And God, it was good money, man.

It was good money. Do that every week, move a thousand pounds to... No, because it takes three days to get there, three days to get back. And, you know, and then a while the way, because their weed was so inconsistent, and that was the problem, And that's one of the reasons I stopped working with them

was their marijuana was really inconsistent. Like you would have C grade shit. And then you'd have like 150, 200 pounds of A grade. And then there's a bunch of B grade. And I kept telling them, hey, I need this consistent because there was a couple trips when I get to New York and the weed wasn't all that, you know? And like I was thinking,

and he'd open some of the bales and it'd be ammoniated because it was fresh and they wrapped it all in cellophane and it molded. and you know, you're telling him this on a long-distance call at a pay phone. And they're like, oh, we want our money or else. I mean, fuck you or else what. You know, I know you guys are all that down there, but I'm all that up here, you know. And I never, I know how dangerous they were. And, you know, I parted friends with them, that's for sure.

But, you know, it got ugly at the end because I had one of their guys all jacked up on steroids. And that wasn't doing him good as, you know, this guy's a psychopath already, you know. And he's like, oh, how are you staying in shape? And I'm like, at the time I was playing football. And I wasn't a juicer at all, but I had just done a cycle because I was out on special parole. And I just walked on Palomar Junior College to play. And one of the guys was like, dude, do this shit. I went from like 215 to 250, just the gnarly shit.

And I didn't do it again. You know, I was like, God, it's so hard on your body. And plus it just goes away after. You know what I mean? It's like, come on how long. I mean, I get TRT. I get why people are doing that, you know, in small amounts. keep your levels up. Hey guys, I know I mentioned Mark's peptide company at the top of the episode,

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So once again, go to Thriving Again.health to see what peptides can do for you and support Mark. All right, back to the episode. So eventually you stopped working with the Arellano Felix. The reason I stopped working with them was, well, it was kind of twofold. I was in New York once, and I had moved to load, and the conduit underneath Ramon, one of their other guys, I don't want to name him. He, because he's still alive. And he was like getting all agro, you know, he was shooting all eyes. I want my fucking money.

My boy. Really? I said, look. I got it all. It was like a million two or a million one. I go, it's right here, man. There's a fucking snowstorm. I'm not sending my driver out in this. Like, it's horrendous weather.

And when you get to the middle of the country, there's been like tornado shit going on. You know, and I'm like, dude, I'm just going to wait for the weather. I want my fucking money. And I was like, oh, yeah. And then he threatened me or else. I go, or else what, you know? I go, I'm a motherfucker. You want your money?

Man, I loaded. I went down to Louis Vuitton luggage in Manhattan. I bought three of the biggest fucking suit. cases, all nice Louise, stuff that shit with money. And this is a crazy story. And I check it on the airline. It was a Delta flight from New York. It was LaGuardia to LAX.

So I load all the money on. No, no, I'm just trying to say, man, shut up. I just hang up. It'll send your guy to L.A. Have them at the airport. I'll give you a time the next day I'm telling them. How much money is it? A million dollars in these suitcases.

One million and change. And I packed the fuck out of them. They're heavy. and I just got like clothes laid over it. Like this is before they're really on this shit. Irregardless, I go to LaGuardia. Now I'm like, my temper got the best of me. I shouldn't be loading this money on.

I should have just told them the weight. What's going to happen if I lose it? I swear to you, I'm in the airport LaGuardia and people can fact check this. That was when they had the big luggage theft scandal and it showed. So I go to the airport, I buy a double bloody Mary. I'm sitting there and it goes, arrest made on ring of theme.

in LaGuardia airport, it showed black and white footage of these dudes just ripping through people's suitcases, stealing all their shit. And I'm like, and I just put a million plus on the plane. And I fucking, you know, give me the bottle. You're like, I'm fucking stressed, man. So I get out to LAX.

I swear this is the most stressful thing. I get all the way to LAX, and you roll down, you get to luggage terminal. Everybody's standing around. And all of a sudden the red light, and the conveyor belt starts moving. Two cases. And I'm just like, man, this is all of a sudden, here comes the biggest one.

And I see it and it comes down to the conveyor belt. And it literally, when it came down, it goes, sound like it had cement in it. Like, it was so heavy. I rolled up, pulled it off, stuck it on my little cart. But I got two more of them on there. And between them other two, there's another $600,000 on that plane. And they don't show up. Everybody's getting their luggage.

And the light stops. and the conveyor stops. And there's like seven, eight of us there. They're like, oh, fuck our luggage. And so an assistant for the airline, go, hey, go right over there and claim your luggage and make sure, you know, you leave them where, you know, so in case we find it, I'm on case you find it. Like, fuck, you know, like, I'm stressed, you know.

And so I go over there and we're all waiting in line. And they go, hey, there's another pack of luggage coming. And this is like a 15 minute pause, maybe 20. And I'm thinking I got all that money in this. suitcase and if they found it or it's been stolen either way it's bad they're going to run up on me and i'm stressed and i got a driver sitting there and i'm looking at him and i'm like you know like just chill it's their driver i've told the mexicans to send their guy up i said wait wait wait so he's out on the curb and finally they say oh go back there's some more coming and man both them bags came and i got out of

there and i was for sure thought i lost half that money and that was all over an argument with guy being impatient, juiced up, and not really ready for it. And yeah, and so we had a falling out then, and then of course we kind of made up again. But I was already kind of tired of the, you know, the threat matrix and, you know, because those guys are, they're dangerous, you know, but so is my crew. And so, I mean, what are you going to do, you know, I mean. You thought this was your run club era. Turns out, it was more of a thinking about run club era.

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So you went from working with the Tijuana faction, the Ariano Felix. All these guys are from Sina Loa. just in case you're not aware. And then you hooked up with Rafa Caro Quintero. Well, what happened, this is what happened. Before I met up with Ratha, this is why I separated from the Ariano Felix organization. And they're from T.J.

These fools, they have a warehouse in T.J. I'm going to do another load with them. I've taken a break a couple months. It was off-season. I really wasn't working anyway. October to March is the best weed, you know. So I didn't want to move a bunch of dirtweed. So anyway, season kicked back in and I said, yeah, I could use a load.

And they're like, yeah, we're so happy. They're so happy. I'm going to work with them. So I rolled out of Tijuana, drive across, go to a warehouse with them in a suburban with like, what a palma, Ramon, another guy, my guy that's still free. And he's up there with him. And so, I mean, the whole warehouse, there's like military humvies that are just protect. I mean, it's so in the open, you know, it was gangster.

And I roll in this warehouse. And I mean, it's huge. It's big. man and there's just tons of weed and coke and heroin and any yeah it was like there's a billion dollars of drugs in there I thought I was so much but anyway I go to the weed stuff and I go and I you know I start cutting the bales open I said I'm not going to go through that bad weed good weed thing so they let me go through this I'm in there for hours you know and I finally cut enough open and put my mark on them and those are mine two days later I think I did I drive back no I was hanging out

TJ, I was about to drive back to my house in Kabul, and I'm glad I didn't. Because two days later is when they went to kill El Chapo in the airport and hit the Cardinal instead. Now they're trying to get them. Ramones on the run, Ben Haimine's hiding, you know, Wadapalma, you know, and they're coming. The whole country's turned against them. And I've been hanging out with these dudes. I mean, I've been going to baby rock partying and, you know, places they've had gun fights. And, you know, it's just crazy when you move with the.

those guys in Mexico. Like, it's always so over the top, you know, it's, especially in that era. Yeah, it was, it was just crazy. I mean, I mean, and still it is. I mean, like, Culeocons a mess right now. You can't even go outside at night. But anyway, so when that happened, that's when we parted ways. I see. Because now, even after I went back to the States, because they were torturing people brutally to find out the whereabouts of the guys that they didn't get. And I mean, specifically, Ramon guys I worked with. And, you know, I had been seen with them enough times to where if they were

under surveillance, they'd be like, yeah, that gringo right there, that motherfucker, yeah, we can grab him, start torturing him. And sure they were. And so I got the hell out of there, let it cool down. They end up killing, you know, Ramon and, you know, grabbing Benhamene eventually and, you know, and all the rest.

And, you know, even went to Palma, you know, we got 20 years. I mean, it was insane. But, you know, a lot of those guys just telling each other, it's just the way it is down there. You know, they're all working with the cops, and the cops are gangsters, but they are using, that's the difference between them and us up here. That's the difference between us in prison that run the line right. You don't talk to the cops by yourself. You know, you bring someone, you don't play any games.

You stay within your crew. You know, you're breaking bread with certain races and, you know, things. I did all penitentiary time. So, but anyway. That's really interesting. It's the reason for perhaps that. Mexican cartels tell on each other and cooperate with authorities is because they're already doing that when they're in the game. They're working actively with the cops and with the federallies to move product.

So when they get jammed up, it's natural to just continue working with them. Yeah, I mean, it's a whole whole entirely different dynamic down there. Yeah. I mean, you're not. There's very few guys, if any, I've ever known that have ever, I mean, there's some of us that had family that they implanted in the border patrol. and you were able to, you know, have a wave loads through, you know, and things like that. And, you know, of course, there's always been corruption within the DEA, but not like that. Like, you're not, you know, down there.

It's just insane. Tell us, tell me about the times that you would go into a town in Mexico to set up and you would go meet with the local constable, the local general. Well, when I, when I, because I just started developing Cabo in the 80s, like, and it It was, um, what did that mean? I developed building homes, reselling homes, building apartment buildings, buying land, investing. I was investing my money in real estate down there. I did well. And now it's insane what the land's worth.

And I had some beautiful, beautiful estates, one of them in Pedrigal, right next to the Hillen Mansion. I mean, I'm talking about gated communities, nice homes. And then I also bought like, you know, cool ass surf spots, like between totos and Cabo. I said, that's the best wave. I'm going to buy the whole beach, you know. And, you know, subdivided. things like that.

And I was in, I was really, you know, I was good at that. You know, I've always been an entrepreneur. You know, I've never labeled myself

a drug dealer. You know, I'm a entrepreneurial guy, and I made my money selling weed. Just like the Kennedy's made their money, allegedly Joe Kennedy's slinging alcohol during prohibition. And it's almost the same. Like,

everybody knew weed was going to become legal sooner or later. It's fucking harmless. It's actually good for you. It's actually, it actually should replace big pharma with all this oxycodone shit and percocet's and all this trash that they sell, but they can sell drugs legally, whereas marijuana is one of the most natural remedies

for so many things. I don't want to get into that. It'd take too long. But anyway. Okay. So you would go, but you, I'm just asking about the corruption that you experienced firsthand with

Mexican law enforcement. Yeah, I mean, when you get established, like when I was living there, it's a rotation game when a new ministerial public comes in or, you know, the top, You know, they replaced the head of the feds or the military or whoever it is. And, you know, with me, it was like I'd find out who was cool. And I wasn't really, I was under the radar in Cabo.

I never smuggled in Cabo. That's where I live. Like, don't shit where you eat. And I just lived there. My son was eventually born there. It was like my second home. I spent a lot of time down there. And, you know, when I found out the guy was cool, you know, I'd pull up.

My friend would introduce me as my, I'd tell him, you know, Tangago, but it's dead in a coachee, you know, and I'd have a fucking brand new. I have something in the car for you and present, you know, and I have a brand new fucking HK91 or Steyer 308. I've given a few assault rifles to the head of the feds, you know, and they're like, back then, now they have so many guns there, so much weaponry's coming in, but back then, like, you couldn't even really find Pennhouse and Playboy down there. It was like the country was different.

It was very Catholic. I was just going to say that, and very Catholic. and, you know, when you come in there and present an assault rifle, you know, like that, of that quality, you know, instantly, like, they're ready to give you their firstborn, you know, and now I've got him, you know, like, you know, and I've had some gnarly incidents down there with Americans because, you know, they come in for the weekend, they want to get drunk, make a lot of noise, and get stupid. And, you know, I'm down there with my family at a restaurant. I've been in some horrendous fights and caused a lot of serious injuries to people and I don't go to jail. They do, you know. and then when they're in jail, I get to see them again. Yeah, I like that.

And so it was like, and then for a while I had a special card, you know, get a card from the governor. And, you know, it's a special little metal-edged card that you can carry with you and present to any checkpoint. Like, don't fuck with this guy, basically. It's like I could get out of jail free growing. I've heard about those. Yeah, they're nice.

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They're giving you guys all of this stuff. Free meals applied as a discount. on the first box. New subscribers only. It varies by plan. Disclamer must order the third box by May 31st, 2026. So get on that. Use my promo code. Thank you, Hello Fresh. Nothing hits like home cooking. So when you were living in Cabo, how were you operating your weed business in the States? Well, what happened was when I wanted to shake the heat and I had heat a lot. The DEA and I played the cat and mouse game forever. The head of the, one of the top agents in the DEA was a guy by the name of Ken Davis.

There's Bill Gwynn. There's a lot of different ones that chased me for years. Like, they would run up on a stash house. I would get word. Not really that I'd get word. I knew they were coming and I would clean the whole house out. Sure, as shit, the next day they'd hit it. And I just had this great, not to be self-effacing, this instinct. Like, and, you know, I mean, I've literally been detained by them in cuffs at the airport,

Lindbergfield, San Diego. I have two ounces of skunk weed. pants. And I had those like Massimo net underneath those old volleyball. I got 15,000, 20 granite hunters underneath each shoe, size 14s, one size too big. And I'm getting on a plane. And like, they grabbed me because some snitch was, you know, put me on blast. And they finally found me. And they drive me back to my home because what happened was I had to hold some guy's hand. It reminds me to kill a sunrise, like with Mel Gibson. That's one of my favorite movies. And everyone that saw it said, dude, that's you, because I had a cigarette boat just like that.

Anyway, so one of my friends, it wants to make a weed deal with this guy, long story short, hey, can you come? So the guy realizes, you know, I can really get the weed because it's you. You're like the god, the smuggler. And so I went to that meeting. The guy had a wire on him. He rolls up to a van and Via de Alia in Flower Hill Cinemas. And the guy in the middle of the summer is like 90 to 85 degrees, got a fucking full button up shirt, like suit.

I'm like, immediately I'm thinking, man, what's up? You know, he gets in the van. He's wired. But whatever happened, the wire didn't work. And I'm in there saying, yeah, he's good for the weed. So that's how they got to my house. They had a plane in the air at the time because they really wanted me bad. And they flew and followed me all through Rancho Santa Fe.

Oh, there he is. That's where he lives. And I had an estate. I had two acre and 4,000 square foot home, five car car, four, five car garage, swimming pools, you know, beautiful place. And so that's how they got me at the airport that day. They followed me that day in the airplane. They set up a surveillance van in front of my home.

And these homes are big. There's electric gates. I'm in a cul-de-sac. You've got to show yourself. And they did. There was a van parked out front, like kind of down near a neighbor's house. There was like this enclave of, like, beautiful mansions. Or as I how you say, enclave?

Anyway. Yeah. Sorry, fellas. I like encloaf. Yeah, please. Please, the trolls will not. I'm stupid, yeah, whatever. Anyway, so the van's parked there,

and it's one of them old vans with the windows on the side. And the roof that you crank up, the little vent, and I go, man, that van, it's out of state plates, what's it doing there? And I'm just thinking, writing it off like it's the neighbors. And then one day I'm pulling out early because I know the sun's going to be right at the right direction, and sure is shit. I pull out and I see movement behind that tinted window

because the sun's hit in the back of it, the way they were parked. And that's when I knew I had heat. And so that's, and luckily, man, I had like $100,000 in that house, weapons. I had ledgers. I had enough shit that they could have put a case up. I see it. I play it cool. I come back.

I clean the whole house out. I was lucky there was a particular San Diego Charger football player that lived behind me and down the hill. And me and him were cool. He used to come up the hill and smoke weed with me. You're saying I'll rest in peace. No, no, it wasn't junior. Junior's cool, though. But yeah, no, it wasn't junior.

But close to the same area. Anyway, so the day I saw him out front, I burned all the ledgers. I buried all the money in plastic tubes in my yard. And I have big-ass yard, so two acres. And so I went down to my San Diego football, bro, with my weapons. And I said, hey, bro, can you hold these men? I'm going out of town. I don't want to leave in the house.

I'm not there. Yeah, no problem. Sure is shit. I left the house that day. I got a ticket to Cabo. I put the money in my shoes. That's the weed in my thing. I'm going to fly to Cabo.

see how much heat I got. I rolled their restmate at the ticket counter and brought me back to the house, never patted me down, never took my shoes off, never found any of it, searched my entire house, didn't find anything. And there was like fucking

10 cars in my driveway. This place was enormous. And that was just one of the close calls, and then they let me go. And the reason they had me was right after they finally uncuffed me, I'm literally cuffed to the table, in the chair by living room.

And they said, yeah, I let him go. And all the guys start bailing in the last agent, Ken Davis. I'm like, you just flatbedded all four of my cars because they're not my name. And I can't even get into town, man. I need a ride. He goes, oh, yeah, I'll give you a ride.

You want to call your lawyer, too? I go, yeah, I'd like to call Sheldon. It's Sheldon Sherman. He was a great lawyer then. He turned into a rat on my next case, but a piece of shit. So he takes me in the van, and he plays that tape of one of the Ariano Felix guys. and it was a phone call

where he's talking about hey my friend I have 50 of those things can you take him and I'm thinking he's talking about weed because that's all I was moving at the time oh no it's la ultra la banco he's telling me that's the other one

the white and I said fuck I don't want that oh please just hold it so they have me on a pay phone and he's on a pay phone up in Newport and so that call's recorded they tapped the phones he was using the same phones in that Irvine Athletic Club over and over and over There's like a branch of two.

It was easy. So anyway, they know they got that tape, but he plays it for me that day. He's in the van. He goes, listen to this. And I'm just my skin's crawling. I'm looking at it. I'm looking at the van. It's just me and him at my house.

And he goes, when we catch him, you're done. That's conspiracy. And we're going to get him. But why they didn't get him was because when they saw he and I together in Newport, like about a month prior. And they didn't have enough agents following him. They had one car, two agents, and he was under surveillance. And we came out of this restaurant, and I walked up,

I had a brand new Fort Centurion, which is like a suburban that special they made back then. It was a Bronco stretched. Anyway, I remember because one of the agents comes up, and he's like, hey, man, and me and him are walking out. He's trying to make small talk to get us to stall to get other agents there to follow both of us. And he walked out. He goes, man, it's a great truck. What is it?

And I go, it's a centurion. Ford makes it. Oh, wow, that's cool. And I see him walk around it. Oh, you mind if I look at it? I don't care. And he meaning to do it or talking, the Oriano guy. And he walks around and he looks, but I have paper tags on it from the dealership.

It said like Westlow or Drew Ford or whatever it was. And so there's no plates on it. And I get in, I take off. Well, they couldn't follow me. They followed him home. And they did get him the next day. And that's the one they had handcuffed in his house. And they're telling him set up Brandon.

We want Brandon. And they got one of their top guys. And all they want is me because they are just. just pissed they haven't caught me he didn't flip well here's why i don't know if he would have but i'd like to think he wouldn't have i don't want to call him a rat you know but he uh had like 850 grand of his money from a load i'd moved and so they grab him arrest him in his house in newport beach put him in the house with two agents to watch him and they're giving him his phone text him call him and he knows I have two sky pagers. I just got a new one. Back then it was a sky pagers. And he's calling the old

one he knows I don't have because he doesn't want to set me up. I have a 150 grand of his money. This dude, I got to give him his credit because this shit that he did next is some of the most gangster shit I've ever seen. And anyone can fact check this. So they got two agents in the house. They got all the windows locked from the outside with security bars and the tracks. And one agent in the house it's been almost a day and a half and they keep having a bell who knew what he's not calling back one of the agents goes back to take a piss and they're starting to get slack now because they've been in there with this dude for a day and a half almost two days the other agents on the recliner and he nods out this fucking dude skips across the living room goes up the chimney

out the top down the roof to the beach he's right on the beach and runs down and gets away now my real Skypagers blow. These are how many close calls I've had. Just so you know, this is why they chased me for so long. Now my sky pageers blowing up. 888-9-1-9-1-1-1. That's his code 8-88. 9-1-9-1-1-1.

Fuck, where's he been? Bang. Oh, my friend, you got to come to Mexico. Oh, my God, they have me in my house. They want you so bad you need to leave right away. I go, well, slow down, slow down, you know. He tells me that whole story. I go fucking crazy.

My friend, I need help. I need some money. You have my, yeah, I got it. I'll drive it right down to you. I'm not tripping. packed it in my false wall and the suburban drove all his money down there

and that's the tape they had he was the idiot that was sitting on the pay phone the same two pay phones every single time he talked to me did that come into play later no because he's never been caught he's still there still on the run in Mexico man he's been gone for what 30 years

wow 30 years he's been amazing and he's found God he invested his money right and he's never coming back can I ask you about your operation Did you have your own customers, your own buyers on the East Coast? Okay, so it's not like you were just working for the cartel. No, no, no. I met my buyers and I had my connection.

I had the best connection and the best buyers. Who were your buyers? Americans, COD, that 12, 1,300 pounds of chronic 850 million four. Do the ledger in the truck in 30 minutes. It was cashed out. And my weed was so good. And they were telling me, you can't bring enough wheat for us. we'll cash it all out.

I'm like, let's try it. And it started getting good, man. What did you get up to? I had $3 million in cash. I had about six homes. I had investments in clubs. And I was good, man. How many pounds did you get up to with the buyers?

20,000, 20,000 pounds. Yeah, about, you know, 10 tons. Yeah. And you had more than that, 30,000 pounds. And you had drivers? Yeah, I had drivers, had 18-wheelerers, had professional walls built in. from like one of the guys used to work for NASA

on the space shuttles and he built me a wall that like was, you could not know there was weed in there. Unbelievable entry points. I still got the trucks I don't want to say. How so? Just how we got in it, you know, through the air conditioning units. They were on Teflon rollers. Just one roller was

500 bucks and we would inload from there and they would think you're going for the back and then I'd have them loaded with like boards of insulation, raw insulation that was so itchy like no one wanted to go in there. And it would always be underweight because you just open the back and they're like, you know, it's insulation. There's no weight to that. You get how many pounds on there? My stash compartment would hold 1,500 pounds. You build back the wall about this wide from the front

and all the way to the top. And so it's about 1,500. Yeah, and our shit was packaged, perfect. Exact same symmetrical bricks, same, because they did it like so professional. It looked like something you'd buy in Costco. It was like that good. And this is the Rafa Cantaro. Yeah, the organization, yeah. And that's coming from Sinaloa, the Golden Triangle. Coolia Khan, up to Nogales, across the border, and the most advanced tunnel ever made at that time. So this was the tunnel days.

Yeah, the tunnel we first got big. We had the most advanced one when they got it. So there was never a drought with your connect. I could get it whenever I wanted. Wow. And I could go across and look at it. It would be there the next day. I'm well, you guys got a good cross.

They never told me how they were doing it. I found this out later. from the court documents. You know, they were smart. They didn't talk about it. Yeah. And that was from... But their driver sent me up cold as fuck.

He's the one that put the nail in the coffin. Hang on. So, no galleys to across to Scottsdale. They'd be able to drive it up to me. Right. And then I would get a house and I would go in. That was in the days you could put 25% no qualified loans. So if the house is a million, you know, you put down quarter million.

They don't ask no questions, nothing. put any name on it. And then I'd run the houses in the lower client trusts. And then I had them on. And one load out of that house, I paid for the quarter million and had $150 grand. So now I'm just getting houses everywhere. Yeah. Own houses. Yeah. You got equity. 15-year notes. Like, man, all of them are, God. It makes me sick to think what would have happened. Man, like, I was retired. But when you see, I did retire. They came after I retired. They didn't get me smuggling. Right. Yeah. We've talked to several people now who quit, never got caught, got out.

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Is it Cash.com slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. Your drivers of these 18 wheelers, they must know how to get the weed out because it's complicated. Yeah, my driver was family. I mean, he was my father-in-law. I mean, I kept it in the family pretty much, not my brand inside of the family, but my wife's side. Were you married to a Mexican? No. Okay. No. So did he know, obviously, how the mechanics of actually how to get the wheel out of the stash? Oh, he's been in the heavy equipment, trucking business, this whole entire life. He's an old New Yorker. you know, cool as do, Jay. And I'll tell you later how I saved everybody.

But yeah, I took the time for everyone. Like you don't see that anymore. Right. Everybody rats. I mean, you know, unless it's a guy that has no one to tell on. I mean, there are certain cases, but I'll tell you, it's just unbelievable how many people take the snitch way out. I don't like to say I cost my son's life,

but I would have been free long before he was killed, you know. But there's no way we could have ever known that would happen. So at this time, you have a son in this era? That's what made me slow down. My son was born, you know, in 96. And, you know, he was born in Cabo. And, you know, I mean, he was just amazing. He was, I raised him.

I got him from his mother when he was just turning six. full custody. And she was a good mom when she was young, but she ended up getting into some addiction issues. And so I wanted him to have a better life and be with me all the time, and she had no problem. And she got paid well. I took care of her every month. Like I gave money like the courts would have never ordered. You know, I want her to be comfortable, you know, and stuff like that. So you moved your son in with you? And are you living in San Diego? I moved my son in right when I caught the case. I was out on bond for almost two years. right before I caught the case

I was like look I want to spend every day with him in case I go away you know but I was always with him I mean I was always taking him and visiting him so what year did you catch your case how long were you smuggling with

the Rafa Kintaro's organization like this it got I pulled into Scottsdale um you know I'd had so much heat in California and just moving out of the state is a big deal nobody knew me over there I didn't even know where I was going in Scottsdale I just knew it was not

nice, a lot of hot chicks. Yeah. And beautiful. I met my wife there. And so I went over there, I guess you could say it was about 96. And, you know, started moving again and hooking up with these dudes. And then all of a sudden, one of my old connects that used to give me the Coke came in and said, look, man, I got to, my guys want to introduce me to a certain family that we knew

that was working with Rafa. He goes there in Guadalajara and they want us to come down and they want to meet. They want to meet you. And I was like, okay, cool. And this guy was a guy that used to give me bricks. He used to live in Lake Tahoe. He used to give me bricks of Coke. And he, but he just knew I had the balls and the ability to just set up some big organization with trucks.

And like, I always had. I always was capable of doing that. And, but this time it got big. You know, now it's like I went down there and they're like, well, you know, these guys want to meet you up on the line you know so we went across you know and you know galas and went down there and met him and and they were showing us the weed they had branches right there and you could you could see these guys were serious and the weed was unreal it was like homegrown with seeds in it i was like what the fuck lightly seeded big tiger striped fat you know

like it was it was it was skunk weed you know and this is in guadalajara no you know you know this coming up from Kulia Khan being grown in the mountains in Kulia Khan. Met them in Gwad. Gwad's beautiful. It's like L.A. I love Gwalaura. And met them and all the weed was coming from Kulia Khan. And of course, it's protected all the way up.

Got it. And so now it's on the line. But guess what? They got the most sophisticated tunnel ever. I don't know this at the time. And they're just bringing that shit up and like tons and tons and tons. And so, yeah. So you were on.

That was really like. Then it's when I stepped up my game. I said, we need to get into the 18-wheelers. Screw the 24-foot box trucks. Now, I end up running into this guy whose uncle worked with NASA, and he actually helped build space shuttles and things like that. So he really knew how to build a hidden compartment. Like, that was like, you know, Legos to him.

So he made us an unbelievable false wall on a 44-foot box that's the length of the trailer that the tractors pull. and we fucking filled the thing up. It was a false wall about that far back, maybe three and a half feet, and then up to the top. And it was an entry from the front of it through the air conditioning unit that was so sophisticated, sealed. Like just the Teflon rollers, I remember, cost us like $500 a piece. And there was a bunch of them because that air conditioning unit's heavy. And that thing came out.

You just stop the truck at the ratchet, air ratchet. and there's like three and three big ass you know nuts on giant bolts and and this thing you could one hand pull it out like a 250 pound air conditioner 300 pound air conditioner and it was then we'd enter there behind the cab of the tractor the front of the box in between go right up in there and down now when the wall was built we filled the truck with like raw insulation the most itchyest nastiest shit that you don't want to be around and filled it all the way to the back. And that was my idea. I was kind of proud of that.

And the reason being is like, say that they do stop you at a checkpoint. They're not going to stop you because you're overweight, you know, the scales. That shit doesn't weigh anything. And when they open the truck up, like, yeah, who's trying? All these agents, they're probably like, who wants to touch all this shit, you know, because you're going to be scratching for days. And it worked. And those trucks made it.

And I ended up getting two of them. And now I've got, I'm going from that. houses to the houses. I'm walking in a house, putting a, you know, 25% no qualified loans and putting the houses in other people's names and putting them eventually in lawyer-client trust because my lawyer was crooked too. Now he's involved. I'm like, I got so much fucking money coming in. I need a network to launder this shit. And so, yeah, we got rolling. And then, of course, I had met, now I got the best connection ever. And then one of my old bros and he knows who he is.

They'll watch this. Love you. He introduced me to the best buyers on the East Coast, man. These guys could cash out 1,400 pounds in 30 minutes if the weed was high quality. And I'll be down with this stuff. Not only was the best Mexican wheat I've ever seen, it was packaged with big professional industrial vacuum sealers. It had like silver mylar bags and they were like bricks about that thick and about that wide.

Yeah. And guess what? they've stacked in that false wall so perfectly that i could squeeze like 1375 pounds in there and we started ripping man and rotha kintero was really known for kind of professionalizing he was the original yeah did you ever meet him personally oh shit famous house they have light glacial and coolie khan i've been there yeah it's just to get there you go through like seven checkpoints maybe eight But I've flown in the mountains.

I've gone to Kulia Khan. When I started moving a lot of weed for them, they had a party down there, like a lot of the Sinala cartel. And they wanted to meet me, you know, who's this wonder boy up here moving all this weed, never shorting us and always paying us on time. And I went down with my partner,

and it was just gnarly. Like, we went into Kulea Khan, and they're like, okay, they looked at me. They're like, Jesus, you know, because I'm kind of, at that time, I'm younger. I'm big, healthy, heavy set. I look different. know, you know, and I think I had a tie pot chain on, but I wasn't like flashy too much, but

they're like, go to the holiday and stay there, don't leave the hotel, don't walk around town, don't do nothing. And so we had this thing where we posed as miners, Mineros de plata, you know, silver miners. And so we had all the, the, the, the, the Geiger counter type shit, the shit that, what do you call it, the detectors and the for hunting, God, I can't think of that. Anyway, in the hats and the hard hats. in the briefcases. And so anyway, we, they get us in the hotel one day and they rip us into this little airport. Now we're stuffed in an old Cessna 210.

And, you know, it's a little, you know, a little six place plane. And we're fucking flying into the hills, dude. And we're flying through it. It's like, you know, like Del Monte of Mexico is in Kulia Khan. Like that's some of the greenest, richest, most beautiful land. And we're flying through there. who look at everything. And then finally, we get to the mountain where we're going.

It's a big mountain that's been flattened off of the runway strip, and it's just solid weed growing everywhere. And so when we're pulling up, and I see the pilot locating the mountain, there's like three or four planes that didn't make it that are just crushed into the mountain. Like, you know, everybody died. You know, it's so gnarly.

And I said, we're landing right there. Ah, yes, yeah. Don't you preoccupies. It's very facile. Tell me, I don't worry, it's easy, you know. So we come in and I'm just like white knuckling it. I'm like, fuck. And we land on that damn top of that mountain.

It goes, as soon as you land, it's full back thrust. You see the tail going up? We're like, in the hillside that is cut out on, there's like a wall right there. And we're fucking, like, we're coming at that thing quick. And he stops like maybe 20, 30 yards. from it, you know? And I'm like, man, I was like, God, I'm glad I'm out of here. But once we got out to play and I had bags of stuff, like really cool Nintendo games or whatever was popular then.

And, you know, cool stuff for the girls and the families that live up there and grow the weed. Some of the real Mexican people, like, they're such real cool people, you know. Totally. The indigenous ones are cool. Anyway, so we're up there, man, and we're walking around. We check all the weed out and everybody's stoked. And I'm like, you know, Santa Claus giving them all their stuff. Looking at the weed and the operation, very impressive. So afterwards, we left and we flew off the mountain.

Now we go and we land more deeper into Kulia Khan, but still in the middle of kind of nowhere. And we landed in. And we land in this field. And I'm like, and their main dude is up there in the front seat. I'm in the back with my partner. And we land. And I'm like, holy fucking all of a sudden, Suburbanes and military pull out. I go, fuck, we're getting busted.

No, no, it's our guys. No, don't worry about it. I'm like, holy fuck, you know, it was a stressful trip. And, you know, I mean, we get in the Humvees and the Suburans. We get in the Suburans, Humvees are all around, so they drove us to the house. And it was a badass party. I'm sniffing Coke on tortilla chips. And they're serving us food like, I mean,

all hoste Cheevo tacos, like goats, eyes, tacos, like eyeballs. Yeah. Just really authentic food. And in a cartel party. Caltechs ain't got shit on that. And so anyway. Yeah, and goats balls, you know, like, it's just gnarly. And it was cool, man, and it was like, you know, I've been in the trenches.

Was that the first time you met Rafa? Yeah. Was he a Cokehead? Yeah. He was known to be a big sniffer. That's how they portrayed it. He was known to Coke down there with a bunch of them dudes. Yeah, like I was, look, I like to party too, but I was like always in a fitness.

But when I went, I went hard, you know, top of the Bellagio. Like, I like the, like right under the owner's suite. I got a 20-7-hars square foot room. We're partying with. you know, tons of, like, prostitutes and friends and having a ball, you know, like, I was pretty, I was, I was kind of a version of him. Like, when I watched Narcos Mexico, I was like, man, he was just a fucking nut, you know. And so was I.

I mean, anybody that knows me that's, that's been around me in that era knew that I was, I was pretty wild, you know. So, but he was a really good dude and he was one of the only ones that really wasn't snitching. And, you know, and he's just cool, man. Right. So this was, what year? Yeah, 97. So I thought he was in prison.

They take him out, you know. No, he could get those guys. So this was after he was already incarcerated for killing. Either he was incarcerated for some other shit. I don't believe it was, I don't believe he had been caught yet for that. I think it was right in that area right before that shit happened, you know. But, you know, he's, you know, he'd get locked up for Simon let right back out. but I don't believe it was for the hit at that time.

Camarena got killed, Kiki Camerana got killed in 1985, 86. No, no, maybe it was 89. No, no, it was 85. Way later, yeah. No, way later, yeah. And so, I mean, they had the pull to come out. I mean, they had to pull, you know, those. It must have been.

No, those guys, I mean, there was dudes that everybody was there. I mean, everybody. But I wasn't there asking what their names were. I mean, but I mean, it was like, yeah, everybody's running around with gold-plated quernos, you know. and gold-plated pistols and, you know, and, you know, and they're really a machismo culture. You know what I mean? So, you know, some of them were like, who's this fucking? It's hot as fuck.

Like, I'm in the back under the trees at the picnic table. My shirt off, you know, and the chicks are like, oh, I mean, I was a fit model for most of my life. And, you know, for international mail and other magazines, you know, I used to be, like, in that game. And it was just, you know, there are some haters. But most of them, like, they were so cool, you know. and, you know, a couple of the families, yeah, I know who they are and who they were. Goldbon knows that when your skin feels good, you feel good. So look after it day and night and make Gold Bond Healing Lotion your go-to.

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like i wasn't even privy to whose house that was till after i left and what the magnitude was of everybody that was there. Yeah. You don't ask questions like that. It's not... No, you're not there going, who are you? Right.

No, you're just, whoa. Like, this is heavy. Like, there's a... And the military's there and everybody's there outside. Right. It's, yeah, it was a heavy scene to watch and see it go down.

So how long were you running like this? Just fully, everything, fully working in motion. I went hard from when I got out of prison in 86, within two months, all the way until 90. 99. I retired in 2000. I'm indicted.

Okay. And the thing is, is I had made so much bread. I was in Scottsdale at the time, and I was still running. Now at that time, you know, Raffa's sealed up. And I'm running loads for the guys that under him, you know, and the new generation of guys coming out. And they've got the best fucking tunnel ever.

I mean, it was the most sophisticated tunnel of its time. you know them german engineers are coming over and building them and and they were you know i was just crushing it and in 99 i found out that their driver this rana alveris guy he's probably watches these a piece of shit he had been pulled over because i was running my crews intermittently i would be like where's what's everyone been doing run him see if he's been stopped see if they've and i found out he had been stopped at the border crossing with over the limit he had $27,000 on him and over 10 grand that's a violation and they subsequently searched his truck he's driving this big flashy truck and found drug ledgers in there and he never told us then he had another

right after that he had been stopped with a hundred pounded out never told us he's so greedy and he's got these strippers that he's dating behind his wife's back so he's got to keep paying and they have to hang out with him because he's a fucking lame. And so I found out that he had trouble. And, you know, this was even after I had already said, I'm retired. But like six months later, I'm thinking, nah, maybe I should do another one. And I ran everybody.

And he didn't come out too good. And granted, he was doing, he had been stopped when he was working with me still. So I'm lucky I didn't get pinched. So we found out and, you know, I told this story on another podcast. And I always knew he was the one guy that I didn't trust would keep his mouth shut. The one guy that knew everything about me, he literally drove every load from, you know, Son 8 or, I mean, excuse me, Nogales, you know, Sierra Vista was where he was from. And he drove every load to me that the cartel sent everyone. And he knew where my stash houses were.

He knew a lot about me. So when I retired and I found this out, when I started running my check, you know, because I was going to get back in just to do a couple more. It was so easy. I said, fuck, not only am I retired. I got to get rid of this guy. Like, get rid of him. And so at that time, I was building this spectacular estate

of 124th in Shea on the way out of Scottsdale, on the inland, you know, going out towards the Animal Park. And I said, I'm just going to, I had a brand new pool that was so big. It was like as big as a skate park. Like, it was enormous. I was building it. And it was all finished. except for some of the coping,

but the pool was completely layered with plastic. Perfect spot to hit someone. So I told the story already, and I invited him over. Hey, check out the new house, man. Come on over, and I have one of my associates in the house, and I'm going to kill him, you know, because he is the only one that can tell on me. And he also didn't tell any of us that he'd been stopped.

And he'd get, you know, he's a problem. And so anyway, he pulls up into my gates, say, hey, come on in. Electric gates, I open him. Wow, this place is crazy. Well, he pulls in his trucks tinted out. It's a giant 350 GMC or whatever he had. It was a got, it was a $70,000 truck.

And back then, that's a lot. It was all tricked out, TVs, everything. And he pulls in, it's all tinted out, and he just jumps out. I don't see anyone in there with him. There's no one in the truck, but it gets out and leaves it running. I'm going to leave the air on. He doesn't say his kids are in there. I don't know this either.

So he comes in the house, hey, what's up? buddy hey I have a beer I got it all planned out introduce it to my friend first name fake names guys down to do this with me you know and I'm like yeah man hey come on back to the pool is that did excuse me do you got like a Mexican hitter with you no no I got my guy I got my guys okay so could you ever call up your boys south of the line if you needed some wet work and just like hey send up a hand we would trade things off I'm not saying I was having people killed I'm not going to say that um but I'm I mean, there were some things we had to trade off, you know, collections they couldn't do up here because they didn't know where to, you know, on that and this side, I would do for them. You would help them collect if need be? If some white guy fucked him for the money, it was easier for me to kind of track him down and, you know, use my context. I had up here to find people in. And I'm at, you know, ground zero. I'm right here where they are.

And then if I had a problem in Mexico, they'd immediately help me for sure. Okay. So anyway, I invite the guy in the backyard. I had him a cold beer. walk down the bottom of the pool. Yeah, check this out. We're going to do this. And I'm just...

And you know, you always get a little like... You're like, fuck, I'm about to kill this dude. But I know my pistol's silenced. And we're deep down in the pool. I mean, in the ground. There's no water in it. You know, it's being built. It's a perfect place to hit someone.

It's our layer with plastic. And I'm just about to pull my gun out. And the guy in the house goes, hey, Mark, hey, let me talk to Mark. And it's a huge house. And the pool is like probably... 40 yards behind the main house. It's big, you know.

And I'm, oh, yeah, okay, I'll be big. Come on. You talk to you, man. So, hey, Renee, wait right here, and I roll up into the house. And he goes, dude, I walked outside. There's a kid or two in the truck. I think both kids are on the truck. I go, what do you mean?

He goes, I look through the front windshield. There's a TV down, flip-downs. You know, he had one of them new Kenwoods or whatever they had, or Zinas. And the kids are on the truck, and they confuse things. and I liked his kids, you know. And so this is the mistake I made. I went in the house.

I said, fuck, man. He goes, what are you going to do? I go, for sure as fuck, can't do this. I can't. What am I doing with the kids, man? I'm not going to kill him, you know. And so I rolled in the pool, roll in the backyard. And I walk in and I'm just edged out.

And rather than me saying, hey, let's get together tomorrow. Something's come up and hope that he comes without his kids. I just immediately draw on him, put the gun to his head, get the fuck on the ground, motherfucker. And, you know, you ever talk about me, you're dead, your family's dead. I said, your children are in the fucking truck. Luckily, my guy saw him. You were going to die today because of X, Y, Z. And I told him about everything I knew.

He'd been stopped and all that. And I should have just told him to come back another day. And I let him live, but I scared the fuck out of him. I had him on the ground. And I said, I should shoot you anyway on your kids. I said, but I'm not cut like that. I said, motherfucker know this. You will die if you talk about me and everybody you love will die.

You know, big words are one thing. He knows I'll do it. But I should have killed him for real. I mean, come on. That guy ended up testifying against me. He was the linchpin in my case. He talked all about me. And he's the one.

Even before he retired. I knew he was going to be the one about a year later when my case. it. It was him that got me indicted. It was him that talked about me. Okay. Explain how they put the case together even after you had stepped back and how it ended up

in your arrest and indictment. I had sold him. This guy wanted to get one of my stash houses. When I was, when I had retired that first time, when I said, I'm retired before I knew the shit about him, he

fucked up again. He He said, I want to buy the house on Appalusia Trail. The house was titled through my attorney and a lawyer-client trust. I called by it because he knew I built a safe room. It was the stash house where he used to bring all the weeds to. It was really professionally built by my NASA guy. And I want the house.

I want the house. I go, man, it's the link to me. Fuck, no, I'm not selling it to you. I said, man, just go find another house and do what I did because he'd seen the rooms. We'd loaded him up. So anyway, he lets it go. And then the next day he goes, my sister's a nurse. She's been married.

She has a different last name. Please sell me the house. So I call my lawyer and I go, hey, Sheldon, this dude wants to buy the house. He's the guy that the cartel sent my, because my lawyer was in on all this shit, you know, launder my money. And he goes, man, he goes, he can't be in his name. I go, I just told you his sister. It's not.

It's his sister's name. It's, she's remarried, different name and et cetera. And he goes, I don't care. I go, but he wants to move in. Well, you better tell him. he better have it switched them within a month and better not run a load through there. Sheldon Shoyman, this fucking piece of shit rat. And he goes in the house, disobeys the order.

Runs a load through it. It runs a load through it. And they go in, but they don't catch them with nothing. They kick the fucking doors off the hinges. But in the fireplace, they find burned up ledgers. They find some. wrappers of weed. And I don't know if he ran a load through there because they didn't catch him with one.

I'd given him 30 days to put that in his sister's name. I said, after that, I don't care what you do. But he violated there too. I mean, so it was a multitude of things. And they kicked the doors and shot concussion grenades through the windows, caught the carpet. I remodeled that house. Like one of my projects, pay a quarter million for the house, put $100,000, $150,000 in cash in it,

just make it super nice, you know. And then flip it and look like a real estate genius. Yeah, I just compare it. real estate, you know, but little of they know, I'm enhancing the house intensely, you know, to make it worth more. But, you know, it was just, that guy was the, he was the black sheep of the crew, you know, none of us would have been caught. So, but how did that lead to the indictment? Well, the DEA now calls my lawyer. Hey, Sheldon, we noticed this house is in your name. You have a tenant, Rene Alvarez. What do you know about him? He goes, I don't know. He just,

I had a friend of mine put a index card at a store, rented house for rent. And the guy came in and asked, you know, filled out the paperwork, rented the house. I don't know him. He's playing dumb. Okay. Now, you know, flash down the road. This guy's getting caught with samples. Right.

He's the one that got caught with the samples. Right. What do you say sample? What do you mean? 100 pounds of weeks. got stopped at the border, you know, with, because they didn't, they couldn't hold them. They couldn't hold them on that. They didn't have anything on him.

100 pounds? No, he bonded out on that. I mean, 100 pounds is nothing. He made bond on that, and they couldn't hold him for nothing on the house. Because the house, that's what got him on to him was when they found the ledgers. Apparently, they had watched somebody he'd been talking to and missed him at the house, got him later, started surveillance on him. you know and you know and he and he was just the weak link and you know but that but that sample he had been caught with before he rented the house and never told me okay you got to understand

that the correlates the timeline is that you know remember like because i'm retiring i'm done i don't know he's been caught with this sample he wants the house and so i'm like go ahead and i find out about the sample and the money later right and you know this is four months after the house has been kicked down and burned up. And I'm like, dude, I don't really want to work with you. And you got heat. Oh, nothing happened behind that. That's what made me run him. So you ran him again. There you go.

And then I said, I'm going to run everything on this guy. And it wasn't just that. It was a lot of other shit. And so, you know, the sample, the crossing the border with over $10,000. And, you know, with every crew, like it was funny, like one of my friends, one of the big tie smugglers was asked by his probation officer when they did a pre-sense investigation. And they said, you know, I think it was my friend Blackie. They go, would you ever run drugs again? Would you ever get in the business again?

And he goes, no. And if I did, I would get a crew of people, run the loads and then kill them because I know one of them's going to tell on me. And it was just funny the way he said it. It was like it's just the way it's not funny. It's sick. You know, like people just don't keep their mouth shut anymore. No, you ran a load after he had been pinched, bonded out. Oh no, I never worked with him after that.

I'm trying to figure out how they got all this evidence to arrest him and then he flipped on you. He gets caught. The house thing happens. He's brought heat. He gets pinched with that sample, the 100 pounds. He gets stopped at the border over the limit, 10,000 bonds out. Then guess what? He gets caught with one ton of,

cocaine, 1,000 pounds in the truck, 1,000 pounds at the stash house. He drives the agents. He gets stopped on ITAM with a thousand pounds in the back of a pickup truck. Because he's an idiot. He's being watched. And then he leads him right back to the stash house,

you know, tells him I'll cooperate, bust him, starts talking about me, you know. He's just giving out every name and yours comes up. Yeah. So when you got arrested, Did they have a bigger indictment on you that went back all those years? Oh, my God, it went all the way back to, yeah, it went back.

Look, the feds didn't have anything on me. I know for a fact that federal, the federal courts, whatever, the DEA office in Scottsdale and San Diego said they don't have nothing on me. They didn't even know where I lived. You know, they never even knew where I lived. I mean, if you don't even know where I live, you probably don't have that good a case on me. And they passed on the indictment. So this charging hard Bulldike, Billy Rosen, Arizona state prosecutor is the one that came at me. And finally, that article I showed you, the $1.7 million man, she comes at me with the state prosecutor.

The Fed's passed. Oh, don't worry, it'll turn federal real quick here in a minute. So she puts a $1.7,7,7,7,7,000 bond. Hold on. You got arrested? Yeah. No, she arrested me in San Diego. Okay.

At a post office, because I have a legal business called KitiVac. I invented a lit, when my ex-wife's boyfriend invented a hooded litter box that you can't smell. It's one of the best pet inventions ever. I picked it up, gave them a percentage, brought it to market. It was the number one touted pet product in the whole consumer electronics convention. In 2002, like I said, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm going to retire on this cat box.

I send 5,000 units to the home shopping network, Roy Spear. The owner's like you're going to be a fucking gazillionaire. These things unbelievable. Just the replacement parts alone, the filters, the scent bars, the glavers make. Long story short, I had a legal business going. And when I went to the post office, they called me and acted like, you know, hey, you know, you know, like they worked there. And they said, you have a package. Because I was getting packages from Costco.

I was setting this up with every big vendor, PetSmart. We literally had just sent 5,000 units. were going to sell them in a week. And that's when they grabbed me. They'd just reached Florida, Kiss of me, Florida. They arrest me. They called me down to the post office. It was they. The DEA, the Sentef, DEA. They called me down the post office in San Diego and Encinitas, where I'm from. Hey, you got a package down here. I'm like, oh, I'm on the freeway. I'm like, yeah, I'll come out tomorrow. And it wasn't art, the guy that normally worked there, but I didn't really pay attention. The next day I go there with my best friend, Trevor Chris,

another great pro surfer, pull up in my suburban. They've been posted up all night, all day, waiting for me to show up. A warrant? A state warrant from Arizona? From Arizona to extradite me. Oh. I go to county jail in San Diego. And this is a warrant for drug trafficking? All marijuana smuggling, money laundering charges.

That's right. And there's like 30 cows. All based off of the word of this guy, Renee. And, you know, others that they've grabbed. New York guys that I had worked with that worked with my connection after I retired. Guys that were running

my stash houses, my drivers, because this guy's met him all. He's come to my house to my stash houses. My drivers have been there, you know, and he doesn't really know

the real names of anyone, but now they found out. They basically used this guy to follow him and to bust all these people. Yes. And they all flipped on you? No.

Okay. So now I'm arrested. I go to San Diego County Jail. And I'm thinking, fuck, man, I'm going to county. Like, my cases are always federal. Why is it state? And I go in there and I'm in my cell and I'm waiting. I go, I want to bond out.

I'm waiting for my, it's green and white. It's a bond out card. It's your bail, your charges, charging document. And so they give it to me. I see 1-7-6-0. And I'm all, oh, it must be like 170,000, 17,000. Like, they're zeros. They must have just left their finger on the button.

Fuck, I'll be damn. $1,770,000 bond on a dry marijuana case with no evidence, none. Didn't catch me the seed, no money, no guns, nothing. This chick went to a grand jury and just said whatever she felt she needed to to get this bond, said I had ties to Mexico. And, you know, the grand jury is a kangaroo court. I mean, they go there. You don't have any defense team there to argue what they're saying.

They say whatever they want to this special jury. I'm saying which they can indict. Boom. Yeah. Like I said, a hot dog in Circle K. If it's too hot, they'll indict it. And so now I'm in my cell and I don't know it's that big. And I call the bailiff and I said, hey, man, I mean the guard and the jail.

And I said, this is Brandon. You know, I got my green card here. I said, you know, my bond appears to be $177,000. because it was 1,770,000. I go, it looks like I have a $177,000 bond, correct? I want to tell my people so I can get this paid quick and get out. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think that's it.

It couldn't be all that other shit that's behind it. The guy in the bubble's telling me. I'm like, yeah, yeah. So let me, Lexer Zeros. So he goes, so let me find out. He comes back and he goes, wow, I've never seen this. He goes, you got a $1,770,000 bond. I go, what?

And I'm like, fuck. So now I got to go to a bond hearing and an extradition hearing because I'm in California and I can wave extradition and get this over faster. I can go argue bond. So I go to bond hearing with my lawyer, Sheldon Sherman. And Sheldon Sherman has been representing me and my friends for years, doing all kinds of crooked shit, laundry money, finding out when people are rolling on us, finding out all kinds of sensitive information that could have got them disbarred.

but now it's the holy grail it's my case so he goes into court and he begins arguing my bond your honor this is excessive this is you know almost two million dollars this is a dry marijuana case and and the prosecutor's like yeah you know he has extensive ties to mexico and my lawyer's like hey well yeah but come on everybody what he travels to cabo san lucas i mean everybody does it's a fishing you know hub for everybody you know sports fishing and he and he starts arguing and they go Um, the judge looks at him, he goes, uh, bailiff, Mr. Sherman, can you step to the side? Bayliff, unseal indictment, CR, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Mr. Sherman, you're under indictment for laundering the money for the Brandon organization.

Arrest him. This is a baddest movie book you've ever seen. They arrest my lawyer. Now he's my fucking co-defendant. Yeah, I don't have a lawyer now. All right, everyone. Welcome to Arco Rewards Orientation. I'm Hannah.

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Yeah, so I wave extradition, take me back to Eric. Arizona and he and I are in contact now because he goes in and OR's out and he gets contact to my family and says tell him to hire Larry Devis. Larry Devis is like did the Miranda case. You had the right of Wayne Sally. He's a famous Scottsdale attorney. He goes, go get Larry Devis or Tom Tennis. They're the two biggest lawyers in Scottsdale. And so I get his advice.

I imagine he's going to hold his mouth shut. And I still have a lot of money at his house, by the way. And so now I get extradited to Arizona. the first judge that hears the case, he's like, 800. I mean, he goes, $1,800. And Larry Debe is not got the best lawyers arguing for him. Your Honor, this is crazy. You know, they're not going to wheel in here.

I assume he looks at the prosecution with like, you know, flat pallets full of weed for evidence. There is no evidence. This man was caught with nothing. It's an alleged marijuana case. This isn't speed. This isn't heroin. This is an alleged marijuana case.

And the judge immediately finds it ridiculous and cuts it down like 800 grand. And I bond out. You just put up 10%. Yeah. And I get an, you know, but more games from the state prosecutor, the most filthy prosecution ever put on anybody. And that's what all them articles talk about, you know. And they put it on.

I ended up about to bond out. No, no, no. The government requested a nebia hearing. A nebia hearing is when you got to show exactly where the money's coming. from you got to show who's and what it is i got two or three friends of mine putting their homes up and the equity in the home equally hundred grand and then i pay the bondsman his 80 grand and i get out so they dragged me another month and this is when it started you know they're like you know they want me to flip that's all they want and so now i bond out and the judge says yeah under

steve sheldon was the judge because i grant him permission to go to California where he's from Arizona for his hearings and Nevada where his family lives his parents my parents have moved theirs after they retired and so now I can go to all three states I'm out I whip right back to California rent a badass house La Costa and let's fight the case and I don't just hire Larry Debus after about two or three months of you know drag and nothing happens for like a year and then we're doing depositions and things like that so what I hire Larry Debus, he goes, yeah, well, I have the best private eye in the business. And he's another 50 grand. And he's a fixer. His name's Robert Owens. He's a fixer. He's not a fixer. He's a

dual agent for the feds. He's a dual agent working for the prosecution forces. He's been doing it forever. This is where it gets insane. So I meet this guy. He seems slick, good talker, slick talker. All right. So he's going to run depositions. My lawyers tell him, man, all the people that are going to testify against you. He's real good. He does his thing. So Robert Owens actually has an office with the other biggest attorney named Tom Tennis. And he convinces me to hire Tom as well.

It tells me Tom's better than Larry. So I give him $100 grand. Now I got a quarter million dollar dream team. And they are the best lawyers over there. But that PI, unbeknownst to me, is an ex-felon who was arrested 10 years prior on charges he was a paramedic working in the back stealing rings and jewelry off the dying elderly anyone that was back there like literally probably

taking the gold out of their teeth like it's a piece of shit and he has a prior case for that where he got a what was that a 15 year sentence for stealing from those people it was such a fucking shitty thing to do the judge maxed him out well he goes into the state system and after like three or four years, he's gathered enough information on the inmates in there to set up a zillion guy, a plethora of guys on their cases. He's got guys like doing drug deals on the street with cops, getting him busted. So he does so good in there doing that, they let him out. And a judge expunges

his record. And then now he reinvents himself as a player in the justice system. He becomes a private investigator, gets a license, has no record, and he's setting up his own clients. Look, There's a five-part series in that envelope. That should be illegal. Legal. It's the biggest breach of the fifth, sixth, and fourth-sixth amendment you could ever find. That's lawyer-client trust. He's under the trust.

So anyway, I have a five-part series in New Times where he does this. Newtimes.com. Paul Rubin did it. He's just set up all of his clients. He's setting them all up. He's setting everyone up and stealing their money, telling them, oh, give us some cash. We'll do this.

Pocketing money. He's just like, you've never seen. So you got to understand. I don't know any of this about his history, but these lawyers know. They know everything about them. Yeah,

Larry Debus and Tom Tennis. So I eventually filed a $5 million lawsuit against them, the cops, everybody, but that's down the line. So I'm going to court, going to court, and the prosecution's not giving me any play. It's you're going to snitch or you're going to do life. I go, what I mean life is marijuana charges?

My lawyer's like, fuck you. We're in the hallway. I'm like, fuck you. You know, I'm not snitching. No way. And this is never going to happen. And the evidence they had against you at this point was the testimony of Renee, the word of Renee, the main driver, the conduit between you and the cartel and your buyers.

And anybody else? Collaboration that they've found of just me having so much money. They've indicted my lawyer. They see the trail of money. They see the homes. They see people whose names the homes are in. They've indicted them now. that, you know, and there was enough smoke there

to where they see money grab. We're going to get all this shit he has. And I had, you know, a lot of properties and they were under lawyer-client trust or other people's names. And now they've put the dots together. They've got the money trail. But they don't have any cash.

They don't have any drugs. They don't have any guns. They don't have any recordings of me. They have nothing. But they're pushing hard. Snitcher, you're going to do life. Snitcher you're going to do life. I'm like, I'll never tell anyone.

Fuck you. Let's go to trial. So while I'm out, now a year's gone by maybe 14, 15 months. Now they're like, hey, pre-trial motions, let's go. We're going to set a date for trial. And my attorneys are telling me, and Sheldon Sherman, my ex-lawyer, got Bob Hirsch.

She's like a really big lawyer down in Tucson. He's another one of the big ones. And he's my co-defendant. And I've been pressing on him. And we're not supposed to be seeing each other. And I've been pressing on them, meet me at the golf course. And I'm sending notes on cocktail Rin' Appkins across the country club. Where's the money? I need that money.

I need 500 grand of that 800. You can keep the rest. I need some cash right now. Give me my fucking money. Wait, wait, wait. You know, it's absolutely hot right now. I got to put away. And I'm like, I got tired of hearing that. And my lawyers are telling me he's going to flip. I go, man, that dude ain't got the balls to flip.

You know, I got a history. He knows how I am. And, you know, he's got me out of an attempted murder case where I fucking damn near killed a bouncer and Club Diego's. And, you know, I have violence in my head. history so it's getting close to trial they keep telling me he's going to flip and the and the prosecutor's pushing and it's getting ugly now they've she's put my bond back in the computer got me rearrested oops sorry she's in the beginning stages of my case they rated a storage garage when they got me at the post

office on the initial arrest i had a receipt of paperwork on a storage garage where i had an amg 500 bans in there brand new. I had some bulletproof vests. I had all my paperwork and in the paperwork, nothing illegal. The vest is illegal if you're a felon, but they weren't tripping. But they found a file cabinet and my son was born in Mexico and all of his paperwork's in there. And I just put him in first grade and he was really shy. And they immediately said, oh, that'll push his buttons. We can get him to snitch. So they kept all the paperwork. I called the DEA, Agent's Drewble. I call there, nobody does this. I call, hey, let me talk to Agent's Drewball. Who is it? It's Mark, he'll know.

And he gets on the phone. Yeah, yeah, who's this? Mark Bennett. Whoa, whoa, I can't really talk to you. I go, look, dude, give me two minutes. You went in the storage garage, and you found the band's big deal. You got the paperwork. I had to pull my son out.

He's born in Mexico. I have no paperwork saying who he is. And I need it back. And it was like, oh, yeah, if it's there, we'll give it to you. Never. And now you're taking shots at my child. You know, they've thought. threatened my mother and father and made my mom faint, said they're going to come tear their house up.

Like my parents had anything to do with my business. Like that's like amateur hour. And they put my bond back in the computer, got me re-arrested, driving down the freeway. Oh, oops. They clear it up after a couple days. Sorry. You know, it was just. And a fart on for you. Yeah. And they just couldn't. Playing dirty. Yeah. And so now it's like two months before trial, my lawyers are like, hey, it's like 70, 30. We're going to win this, man. This is still the state of Arizona. Still the state of Arizona. It's almost at a year or a half now when this is happening.

I've been out on bond. Right. And that current prosecutor puts an additional charge on me. Serious drug offender carries a maximum, excuse me, a mandatory life sentence in Arizona.

Serious drug offender is a charge reserved for people making fentanyl, methamphetamines, heroin, like drugs that just absolutely kill people. And she puts it on me. And my lawyer tells me, he goes, wow, that's a heavy charge. And he goes, I'm still worried about your attorney.

The next week, I get the phone call. Now, remember, he's out on O.R. bond, a living in Rancho Pentechitos. I'm a living in Rancho Santa Fe on my $800,000 bond that I've now gotten down to $400,000 because I've been showing up to all my court dates. That's how little they think of their evidence. And my lawyer calls me, Larry Davis, he says, your chances of winning went 70, 30 your way to 70, 30 their way. Sheldon has announced he is going to flip. He is going to work for the government and testify against you.

I said, how the fuck can he do that? He represented me in the first stages of this case. He was my lawyer. He goes, they're going to use the crime fraud exception. It's a very rarely used statute that allows him to testify against you. and he can plea out to a probationary charge and get out and not do any time, but admit guilt in certain areas of the case. They have laws that can break their own laws.

100%. They're rules that can break their own rules. So why the fuck even have the rules, the attorney-client privilege? God, I hate this fucking system. It's unreal. So now the shit gets heavy. Like, I'm so fucking mad. and I put the prosecutor under surveillance.

This is the lesbian. Yeah. Tell us her name again? Billy Rosen. They call her Billy the Bulldog Rosen. I retired her. So anyway, I know where she lives now. My PI's been helpful.

He's told me where she lives. Like, that's how crooked he is. He's working for them, working for us, in the middle, getting money from everybody, and setting everybody up. He's like a better call Saul episode. Dude, yeah, like this is, I got all the paperwork. Like, you just never see anything like this. The book's amazing I'm writing.

It's just, it makes me sick in some parts. But anyway, so she's under surveillance now. I'm following her. How do you like that? And we've found her house and got her daily routine down pretty good. And I'm like calling my lawyers, not to interrupt you. And I'm saying, dude, get her off my fucking case. This is ridiculous.

Get her off. We can't. We can't. We can't. She said there's one deal for you. Wear a wire, set up the cartels, start ordering drugs. I said, never, never. And then I'm going to be a little more vague about this, but, I mean, the hit goes down.

She used to work at this office, and it's on the side of her house. It's a pretty big property, maybe three quarters of an acre. And she used to train drug dogs in the backyard. This woman spent every minute of every day. She had the gnarliest history of giving people 15 years sense. asking for the max on sentences. It should be three years. I mean, she's just unbelievable hater of human beings.

She's the devil. She's the devil. She's now put the serious drug offender on me. She's threatened my parents, done the thing with my son, all this. Now she's under surveillance. And, you know. How would she be able to put a serious drug offender charge on you? She just goes and adds the charge.

She probably went to the grand jury and just, I mean, it's a kangaroo court. This is illegal. Like, this is outrageous. I mean, she's going to say what? I sold so much weed that someone suffocated from smoking it. No one's ever died of smoking weed. So one night, the trial's coming up, a couple months off. This is before I know that Sheldon Sherman's flipped.

Before I know my lawyer's flipped. And we, allegedly they said, you know, we got under surveillance. She's under surveillance. one night, two guys show up. They see the window where she always sits. It's like a big bay window. You can see it from the street, run right up to it. And she's got like a shade pulled down to here,

big old computer screen up to here. And you only see like from her top lip to her head. And she has short hair. She's a very butch woman. And there's a van with Minnesota plates. And they're like, so they check in. And they're like, what do we do? And I'm like, fuck, you know.

I mean, I don't know. I mean, it could be some undercover cop she works with. Who knows? And the word was, go get her. Fuck it. You know, unbeknownst to us. That's her brother, Richard Rosen, who hasn't even spoken to her in five years. Even he hates her.

Like, she's vicious. And he's come all the way out from, I believe, Minnesota to visit makeup. And he's in the room when she's on the computer. During the exchange of what's the van, should we go, there's some waiting, some driving. The word says go up to the window. They run up and air that fucking thing out right through the computer with silencers. They're shooting at the head in the chest area.

And so she doesn't even know that it's bullets because there's silencers on the weapons. And so they're homemade silencers, but they're working. And so they unload on him thinking it's her and leave. And they've hit him one inch from his heart, and I believe somewhere in his neck, and he's down, and he's bleeding bad. And she thinks the computer's blown up. And then 911 calls her in the articles over there.

You know, oh, my God, I think the computer blew up 911. Oh, he's bleeding. He's bleeding. Oh, my God, I think he's been shot. She finally realizes it's a hole. There's a bullets. And so, they come over,

life-saving measures, end up cutting his spleen out in the hospital. He almost dies. You know, it's a lot of surgeries. And so the next day, I'm driving up the freeway from San Diego, you know. And I just had a meeting with a couple of guys. I'm hearing she's done.

It's done, right? Yeah. I leave the meeting, make sure everybody's happy. And I'm in my truck and the phone rings. Mark's Larry Davis. What's up, Larry? Oh my God, you won't believe it happened last night. I'm like, yeah, try me.

Like, I know what it is. And he goes, fuck, someone tried to kill Billy Rosen last night. And they almost killed her brother. I go, tried? What? And I'm like, what the fuck happened? And he goes, man, he switched seats, got on the computer, and some shooters came up and fucking lit him up.

And I said, holy shit. He goes, man, there's press conferences. This is heavy, man. It's heavy, heavy shit. You got to watch it. And he's not thinking I had anything to do with it. And so I go, All right, cool.

So I go down the freeway, fuck, you know. I'm like, bummed, you know? I'm like, damn. Those shooters, were they from south of the line? No, they're from up here. Okay. And so one of them testified against me an open court, but anyway, got me convicted of the charge. And so now we know.

But she's done. She's not prosecuting anymore. She's being hidden. She's under major, major security. I mean, this is a major hit. She's the top AG over there. Yeah. And so anyway,

Deputy Attorney General or whatever. So anyway, now it's like, fuck, I still got court dates to go to. And the next day, I zip over to Arizona. So I come, that day, I zip over. I'm waiting. I want to catch the 11 o'clock news in Arizona. It was kind of before the internet was real good

where you could just look at it. So I whizz over there and watch the news, but I'll be damned with there. surrounding her at a podium, N-T-F, A-T-F, D-E-A, FBI, Homicide State. There's like 12 people around her, and they're taking turns, saying how they're going to get whoever did this.

And she said, no, I vowed of, you know, blah, blah, whatever. Janet Palatano, I think, was there too. She was the one that originally indicted me, and then she became governor. She was the one that gave the case to her, another piece of shit, you know. So anyway, I said, damn, that's heavy, you know? And I got to go, I got a court date in like three weeks. I never forget.

I went into court. Everything's cool. I'm cool. My guys are cool. The charges have been dropped, though. No, no, no. But now they've got to change counsel. This buys me more time and now I can get a good prosecutor or it better, it couldn't be a worse one.

And so I go to court and I walk in and I was like sketched, man. I'm like with my lawyers. Yeah, yeah, all president and the judge says something akin to. Well, I'm sure everybody's heard what happened at the prosecutor. home and, you know, we're going to have to postpone the case. And I'm, yeah, we know. And I'm looking and I'm looking at the bailiffs. I'm kind of side eye and saying if the cops are going to run in, grab me.

Everything was cool, man, left. So when I leave, I go back to San Diego where I'm living. Two weeks later, my lawyer calls me, tells me that. My lawyer's flipped. Sheldon Sherman, my original attorney, who argued my bond, who's now my co-defendant has flipped. And my chances are winning. went from 70, 30 my way to 70, 30 their way,

because he's going to be a hell of a witness, and he's going to tie a lot of shit together, and he's going to give him every bit of evidence he has on you paperwork, and you're going to get convicted on the money laundering for sure. And even if you don't get convicted on the weed, you know, you're looking at like 10 to 15 years with him. And I'm like, fuck that. Now, we live like 20 minutes apart.

I can drive to his house in 20 minutes. I've known this guy for over 12 years. He's gotten friends of mine out of prison. He defended me on the attempted murder where I crushed that bouncer, almost killed him in a nightclub at Diego's. And, you know, he got me out of that. You know, he's done things for me. He's almost like family.

Yeah, and I mean, I know his family. I know his wife, his kids. And so when I hear that, fuck it. It's go time. Let's get his ass. And now I'm pissed. Now I've gotten paperwork to leave the country. I'm going to Ireland.

I've got really big connections down there. I got great passports. I got a great place to go stay, like a really, really wealthy place, you know, giant horse trading facility, equestrian facility on like 30 acres. I can live there and I'll ever know where I'm at. And one night, the shooters went by his house, kept going, kept going. I was told, and he wasn't there ever. They're literally in his backyard.

He has a big house with a giant yard trees. They're in the yard watching the wife and the kids. He's not there. They go back once. They go back twice. They've been there three times on the third try. There's, you know, there's neighborhood watch signs up and down in everybody's yard. And these guys are out of the area.

Lied to me. I told them, drive your own car, put paper plates on it. It's registered to you. No, these dumb fucks go and get like some beat-up G-wagon and fucking drive it into this neighborhood. And the third time they were there, the neighbors called. They catch these guys with ski masks, ropes, guns. you know, and Sheldon was going to get it, you know. And they get arrested.

And now they're down in San Diego County Jail. And I get the messenger there and they need help. No problem. Call my dirty P.I. He's been doing everything. My P.I. has already told me, and he's done this many times, that he is going to bug the jury room on my state trial because he's always in there. He's so in there with all the cops.

So I know at trial, when they're deliberating, I know if, I'm guilty or not. And then I can run. That's how much I had this locked in. I was moving and shaking. And I'm digging it. You're thinking this guy's a fixer. Like I'm like badass.

And where does this informant? Where does it? I know where my rats live. I know where people that are going to testify. I mean, who knows where this would have stopped. I mean, I do not like getting snitched on. So I tell them, hey, they got the shooters. I'm actually, they got two guys in custody in San Diego.

I need you to drive out here immediately or fly out. Go there, visit them with your PI. credentials and tell them to chill. Tell them, go to one hearing, get your bond reduced. Their bonds were only like 40, 50 grand. Get them reduced down to like 20, 25. I'll bail both of them out. Tell them they're cool. I got them. It's nothing but burglary charges they can even think they're doing. Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobil. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistants assistants to switch you to MintMobil today. I'm told

it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for three-month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. They can't give, even though they found guns and scheme ass, they can't say it was a hit. Yeah, not at all. Yeah, because they don't know.

Yeah. You could take a gun to a burglary. Exactly. So my PI panics. Instead of going down and doing that, he goes to the cop. and says, I have knowledge that Brandon did the hit on the prosecutor, and these are the guys that did it. Because when I call them, I said, look, you've got to get these people out.

I need to talk to you. So as soon as I got him near me where I could talk to him face to face, I said, you've got to get these dudes out. They're linked to that shit. I mean, he showed me where the prosecutor lived. He was in on it. And I said, just get him out, talk to him. It's cool.

We're all cool. Like, I don't know what he thought. So he goes to the cops and tells him, yeah, these guys were going to kill Sheldon. Actually, I told him. I said, kidnap him, give him to me 20 grand. I want to take him to Mexico with me and make him his brother bring me the money. I was like on one. And if not, you can't get him quietly kill him, you know, fuck him.

So he doesn't go there. He goes to the cops, tells him everything. He says, oh, you know, he was asking me to check on a silencer because one of the silencers came off, one of the weapons en route back to the car from the window. It snapped off somehow. You know, it was kind of a crazy night. They hit on the prosecutor. So they had that.

I had asked them, check that silencer, call your police contacts. Is there any DNA? Is there any prints on it? Because I knew I had cleaned him good. But I don't know what they did, you know? And everything was cool. Like he was that in on it where he was giving up, you know, secrets that the cops had. I knew they didn't have anything on me for that.

And so instead of going there, he goes to the cops, man. next thing you know, they go down to county. Those guys tried to hold their mud. Yeah, we know Brandon told us everything. He told us you guys did it. And they said, well, I wouldn't know what he's talking about. Man, that's a prosecutor. You guys shot up over there as serious.

You're going to get life. You better talk about them. And they didn't talk. And then the second time in, they went in, made up some more shit that the PI knew, that we know this, we know that. Because I had to tell him, like, hey, dude, this happened. Like, he had no idea who, like, I would never mix people in something that. serious. But now it's go time. You got to get these dudes bonded out. We got to, you need to talk to

them and let them know I got their back. He went the other way. And then now the feds are like, yeah, this dude's doing too much. And they fucking dropped a new indictment on me. They picked up all the drug charges and re-indicted me federally. And now they're coming with murder for hire, useful a firearm and a crime of violence with a silencer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Two murder for hires, you know, just all the weed charges, all the laundering charges, all the gun charges.

And now they come down and, man, they don't just take me down. I'm living in my house in Rancho, and I got my mom there visiting for a week, and she loved their grandson. My wife and I are having her there. This is still the big house in Rancho? No, this is not a big house. I rented this one after La Costa house.

After I bonded out, I rented another one. No, this wasn't my really nice. They've already seized or I've moved out of most of the properties they knew of. I've either sold them or they've seized them. And so now I'm in rent of properties, nice ones. But now I'm in Rancho Santa Fe and they waited until I was going to drive my mother back to Vegas that night after staying a week. I was in her minivan.

I got my luggage in there and I'm driving her back. And the crazy thing was, and I've told this another podcast, like I was alone many times that week at the beach. my surf trunks. You know I'm not armed. I'm just paddling out of the water. Like, you could have took me down by myself, but they didn't. They waited to have my mother in the car. The van, the CHP pulls up behind red light. Mom, I'm joking like, are your plates good? I know they are. Pull up, pull up, keep going, keep going. Keep going. Keep going to the corner. Pull into that gas station and they make me go. I think it's a mobile station right on Via de la Valliers,

right there where you come out of Rancho right into the racetrack. And I pull in there and And here they come, like just tons of feds with like MP5s and shotguns and pistols. Get out, motherfucker. Hands out. We'll kill you. You know, my poor mother, man, she's just huddled up like a little ball on the right side. They're like, show your hand. Show your head.

We're going to shoot. And I'm all looking at her. And I have my hands out. Mom, man, they're going to kill it. Mom, look at me, baby. Please put your hands out. Please get your head up. They're going to kill you.

And, yeah, they took me down right then. But I don't know. I just, I mean, I get it. You know, they wanted to be safe and no one. I'm probably not going to shoot it out with my mother in the car, which I wasn't going to shoot it out anyway. I wasn't even armed, you know. I think they're going for maximum psychological damage. No, for sure.

That's what they're going for. Yeah. Yeah. But that's now I'm in with no bond. Yeah. You're in the shit now. And now they're giving everybody deals on that state case. Everybody.

I've already told my crew, I found out they were on the sealed indictment that was coming on the state. I've got my drivers, my loadhouse guys. I got everyone in Mexico and I've given him money. I said, stay down there and don't come back. And I'm going to deal with this. And they're like, what are you going to do? I go, I'm going to deal with this. Because I knew I was going to get into it with this prosecutor. And I knew what I was capable of doing. Like, you know, I mean, I'm, I mean, I just couldn't believe they would fuck with my family like that. They should have just come to me and threaten me and done all that. You should never involve people's families because especially me. I'm really close to my family.

you know, and I'm very protective. You know, I'm learning. I'm learning to lose that. Otherwise, I won't make it out here. And I'm doing good, man. I've been out for a while now. So what follows next is a life sentence? 60 years I end up getting, I go to trial. Everybody now on the other case has been given sweetheart, please.

That guy, Renee Olivaris, that got caught with the weed samples, with the money coming across the border with eventually a ton of cocaine, and well, a thousand pounds in the truck. He snitches on so many people. A ton of cocaine? That's a life sentence for you, me and all our families. He got five years. And he fucking test-fighted again.

See, now everybody's getting sweetheart deals. But the thing I did that I really am proud of is my people that were in Mexico, I told him after I got convicted, just come up, say whatever, just work a deal on a plea from that. And they all got, the driver got no time. The other guy's got like two years.

And I got them all deals. And I was like, fuck. But if you're going to say something about me and you're going to debrief, don't ever go to prison, dude, because that paperwork will be there and your life will be in danger quick. And so, and I saved them. And then the people that introduced me to my contacts and people that I've known my whole life and worked with. And I could have ratted everyone out. I didn't rat on anybody. And I got a life sentence.

And I got convicted at trial. They gave me 30 years for the marijuana as a CCE continuing criminal enterprise, which is a kingpin statute. They had five people, six actually coming to court and say they were either drivers, load house guys, money movers, whatever. One of them I'd never seen in my life lied. You know, it gets to that point. You know, the shit's so fucking dirty. Now, remember, when I'm out on the state case, this is just a sample of the illegal shit they did.

When I get grabbed by the feds on that case, that day, I go into federal custody. I'm immediately calling my same lawyers because they're federal and state lawyers. They're good. And I tell them, fuck, I'm in custody. I need you to come, come to the bond hearing. You know, I want help, you know, blah, blah, blah. They're like, okay, we'll be there, you know. And Larry Debus shows up.

Tom Tennis doesn't. Larry does. And he shows up and he asks, and I have the minutes of that hearing. And he asked the fucking, the judge is like, well, you know, you're in here on these charges. And what's he doing? Are you going to be counsel for him? And I tell him on the record, yes, you're on. honor, him and Tom Tennis will be retained for this case. These are going to be my lawyers,

quote, unquote. Okay, how do you intend to pay for it? I go, I have some land in Kabul on myself. Well, the court wants to know all about that land. No problem. If not, I'll have my family pay for it. I smile. I'm cocky still. And so next thing, you know, they don't get me bond, obviously. A week goes by, all of a sudden I call my attorneys, maybe two weeks later. Hey, I need you to file this motion. What's going on? What do we doing? blah, blah, blah. Say, Mark, we're not your attorneys anymore. We can't talk to you. These are my paid attorneys I've given a quarter of a million dollars to. To represent me in the state, I said, what do you mean? You can't talk to me. It's a long story you'll find out. Hold on. What do you mean

find out. What they did was after the shooting, the PI went in, the dual informant working mole, went into the cops and said, check this out. Brannon has said that he's going to kill Larry Davis. my lawyer that I've just paid 100 grand to and that every he's insane he's crazy he's going to kill every rat he's even wants to kill the lawyers Larry and Tom for what they're asking oh because he's just a maniac

so they use his testimony in a hearing that I'm not even invited to which is a fifth sixth and 14th amendment violation and they tell the on the minutes they say this hearing is sealed at the end but first they say the the The court has been moved to remove the attorneys, Tom Finnis and Larry Davis, from representing Mr. Brannan. The attorneys object, but the court finds just cause.

This hearing is determined that these lawyers will never be able to speak to them, Mr. Bannon again, and this hearing is sealed. The old sealed documents that we talked about, it's sealed. They do a whole hearing without me there, which is such a violation, and they fire all my lawyers. they take my lawyers on the working informant, my PIs. You've never seen any case like this. And what's incredible is I write this book and thank goodness for Claude and, you know, the GBT thing.

And, you know, the apps, they're amazing apps for writing the AI apps. And I'm able to write this story. And at first I was like, man, I really need a writer. I got to get a deal. Man, I'm putting together such a masterpiece because my marketing guy is so good with computers, and I'm writing the story, and I can write pretty good, but my dad's a famous writer.

And that was our dream for me to come out when I, you know, because I eventually win an appeal, which we'll get to, and would be to come home and write the book with my father and have the most amazing project. Like, he used to give me hints and notes. I'd write chapters, and I love my dad. That's my dude, man. And it took so long for me to eventually win the appeal.

And you were given the other 30 years, For what? 30 years for use for a firearm and a crime of violence with a silencer. That's a stacked charge on top of the CCE. For the shooting against the prosecutor's brother. Because check this out. The jury watched that lawyer of mine, Sheldon Shoyman, get on the stand and testify against me in open court. And my lawyer roasted him so bad and said, how could this even be legal?

This guy could do this. The jury was so sickened by his ratting. his position to even be able to snitch, they acquitted me of that charge. Evidence as high as this guy. Not guilty. It was like a fuck you to him. And so the system, client attorney privilege. That's the law, cock sucker.

And how's this? A spy in the camp. That's another law. I filed a hazel Atlas motion. You got a spy within my fucking prosecution camp. He was working for them the whole time. Not only that, once they found out what he told them that stuff, would he debriefed to them twice?

And I have all the minutes of him talking about me. Most of it lies. When he debriefed to them, he could never represent me again. Guess what? He's still showing up to court and squeezing me for another five grand, excuse me, my parents, for another five grand for travel expenses for him and the lawyers after he's already debriefed. This is so sickening.

Like, look, dude, like, I'm not even crying, man. I was a gangster my whole life, man. You never caught me. You never caught me. And if you would have given me 10 or 8 years, I'd have pled out on a dry weed case. And none of this would have happened. My son would probably still be alive.

Billy Rosen would still be prosecuting fucking people. And everybody would have their life back. But it was just that she just could not get over the fact that I wouldn't snitch. It's sick. No, dude. I mean, they push and... So how were they able to get you on the 30? Still with the...

With which charge? Oh, the use firearm of carmonds? Well, look, I mean, it was real simple. I mean, these guys went into court and testified in open court. And so basically the shooters got up and said this, this, and that. And then the PI had already given them so much info that they had little pieces to things. Right. And what happened was the jury found me guilty.

and when they found me guilty of that charge, here's how I got out of prison. This is the way the world of karma operates. I'm not a very religious man. I believe in karma. They convicted me on useful firearm and a crime of violence. And then underneath it, the description was too wit, conspiracy to kill Billy Rosen,

to stop her from performing her duties, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 20 years later, I've been in custody, excuse me, 18 years later, actually the Johnson case came out. 17 years later, the Johnson case comes out. Johnson was acquitted. His charge was overturned 924 C.E. He had a sought-off shotgun under the limit. He never used that shotgun for anything. The Fed set him up.

He got caught with a sought-off shotgun. They charged him with a crime of violence. Where's the violence? He only possessed the weapon. He never shot anybody. He never threatened to shoot anybody. That's where it started. That's where the 924C started getting attacked.

And I don't want to draw all the legal jargon. But eventually I saw that case. My good friend Jimmy Hodge said, Mark, he yelled over when I was in Lewisburg-Smoo. And he goes, man, you got to see this case. This is you. You got to do this. And I said, Matt, I didn't understand it. How the prosecutor's brother got shot?

How was that not a crime of violence? You don't get it. I couldn't get it at first. But the thing is, is conspiracy. The conspiracy clause was under attack. Because under the residual clause of the 924 Cs, every one of them it says in certain different wording, but basically it says any crime that creates a substantial potential risk of harm to another, vague, as vague as it can get. And then the elements didn't match up with the judge had to take the elements clause. And it was a long, there was a list of litany of things that actually made the Supreme Court eventually deem the residual clauses being unconstitutional.

It went from Johnson. I had to win DeMaio. I won that case. I had to win Begay. I won that case because it applied to me. And then they finally said, you know what? The circuits were split across the U.S. Half of them said my type of 9-24C should be overturned.

And half of them said it shouldn't. So they did what's called cert on the Lamont Davis case. They granted certuary to take Lamont's Davis case to the Supreme Court and decide this wants them for all. And when that case won, I was in the shoe, as always, in Beaumont, and a cool-ass screw, a lieutenant, came down to my door. And I kept asking them, they were playing games like they always were. Dude, I did seven penitentiary transfers in five years from the shoe.

I was busy. I had too much power. And they fucking came to my door. And he was the one that handed me the decision because I couldn't get it from the library. And I turned around in my cell. And at first I thought I lost because I started reading it so fast. And I said, fuck. And he goes, what happened, Brandon?

Like, this guy's kind of rooting for me, you know? Like, they were cool with me. Most of them don't mind me, but the ones that are about their business respect you because they know you're solid, you know. And when I finally read it twice, he came back through. And I said, I want, I want, I won. I beat the fucking case. And now I know I'm getting the 30 years off me.

Now I have to get resentenced just for the marijuana charges and the gun possession, which I never possessed a gun. My indictment, my verdict was crazy. Like there was things they acquitted me of that I was flat out guilty of. And they like convicted me of possession of firearms, which you didn't catch me ever with a gun. Never. No money, no guns, no phone calls. So at the end of the day, so the 30 years for the conspiracy to have the prosecutor whacked is thrown out.

Grown out. Because you got your lawyers, your appeal kept referring to these new cases that were set the precedent. I had no lawyers. I did that myself in the shoe. I learned the law. And so you studied these cases that had gone to the Supreme Court that applied to your case and used them for your arguments. Okay. And then at the 30 years for the weed, you basically ended up doing Fed time.

No. Here's what happened. And you're right. You're on the right path. The 30 years comes off. Now I get a reverse and remand. Now you've got to resentence me on the marijuana and the gun charges and the money laundering charges. Right.

Okay, well now it's been 18 years. Marijuana is now legal in like 20 states. Medici legal in like 30. And it's exponentially growing. So I then I hire a lawyer to do my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my U.S. Marshall's hold in Florence, Arizona. I'm stuck. They're not doing live hearings.

I'm fucking. And my lawyer's drafting this. He goes, man, he's asking for 20 years, which is the minimum mandatory. the CCE. Give them 20 years. At that point, I had 18 in. I'm 19. I'm done. You're out. I'm done. As soon as she gives me 20, I'm walking out. I think I'm getting released.

Well, she comes in. The prosecutor was not ready for anything. Luckily, she used my initial pre-sentence investigation from 02. She was so lazy and so stupid that the judge was like, what have you done? You've done nothing. You haven't filed a pre-s. Well, Your Honor, I think all the charges should be

stacked da-da-da-da. She goes, you can't even do that. They've already started to run. I mean, did you go? She's like basically telling her, what law school did you go to? But she hasn't filed a new PSR. Had she done that? I mean, the judge is going to fuck me anyway. You'll see. But had she done that, they would have heard about a whole bunch of shit. They would have also heard that I was validated as Aryan Brotherhood since 2013 in the feds. I've been valid. I deny it. I'll never talk about it. I am validated since 13. That's a death nail. Anybody that's linked to them or is one, you know, you're fucked.

They're all in ADX. All my friends are an ADX that I know that are that, except for two of us, you know, that they say were. They met me and one other guy in the lines. And the judge just goes, now my lawyer gets up, so, Your Honor. Hatcher, the prosecutor made herself look like a fool. This is just a marijuana case now. And he starts using the Ariano Felix.

his sentence is Ben Hamin, Wadolpoma, the biggest drug smugglers moving metric, tons of speed, heroin, Coke. 30? 20. Way? A skid bid for all the shit that they did. Why? So he starts telling her,

Your Honor, this case, look at this case, and she just stops. And he goes, and Your Honor, this is just a marijuana case. She goes, are you done? I go, oh, this don't sound good. And she goes, Mr. Perez, Sean Perez, here's my lawyer. This isn't just a. marijuana case. We know. Now, this is what got me. I was acquitted to these charges and she still

used them as relevant conduct. She goes, we know Mr. Brandon put a hit on the prosecutor. We also know he sent shooters to kill his lawyer Sheldon Sherman. But luckily, he never showed up. And this isn't just a marijuana. And you don't know what happened in those other cases. You don't know the context that they're sentencing, basically saying they ratted, which we all know they did anyway, because that's what they do. And then she hit me her 27 years. But luckily, back to big Donald Trump, he had just passed through Jared Kushner, her son-in-law. Jared Kushner's father had done time. He saw how bad the conditions were and how they mistreated prisoners. And he got their first step back passed, which was in a beautiful law. I was able, because I'd been in the hole so long. And I hadn't had any charges

against me for fuck at that time 40 years from my first case in 85, well 35 years that I got to do the outpatient drug classes because I would never go into ARDAP because there's a bunch of hideout rats in there but I did them from my cell in lockdown

we would walk down a library with like 11 guys do the class come back to ourselves and I got a year off for that I also got an extra one and a half years on a halfway house and I got out I got out after doing 22 years yeah. Congratulations, man. Yeah, it was amazing, dude.

But it's not just that. 30 days before I got out, they gaffled me up, the SIS, and went to lock me up in the shoe again. So I thought, I had just got into it, one of their cops, like as the CEO, we got so heated. He said, let's go in the tank.

When you could fight a cop in there, I went in there, he bitched up, and I started having issues with some cops. So I think they're grabbing me over that. They're not. They're walking me to the shoe. They take a left into R&D. I'm all with the,

fuck I think they're gonna jump me because I had been getting into it with this cop I threatened him went in a cell he bished up he wouldn't come in made him look bad made him all look bad wasn't that they take me into a room I'm like they're like sit down I said I'm not sitting down if we're gonna fight I fight standing up and they had an MMA guy in their Hagee he's cool he was actually a cool see I said and let you get on me we're gonna get down but you're getting me in the seat they said ain't what it's about they said it a gung ho way USA in Los Angeles wants to talk to you. I said, I don't talk to cops. Fuck you. And they go, man, he's going to pull an indictment of RICO on the brand, on the Aryan Brotherhood, and you're going to be in it

for the murder of snow, this decapitation, vicious murder in 13. That's what sent a bunch of us back east. They took us all out of California, locked everybody up. Were you at the prison when this guy got decapsated? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it's a long story. I can't get into it. Anyway, So they're talking about, yeah, they're going to die you. They want you to flip on the murder. I said, I've already given a full deposition for the defense team for Milton Huff and Sam Mertz. Those are the two defendants. They're friends of mine.

And I've already met with their lawyers when I was in Lewis Berksmoon and gave him a full deposition. So now you want me to change my story and make some shit up and tell on them? I guess I'm going to do the rest of my life in ADX. And I can tell you this. They approached two other guys that I knew really well, tried that same shit. And they fell for it. And they ratted. guys I never thought in a million years would snitch

and when I went to get released 30 days later I thought for sure I'm sitting in that holding tank I thought for sure they were going to come grab me that's a fucking sick feeling when you've been already done 22 years I mean you can't it's indescribable but I can say this once again I held my mouth and I'm proud of it and I'm here now and my life's coming together

and you know I don't want to sit here and talk like Oh, this, that. Oh, I'm all this. No, I'm honorable, man. And that's a good thing to be proud of and brag about. I'm honorable. But check this out. Now, I don't know what's happened.

I get released and I go to a halfway house in L.A., a shithole. And I go there. I'm not even from there. And I have some ups and downs in there. But I'm about to get out of there. And it's like it was the Friday after Thanksgiving. What? In 20, what years are now?

Six. in 23, 24, 23, it was a Friday after Thanksgiving, and I got to know, because I've been calling the death penalty lawyer, a guy named Mark Donatel, he's handling that killing, that case, that RICO, because I'm still not out of the woods. They're saying, my lawyer's like, man, they're just going to grab you out of the halfway house, just still in custody. I called Mark Donatel's office. His secretary answered it's a Friday. Oh, you know, no one's in here. And I said, who's this? And I go, it's Mark. Mark Brand. Oh, hey, what's up? They loved me. I was a witness for the defense. Well, he said, I'll give him a message. He's at home.

Man, that dude called me back in three minutes. And he goes, what's up? And he like, Mark, what's up, man? I go, hey, man, I'm about to get released from here. What happened? What happened with the case? You didn't hear? Fuck, no, I haven't heard.

I've been checking every year. I got tired of it. Because they waited 10 years to prosecute these guys trying to put a case together. A lot of people were ratting. And so he goes, yep, I pled huff out the life and say I'm got 15. But this is the best part. I go, what?

I stipulated they can't bring a RICO back. He stipulated it. Save my life. I'm about saying I'd have lost the case. I didn't do nothing. And so, but fuck, man, I just hit my knees, man. And fucking, you know, it was like, because I just kept thinking they were coming, you know. And you know what?

I'm not in this world to do anything but make a living legally, man. I'm dumb. Like, I've never committed another crime. I'm never going to commit a crime. But I can tell you this, that Lamont Davis-Johnson case that morphed into the Lamont-Davis case, they let out some of the most violent case defendants on that charge. You know, like 924C, they're all crimes of violence. And a lot of people got out.

And I applaud the conservative court. the Republican court, Neil Gorsuch, you know, all of them. Neil Gorsuch replaced Scalia. When I argued Damiya and Scalia died, and Neil Gorsuch, thank God, the conservative, that was Scalia's law clerk, came in and it had locked up at 4-4.

I had to wait a whole other year on that decision on Damiah that even allowed me to get further. I had to win three fucking appeals. And when Neil Gorsuches came in, he broke the tie. They re-voted on it next. year and it won five four and that's another thing to save my life and you know I applaud the fucking court for actually saying you know what is as bad as most of these guys are that have 924

C's arguably the most violent people it is constitutionally flawed that law and they did that and so yeah the law is the law if you're going to have a democracy with laws they have to apply to the government as well even harsher in my opinion because they're the ones that have the monopoly unviolence. So Mark, we're going to wrap now, but we're going to link to your peptide company, all the shit you have going on. We're also going to do a part two because your prison story is almost as wild as your street story, if you can believe it. Thank you so much, man. I was looking forward to this and it's surpassed my expectations. No, you're welcome. I appreciate it. It's like some medicinal cleansing. Some

times when I talk about it, but then other times it's not. But thanks. Do you feel cleansed? I feel okay. The worst parts to come, man, when I lose the boy, you know, but. Well, I hope you feel better after, I hope, I hope just being around people. Oh, no, it's helped. I still have some PTSD issues. My red nose pit bull therapy dog is almost fully certified as a psychiatric service dog. So I get to go everywhere with her and she's really cool, man. Thanks for coming up here, Mark. Welcome, man. All right, you guys. We'll see you over at Part 2, you can get early at patreon.com slash the Connect show. Thanks so much.