The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - South Central Weed Kingpin Reveals Moving 40 Tons, Getting Life Sentence, Pardoned By Trump

Episode Date: June 1, 2025

In this interview with weed kingpin Corvain Cooper, we dive deep into the untold stories of hustlers, street codes, and the evolution of the game. Corvain shares raw and unfiltered experiences from the streets of Inglewood and South Central LA, the challenges of growing a multi-state weed operation, and the harsh realities of the legal system — from conspiracy charges to clemency battles. From shipping crates of weed across the country to navigating betrayals, snitches, and the culture of lean, Corvain exposes the highs, lows, and lessons learned in the fast life. Now, as the founder of 40 Tons, a legal cannabis and clothing brand, he reflects on the journey from hustling to legitimate business, advocating for conspiracy law reform, and building a brand in the legal cannabis market. Go Support Corvain! IG: https://www.instagram.com/corvaincooper 40 Tons: https://40tons.co/ Donate To 40 Tons Fight For Restorative Justice: https://givebutter.com/c/PHrr3J This Episode Is Sponsored By The Following: Ridge! Take advantage of Ridge’s once-a-year Father’s Day Sale and get UP TO 40% Off right now by going to https://www.Ridge.com/CONNECT #Ridgepod Mando! Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get $5 off off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code MITCHELL at shopmando.com! #mandopod Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavat Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. You survived the Miami weekend.

Nailed the speech and maxed out your credit card in the name of friendship. Now you've got one hangover, four pastel dresses, and zero reasons to wear them again. Sell them on Deepop. Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. And you at least get some of your dignity, money back. Someone on Deepop wants what you've got. Start selling now. Deepop where taste recognizes taste. At 17, it was to bling, blingera. That's why I started committing crimes.

I was selling shoes, weed, everything. When I initially got in the game, the money was doubling. Every single day, we're getting $36,000. We lost $200 grand at the airport before. The weed never was what caused the problem. The money was always the biggest problem. This is when the 40 times conspiracy starts. Corvane Cooper is one of the biggest drug kingpins in the history of Los Angeles.

He was raised in South Central L.A. and has drug trafficking in his blood. His father was a big time hustler back in the 70s and 80s and was a close associate of crack legends like Harrio and Freeway Ricky Ross. Corvane got his start hustling back in the mid-90s while he was still a teenager, selling $20 bags of Mexican brickweed. By the time he got arrested in 2011, he was shipping at least 500 pounds every week from California to Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina. The government accused his organization of moving at least 40 tons of Maryland. through UPS and private freight companies over the course of a decade. But in reality, it was probably a lot more than that. In 2013, Corvane was convicted of running a continuing criminal enterprise and sentenced to

life in prison without parole. But he never lost hope. After exhausting all of his appeals, he reached out to the White House. And on January 19, 2021, the night before he was set to leave office, President Donald Trump granted clemency to Corvane, and he walked free that very day. Now, Corvane is making the most of his second chance at life. He runs a foundation called 40 Tons, a nonprofit in which he fights to get those who are still incarcerated for pot crimes out of prison. This is a cause that's very close to me personally, and I've already made a donation, and I encourage you to do the same.

Just go over to 40Tons.co for more information. The link will be in the description of this episode. You can also check out Corvane's legal strain of bud called 40 Tons, available in dispensaries throughout New York City and in select states. And for a bonus episode, where he tells us how he survived as a nonviolent offender inside of the worst United States penitentiaries, as well as his big plans for the future, head over to Patreon. Patreon.com slash The Connect Show.

Without further ado, a South Central Los Angeles legend and a piece of American drug dealing history, the one and only Corvane Cooper, right here on the Connect with Johnny Mitchell. I'm at Polack, Louisiana. It's like probably the top three worst prisons in the feds. I've seen six suicides in there. It was very lonely. It was a very deep, lonely part of my life. Trump is doing the list and I'm not on the list all day.

If you don't get out today, it's over. We just swing from extremes to more extremes in this country. So like what was 24 years ago was like black guys being like, nah, slavery didn't happen. And, you know, you're responsible. And basically like, who's that guy, Charleston White? Like, it's the era of Charleston White. what I mean? Anytime that I see, right, I hate to say, like, these Charleston whites and these

woodies and these type of people, right? And for what I stood for in the game of like, no, you're not post a snitch and growing up and not posting a snitch and people getting killed for telling. And now the snitches are getting paid more than the people who really did it the right, correct way is insane. They're paying $10,000 in interview. you know what I mean and it's like then we got a we've posted went by the code did everything the right way and then we get the little ass in and they're getting the big thing because they're

more viral for snitching it's insane well actual DEA informants make like six figure salaries they make more than most drug dealers yeah so yeah the game is all twisted and that's why it's such a privilege to sit down with you yeah I hear inglewood I hear south central L.A. in your voice yeah yeah yeah That's definitely in my DNA. Born and raised. Born in Inglewood, raised in South Central, and then I went to high school in Inglewood too. Right.

So I got both of them going back and forth and living in Inglewood and living in South Central. They're both deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. Is there like a difference in terms of street culture between South Central and Inglewood? Inglewood is more bloods. It's bloods in Los Angeles and South Central as well. But that's kind of like, you know,

when you go to Englewood, it was just, I just remember nothing but bloods. Pairoos, Inglewood families, you know, all the types of clean streets. I didn't really see, you know, they had IBCs, though. You know, I don't know if they're still around, but they had IBC. That was on the Crip gang that I remember that was in Inglewood. And South Central is more Crippin. Obviously, you have the 60s.

Yeah, the 60s. I grew up in East Coast. He got the East Coast. And I grew up in the 60s, too. So half my life, I was in the 60s, half the life I'm in England. So by doing that, I got to meet all the different gangs from different hoods. So I get love when I got in England. I get love in the 60s.

I get love in East Coastas. And it's hard for people to do that and not gang bang and still get to get the love from different hoods. And you were never gang banging. Yeah, I never got put on to one gang. I think you were too affluent because drug dealing and big time top level drug dealing runs in your family. And it doesn't mix. to be from one gang because I want to be the person, okay, you can't go over there and get that money? Well, I can.

It was like during the time, like, 0-809 was like the middleman era, and then they closed the borders. So it was hard to get the weed across as far as like the Reggie and A-Z to get it across. So anybody that can get it across, you were like, boom, you got to connect to get it across. You were winning that during those era. So now I can go to all the hoods that you can't go into. I can take your money, make my money off the top. You know what I mean? Yeah, I'm dropping work in all the hoods.

Thank you. Not red or red or blue. Instead of just being labeledized to go to one hood, I never wanted that. Okay. Your father, tell us about him. Ballhead. So Tony Cooper is my dad. They called him ballhead off the east side.

Very well-known hustler. I saw with Harry L. Free Ray, Red. You know, I was like my uncles. And just growing up, seeing them, you know, my dad had all the cars. We were spoiled growing up. I was best dressed at every school I ever went to. We had all the allowance, you know, all the things that you can have.

Like, I might didn't have the full, and I didn't maybe have the full time. And then my dad ended up going to the feds when I was 16 after he bought me a car, he ended up going to the feds. I see. He got caught up in a, it was called Ill-Gygotten Game. My dad was always slick where they could never catch him on anything. So they just took all of his stuff all the way down to his mean coats, took his money, took his main coats, took all his cars, right?

They couldn't take his property. My dad still has all his property. Wow. And they got him for ill-gotten gains. So it was a tax loophole, like the IRS criminal division or something like that? It was something of that nature. I don't know the exact thing, but I knew that they took all of his stuff. And when I finally got on and I started bawling, I bought him another chinchel and bought them another making it and tried to get on the stuff that that was taken away from him.

So you're born in the late 70s. So you do, you were a little kid when crack was exploding. Freeway Rick was. Because it was really 79. Right. Right. Right. So do you remember the hustlers like Freeway Rick and Harriot and all and all the crack kingpins from South Central?

Do you remember these guys at all? Or do you remember your father talking about them or did he do business with them? He did business with them. And I was real young, but I can, you're still young enough where my dad would try to keep it away from us. So he would hustle like on foreigners at the car wash and my uncle, rest in peace. My uncle would take me up there. My dad would get mad because I can see him hustling or see him. My dad never wanted us to see him hustling, gambling, or doing anything illegal.

He kept those two lives separate. Was he selling like hands? to hand at the car wash? Not hand to hand. You know what I mean? Not, he wasn't selling the hand to hand, but they would gamble at the car wash

and all the hustlers. And that's where, when you're referring to it, that's where you'll see the, the hairials and the free red ricks and you see the people that are gambling. Right. You know,

they would have big dice games. Oh, tell us about those dice games. Crack, crack money dice games must have been a sight to see. As they're playing ping pong. My dad was very good at ping pong. Yeah,

it would beat people at ping pong in $1,000. I think he would, I don't know. know if you'd be free or work for, I think, $20,000 or $30,000 playing ping pong. Just a game of ping pong. They play ping pong. Yeah.

And then they would gamble like that. Now, did your father, did he was his main, I know he was into shirm and weed and also Coke. Did he turn to crack the way that Freeway did in the 80s when it started exploding? What was his main racket, his main drug of choice? He just did all of them. He just was a hustler. You know, so he, he, of course, transferred over once, you know, went over to crack.

But, you know, he started off doing everything, doing it all. And he would just be like a, like a low-key hustler. When he's, when he's hustling, he looks low-key. But when he comes outside, he's loud, you know, he's got the drop-top. And, you know, he got this and he got a corvette and old schools and, you know, all the stuff and all the jury and stuff like that. Was he ever connected with South American or Mexican sources that you're aware of? Like for wholesale? Probably so.

I couldn't, you know, certify that. So I wouldn't want to certify it because I don't know, but I'm pretty sure. You know, I mean, I'm pretty sure. What age were you when you realized where the source of all your money and your dad's money came from? We went over to my dad's house. and he stayed like in the Dons. At the Don's was like Don Felipe and he had a little condo.

It was like in a word ice cube shot It's in a good day video. Okay. Today was a good day. Where is that? That's like in boiling hills. At the time that was like a thing, you know, at the time. Right.

So we'd go over. So he just count his money. He's at like a million in cash, you know. And I was just like, okay. You know, like as a kid. As a kid, you're like, my dad doesn't, I mean, it obviously doesn't work. And where it has this big ass chain on and all this other stuff. You know what I mean?

So it's just, you know, you've never seen them work. You never seen them put in, but anything that we physically needed me and my sister needed, we had. Right. Now, what we didn't have is actual, he would pay for everything. So, like, my granny would take us, rest in peace of my granny. My granny would take us to Disney Road or my granny would take us here. and we'd have limos take his places and stuff like that. But he'll take us to the, he'll take me, he loves wrestling, still watches the

wrestling and now. He'll take me to like the wrestling match and stuff like that, but I didn't have any, I spent more physical time with my uncle, rest in peace, where as far as my uncle taught me out of time, I shoot, my uncle taught him how to put a condom on and stuff. My dad bought me condoms, but he didn't show me how to put it on. You know what I mean? Shit like that. Yeah, yeah.

That's one of the interesting things about, you know, growing up with a dad who's a, who's a, who, who's a big time Willie is he's, you're going to always have material comforts, but you won't actually have him. You don't have an actual physical comfort that you need. Then, you know, after that, after 18, after he went to the feds,

he went straight. My dad has not hustled. That's not done anything. So my dad went straight. So how long did he do? He did like two years, two or three years. That's not bad.

Yeah, yeah. He never committed a crime a day in his life. So that was his first crime. What I did learn from that is that people can change. My mother was on drugs and she changed, right? And she's been clean for 30 years, right? My dad hustled his whole entire life and he changed. So I do know that you can change, right?

So that's where I kind of get the motivation where you can change because after that is what pushed me in the streets so deep. It's because now I have 17 years of addiction of clothes. I have 17 years of addiction of being fresh, getting what I want. Now that's cut off. Where am I going to fill that void at? Yeah. No, I've never, all my clothes I've been brand new.

Did you, were you mentored in the game by your uncle or your father? As you started becoming a teenager before he went away, did they start to give you a little bit of guidance? Like, here's what this is and this is how you get it off. I never wanted to sell any hard drugs. I never want to sell no dope because my mother was on dope. Yeah. So it was like I seen what it affected to my family and then the effect that it had from having my dad taken away and my mother took away, right?

So I was never wanted to put that on no one else's family. So that's why I got into the week. Right. So then, but now I have to figure out that I started with just selling just doves sacks and regular shit and had to build my way up. But I had to build my way up because I have to fill all this void of, you know, I have four closets at home right now as we speak. right and that addiction had to come from somewhere and that addiction came from that but I had to

keep it up and that's why I start committing crimes that's when I start at 17 it was the bling bling era and I start running out with Rolexes yeah I mean and then then the checks came then I start doing forgery on checks and then you know you just keep going and going and going and going and going until you can't go no more you know until you figure out everything that I ever got called for I I usually stop it after that and didn't go to the next hustle. Okay. So then when did you just say, okay, I'm dedicated myself to weed? Like, when did that start to really pick up for you?

Once I found out about sending it out of town. Okay. Now, sending it, like, you know, pulling up and getting an ounce and, you know, breaking it down and getting a pound and breaking it down. You're getting a couple of dollars. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you might confede yourself, but you're not going to be able to keep up. Right.

So once I've mailed it out of town and then my money doubled for regular hard brick of stress, it's where it started at. Okay. Oh, hang on. So tell us about that because the late 90s in California and all over the country, the weed was so different. The economics were so different. Tell us about like what was winning. Like what were hustlers that were getting big money?

What were they moving? Where was it coming from? Spring weekends are all about family. sunshine, and evenings on the patio. Before everyone arrives, I stop by my local Total Wine and Moore 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. Shop Total Wine and More in store or online. Spirits not sold in Virginia and

and North Carolina, drink responsibly, B-21. It was coming from out of town. I started coming from Charlotte, then I started going to Atlanta. What happens is it was so perfect back then because it was four weeds. It's easier you were getting. Reggie, A-Z, chronic, which was outdoor, and Cush, which was indoor. You were only getting four things. Yeah, there are four strains.

Four strains. Four different markets. Not 1,500 different markets. Right. Right. So it was indoor, outdoor, compress A-Z, I mean, compress reggie or pillowed A-Z. Okay. Right. That's in the 22-bail. Right. Okay.

Tell us to go into that. What is the difference between Reggie, regular, and A-Z? I believe they're like the same just one as compressed, because sometimes you can get some good reggie that's not compressed, but it's still Reggie. And they'll call it a red and you can get it out of the lower price. You can get it at three or four because it's not as compressed. as the other one. But the other pillow that sent a 22 bail, that's where we were sent to Atlanta.

And you were just boom, back then. You paid about like $5.50 to $600 in L.A. And you would get $1,000. Right? So your $6,000 just made $10,000. Yeah. Almost doubling. So you just made $4,000 in one box.

And, right. And Reggie and AZ are coming from Mexico? They're coming from Mexico. Okay. So at 22 bail, It's 22 pounds and one big block. One big block. And it's all green and it's all pillowed.

And once that kicked in and then you do the Reggie, we'll do the Reggie's in Charlotte, right? What does that mean? The Reggie's in Charlotte. Reggie's is the regular compressed. Now, you could get it for like $2.52.9, but just say you're paying three out there. Yeah.

Packaging and all this other expenses, right? So three, then you're getting back six. So when I initially got in the game, the money was doubling. So you really didn't even even know money to start with because they were sending your money back the next day. So you started with three grand and you got to six and just kept doubling back and got your initial three back, just off the initial startup, you're making 15 grand a week. Yeah. And it's moving.

It's moving. No, they can't get enough of it. I don't even know what the fuck they're doing with it. Right. Right. So a person with $3,000 with a real connect out of town that was just moving regular stress. was still could make 60 grand a month. If he had the function to get the money back,

which is all he needed was an account, the address for them to send it to. And a good, loyal person going back and forth, you and that person can do 10 apiece and 20 in one box and you guys both can make 15 grand a week. Yeah. And that's just at the beginning. Off a $3,000 principle.

That's it. All you had was $3,000. You could have saved $100 a day. Yeah. You know, so it's like you didn't really, once I've seen that, I thought that it's no other thing that I wanted it. Yeah. I'm not hurting anybody.

I can just go mail it. You can afford to take a loss and get back in the game. And then once you do two states, you start with the reggies over here. Now you're doing the AZs over here and you're beating six and then getting back to the thousand. So you're making four grand profit. You never count the money that you put into six doesn't even exist because that's going right back in the box. And then you just keep doubling and then before you know what you're doing 80 to this address. and then you're doing 40.

You know, you just start, it just starts, the numbers start going up, and that's how you get to 40 times. Yeah, and you're making hundreds of thousands a week at a certain point because you're sent it out hundreds. You get money caught at the airport. You're getting, it's the money is the biggest problem in the world. It's not the weed. No, the bulk money.

You know what I mean? The money is when you look up the case, that's how we got caught with the $4 million coming through the bank because it's the money. The money is the problem. That's how I caught my case. Yeah. I don't know if you do that. Oh, great.

Yeah. I never got caught with any product. Yeah. So what came first for you? Was it the plug, the connect, or was it your buyers? Yeah, out in Charlotte and Atlanta. And then you said, hey, wait a minute, let me find the ticket out here in L.A. Like, what came first?

With Charlotte, I was put on by somebody. Somebody. You were introduced to somebody. I was introduced to somebody, and they were already doing it. and they needed some help. And I helped them. Now, with Atlanta, how so? How so?

It was just, it's like one of the person that testified on me. You know, so it was just, you know, it's very, very difficult to talk about it. But they had a thing going on and they needed help because Charlotte is a two-way thing. You got the Charlotte on the case, right? That's a whole other person that testified. And then you got a person that testified that introduced me to the game in general. of shooting boxes, right? So they introduced me in general on how you shoot a box

and how do you mail it out and how you get the money back. And back then, you were put in the money in paint cocks. Paint cocks, wow. So you go get the paint cork from Home Depot, right? You food savor it, and then you put it inside the paint cork that says DAP, and you put all paint supplies in there, and then they mail it back. And so then it was just crazy. You'll go off to a girl's house that you can have money to,

and it'll be 40, 50 bands. and pink hawks every day and then it's like boom you puff it up she thinks you're a McGuiver you know what I mean because it's already the money's food saved inside they didn't pull it out so absolutely untraced so that's how like

that's how I learned that now then how are you getting the weed to them it just mowed the weed just UPS to weed right UPS was like kind of the thing even back in the 90s and early 2000s UPS had next day air this was like 2003

2004 okay yeah so how much are you you mailing in a box. Say it's like AZ or Reggie. How much per box? AZ, you're going to do like 20 a box. You get you two addresses. We call them skirts at the time.

Two skirts. You can do, the most you do in a day is like 80. 80 pounds. Yeah, 40, 40. 40 and like with the, with the, but then you know you can move up to crates. And then you start mailing crates. Now crates, crates, you do 350 or crate, you know. So we call that trucking it.

And you truck it and you put it on like the daylight saver thing and you truck it. And that's UPS ground, right? Not a day. Trucking is a whole different thing. Oh, a freight is like you're with an independent trucking company. Trucking company and they're going to mail it off and you put it in a whole little container thing and then they mail it off. Now that seems like the way to go. Yeah, but you're you're risking more at a time.

Right. So now you're risking 350 to 400 pounds at a time, right? I never really was a big guy that was big on the trucking thing, even though you got every time that it was more money involved or more of this. It was always a problem, right? You can shoot a thousand boxes. It's no problem. You come this and the person, this one is missing or this is this.

Or we did a thousand pounds one time and then the truck down. You know, it's just, you know, people are greedy, you know. So the more money involved, the more shysiness or greed that you, that I noticed from watching the game and then from like going over it after. I was like, well, why did we shoot 40 pounds a day or 50 pounds or 80 pounds a day? And nothing ever happened to the boxes. Now you shoot this. Now something's happening, you know. So how do you get?

It just says a lot of greed. Yeah. Well, tell us, like, with a trucking company, is the driver in on it? Or how do you disguise 350 pounds? I mean, you can put, you know, of course, got to put the cow manure or whatever, but you're going to box it. It's going to be crated. It's going to be like in a thing like you're, you know,

it can be a refrigerator. You could be this. It can be that. You know, whatever is that you, that you're going to want to send, you know what I mean. How many people, this is not simple. stuff. I mean, the math is kind of simple, but, you know, this takes some manpower. Do you have people helping you? Do you have people brainstorming to new ways to smuggle? Like, you must have people running back and forth to UPS. Now, I'm smuggling this. The money. The money is the only thing.

Getting the weed there was, it's never really been a problem from the beginning. Right. But still, you know, you have to food savor it. You have to, you know, you have to wipe things down. You have to prepare it. It's a lot of work. No. Once you're in the game a little longer, or I say like, you know, you got the money now. You got the $100, now you need to shrink it.

Because, of course, it's going to be ignorant with all these 20s and $5s. And now you need to shrink it into the hundreds. Now, when you have money, you're going to be able to maneuver a little bit better because you're going to be able to pay the person

at the bank to shrink it. You know what I mean? You're going to be able to pay this person. You're going to be able to pay that person, right? So I think when you say that, we need details. Always been there. The money has always been the problem.

We get that. We get that. But hang on. How do you get 350 joints? Do you have to set up an LLC? Do you have to set up a company? Like, how do you actually- pounds? Yeah. He just buy it at 350 pounds. Yeah. How do you get it on a truck to Charlotte? That's what I'm asking. Yeah, I want to know about your organization. Like you come off as like, oh, it just happened, but it didn't just happen. You have people that are working with you for you. So, yeah, and that's what probably the government, you know, presented that as this kingpin because you do have people working for you. That was their excuse to give you life later. So how many people does it take to to run an operational? that's shipping, you know, thousands of pounds a week, how many people do you have helping you? I would say like three or four. Yeah. You know what I mean? Loyal people.

The less the better. Yeah. Less the better. And even with the less, the better, they still corroborating. They still towed. Right. And it's the people who did the most work, you know, so it's like, you know, to tell you the truth,

the people that corroborated are the hardest workers. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Like those two guys, one guy would, doesn't even want any help. You know what I mean? Like he doesn't even want you to help him. Like he wants to wrap all 100 pounds, 200 pounds by himself.

Get it there. He just want to mail it and he wants to go out there and catch it. The only thing that he really wanted me to do was to make sure that I was the person you could trust with the money. And I got the money back. And that's how I got co-defendants. And that's how Evelyn and Italia got into the case. And I can start using their bank accounts.

And, you know what I mean? So it gets, it gets. basically because I'm the person that you can trust and then I trust you and then you know, you bite me and I ask at the end. Okay, so, but this is way later. Like you had years of doing this. Right.

So what year does it really start to pick up? Like, and how did you find your connect to all this weed? So. Who is your supplier? I would send, so it started off, I would send weed to my home girl, right? My home girl is the name.

She was in school. Right. So she was like, I can't keep doing this. I'm in school. I'm trying to do better. I can't be fucking going out and fucking selling pounds. Right. This is how it starts in Atlanta for my own connect.

So she's like, I'm going to hook you with my boyfriend. Right. So which is, which is, which is my connect. Right. So when she hooks me up with him, I don't even meet him. We meet over the phone. By the time I meet him, we've already made over 500 grand. Right.

And I just start mailing the AZ. Melanese Melanasi Right And he's just dumping him Dumping him I'm still on

probation So I can't even Go out to Atlanta And shit That changed my life That that That phone calls Start switching to M

and then he could pick it up And he can do 100 a day You know So he can do He can knock it out So Atlanta

Was the big Even a bigger Moneymaker Than Charlotte Yeah Because it was my own thing Right

I wouldn't say That was a bigger Moneymaker Than Charlotte Because Charlotte People were still getting money

It's just this was my own personal connect, so I was in charge. Who was your supplier for the weed that you were buying? That's my question. I know who's buying from you. Who was, where were you getting your weed from? Yeah, I can't say that. You know what I mean?

I can't say that because he's still, he wasn't on the case. And I, you know what I mean? Like, were you getting it from Mexico? Or was this weed that was, you had four different strains by the end? They would call this Arizona, so they would bring it like from Arizona. Okay. So they would call it A-Z back in the day. Okay.

So that comes from Mexico. Right. Yeah. Okay. So did you have any direct, I obviously don't want to know anybody's name, but surely you can tell us like, were you, were you plugged in with sources in Mexico? Or were you? For sure. For sure.

Okay. Gotcha. For sure. How hard, how long did that take you? You know, after you're, you know, 96, you're just selling dobsacks to actually, actually meeting sources in Mexico. I used to, so one of my first hustles was we were selling rims. So we would dress up. We had a fake rim company.

You know what I mean? So we would go to like Mercedes Benz and all that. We're the Mercedes Ben's ass and dress up and we have a company and we can get tires and rims. So we hit every dealership for like Lorenzers and bravis, right? So we would go there. So that's how I met the connect. I met the connect by selling them some rims.

Oh, wow. selling selling him some brabiz ram some fake rims no no real rims he's a real $7,000 20 inch rims wow like so we're the only ones that can get them so we're getting them for free and we're selling them in the hood for $3,000 but there's $7,000 and at one point even back in the day we had Lorenzo's on one side of the car bribus on the other side so like when I see people like livers and bribe as kids and stuff like that we used to get that shit for free and it all started from being broke we didn't have any money to um get any parts we needed some breaks and we didn't have any money.

So we went and wrote a bad check. Then they just gave us the parts. I was like, wait a minute, that's a business. So it started off, the light clicked off of my head, like, oh, we can just write checks. And let's start off with the body shops first. So if you own a body shop, we'd say, all right, you got a wrecked Chrys through 300. You need $8,000 worth of the parts. Give us $4,000.

We're going to get all the parts. So then we had trade off our cars and go get trucks and dress up and go get the parts for the cars. then we ran through all the body shops for all the dealerships. As running through the dealerships, we went to the Mercedes-Benz dealership, and I seen rims there and TVs and all kind of exclusive stuff. It was like Calabasas, Mercedes, I won't forget. And I said, fuck it, I'm going to try it.

You know, like we give them parts. So what's the difference from getting rims? And I walked in there, and they fucking wheeled out the rims. Wow. I was like, fuck. They ran the check. And they said they got a call. And they called.

and this fucking shit went through. And I said, fuck it, we sell rims now. You know, so at that time, 20-inch Lorenza Rims were seven grand.

Yeah. You know, so sell at 3,000. We hit every dealership from Bakersfield to Calabasas to Encino. Wow. You know what I mean?

To Escanito, rather. All with the bad checks. Every single Benz dealership there is. Wow. All right. So then when the Benz dealership we got marked out,

we went to tires because then you can sell 20-inch tires in the hood for $700. They were like $1,400 at that time. So then we hit all the tire shops. And it was just one story where... So the check just kept going through and the greed kicked in.

So then it was in the marina. I never forget. It's in my story to it's in my book. He gets in the car. He said, man, take me to your boss. Right? Who's he? The guy, I drop off the check.

He usually, when I drop off the check, he throws the tires in the back of the truck. I've hit this spot three times. That's against the law in the game. In the game, you posted one, two times. That's it. You don't keep going back, but he just was so sweet that the greed kicked in. And when the greed kicked in, I still went to the spot.

I still went. He hops in the truck with me and says, take me to your boss. He's checking and go through. He thinks that I'm going to pull up to the boss. So we're riding my fucking heart speed and fast. I don't know what the fuck to do now. I'm like, fuck. I didn't fucked up now.

I'm checking a rearview to see is like anybody following me. So I stopped right on La Siena and like Olympic because our shop is supposed to be like across the street from the Beverly Center on La Sienega. Yeah. Right. So we're getting close to where we're supposed to be.

Your supposed to shop. Your fake shop. My fake shop. Right. So we stop on La Cineg in Olympic. I never forget. We're at the gas station. I go in.

I say fucking give me 40 on pump one. I come back out. He's fucking. he's an old aging guy, he's fucking out the truck, fucking smoking a fucking cigarette. He's fucking, thank you. He fucking smoked a cigarette. The thing is already still attached to the truck.

I hop in a truck. Man, the thing pulls off the thing. I hop over the curb and left his ass right there. I was just like, thank you. Like you finally, like, you know, so I kind of got away from that and I would sit from that. I had to stop that whole thing. And that's when I started turning over to the Wii game.

Because after that, I end up doing time. Oh, you kind of. case over that. I caught a case for the check thing. Okay. Did you go to the feds? No, no, no, no. Just went to the state. You just went to the state? How long did you do? I did like a year and a half. I did a forgery. Gotcha. And that was like low level.

It was a low level. That was more like a level too. Uh-huh. Yeah. And that's, I'm sure that's when you said like, because you're a drug dealer. Like I could just tell you're a money guy. So you're like, okay, done with this bullshit. Yeah. And as soon as I get home, I'm focusing on the, on the weed. Focusing on the weed. And that's when I got out. I never, never look back. You guys, Father's Day is almost here. And if your dad is anything like mine, he is impossible to shop for. What do you get to man that has one foot in the grave and has anything and everything he can possibly want already? Boom. That is why the Ridge wallet is the perfect gift.

This is just like the greatest guy gift you could get. Get one for yourself as well. Okay, you've heard about Ridge by now. They are the future of wallets. They are what Bitcoin is to the wallets. No more of that bulky leather crap that is giving you back problems. Okay. I've had Ridge, even before they were a sponsor. I've had these guys for years. Check it out. It holds up to 12 cards. You see, those are cards right there, a little bit of cash, and it's just made sleek and it feels heavy. What are you doing with like a 20th century wallet? Okay. My favorite part about the Ridge wallet is the RFID blocking technology. That prevents one of these probably an Albanian guy with one of those apps on his phone from coming by and taking a picture of your wallet while it's still

inside your pocket and grabbing all of your credit card information. Boom, with Ridge wallet, they can't do it. It's like having a bulletproof vest for your wallet. On top of that, Ridge also has an air tag attachment, so you'll know exactly where it is if and when you inevitably lose your wallet, which is one of the worst things that can befall a human being. And Ridge isn't just about wallets. They create premium everyday carry essentials like key cases, suitcases, rings all built with the same sleek, durable design. They have over 50 colors and styles to choose from, whether you're like me who prefers the plain Jane black forged carbon fiber or you want your favorite NFL team on there.

Ridge has you covered. No matter what you pick, Ridge has free shipping, a 99-day free trial, and a lifetime warranty on all products. And right now, just in time for Father's Day, Ridge is having a huge sale. Get up to 40% off your order at ridge.com slash connect. Once again, that's RIDGE.com with the promo code connect to find the perfect gift for dad or yourself. When you check out, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please, guys, support our show and tell them we sent you.

Use that promo code, get almost half off your purchase price, and give Dad the upgrade he deserves this year. Thank you, Ridge. Today's episode is brought to you by America's number one whole body deodorant, Mando. You guys are fans of the show. You've heard me sing Mando's Pranko. from the jump. This is a whole body deodorant for all you sweaty betties out there. I am burning up in this studio right now. And the only thing that is keeping my armpits from dripping all over this table is Mando's 72 hour odor protection. Once again, it's a whole body deodorant

so it can go on any part of your body. It can go behind your ears under your feet on your ball sack. It's probably where it should go. Your grundle, who knows what that is. What's a grundle? I don't know, but somebody does. They took the time to study it. And they found that 12 hours after a shower, the average man's grundle odor level was 5 out of 10. But with Mando, the average man's grundle odor level was 0 out of 10. There, put that on your Tinder profile.

But no joke, my favorite part about Mando is the different flavors and scents. I put a lot of people onto this and have made them customers. You've got Urban Leather, Clover Woods, Mount Fuji, or Pro Sport. And this is fire, okay? This is like better than the leading brands that you, buy in grocery stores. But Mando is also in big box stores now. Want to try America's number one whole body deodorant formula right now? You can find them in Walmart, Target, and other retailers across the country. They have blown up. Thanks to my show, I'd like to think. Check it out.

New customers get a starter pack. It comes with a solid stick deodorant, cream tube deodorant, two free products of your choice like mini body wash and deodorant wipes, plus free shipping. As a special offer for listeners, new customers get $5 off a starter pack without exclusive code. That equates to over 40% off your starter pack when you use code Mitchell at shopmando.com. Once again, SHOP, M-A-N-D-O.com with the promo code Mitchell, my last name. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. Smell fresher, stay drier, and boost your confidence from head to toe with Mando. Okay. What year did you get out?

2003. Okay. Sounds like 2000. One I caught that case. Okay. When, so when did you meet your supplier? Like, how long after you came home did you meet the Kinex in Mexico? It was kind of instant, man. I was on probably like for like 90 days.

90 days I was up and cracking. Did you have to go down there or did you, they have an associate in L.A. that you could just deal with? Or did you actually? No, I didn't go down there. They had an associate that I can just deal with. And they would just pull up on me from when I met. I had to call them. Remember, I met selling the rims.

I see. You know what I mean? So like, well, you didn't tell us about that. Okay. Back from meeting them from selling the rims, I didn't have a reason to, they were trying to give me weed then for the rims. Oh, I see. But I was like, uh, at that time, I wasn't really, I still was like kind of like in a

white collar game. Yeah. So I wasn't really, I can kind of finesse everything. I didn't have time to sit there and sell any weed. Right. Right. They were trying to give me weed then. So that would click when I found out that you can,

mail the weed out of town. Let me go back over there and go and explain to him. Like, I'm ready for that weed thing that you were talking about two years ago. Because now I can move it. Now I can now figure out what I can do with it. I didn't really have anything to do with it. I was going to sell dubs and Nixacks. I already was doing that in high school, you know?

So that wasn't really profitable. And when I got out, I was doing it in the blues in the West Boulevard's. So that's selling out, West Boulevard in the middle of the 60s. You feel I'm saying? So when I got out, I was right there already selling wheat. So I don't really see. It was just too, it was a danger. You had to carry a gun.

Right. I'm not really a big gun guy. Yeah. So you were looking for a way out of the mud. At that time, seeing it out of town was more my speed. I can still get my money. I can deal with less people. No one knows what you're doing besides the people that's in your intermediate crew.

Yeah. So that was more my speed. No, finding customers on the East Coast. back then, if you were a West Coast weed dealer, that was your ticket out of the mud, of the, you know, everybody that was just trying to get off weed. Everybody was trying to get off weed. And not only that, getting the actual addresses into because you're burning them out. You only got two, three weeks. The first six months, we had two addresses. Yeah. You know what I mean? We had two addresses. It starts to get hot. So I had to go out there and lay ground once I finally got out. I would go to Hooters. Right. So Hooters had a lot of women and a lot of college women. Right. I would leave $100 tips, right? All $100 tips. And during the time that I would leave the $100 tips, they were fight to be at my table because that was like a big tip at that point. Like it was better than throwing thousands at the strip club. Like that 100, you, you know, full $40.40. Now all the girls are fighting for your table. Right. So once I figured that out and seen that work, I utilize that, start dating these girls, start using their addresses and that progress to get me getting. more addresses. Right. Because at that time,

I would be in a hotel room with 30, 40 pounds until they were sold. And then, you know, I didn't really know the functioning because I've never physically seen it. I was just mailing the weed. So I didn't actually see that the fly guys aren't, there's not the ones that buying it with the money. The dude is coming in. He just fucking looks like a bump.

Yeah. It pulls out the money and just like, damn, you're buying the $40,000. You know? Oh, I got to really see it from a different aspect of how it is in the country. Yeah. Right. Besides how it is in the city. Because when you're mailing, we can get the money back, you don't physically see what's going on.

Yeah. It's like, you're just like sending this into a black hole and you're like, the money spits out. It's like magic. But when you actually, I actually went out there and was sitting in a trap and I don't physically have to sell them, physically see the customers. I was like, okay, yeah. So that was how you began was actually you'd mail the wheat out to these Hooters waitresses which are strippers who have dads

And you would post up And wait to and you would get it off yourself To the customer No, no, no, I still have my connect, get it all We just, I just needed to come out there For us to get more addresses I see We only had the two addresses

Yeah, and then you just kept growing it And then you would take the wheat, you'd take the money back Yeah, just have different What happened, I just get a bunch of girls to come out there, right? Just give everybody 40,000, 30,000. You feel I'm saying? Like, at that time, just the BMF area,

Atlanta is the big most happiness place in the world at this time for our culture. So going to the club and somebody wanted to go to Atlanta, and at that time, it was cool because that air trans had, like, cheap tickets. Like, it was like $200 of bureaus in college or something like that, like $1.50 or $200, and you can just fly everybody out there for like $1,000, the house like 100 each way out. And you fly them on air trans.

And then you, you know, show everybody a good time and say, hey, take this back by time then. I have it shrinked out. So we're talking two envelopes. You know, I mean, it's about this big. Don't put this in a purse. And then go back. We got nagged a few times.

Right. But you won more than, more than you lost. Maybe got nagged four times. Yeah. Out of hundreds of times you did it probably. And so they would just fly it back to Cali. Yeah, because it's already thought of seeing a purse. Yeah.

And then we're just going to fly back. Right. Okay. So 2003, you're out. It starts to grow. How much are you moving a week? How many boxes are you sending? How many pounds?

How much money is getting shipped back to you? You're still doing North Carolina. So in North Carolina, you're still doing, it's like a set program, but it's more people involved in there. So those numbers are going to still go under the 40 times, but really me personally, I probably was only doing 100 a week in North Carolina that were mine. So you make about 50 grand profit off that? Not 50 because it shrinks down to like you're paying 30, right?

You're only getting back 50. You're making about 20. Okay. Right. So you're only get back five. Yeah. You know what I mean? So you're making 20 plus.

You have to pay the people for the accounts. Sure. Sure. Right. So I would say like 17. Right. 17 grand a week though. Yeah, yeah.

Fresh out of prison is pretty good. you know, shipping a bunch of weed. So how does that grow? Then you meet. Now I meet Atlanta. Now I can do my own 20. He can do 20. So now you can make, at the beginning, you're making eight grand a day.

Right. At the beginning, right? Because you're going to make $4,000 off each 10 pounds. And then he's going to do 20. Right. So that's what you can make off of one box. Your one box, you're going to make $8,000 profit. That's yours because your $12,000 doesn't exist because you have to re-app

which is 12,000, yeah, right? Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and all birds continue to trust and use them.

With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. 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 MintMobile 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. Seeful terms at MintMobile. So that was like, you know what I mean, the epitome of me excelling, right? Because I can still get my North Carolina check. Then I got the Atlanta thing going on, right? So now I can kind of grow and now I can kind of maneuver like a little bit. How do you expand?

Do you get more clients or do you just keep sending more and more weed to your contacts there? You didn't really need any more clients because they don't have enough there. Right. You can't even get enough there. You don't need to get anymore. what you need to do is get some more money to get more wheat. Get more product. Because they want more wheat.

It's gone as soon as it lands. Yeah. It's not like you have to wait or convince anybody to buy it. Right. They want it. Like, what the thing that they want is more. Is that just because your ticket is so good and it compared to the price over there? Yeah, we end up dropping it down at nine because it was going for like probably about $1,200 in a round for crazy.

Like $1,000 was a good price for them. Right. We knock it down to nine. But later on in the game, we knocked out of nine. But, yeah, it was about beating out the customers. Like, even at trial, I learned even though we're selling it for five on Reggie, the woman that was end up selling it, she was selling it for $6.50. Right.

I mean, you find that out during like trial transcripts, but that's what the whole thing is having the right price so they can. So everybody's moving it fast. So everybody has a piece of everybody, takes a little point as it moves down. Off a point, because you got to remember at the beginning of it before Big C was in the box, we used to call it a dumper. He was a dumper at first, and then he excelled, right?

What does that mean? A dumper is this the person you're mel into and he's going to dump it. Yeah. So he would make $100 off the top. So without putting in before you even had to make one, put in $1, he would make $4 grand. Because if you're making $100 off each pound and there's 40 pounds and me and my partner that I'm sending it with are sending it.

or sitting 40 pounds, he's making 4 grand without putting up a dollar. Yeah. Just by who he is and who he can sell it to us. So he still makes $4,000 a day. Right. Right. So, you know, every angle of it, you got to see like, okay, yeah, it's just times when in L.A. where I didn't like shooting boxes and I would middleman. We call it middleman in L.A.

And I don't want to say his name because he's changed his life. You know what I mean? He's a rapper. Let's just say he's a rapper from New York that used to come by. weed that has changed his life now. Did he? And, no,

it's crazy. It's crazy. It's because you're close. But anyway, he came and he will buy, and I would just make my $10,000. He'd just get it 100 pounds. I would just make $100 off the top and make $10 grand in L.A.

and just driving out the street and throw it in his trunk. He didn't even look at the weed. That's another thing that I liked about the game back then. As long as it was green, that's all that mattered. It wasn't all this finger-fired. and looking at it. And even today, even in the market of being in the legal market, it's the whole thing.

You know, so it's just like, it's just crazy no matter how you look at the weed game. So sometimes you had some hustlers from out of town that would just come to L.A. with a big buy and you would just take a point and you just make a quick 10 bands for nothing, just for going like taking it with the right hand, dropping it with the left. Yeah. And it's hard to do that now because now you've got all this weed in L.A. You can't do it. The game is like damn there over.

Because they don't need you anymore. At this point, they needed you because you had the Hispanic connect or you had this. And someone needed you to, in order to go to the hood, in order to do that, no one needs you anymore. So how were you growing? The amount of weed was the problem. You had to get more weed out to Atlanta, more weed out to Charlotte. How did you grow that? How did you grow this operation?

Did your, did your Connect give you credit? Or were you always come in cash on demand with them? Sometimes you get credit. Sometimes, sometimes, like, you know, Hey man, I got a hundred tied up. Let me just, you know, get a hundred if I'm buying a hundred, right? If I'm buying a hundred front of me, hundred, right? So, yeah, there was sometimes like that.

And then sometimes the skirts is what we called on the address, if we're bad in Atlanta and just all the boxes, we lost five straight boxes. So then we were mailing the South Carolina and drive from South Carolina on down and pray. We literally pray in the car and have to drive back with the weed and mail it to South Carolina and drive back down. because it was at a point of during the BMF era when all the drugs and all the stuff was getting hit out there and maybe in like 05.

Yeah. Right? It was very, very tough and very, it was a very, very hot zone. Yeah. And all the boxes, you know, the DUPS people were still in the boxes. It says they know what's in there.

It's the fuck as this big ass box coming from Cali for it and taking it. Right. So that was a very, very crucial time too. Yeah. You know, because you lose five times back to back. And then an old. six, I just got a house.

I finally, you know, I had two cribs. I just got a house. I got the new jag or got this. My kids is born. I've spent a lot of money. And then, boom, he gets knocked. Who's that? Big C gets, goes to jail.

And Big C is my plug at the time. And at this personal time, this is my only source of income. And I've got a $12,000 a month overhead. And Big C is the guy in Atlanta? Yes. Okay. So he gets cracked. And it was, I was a terrible.

over time. I had to go back to the streets and I had to go back to hustling hard, you know, because it was, that was my only source of income. I got spoiled for two or three years. Right. You know, like I didn't have to do nothing but mailboxes. So I went back to the streets, and the rest of peace, my boy Zizi. I was selling shoes, weed, everything. Then the borders closed on me. It was, it was, it was tight. Oh, 607. How did you eventually find a new buyer on the East Coast? This is when the conspiracy, this is when the conspiracy starts. So I'm on the corner, I'm back hustling, I'm back grinding. And then the guy who started to hold on everyone

started the 40sons conspiracy, he sees me. He's like, bro, I got Charlie Cracking. But he owes me some money from like Miami. That was some shit we did. And he's like, man, you don't need to be too big to be out here, man. To be out of here on the streets, man. Come fuck with me, pull up and get into the Maserati. He's fucking, you know.

at the time, I was like, I got these pretendos. We call them pretendos. Those are the ones that are grown like outdoor, right? So I sell them some pretendos because the border is closed and it's hard to get the thing. So he gets to pretendos. I make probably like about $10,000, right,

off of the pretendos off of the actual middleman fee. And I use that middleman fee to start messing with, with him on the Charlotte thing. And that's how we start the Charlotte thing back up. I see. And he needed me. This is the one I said that likes to work a lot. And he doesn't mind putting the crates together and doing all the work.

And he'll wrap the box. He'll do everything. He just needs somebody to send the money back to. And this is when Evelyn and Natalia, and I bring them in, I'll meet her. She works at the bank. I'm like, I just need you to help me get the money back. Okay. I'm going to put 9,000 in your checking, 9,000 your savings.

So I'll put 18,000. I've given you 200 each account, right? That's what I'm paying Western Union. So I'm going to give you $400 a day. Then I'm going to give you your cousin $400 a day. We're going to get back $36,000 a day. And that's how the money trail started. And that's how the conspiracy started.

Okay. Okay. So at this time, does the weed, I assume that Mexican, the brickweed, the reggie and the AZ? This is the brickweed. Okay. So, oh, that's still selling in 07? Is it? I mean, like, it's selling so much that we had to move to crates.

We couldn't get enough. Wow. Like, not only was it selling, it was tremendously like a hoop. You know, it was like to the top we go, you know, like, we made it all away. Even though I don't like to, you know, claim things of things of, you know, people that like, you know. Please do. Get me wrong. Please claim it.

Yeah, I mean, you know, Hollywood Hills, you know, four level mansion, four balconies across the street from Tarasi Pinson. Mike stuff down the street, you know, off my island. You know, so you got to make it to different, you know, trapped out the loft downtown, you know, so it's like you got to, you know, you got to see some different things. What, so this is still weed that's coming from Arizona from a Mexico? No, no, no. This is regular reggie stress.

Okay. Z is going to Atlanta. This is going to Charlotte, North Carolina. Where does regular reggie stress? That also comes from Mexico. That's just brick Mexican weed. And still moving. That's so crazy.

Because in 07, I was in college in Eugene, Oregon, and you couldn't move that shit anymore. It's eating this shit up. And it's just during a time where the borders are closed. So they're eating it up. Like, it's like the thing that is. So if you were the one that could actually get the weed across the border, you had the plug that could do it. You were taking, you were selling it to everybody. I mean, like, you can't get enough.

I'm back at the loft middle management. And then, you know, we're selling it over. there, you know? So it's like, how much are you moving a week? With the crates. Or sometimes we do, we do, we do 40, we do 40 a day in the boxes. So that's, you know, 200 a week. Yeah. And then we maybe do a crate for like 300. Wow. You know, so you do a crate for 300 and then you do the boxes. And then, but we're just at this time, we're using the accounts. So that's where the paper trail is coming from. We'll get to that. Yeah. Stay in the zone. Stay in the zone. This is the glamorous part of the story.

We'll get to how you got fucked later. You know what I mean? Like, don't bury the lead, as we say, in radio, you know? So you're moving about 500 joints a week out of L.A. That's insane. And that's just you and your partner. Yeah.

And a couple of people that you have running for you. At that time, it was just me and him. Wow. And he's doing all the boxing and the rapping and the- He's doing the work. He's going out there. Sometimes I'm bringing back money. He's doing everything.

And the only thing that I am in charge of, is the money. You're in charge of getting the money back from these ghosts. From the bank. That's right. Okay. I meet a different, you know, sometimes different. If we need, if we have too much stuck down there.

But we can get $36,000 back every single day. Right. Every single day, we're getting $36,000. Five days a week because those are banking days? Or could you get it? Even on Saturday. Okay. You know what I mean.

Okay. We're putting nine in your checking and nine of your savings. Because 500 pounds, you're selling each pound for how much. much out there 500 at the time we're getting for three selling for five so we're making two thousand off every 10 pound got it but that's still 500 pounds times 500 dollars that's still 200 250,000 a week that you got to get back yeah but every three days you can get back down there a hundred grand and then they can go back and get the rest because you're getting for sure on paper on documentation you're getting back 36,000 dollars every single day okay could you explain that one

more time the how you use these ladies at the bank they open You can open up with a Bank of America account in Charlotte. Right. So now that your address is in Charlotte, the money is going to be automatically available. Right. So you get nine cash in their checking, nine in their savings, right? They're making $400 a day for laundry. And they're just doing it every day because they work at the bank anyway.

That's what nobody is why they're mad at them because they work at a bank. Right. So they don't see anything wrong with they're touching 100 to 200 grand a day. They work in Beverly Hills in the bank. Right. So it's like, that's another part that I liked about it. So I could just go get the money. I would go, it's got so regular that I would just pull up.

They would be at work and the money would be an envelope in the glove compartment in their cars. And I'll just go get the $36,000. And by the time he comes back, I got the re-up money, I got all the money. This is amazing. So you deposit it using women that work at the bank in Charlotte and then you go withdrawing money. No, they work in the bank in L.A. If you open your bank like you live in Charlotte. I see.

So it can be clear as soon as they put it in. Totally. But they're in LA. Right. Their bank is opened up in Charlotte. That makes sense. So that they deposit it in Charlotte and then you just go to your account in L.A. and withdraw the money.

Draw the money. Wow. And you only had to pay them $400 a day. And you leave like, you know, like you leave something in there so it can be, you know. And you tell them to leave their 400s in there too. So their 400s can grow. Right. Right.

So they're only taking out to 88. Right. Right. Out of each one. Right. So then they leave that in there. Now they money can grow. now they can see they check by the end of the week.

Now it's like, okay, I'm eight two grand or three grand a week. You know what I mean? So, wow. It's a lady who counts cash at a bank. They don't make a lot of money. They make $20 an hour. Thank you. So, you know, it was like a double entendre.

I mean, you imagine like if a weed trapper was able to commit that kind of conspiracy. Think about what Coke Kingpins in the 80s were able to do, who they were able to manipulate at the banks. Yeah. Like, I was so scared. I was like, that's, that's, that's. the government literally the federal government monitors everything that goes on to the bank like that was already a huge no-no for me why did you think this was the best way to do it as opposed to like putting it

not only did you do it before not only have i done it before and done it with other girls that nothing's never happened to right that i know that it's all like smoking screen it's like if no one's not telling on it and no one didn't um testify and tell the feds that this is going on the girls would never got, because if that's the case, then everybody would. If it was this big old thing, then where's the other 10 women that did it? You know? So why they're not? But since he testified and told on them, and of course, if you go look at their accounts and

you can see it, you know. Right. But you didn't get knocked. Like, it's not like the feds picked up on these girls at the bank. And that's how the conspiracy started. That's how the case started. He told them a safe deposit box. You know, I mean, we're making money together.

So when you get off work, I would go to the safe deposit box and go. put my money in. Right. You know what I mean? And I would leave one out of Atlanta and one out here. So if I made my money in Atlanta, I'd leave it there. What the fuck did I need to bring it back for? Right.

I needed somewhere to run to. Right. And he knew this. And it was one weird day and I should have knew this. It was like right before the feds came. I went and they were taking like a long ass time to take me back to my box. I've been going to this same box for 10 years. Where are you taking me long to go to my box for?

right? I should have knew something then. I should take my money then. Wow, that is fascinating. So they never were alerted. The feds were never alerted to all of this money that was coming in and out of these bank accounts. That's amazing for somebody to learn. Not only that. The women went off and she had a baby and she went out and lived her life. I didn't even see them. that we didn't see each other since 2009. Our case started in 2013. That's four years of no one saying anything, people while living their regular life. Right.

Right. So, and this is, we're talking $36,000 every single day. I mean, not missing today. I don't think we missed today. We worked every single day. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting because all of these different cells,

these operators, yeah, you guys worked independently. There wasn't a lot of communication. It was just you guys got it to be such a well-oiled machine that, yeah, boxes go out. Yeah. Money gets deposited. Everybody's happy. Oh, my time. I mean, by time you wake up, it's already deposited.

By the time you wake up in L.A. 9, there's another, the money is already there. It was a fucking real-life machine, you know. So you're waking up to hundreds of thousands of dollars just available to you at all times. Millions of dollars. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And you're, I mean, you talk about an addiction that's hard to shake. I was going to be, I didn't understand why anybody wanted it to stop. You know what I mean? Right. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, you know. Now, did you have any problems with supply?

Because now you're getting, you need to get about 500 pounds of Reggie out to the East Coast every week. Did you ever have any droughts on your half? You have, you have, you have, you know, like four, five day droughts, six day droughts. Right. You know what I mean? And at that time, it's more of an addiction where you just want to get back to work because you're used to getting up and getting it done. Now, your suppliers on the Mexican end, are they, how did that work? Do they get all of the bulk product to L.A.?

And then you just go take as you need it or were you guys actually warehousing the re-up? Like, would you go re-up with 500 at a time? Like, how did that work? How did the re-up work? Rio works with like, you know, you go get a little storage unit, right? You got to get a little storage in it. So you leave the extra weed that you're going to. So now every day, instead of having to go every single day, that would be just, you know,

that would be a fucking federal, as we say. That would be crazy. Right. So you get that and then you just send out your 40 a day. Then when you're sending the crate, you get it all and put it all in the crate and work, just work all that one day. Right. Right.

You know what I mean? That one day of getting the crate out and then I never really, I wasn't, I'm not a big crate dude. I like the boxes. Just boom, you can make it, you can lose it, you can win it. It's kind of like gambling. Right. But with the crate, you're putting it all eggs of one basket.

Sure. And now people are starting to have bright ideas. Did your partner explain to you, you know, how he used crates? Like, did he have to create fake LLCs? Like, what do he declare? You know, how do you declare 300 pounds in a crate? What do you say it is? He was pretty flagrant in.

That's what part is our downfall. It's the reason why he, you know, why everything happened. It's because he just goes and there's flagrant. He fucking thinks he knows everything. You can't tell him anything, right? You know, you got to think he's making money. He's less calm. So he's going to be very hard at listening.

And that was one of the big problems. The big problem was him being too flagrant going into the day, I believe it's daylight trucking, right? And just being very flagrant about it. Yeah, because I have another partner that's never lost a crate. Right. Never in life has ever lost one crate. Right.

So I think when you get it done, when you successfully mail through and ship through so many thousands of pounds, you think your shit don't stink. You think it's, wow. I'm the man. That kind of was one of the things. So you get about 500 pounds delivered to a safe storage unit. and then you would just prepare everything for the week. You just still do daily because you don't want the, you don't want the wheat sitting in the box.

You don't want to get all your boxes and now in the weeds just sitting in the box. So you still would still get up and do it daily. That was your job. I mean, it's going to take you an hour. You know what I mean? And now you're back to what you're doing. And I'm just basically doing that.

And back to what I'm doing, have somebody pay somebody to $200 to mail it, right? I'm paying the purse of $200 to get the money back. So I've never touched to marijuana. I've never been to your state. And I've never done it. You know what I mean? I'm like a ghost, but yeah.

Ghost is very bad. Right. Well, you've definitely been to their state. No, I've never been to Charlotte. Yes, you have. You've never been to Charlotte. I've never been to Charlotte a damn life. What was that all that shit you were talking about Hooters and...

That's in Atlanta. You got to kick up. I am. You're rapping in the way you talk. Okay, yeah, yeah. So, Atlanta. Talk like you're talking to my white parents. Okay.

That's the best way to podcast. Atlanta is where we had to kick it off Atlanta. That makes sense. To get the Atlanta thing, my own personal thing. Every time that I was brought in Charlotte, I was brought into it with someone else. Yeah. Yeah. I see.

So you have people coming in and out. You're paying people to drop boxes off. Because you can't send the same person to the same UPS store. You run out of stores eventually. Yeah. And that was before you had to present your ID to ship out a box. So it was pretty easy. Right.

Did you have like any kind of, I hate to say. say this, but like, I usually didn't send black people back then to, like, make drives for me when we had to go pick up the product. And, you know, we usually tried to send like really well-groomed, like fresh out of college kids. Yeah, yeah. Did you have any kind of racial profiling when it came to like- Definitely, I have racial profiling. Definitely, if you have, if you walked in there, that's what I meant by flagrant by him thinking that you can do that. I meant that by flagrant of going in there and think that you can, your box is going to get knocked. They're going to, they're going to put, if they're anything going to take it, we met a lady.

That's, this is how we knew about people knocking people boxes. And she didn't like the guy that was mell in the box. I see, he was being so, I guess, obnoxious to her, right? And she sold us one of his boxes. She was like, yeah, this motherfucker. And she knew that we were shooting the box. And so the saws like, oh, this game is vicious. You know, so the deeper, that was more like 08, you know, like when I was starting to take place,

08 pushing into 09, where that game was so vicious. So many people were sending so much weed that, you know, people were turning, and people boxing people working there, taking your box, you know. So it was, it was very, very, very crucial time. Yeah, when I started shipping weed in 09, that's when this big, like, CNN story ran. I think it was CNN or it was one of the major news sites ran a whole like half hour piece on how West Coast marijuana dealers were shipping untold tons of product every week to the East Coast through the mail. I was like, oh, this is really blowing up the spot, you know? So yeah, that's when we had to start taking a lot of precautions.

We quickly got out of UPS. like I shipped, you know, in one year, maybe like 400 boxes. And we used exclusively FedEx and the mail, USPS, because UPS. I never like to USPS. I like the FedEx because at least they're going to tell you if you're winning or not. You can track it. You can track it. If you want, you know, you get up in the morning and go to Kinkos and check your numbers.

Right. And FedEx would tell you, you know what I mean? Like if it's not, if it's all bad, it's all bad. It's good. It's good. It was never no gray area. Right. You know, like I forgot what city that was, UPS. I was always a gray area. I don't know if it's Kentucky, I think.

Like, if your box was stuck in Kentucky, that's right. You're done. It's Kentucky's the sorting facility. It's Louisville, Kentucky. That's where all of the boxes that get shipped through UPS first go there. And then they get shot off to their final destination. Your shit didn't move in Kentucky. You're done.

You're done. Somebody just got a new Cadillac. Yeah, yeah. So just gone about your day. Yeah, UPS. And they would, I don't know if it was like FedEx searched their employees better at these sorting facilities. But for some reason, it was clearly easier if you were a UPS employee to steal product out of the boxes. And I don't know what it's about right in if you know.

You didn't even know, like some people were saying they received the box and had nothing in it. They still delivered it. It was nothing. Exactly. You're looking at the person different. You know, so, you know, it was like those little type of times that you're like, oh, for sure. for sure. Yeah. Yeah, it was all, everybody had their own preference. U.S.PS was mostly good because they're trying to compete with the private package delivery services, UPS, FedEx, DHL.

So I noticed that I always won with them, except for one time the money got snatched because idiots on the other end were, didn't wrap the money right. And that's, and that's kind of, again, that's the biggest problem with this mail mailing game is that you can't control what somebody on the other side is doing if you're not there. Right. Then not only that, that's when we go back to the money causing the biggest problem. Because you don't have, of course you have the actual transcripts at trial of, it's really a money laundering trial if you ask me. Because you're showing the $4 million that is going through the account.

Right. But where is the $40 million worth of wheat? You said $40 million? Four million. Four million was what they charge you with. Right. The money that's, I'm saying because this is all that you guys know about. Right.

And this is all that you guys have on file. Right. You guys only had two crates. Right. One crate that you guys seized and one crate, you know what I mean, that they stole, right? But where's all the wheat? You see what I'm saying? So the weed was never was what caused the problem.

The money was always the biggest problem. Did you become more sophisticated as the years went on? Did you have, did you change the way that you ship money back? Or did you always just use the banking ladies? The banking went on for about six years, that six years. Because it gets you lazy, right? It gets lazy because then you just go, boom. It's our account.

It's boom. You're really not, I wouldn't do it like that anymore. But you get lazy because it's an easier way. and you have like a confirmed, instead of the money getting lost, you know that the money was put in there, right? Instead of how, like, you lost 40, 50,000 here. You lost this or somebody got a note at the airport

because they got flagged at the airport, right? Or, you know, we lost 200 grand at the airport before. Oh, you did? Yeah. How did that happen? He was trying to check his bag or something? I was trying to just go in through and thinking he can just do everything. He's a know-it-all.

I got a few know-it-alls on my team, right? And he went through and boom. got called the $200,000 of effort coming back from Charlotte. Wow. And did they, the feds arrest him? Yeah, it's a part of our conspiracy. Wow. Wow. Yeah, trying to like, he basically checked his bag and then took it off the carousel when he got back.

And the feds were waiting for him. Yeah. So it's like, you know, you have those times and you got the times that you really never lost not one dollar at the bank. Right. So it was like, okay, I lost 40 grand here before. I lost this. I lost this. You know,

this package got stolen this, you know, but actually with the bank, yeah, you lose in the end because it came with the money trail. But actual physical paper, we've never lost a dollar at the bank.

You know, they've never held the money or they never didn't give it to them, right? You know, so that's unbelievable. That's what kind of makes you more lazy about the bank and then you think about the other people that no one knew about, right?

They're free and clear. Because there are a bunch of people that got away that were involved with the banking that never got knocked. No one knows about. Right. And then so since if no one knows, then boom, no, no face, no case. So let's get back to the weed now. So your things are really moving. You got motion. 500 pounds a week, more or less. So that's what, 2,500 pounds a month. Do you start to branch out to different strains of weed now as we're moving along into like 2009, 2010 and on, did you start getting demand for more high grade indoor, you know, or good outdoor from Cali, you know?

You do, you do, but you get problems, right? So now you send, now you tie up more money. Now you get 100 pounds of indoor, right? Which costs a lot. How much would that cost you? Back then, they were like three grand a pound. And that's a great price. That's a wholesale place. price three grand a pound. You know, I mean, so you spent all this money and now you get it down there and they only like 70 of them. They don't like the other 30. You know what I mean? Like, oh, these ones was cool, but then this one.

So now your money gets tied up. I never really won ever in my history of selling marijuana, even in my company, even in my company. I just started off with selling high grade, right? High grade never worked out for me. we used to sell it and then you get or if you sell 10 of them then eight of them are getting another two the other two that's your profit those two that they don't like so you actually didn't make any money you just kept getting your money back so I've never been successful in the high grade weed department ever oh that's really I don't think you can sell 40 tons of high

grade weed even today I don't think you can do it yeah because that's really interesting because people that are paying you know in Atlanta a pound of high grade callie weed even wholesale was Probably. What was the ticket back then? Five, five grand? About five grand. So, yeah, if I'm a dealer and I'm paying five grand for a pound, I'm a lot pickier. I'm like, yeah, I'm not taking these, this one. And then who's going to grow that many of the same exact perfect pounds? They're going to fuck up on something.

Right. You see what I'm saying? So it's like, I never really, that was never my success. So you, until the day you got arrested in 2013? Yeah. You were still. Well, I turned myself in. The case started 2011, right?

So 2011 was why I got caught with a pound, a weed in the car. Hang on, hang on. I just want to know, were you moving the same kind of weed until the day that you went to jail? Like, did you still stay Malin Reggie? Yeah.

No, no, no, no. Until the day I went to jail, the day I went to jail, no, that was out. That wasn't even the hustle anymore. the weed the weed started being too picky people start getting on the lien you know what I mean

like people start drinking lean oh drinking lean oh wow drinking lean yeah so lean was kind of more of like the thing like really before I got a rest yeah like even when the feds like kicked in the door like I had probably like four or five gallons in the fridge that they didn't know about

wow okay it was more of a it was more of like a simple hustle where you didn't have to like you didn't have to it's like boom as long as it's activist and it's sealed in a bottle that's it's no talking about it like the weed

by the time 2012 2012 2013 it's a lot of let me see it finger if I could smell it this all type of stuff and now no one's smoking Reggie so you can't you can't set a reggie's no more good AZ's borderline

hard to find and no good borders being closed right so you can't go that route so you kind of have to go another route. Oh, I see. So it was either, it was either go over to high grade weed that was on a smaller scale, which already don't have a good backtrack on that. I already don't have a good career in it. Right, right. And you're moving on smaller scales too. And there's just, it's just harder to get a lot of it. And it's already get a lot of it. It's too picky. And you're

dealing with higher numbers, higher investment. So you're, you're risking more. You're risking more. Okay. So are you going to risk 30 men? Right. For 10 pounds? You know what I mean? For somebody for you to get it out there, right? And they're like, oh, like seven of these, but these other three, I don't know what I can do with these, shoddy.

You know what I mean? And so it's just like, now you know, other three. You should have found some white guys. You know what I mean? No offense. Yeah. So it's like, nah, I can't fucking fuck with this shit. And then the Reggie wasn't even selling.

This was like, Reggie's done. Done. Reggie's done. Yeah. Reggie's done. And AZ is hard to fine. Right. Good AZ is hard to fine.

And now it's chronic or Cush. Now could you have retired? Like at this point, had you moved for a decade, practically, you just moved unfathomable amounts of weed. Did you save any money? Like, could you have just stepped back from the game in general? Or did you feel like you had to get off into... I draw different things.

Like, you know, like, you know, I bought real estate. I bought a clothing store for my kids. Remind me you have kids now. So I had two daughters at this point. I was still into living a lavish lifestyle. You know, I've had, you know, mansion yacht baby showers and, you know, nipsy performed at my daughter's birthday party, you know. And so I was like South Central History.

Right. You know, I had YG do a, like a gift back clothing to all the kids at a horseman that had straight days and gave him free skinny jeans. And I started like in that and I started like my own clothing line and stuff like that. So I was dumping money into trying to maneuver to get out the game. Right. But I still, I'm very into cars. I've had over 25 to 30 cars, you know, so I'm into a lot of stuff, you know.

So I'm spending a lot of money too. Yeah. You know, I have a lot of habits. Yeah. And it's a lot of stuff. So I don't really repeat my clothes that much either. Yeah. Because you're used to being fly.

Like you were fly as a kid with your dad's drug money. And so all that led, that's what I mean. And by when you're growing up in those type of lifestyles, even if you look at the, you know, kids that were celebrity kids or whatever it is, right? You are creating habits. So I've created years worth of habits that I had to keep up with, right? So those are all habits that it's just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah.

Got to have to keep up with. So, you know, a lot of money is going to that too as well, you know, so. And then I do that for my kids too as well. So you have to keep it up for you, yourself, your kids. And then you're going to have a girl. You have to keep it up for them too. Right? So.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough when you've created this culture and this persona and just, again, habits, right? It's not just a cultural thing, but it's also just like you become like a, it's like Chris Rock said, and this is no offense. Yeah. Women can't go down in lifestyle.

Yeah. And for the drug dealer, the fly dude who's now like a hood star, I mean, you know guys like Nipsey Hustle and YG. So I assume kind of the whole, that whole area kind of knows who you are at this time. Yeah. And the source of your wealth. So you kind of, it's really, really, really psychologically difficult. And it kind of like that kind of brings in the more money. So like if that stops because like.

Because you attract other customers. You attract other customers too. but not only that, every time that I try to like go low-key or try to like, all right, I'm going to tone it down. People are like, well, I don't just tone it down a little bit. I don't get no customers and no one fucks with me. But when I'm allowed to do all this shit, everyone fucks with me and gives me all money. So it's like you got to stay with what works for you.

That's how they like me. They like me on stage. And that is the thing about especially the hood drug star, trap star, you know, the big car, the bling, the shine. the cash, that is kind of your business card. Yeah, right? That's kind of like your advertisement. You know what I mean? The car, if I pull up, right?

So I used to trap out of fucking, you know, Ben, Beezer, Bentley's and all this whole type of stuff. I haven't gotten to some shit in a little, almost like a fake shootout because I pulled it up in the bin, right? But I want to pull up and I'm selling it out of this shit. I'm not pulling up in the low key. I open my trunk and it just looks better coming out of the poor. You know what I mean?

Like even when I had the two-door Porsche, I would fucking keep it in the middle in the front truck, right? And then boom, they're going to 100 pounds right there you want her or not. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Because the regis were so, you know what I mean? Compressed. Yeah, like little, they're like footballs. They're like little footballs. Boom. Put them in there.

Boom. You know, so. So you're trapping 100 pounds out of a Porsche, a two-door Porsche. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty dumb. I like to doing it like that.

I think that made it more like, it was exciting to the person that's buying it. That's right. Right. Like, when I pull up, I'm pulling up. It's like, oh, you know, my people from pull up. We're going to bring the weed. Are you from the Westcott?

I'm going to pull up in the Maserati. I'm going to pull up, you know, I'm going to pull up the CL 63. I had a lot of cars first. Where do you keep 25, 30 cars in L.A.? Not at one time. You know, I'm saying during the duration. Right. I'll probably have two cars at a time.

Yeah. Coming in and out. You trade it in and you get another one. But I'm just, what's just showing you, that was another addiction. Yeah. Yeah. Does your father at this time, because he's still living, thank God, at this time, does he know what you're doing and what does he think about all this? Did you ever have a talk with him?

He knows what I'm doing, but he knows I'm just selling weed. So he's not really not, he's not looking down on it. Of course, he wants, you know, he provided it for us to have a better life, obviously. But I'm selling weed. I'm not hurting nobody. I'm not in a gang. I'm not shooting anybody. I'm not causing any arm.

And most people are thinking, God, it's just weed. How much time can you get for weed? I was thinking like five years max. Right. And I was thinking not to say it like that because it's not worth doing it one day for missing your life. But I was feeling like it was worth my risk. For sure. I was saying people get caught with it.

It's better what I've found out that it's better to just get caught with the weed. Right. I'm saying people get caught with trucks with $1,000, $2,000, 3,000 pounds on it. Yeah. Four years, three years. Because that's just possession. Right. Right.

Right. This whole conspiracy thing is what you want to stay away. That's right. That's when they put you, they give you the, the C30. I can't remember. Is it C31? The 131 kingpin charge. That's when they prove you're the manager. When you are managing anybody, three or more people. Right. So I'm managing the girls because I'm getting the money from them. I'm managing them because you even managing the person with the weed because the more that you don't do that you think that, see, this is what I'll really, really learn. the more that you don't do is the worse off you are. Right.

Because now you're creating a, you want to be the worker. Because now you look like the boss. You don't want to be the boss. The boss is the worst person in the world. Because these laws that now take down drug dealers and hood cats were set up to take down Italian mafia bosses. Yes. Who never, all they did was delegate. You have crack hits.

Literally crack hits in the feds right now serving 25, 30 years. Like the main law that needs to be charged change and that's what I fight for. That's why I'm trying to go to the White House and, you know, change my demographic, is that you are storing people away in a bathroom and taking away their whole life. Yeah. And they didn't do shit. Yeah. You know what I mean?

They didn't do shit. They didn't have shit. And they didn't do nothing. And I just don't think that that's cool. And that's what I want to use my second chance for. No, of course. Of course. I mean, it's, yeah, they've really taken that law because now there are no more, there is no more Italian mafia with that kind of power.

But the law is still around. I don't need that. You're not even doing any more investigative. like you deal with and tie them off. You have to have pictures and catch them and have a person put on a wire and all this. Now just everybody's telling, so it's just so disgusting now

because now that everyone is telling, they don't even need to do any work. That's right. The work is already done for them. It's insane. So it's like, it's fucking sick. So with all that said, you said, okay, I don't want to keep,

I don't want to keep it low key and just move a little 10, 20 pounds a week. of high-grade shit. Well, I will point out that's how I operated and I made a million dollars a year. That's how good the game was back then. You could send 15, 20 pounds a week

and as one guy. I sent weed to New York. I got a like a little run in New York, but Atlanta is more picky because you've got to understand some middle states. So everyone's coming from all the other states. And it's a middle state. So that creates a bunch of pickiness.

It's a very big hip hop state. Yeah. Right. So you got this and it's whatever they say on the song, that's just what it is. Right. You know what I mean? If fucking wham is fucking right now, if it's wham, then it's wham. And if you don't have wham, then you are fucking sitting on the sideline until you get some lamb.

Because somebody wrapped about a strain. Whatever strength? No, no, no. I'm just saying that's today. Okay. That's today. Right. But I'm just saying in the era of you're in an era of how that it's land.

an era was and still is today. It's so big on hip hop is that whatever the hip hop is saying. When New York, when I went to New York and shout out to my people in New York that, you know, they got to do their thing and help me make some money. But New York was all about Hayes back in the day. It was Hayes. It was this. Sour.

Sour diesel. You know, you make it and they paid more. Yeah. They paid more. Right. So. Yeah. It just, it wouldn't get a long run.

I probably got like a year or two run in New York. But, right. You know, I just, I just, I don't know. Then he took longer to like, you know, I got more, but I was looking at it like he took a week. Yeah. Right. So taking a week and then I can focus on Atlanta and Charlotte or whatever and everybody's coming back with the money the next day. Right.

So even though I was getting more to me, I wasn't getting more because the extra $300 that I'm making is taking me a week to make it. And I've been spoiled in the game that whatever your box touch next day, you get paid the next day. Okay. So you decide, how do you decide to get off into Lean? Lean was more of like you get to meet all the rappers. You know, you get to kick it with everybody. You get to, it was a easy hustle where I looked at it.

It was like a stock market. I never looked at it as like because I never like used it or didn't know like the effects of it into now. Okay. Can you tell us what Lean is? Lina's like a cough syrup. You know, it's like a carmethazine or something. Okay.

And it's, how's it made, all that stuff? I'm not really sure. I'm not really sure about that. Like, I just looked at it more like a stock market type of thing where I'm buying it for this number and I can collect them. And then I for sure get this number.

So I can for sure sell them for 500 and I can get them for 300 in town. So the same money that I was making out of town in Charlotte buying the Reggie for three. Yeah. I can buy them for $300. and they're selling for five. So I'm making $200 a bottle in town. And not only that, the people need me and they're going to give me their money.

Right. So it's like I really damn they don't even need any money, actually. I just need to collect them. Yeah. Because if I tell you that, I'm going to go get 10, I'll just send you the five. They'd just give me the $5,000 up front. Right.

So you don't still make the same $2,000. But you have to collect and it's more work. And you have to deal with a lot of, you know, I would say different type of people in order to actually to collect them and stuff. So it's more harder. work. Is that $500 a bottle? $500 a bottle.

Okay. Yeah. And are you, and you're just able to sell in L.A. You don't have to ship them anywhere. I'll have to mail it. Now, if I mail it, I can get more. But I'm saying I don't really have to. Okay.

I was thinking of things. I sat down for a year. And I was thinking of things because I didn't get that much of a long run with it. Because I was only out for six months before the feds came. So I turned myself in for the year for the marijuana. And then the feds came. Right. So I got a six month of hustle of learning the lien game.

So I didn't get to master it. Right. So I was just learning like, how can I make another two, three thousand, manage my money? He'd start trying to figure out how to invest. I started my first clothing line. I was old money because they used to call me old money because I used to always have all the old $100 bills.

Right. So he used to call me old money. So I was pushing my brand. Right. And I had Charles Barkling and a few other people rock it. And I would have all the old hundreds. an old 50s. So I would trade all my new money in. Even in my safe deposit box, I had nothing but old hundreds and old 50s. So every time I would get, I would see some months, go to the bank,

trade all my old money out. So then when I pull out the money, I don't even have small faces. I don't have big faces, right? So that created my name and I've created my image of old money, right? So I would sell the clothes and then if I can sell lean in the clothes at that time, but it was only a six-month run. How are you? Yeah. So I didn't really get it. Is it a big market? Press the brand and press the lien. So, but what I learned from the market is that as long as you had a sealed bottle, your money was like guaranteed.

It was no talking. It was like, it was like a very, very short-lived hustle. That was like a smooth hustle. Wow. Yeah, it was very, very. It reminds me almost of like the shirm phenomena in the hood in the 70s and early 80s with lean. Like it was niche really bad for you. But there did seem.

does seem to be a lot of money in it. Were you selling to dealers or people that were just going to use it? More dealers and rappers. Rappers loved it. A lot of, a lot of rappers. I meant a lot of rappers. Can you tell us? No, no. Can we do it on the bonus? Can we do it on the Patreon episode?

A lot of big name. Let's just say a lot of big name. Yeah. Yeah. I know Jewel Santana. He really took a fall, getting hooked on lean. Who you sort of look like right now, to be honest with you. pre-lead. Pre-lead. Okay, so yeah. All right.

So, yeah, tell us about how this long run finally came to an end. You got caught with a pound of weed, you were saying. Take us from there. That's a whole thing on round nine. Now, at this time, he got to start a conspiracy. He had just, he's just getting caught, right? So he's getting caught around this time. Okay.

Now, I don't physically know how the fail. it's work physically. I don't know how to feds work. So when I hear in 2010 that he got 19 years, right, I'm like, you know, I'm taking up on the street. Like, even though he fucked me over and he ran off with like 60 pounds and all kind of bullshit that is the guy, your main partner that would wrap all the weed and put it in the crates and all that.

Yes. Got it. So he gets sentenced. I go turn myself in to go do my. year. You got a year for what? I got, I was on two probations where I got caught with a gun and then I got caught with the weed in the car coming back from the Laker championship game when Kobe won in 2009, right? We was with Trevor and then my boy Brent had worked for Trevor at the time. So we was coming back and we're coming back from the club area. So we're coming back

for on Lasziana got from the party. I'm speeding if I could smoke weed and I'm the kind of person. Even though it was three, four people in the car, I don't want everybody to go to jail. So I'm like, it's my shit. They're like, yeah, we're. We got to search the car and all this shit. What would they get? How much weed? It was just a pound of weed in the car. And I just, and I was supposed to leave it, but it was a pound of wheat.

So I was already on, like, two, like, probation and joint spent. So they were like, you've got to do a year. Like, you've been fucking, I've been kind of doing little fuckups. Uh-huh. Right. So, oh my God, I prolonged that shit to 2011 and end up turning myself in in 2011. So I stayed out for two years and tried to get my life in order. During that time, when I did the time.

A lot of things are crumbling. The game is changing where now it's changing into the higher gray week where I'm not really in a very good place in that market. So I'm constantly spending money on living, right? I have to go turn myself in. I have to still try to figure out I take care of my family and do all this. And now I'm going for a year, right?

So now during the time that I'm gone for the year, he gets the time and he's in the feds. I don't know how this works. So I get out 2012. I immediately, after I sat on the bunk, I immediately start having like deep feelings. Like, Dan, I was fucked up. They took his wife.

They fucking took his kids. His kids was on a foster home. You know, his mother had died. Right? So I was like, damn, I got to figure out something. You know what I mean? Like I, by guys, okay, we fucking lost a little. He stole the fucking 60 pounds.

It's fucking was called. But we did make millions of dollars together. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So. Do you know how he got caught? He got caught with a crate.

He got caught with a crate. Yeah, he got caught with a crate. And he was sentenced to 19 years for that? Yeah, with the conspiracy of all. I see. Remember, he's the one going. He asked Todd to Charlotte. Right.

I can show him going to Charlotte. Right. So not 19 years for the, let's get that clear. Not 19 years for the thing for the, for the conspiracy. For the whole conspiracy, right, for all the years. For the years of the conspiracy. So I don't know physically how this works. So they have a,

a courtroom on Hill Street. That's downtown. Yep. Downtown LA. That you get tickets at. Now, I remember his wife's best friend used to work there. So I went on every floor. I got out to I found her.

I found her on like the four floor. I was like, man, let me get her information, that person's information. And let me write her, right? Let me write her and write him and let me send them some money and see what I can do for their kids. I got some clothes for your kids and stuff like that. Boom.

She gives me information. I send them some money. right. So I'm like, damn, I just sent them some money. And then they got my address, of course, right? But I'm not knowing this at the time. I'm like, damn, why did I want to write back? Now, her friend ended up saying, like, she said, hey, and I thank you for the money, but he never wrote back, right? And I was like, damn, that's kind of weird. You're in jail. Your mother's dead. You don't have any family, right? Right. I just sent you fine. And I was like, why wouldn't you write back? You know what I mean? Yeah. I go on by my day. Someone in the streets that I see that I know that I hustle with, says like, hey man, you know, I'm like saying that he's cooperating, right? But it's coming from a source of a person that doesn't like him. Right.

Right. So it goes kind of one year out the next. I'm like, bro, how are you telling you got 19 fucking years? Right. Yeah. So I thought that meant something, but I don't know anything that the feds. You can get your time and then cooperate until your time back off. I'm a state baby at this time.

Right. You can't go back later and put it put up your hand after you get sentenced. You've got a sentence. Now you put your hand up and say, you've got some more information. I don't know that. At this time, he's building the case, right? So the case is building, boom, about six months. I'm going to tell you, I'm selling the clothes and the lien.

Yeah. I'm just getting my money. I'm just staying out of the way. And the first guy that I started the Charlotte stuff with, our kids are cousins, too, by the way. My big mom's sister. Our kids are cousins. And then he gets cracked on like the 13th of January.

The feds come get him for Charlotte. I'm like, I haven't fucked with him in a year. So I paid that no attention. These are two of the biggest signs. On the 20th, I go to the safe deposit box where I tell you they are acting funny and taking a loan to give me the key. I mean, I mean, taking a loan to open it and telling me to hold up and make it and they've never done this.

Right. Right. And this is at the same bank in LA that you've been using for forever? I mean, literally when I walk in there fucking storming me to the back. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean, you got to imagine. I've tipped people. I was caught like, I'm not the person that's waiting.

Right. Yeah. It's like Tony Montana when he walks in with the sack of, sacks of money. Yeah. I don't walk in that flagrant, but I'm just saying, they're not telling me to wait. Right. You know what I mean?

So when they do that, those are two signs that should have said, boom, grab your money and go or, you know, figure everything out. So people are like, yeah, man, they got to do it on 13th. I'm like, I don't make any money with him anymore. So I don't think anything that. So January 28th, 2013. I'm leaving the cleaners. I went and I went and I just left and put some models in the refrigerator.

You feel I'm saying? And I came back. I'm about to take my daughter to drill team practice. So she's waiting. And then I'm about to pick my other daughter up. Right? So everybody's getting dressed. I'm going to the cleaners and doing all the little eyes and hands.

When I hit the street, there's no. I live in like at this time, like over here on 64th. It's kind of like the Black Beverly Hills. Weather hides? Yeah, like kind of. I like it right near LaDare. It's nice. So when I hit the street, I see nothing but white people.

You know what I mean? There's no white people over here. You know what I mean? LA's not gentrifying this fast. It was like this was just crazy. And then it was like, it was like a challenger, a charger, I think a Durango. So as soon as I hit the block, they just went boom and like sandwiched me in and just jumped out and freed and get out all in front of my neighbors.

my daughter's looking out the window. It was just a day I would never forget. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So it was that. Okay.

So you get hauled in. I get all in. Yeah. Do you have bail? Are you able to bail out? Can't bail out? They denied the bail. Wow.

Yeah, they denied the bail. Based on what? Based on, I was still on probation. Yeah. I was still on probation. And, you know, I just got out. I was only out six months. So you had a probation hold.

Had the probation hold. Yeah. phone they send me to uh that was the experience because now me and the guy we're chained up going to charlotte together we're chained up in the van going to charlotte do you know he's telling on you not at this at this time we're both like what the fuck is this is going to be easy to be we're looking at the names on the indictment like none of this shit even matches he doesn't even know you know evelyn and em or none of the shit matches it's a mixed up indictment that he ended up that the other guy end up making up right that he put all the

people together but the people don't match but they're all people but you're just telling on everybody and they're just putting them all under conspiracy but they should be in different conspiracies right right so oh my god now this shit is yeah I'm taking this shit to trial like there's like there's no way in the world I can get a case for a place that I've never even been to I never even been to Charlotte and what are your charges I've never even received the money from Charlotte. Right. It all came out of... It came out of the women's accounts. Yeah. In different people's accounts. Right.

You have no paper trail on me. Right. You're bringing up a paper trail from Atlanta. You don't have me mailing any marijuana. This is when I found out, too. I get a little deeper in that. But when I see this going on and we're because we've got to stay on focus, we're chained up together. So we're coming up with this whole thing. Right.

while we're chained up, like, bro, let's just get down there. All you got to do is be quiet, bro. That's all that you have to do. The longer we be quiet, you can be like those bikers that all walked, all 58 of a walk. Because, you know, because no one said any word. Right. This is what would happen in our case. So that happens.

We get down there the first day to Bill Herring in Charlotte. The lawyer comes back from the back and like, he's already corroborating against you. You might as well cooperate. I said, what the. We've been down here for 10 minutes. He already started cooperating in the first 10 minutes of us making it to Charlotte. It's my first time being in Charlotte. I've never been to Charlotte.

And he already started cooperating. So boom, as soon as we get down there, boom, he's corroborating. Right. So I'm just like, who does he go to? I'm curious about that. You guys are chained up together. Was he cooperating while he was in prison? Or was that?

I don't know if he's calling to tell the people that he's got more. I don't know what he's doing. But when I get to the bail hearing, when we get to court, they're already saying that he's cooperating because we went to court. Then I'm like, then I don't see him no more. Right. He must have been, he must have been already letting them know that he's about to corroborate. Exactly. You got to remember that anybody that's out there that's in any federal conspiracy, they're pressing you so hard to corroborate, right, that if you're not built, you're not going to make it.

They're asked, I didn't even have to leave the backseat of the car. they wanted some information on where he hit his money at in the backseat of the car and I saved him from that. You see what I'm saying? Like in the backseat of the police car from my house, it was like already asking you questions and already giving you options. You can get options before you get down there. You're like, you can fucking play tough if you fucking want to. Yeah. But we can we can fucking help you right now.

We even got to fucking go down here. Let's just get to work right now. So they're giving you options. So at every step. And then they're constantly threatening. The more you go deeper in the trial, you know, they, you know, they threaten your baby mom. They threaten your mom. They're threatening people that they're going to come pick them up for money laundering as well.

Right. So you got to live through the threats. And you're going to have to, you know, live through just everything that's really going on. The shit is very sick to what they're doing because they're doing it all off of information of an informant. Right. It's like the only time that a person that is the scum of the earth that has 50 charges more than you. The only time that he can be of use is to help them convict another person. Right.

Like, where are you getting out of this? Right. Like you're letting someone that's already in jail convict another person. They're not doing any work. You know what I mean? Once the fucking trial start the fucking lead detective, the lead detective and the arresting officers all said in trial, on trial transcripts that I have on paper, Have you ever seen Mr. Cooper in Charlotte?

No, sir. Have you ever seen Mr. Cooper sell any marijuana? No, sir. Have you ever seen Mr. Cooper commit any crime during this investigation of 40 tons of marijuana during your investigation of this? No, I have no further questions, Your Honor. Only people that have seen me something to do something is the people that I made money with. He's actually keeping the real. He's that, you know, it's like you want to dab them up.

You know what I mean? He's not lying. The cops didn't lie on you. The cops didn't not lie on me. They're actually telling the truth. It's the people that you fucking made the money with. That's right. It's testing you do every fucking thing.

Yeah. Yeah, I think, but as you said, if you get, I think it's like two or three people to finger you for something. That's all they need. I think it's in the law. And they're not credible. And you can go to the jury and say, how not credible. Are you only doing this?

Are you getting a time cut for your testimony today? Yes. They're telling the jury that they're, getting a time cut for their testimony. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? So they have a, so you do have a benefit on why you're saying this. Yeah.

They're getting a benefit. They're saying it's just not fair. You know what I mean? It's just, you know, it's just the most not fair shit in the world. No. No, no, it's not. I had to explain to Mexican guys that would just come back from their trials just like, what the fuck just happened?

I just got slammed. Like, how did they're like, it's corrupt. I was like, well, technically it's not corrupt. Those are the, that's how the law is written. So it's written to fail. So you could say it's corrupt, but it's really just unfair. It's dirty. It's not constitutional.

But, okay, so then what, how long, how long is the trial process? How long does it take you to eventually get your, get to trial? How long are you waiting in jail in Charlotte for? I would say a year. Oh, it's brutal. Yeah. And it's like, same. He can go sales.

It's fucking, it's vicious. It's vicious. Charlotte was Charlotte's viscous because you're, you're, it's clean, though. It's very, very extremely clean, but it's very extremely stressful. You're getting no visits. No. You haven't seen your family. And if they did, we're going to fly out there to come see you for 30 minutes or in a window.

You know, so it's like you're not, you know, it's like you're not, you're far away from home. Psychologically is the hardest part. Yeah. Shout out to my boy Parker Coleman to that's doing serving 60 years to like, you know, for the same conspiracy. He's still locked up right now. and he would have his sister come visit me. So she went to his sister just for my mental.

That was very, very, it was very lonely. It was a very deep, lonely part of my life. That's where I kind of like did a lot of writing at. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So who did the government present as witnesses? Obviously the main witness, your partner. And then did they get anybody else involved?

Any of the bankers? Any of the ladies? Any... They got like a bank expert, you know, to show that, It's called structuring bank transactions. That's what it's called. It's called structuring because it's under 10 grand. So we're charged with money laundering and structuring bank transactions,

which goes up under tax evading. Right. Because if we're not putting a whole 10, you're just putting a 9 so they don't have to report it. Right. Right. But none of the ladies who actually did the depositing for you. No, they were in trial with me. Those are two people that don't want to trial with.

Those are the companies. Everybody that I made the money with and hustled with all told on me. I see. Only two people was Evelyn Lysapel and Natalia Wade who actually went to trial with me and stood up. Stood up to this shit. You feel what I'm saying? Right. So it was just the drug dealers that told on you, not the bank ladies.

Does that sound backwards? It sounds way backwards, bro. You would think the lady, so you're going to leave your kids. Yeah. You just got married and you're going to leave your kids. You have lupus and you're damn about to die. Yeah. But y'all standing there right next to me and we haven't even seen each other in three or four years.

Yeah. We haven't seen each other since all nine. We're in trial in 2013. So we haven't even physically seen. You have really no loyalty to me, actually. We have no reason to be loyal to each other. Right. Right.

I don't know where you live at. I don't Westcott. We don't talk anymore. So you're going to be loyal. We're going to sit like this at trial. Yeah. Next to you. And now all the people that I grew up with and you fuck bitches with and you did all this fucking shit.

I picked these people out of trash cans, people, your kids, cousins. All this shit. Wow. So many people you've called your own brother. Right. I've lost a person I call him brother. We went and got a fucking. priceless tattoos on our back because they had,

they were selling people in fucking roots. And they were selling fucking blacks for a dollar or two. So I'm like, I can't be bought. And then I look at you and you're being bought by the feds. We got the tat because you can't be, I can't, you can't buy me.

There's no fucking price that you can buy me for. You can't even buy me for my own fucking freedom. I can't be bought. You see what I'm saying? So it's like, when you go in and you see the person being bought, it's like, oh, man, this is this game is just fucking anything. hurtful. Yeah, it's just fucking, it's just whack.

How many, like, do you not join this shit? How many, how many people total did the state have testifying or the government have testifying against you? I think six. Yeah. Six or seven. Actually, now, people that make statements, you got 30, 40 people. You know what I mean?

But, like, actual, like, got climbed up there. Yeah. Climmed up on a stand and just actually went up there. I would say, like, yeah, about six or seven. Because you got to Charlotte people too. Right. It was my first time actually, I met her, understand the person I was actually selling the wheat. That was my first time ever seeing her.

Wow. It was a woman. You know, they're, wow. You know, saying like, yeah, I talked to them a few times. Have you ever met him? No, she's never met me. You know what I mean? So you got, you know, three of the people that was from Charlotte and then four of the L.A. people saw like seven.

Then, you know, the investigative officer. They brought the other officer that actually arrested me for the pound of weed because they said I had a $70,000 ledger that was in the car so that's what he testified to that when I got caught with a pound of weed I had a

what does why do I have a $70,000 ledger because I'm really just giving a pound of weed to my mom my mom I used to just give her a pound

but she used to still smoke this shit so I used to just give her a pound just to smoke you know what I mean so I had it in the car and I was supposed to fucking drop it off and now did all of these people that all these witnesses against you

that they obviously arrested and threatened with a ton of time did this all start from the main co-defendant, you're a guy that used to do all the wrap. Him and his wife both testify. She was up there too. That's what I mean, though.

Did the investigation, when you read the discovery paperwork, did it all start with your business partner who got caught with the crate? Yes. And then started telling on everyone. He told on everybody. I got you. It was a wildfire.

And he fucking told on everybody. And then when you get up there, you find out more during trial transcripts and during trial. Like, they're letting him leave jail. to fucking like when I gave him the address, like he's going to McDonald's to MapQuest because the shit's not working in the jail.

He's leaving the jail. This is on trial transcripts going to McDonald's to find everybody and showing them where everybody lives at and what's called. So it's just like, you used your force. You used taxpayers money

to basically give a scum of earth. That's a lifetime career criminal. Yeah. A way out of jail to go get some more people off the street for something so minute as weed. You know, so it's just, what is the fucking world coming to? It's not like he's going to go chase a rapist or a child molester or what's it called to get somebody, you know, I mean, that fucking killed the kids at the fucking school.

You're going to get somebody off the street on an extended conspiracy over some marijuana. It's a shit is a piece of shit. Did they offer you a plea deal before you went to trial? Yeah, it was like 12. It was like 12 years. Did you know that life in prison was a possibility if you were found guilty? They were saying it. It was like, come on.

Like, you know, you didn't really think that you're like, what you're going to do? Really give me some life for some fucking, for some fucking weed. You feel what I'm saying? I believe the feds. Yeah, you believe them at some point. But at some point, too, I'm thinking like, you don't really have me doing anything. You know, like I'm going against all career criminals. that's all been, your witnesses that you do have are all pieces of shit.

Yeah. Right. So I didn't really, I didn't really look at it like that. And I mean, if I changed it today, I would still do it the same exact way. Wow. Yeah, I wouldn't change it today because, like, you know, it gave me purpose. It got me a chance to learn myself. Gave me chance to write my book.

It gave me chances to be a better son, be a better man, to my women that I'm dated, to be a better father. I got to learn a lot during that time that I would have never spent with myself, right? And never. And now it's gave me purpose. You know what I mean? So now it's like, now I really got some purpose. You know what I mean?

Now at the time it was just, I'm just motherfucking a hood. I got money. I'm fucking business. I'm going to be. But I'm repeatedly doing the same thing. You know what I mean? I'm repeatedly doing the same thing. Now it's like, no, I'm really going to make this minus a plus and this 40 tons.

She was going to be a worldwide brand worldwide. How did You're found guilty After trial You go to sentencing How did they come up With the number 40 tons Like how were they able to put that together mathematically?

Yeah, that's a good question I mean it just said I used to have the actual fucking thing And they took it I used to have I mean you could still Google it But when you Google it says 35 tons Okay Right so it fucks up to 40 tons

I had the actual Real newspaper clip me Charlotte man sentenced to 40 tons of life for 40 tons of marijuana. Right. So I used to wake up to that every day in myself. And I used to have the newspaper clipping. I used to like, I'm turning that shit around.

Right. And I even had a thing that I posted on my Instagram, like in 2014, I believe, around 14, 15, right? I told somebody to post it for me. And I said, the same thing that brought me down would be the same thing that brings me back up. And I like stood on that. And now that that's actually physically happening, it's like, yeah. Okay.

How did they come up with 40 tons of weed when they said this year? I mean, you're just collecting all the data from, you know, the crates or how it's kind of same way how you just came up with it. Well, like, like even during this interview, like you were adding like if you do 50 pounds a day for, you know what I mean? Well, yeah, 20, you were doing about 500 pounds a week, which is 2,500 pounds a month, well, 2,000 pounds a month, which is about a ton of ton and you were doing it for actually more than five years, which would make about 40 tons. So I think that's kind of how they added up. And then that's how.

But I was like, that's perfect because I'm like, now it's going to authenticate everything. Right? So it authenticate the brand. Hang on. We'll get there. It wasn't perfect at the time. No, no.

It was so far from perfect, Doc, but I don't even know how to put it into words. So you actually push probably more than 40 tons because you were running from 2003 to 2011. In your account to other states. Right. New York's not in there. Right.

And this conspiracy is not from Atlanta either. It's just out of Charlotte. It's just out of Charlotte. So you don't have none of that Atlanta numbers. Yeah. Right. So, you know,

so you don't have all the numbers. You don't have South Carolina. We did South Carolina. Yeah. You don't have those numbers either. Yeah. Right. So, wow.

Okay. You don't even have, you don't even have like, you know, just middle men in LA. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, wow. So that's another number. That's an unbelievable amount of weed.

I mean, look, people have been sentenced to life for less. Yeah. You know. Got people that's in fucking life for fucking one crack, you know what I mean? One piece of, you know, the guy for the pizza and this person. Right, right. You know. Exactly.

You have a lot of different things that are like, you know, the main thing that I would like to change if I can ever, which I'm working to get to Congress, is changing the conspiracy law. Yeah. Like you said, like that was built for the mob. It's not, the mob's not around anymore. Yeah. So, you know, change the conspiracy law and make it where people can at least, it's okay, if you commit a crime, you need to, you know, you should go to jail,

you commit a crime. Yeah. Right. But not wash everybody up and just throw away. Exactly. Right. You know, so it's just. Because that leads to way more abuses too.

Like conspiracy, it's like, well, okay. It starts with drug dealers. but then now it becomes like, oh, maybe you're speaking up against, you know. Because everybody can't take the shit. Like, I've seen six suicides in there. You know, wow. You know, like, it's like you just talk to this guy at rec and then he was four cells down and just fucking slit his fucking neck. You know what I mean?

And they see him pull him out. You know, everybody can't take this shit. And you're going to go to a maximum security. So you're going to lock down a lot. This shit is not nothing to play with it for a regular person. No. Like I wouldn't, even the people that testified against me, even the people who's ever done me wrong,

I wouldn't want this on them. Because everyone can't handle not a maximum security U.S. federal prison. The shit that goes on in there is really, really next level. I want to talk about that when we get to our bonus episode. But real quick, what happens to the ladies that your co-defendants? They got 87 months. So they did 87 months. Okay.

Thank God it wasn't longer. I mean, it's a long time. I mean, but it's, you're talking people that. never spit on the sidewalk. I know. So it's like a lifetime and then, you know, I always had felt bad. I ended up dating Evelyn was actually my girlfriend when she got out. But, uh, she, uh, it was when I was coming back from court. And this is when I finally took her in. So she got took away from her kids and her family was all in court. And I'm in a court tank. And, you know, they put her on suicide watch. You know, that was very, you know, that was one of one of the most

painful things because it was like, damn, I caused all this by her going to the bank for me. Now she's going to kill herself. Natalia has lupus. Natalia almost died because they couldn't do her. My daughter has lupus right now. So lupus is a very, very, very, very, very delicate thing that they don't give you the type of treatment and food that you need. Right.

And it's a very, very dietary drug. I mean, that dietary disease. Right. So both of them are on the verge of dying. And I felt like, damn, I put them in this predicament. They're getting the money for me and ever being loyal to me. I'm the only person that you could be loyal to of why you're going to trial. And, you know, so that was, you know, that was pretty, pretty, pretty, like, heavy on me during that time of them going away during their time.

And I had to do my time. And I felt like I was kind of doing their time, too. Yeah. You know, it was like, damn, they're shipped off in there. You know, like. When you heard life without parole, I mean, what did that, what does that feel like? I never really gave up. I never took it in because if you take it in

you're going to wear it. Right. So I never, if you look at any of my like prison pictures, I always still was clean. I still kept my swag. I still kept my demeanor walk around it. People, no one even, they were like, you know, people are at the prison. Like, no one knew that I had life. They were like, bro, you carry yourself.

Like, you fucking go home tomorrow. And I used to tell her about like, bro, I go home tomorrow, bro. You know, and I'm, finally, I'm getting, we've got denied at every level that you can get denied at. Of your appeals. under my appeals. Everything, me and my attorney, Patrick McGarrow, and I'd ask my boy.

You know what I mean? Like, he fought to the end to, he doesn't even take any more money. We did 25 for the first, like, appeal, $25,000 for first appeal. And after that, he said, I'm getting you back home and I'm delivering you to your mom.

And that's what he fucking did. You know what I'm saying? We got denied in the Obama administration. Yeah. You know what I mean? We tried the clemency there. We tried. We went all the way to the Supreme Court

because I was the lead of Prop 64 and Prop 47. So Prop 64, 64 in LA is dropping your weed down and getting it taken off your record. Right. Right. So I was like the campaign for that. So I got both of my priors that, the priors that got me to life was the bottle of codeine. That's Prop 47.

Yeah. Right. So I got that took off my jacket for the bottle of coating that I got caught with. And then a pound of wheat I got caught with. Those are exonerated from my jacket. So we went back to the Supreme Court and said, that I know that it's meant because we just asked to just get sentenced

which it could only gave me 10 years, right? If I didn't have those two things on my jacket. So just give me the 10 years, I've already been in seven years at that time. Right. And now I just get my time served and go on about my day. Yeah. But that's not what God had planned.

God had plan for the life to stick, to get the clemency, to do everything. And that got denied. It was like it was no reason to get denied. Here's the paperwork of me getting them dropped down. there no longer on my jacket. Right. And I just want to get sentenced for time served and that got denied.

So I wanted it to be in the purpose of the clemency in the way that he wanted it to happen. Which is Donald J. Trump. Big Donald. Not the little. Not the little one. Big Donald. I hope he got your vote this year last year, sir. Whatever you think about politics, I don't care if Joseph Stalin is running for president.

If he got me out of a life sentence, I'm voting. voting for him and I'm putting a lawn, a sign lawn on my yard. I mean, now, now today it's so funny because when he's, it all depends on the politics of the time, right? Like today he's calling for drug dealers to get the death penalty because in the last four years with everything with with migrants and fentanyl and there's a big, we're kind of swinging back to like the 80s with like the call for tough on crime. But back in the, you know, the, the, the waning years of the Obama administration, all of this, the culture starts to swing against harsh punishment for nonviolent offenders, right?

Drug dealers and things like that. And Trump knows this. And he played it real well. He said, you know, I, what happened to black people, specifically to people of color and the war on drugs was fucked up. And I've taught, you're not the first guy I've talked to on this podcast who got out because of Trump. So explain how it happened.

Like, did you see other, do you have to apply for the clemency or how does that work? I assume you do. Okay. So you apply. So each predacency has its own clemency. So we went through the bottom administration and we got denied. And he did the most clemencies like, damn there.

I'm thinking the world. So next, we're like, fuck, you know, we got to apply during Trump. Right. My attorney is from New York, right? So he's like, yeah, we're going to apply to Trump. And I'm like, one thing I could say about him when they said, we got to apply to the Trump, I'm like, he's unpredictable. He's fucking unpredictable. You don't know what the fuck he's going to do.

So we start pulling. We got a little traction under Trump. We made it to 40,000 signatures on our own, right? Just me and my attorney on our change. You got to start at change.org. And people have to sign it and say that this man shouldn't be doing serving life for marijuana. Okay. So clemency is different than like a pardon.

I'm still trying to get a pardon right now. I'm trying to ask Trump for a partner. Oh, interesting. It's like it's never even happened. Can you, okay, I see. I'm still on parole. I have the fucking ask my parole officer to be here. Right, right.

I see. I see. No, but that's really interesting, though. I want to distinguish for people because I didn't even realize that. Clemency is when, uh, the president can say, okay, the crime doesn't fit the time. Right. I see. And then we can commute your sentence.

Right. You can get out of jail, right? I'm still on 10 years paper. I've been out four and a half years. Right. So, I see. So this is how this is kind of how it happened.

So we make it to about 40, thousand signatures on our change that org. But my attorney asking the world as being from New York, he's like, as being a citizen, me and my client's life is parallel. I have two daughters. You have two daughters. We're both the same age. We're both this.

We're both that. I just want him home and who believes that. And I'm asking that as Patrick McGregor as being an attorney from New York, right? That gets traction. Then I start, I start doing podcasts and I start. know, reaching out and start, you know, doing a few things, you know. So I land a, I land a big when I do, I do the BET. I do from the jail phone?

From the jail phone. Wow. Do BT. Nas did the thing. Eric Parker and a few guys, you know, I mean, helped out on that. But Nas put up the money. We didn't have the actual full money for it to get put out. Right.

So I had been filmed it. we filmed it like a year and a half before it even came out. I did not as executive producer and put the money up and then put it out. And I was like, you know, I did a few things. But that one just really triggered it right there. And I did it like during the hip hop awards in 2020. Right. So it was like I had a big segment on there.

And they came and talked to my kids. And that caught up on the next day I had like 157,000 signatures. Right. Then we made it to like 176,000 signatures. He did an interview and made it to the front page of the New York Times, December 31st. How can you let your friends out just when he started letting his friends out? How can you let your friends out and leave Corvain Cooper in there? So I made front page in New York Times.

So I still have that paper. Wow. And then it was viral after that. Right. So we made it to, I think, by the 176,000 signatures. And it was still like hard beating because. the list comes out. Trump is doing the list and I'm not on the list all day.

So I'm in a cell. I'm pacing back and forth for a four month lockdown. Somebody just got stabbed at the computer. Where are you? I met Polack, Louisiana. It's like probably like I would say top three worst prisons and affairs. Wow. Like, you know.

There you are a weed dealer. Yeah. Holy shit. And by the way, with the clemency, like after you get all those signatures, you submit them. Where does your attorney take those? They're already in the computer. Who does he send it to?

like for consideration, you sent it to the court of appeals. How do you get it to the president? That's all a part of your letter to the president. I see. Got it. This is how many Americans wants this person out. Got it. This is what he's doing.

Got it. He's not been in any trouble. Right. So we get to that point, right? And we're at 11 o'clock at night and I'm pacing back and forth in the sale. my radio's barely working because I'm in a bad area to hear at NPR. And I'm like, damn, man. So I'm asking everybody in the unit, like, do you hear my name on NPR yet?

And I'm like, no, man. I said, what's going on in the bottom ticker? Because my boy is downstairs. So I'm talking through the vent to read the bottom ticker. I got all the TVs on CNN because it's the last day. Hang on, hang on. It's the last day of Trump's presidency. Last day of Trump presidency.

If you don't get out today, it's over. You got to wait on Biden. You know what I mean? Yeah. Capital's about to get stormed. Oh, no, the capital's already been stormed, actually. I'm depending.

Thank you for saying it. Yeah. Because that makes it more juicy. I'm depending on a person who's stormed a capital, they say, allegedly. Right. Who's got voter fraud allegedly. Right. Thinks the election was stolen from them.

Right. Thanks the election stolen from them. This is during the time that I'm waiting on this. Yeah. He has the thing going on with the sex case, all this stuff going on. He's going to try to try to arrest him. Right. This is the person I'm depending on to get me out to even care about little old South Central ass me to come get me out of prison.

And you got thorns thrown at you. You got shit. So that's the part that's making your heart be fast. Right. This guy's got a lot going on. And he's almost going on in any president ever. Yeah. Ever.

Right. Right. In history. So he has so many thrown, they've never threw this many darts at one person, right? So all the darts just thrown at him, what the fuck are you thinking about me for? Right? So 11 o'clock hits, I'm still not on there. 11.30 hits. Why can I go sleep and do this time? My name is not, I've asked downstairs. My name is not on the, is not on the dock. It's not on NPR and it's not on CNN. I wake up in the morning. We got to do showers. Now, my mom. me when you're on a severe lockdown, you have to put your hands through the cuffs, through the things, and they're going to cuff you up to go to the shower, right? That's because it breaches security for them to open your door and you don't have your cuffs on. Right? And then you get handcuffed when you get back to the shower, right? So I go to the shower.

I never forget my boy Marquise from D.C., yell out the window. He say, man, keep your head up, man. Like, they probably just fly. talking up with the paperwork, man, you're going to be out of here, man. I can feel it. Like, he just, this is out of nowhere he says this. He sees me filling down. Everybody has to go back to the BETD doc, I have to go back there.

Because in the federal prison to have every race, just how powerful was, at every race and every unit, watch it. Wow. Right. And in federal prison at USP, if you're white or Mexican, you're not even supposed to stop at BET. I mean, your TV shouldn't even stop there. It's the most prejudiced place in the world.

Yeah. Right. Like, you shout, I don't give a fuck what's on there. You can get a real, something seriously can seriously happen to you. So that's how much amount of love that I had in the unit that every single TV watched it, even on a, even on a white TV and even on the Hispanic TV. They watched it. So that was powerful. That's cool.

Right. So we get to 1130. I mean, we're to the morning. and I'm coming out and he tells me he's like, man, just keep your head up. Don't look like that.

I say like maybe an hour later, maybe an hour, two hours later, they're like, counselor on the range. Now, mind,

we're unlike that what the fuck is a counselor doing on the range. You feel what I'm saying? So everybody announces it like a counselor on the range. Man, he went to that door.

He came to my door. Unlocked it. Now, my, I mean, we just got handcuffed to shower, so you can't unlock the door.

I said, man, you got five minutes to pack your shit up, man, get the fuck out. out of air, man. You just got clemency.

Wow. And it was like, when you mean like a world win, a lifted up off of you. And I just start passing the shit out. And there I had Carties and motherfucking chains and all that shit. I gave all this shit away. It just went, walked by, I walked by everybody's door in there. I said, walk by faith, not by sight. Next day when I got on, I sent everybody a hundred dollars.

You know what I mean? I was on the tier. And, yeah, that was a day to remember. Wow. So then do you go from, you fly from the facility, they fly you on Conair or what do they? No, you go downstairs. My business partner is out. You go talk to your counselor first. They give you the actual clemency papers, which I have framed in my hallway now. And they give you the actual papers from Trump. I call my mom. She's like, what are you crying from? Like, mom, I'm really coming home. Like, she's like, I know I talked to Ivanka last night. She called me at 12. Ivanka Trump? Von Kemp called my mom.

Called your mom. Yeah, I got a letter from a Vock at home, too. Wow. Yeah. I mean. And she wrote me after and talked to me after they weren't even the president no more. That's unbelievable. That should be clipped and replayed for my mother who's like a Trump never, you know, she's, she got Trump's arrangement syndrome.

Yeah. And maybe he's, I don't agree with a lot of what he's doing right now. It makes me nervous. Yeah, yeah. But they really they've really got a soft spot for some injustice, you know?

And I think he hates a snitch. I mean, he hates him. I mean, he fucking hate snitch. Totally. You know what I mean? Like, the feds were trying to put him away. Bro, he hates the snitch. He hates the conspiracy. He hates the conspiracy.

He fucking hates it. You know what I mean? Like, dude. Like, he really, really hates a snitch, bro. You know what I mean? So, like, he got all his boys out that. didn't snitch. Right. He came back and got him.

Wow. So that somehow made it across his desk, maybe a couple weeks before he was set to leave. And who knows who grabbed him before he had, oh, hey, you got a couple more pardons and clemencies to decide on him. Yeah, Rennie K. Barnett, Alex Johnson helped out. Yeah, she's actually works in a thing now. Wow. White House now. Brittany helped her get out, which, you know, they used Kim K to help.

Right. And then now she's the head of. doing clemencies and stuff now and she was doing time. So that was pretty dope, yeah. That's unbelievable. So you got your clemency paperwork and then how does that work? You're from L.A., but your case was out of Charlotte. So did you have to serve?

Did you just get a transfer to L.A.? No, you still have your number. It's wherever you got arrested at. So your number is still going to be 1-1-2 because they arrested me in California. Now they expedite you and then they send you. And the expedite is very crazy. You know, you're going to be in. van you're gonna go here you're gonna go to ocela and all these little different jails um yeah went to love

joy was different once love gochman was locked up during that time oh yeah yeah but you okay so you um yeah okay wow so this was 2021 and you've been out four and a half years uh gosh i mean how could you not feel like wow this was really god's intervention it's only god can do this this this can't know money, you can't know nothing. This is all God. And then you have to have purpose because you got to, you have to realize like, well, why God do it? You know, like, what did, what do you utilize me for?

Like, why did he do this? Yeah. Right. So that's where I come up with like, yeah, you have to, you have to really start purpose at that point. At that point, you have to like do something with it. Right. You can't just, you see what I'm saying?

Yeah. Like you got to, you got to actually, actually, actually, figure out what are you going to do with this? second chance that guy gave me. So what are you doing with that second chance? Tell us. So the same thing that took me down is what I named my company. So I founded a 40 tons. So 40 tons brand is a, uh,

we're in 59 stores in New York. We're sold in West Constant, Minnesota. It's a clothing company? No, no, no, no. We do clothing and we do sell marijuana. Okay. So I sell marijuana legally now. Got it. Yeah. So,

New York is our biggest, our biggest base. our biggest base as far as for our brand. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. Okay, 40 tons. Are you guys, do you have retail distribution there or do you just sell it to other dispensaries? How does that work?

Well, our number one shirt that we sell is that no one should be in prison for a plant. Yeah. Right. So no one should be in prison for cannabis is our number one, like, message that we push. We advocate for the people that are still currently locked up. I haven't have Parker Coleman is one of my co-defendant. actually. So he's serving 60 years. He's been down to 14 or 15 years now. He got Edwin Ruby. You got Mobbiterre. You got Kevin Allen. You have people that still serving

life. Pedro. That's still serving life for this plant that people don't even know about because no one speaks about them in order for people. All the things I did, I did Minnesota Drugs, Episode 5 on Netflix from in prison. I'm on episode 5. I did that and a few other things that, you know, the BET. I did like maybe I did Complex. You know, I did five things. You got an interview by the magazine. Complex magazine, but they did an actual show about it too. Yeah. You know, I did five nice, decent things from in there.

Yeah. That brought a lot of light to the case. So as much light as that was brought to me, I want to bring as much light to them to help them. So, no, but when you got out, you did the Vogue and the cover of Vogue? Vanity Fair. Vanity Fair. Yeah, yeah, Vanity Fair.

Yeah, I was huge, yeah. So you've got a cannabis brand, but again, how does that work? Do you sell marijuana wholesale to these retailers in New York? No, you got to get with a retail brand, which we're with HPI Canada. They own 22 of Shell Space in New York. Oh, wow. Right? So they're one of the biggest, like, distributor out there, right?

I do, we do career affairs too and we get people hired back into the industry, right? And I'll be doing some stuff with the mayor and city council in August. In L.A.? Yeah, I'll be doing some stuff in L.A. In Sun Valley. So we'll be doing that to expunge people records Because people get to know if my record was expunged I wouldn't have the life sentence

Right so you have to like That's so interesting because your points were higher The points is higher And then the things that you think are small Like I don't need to care about it's just a weed And I got called a bottle of cough syrup Right Those are two strikes

Those are two drug felony priors So then you get the third With the conspiracy Now you're struck out and you got life So you know I try to teach on those type of things We've done six career fairs worldwide. We rented out Malcolm X college, Juneteen. Wow.

Yeah, Chicago. We didn't want a New Jersey and Trenton. You know, so, you know, I try to, you know, spin off and do those things. And then still press the brand because now I want to sell 40 tons of marijuana legally. And I'm going to be. I don't care if I'm in one store in Texas, right? As soon as you drop to Texas, I want to be in Texas, then you drop in this state, right? Because as long as you're an one store, you're an MSO.

You're an MSO. and now you can just say you're a worldwide brand. Yeah. Yeah. It's not fascinating. I've talked to a couple guys like that. Nobody that did as much time as you did for weed. But yeah,

everybody's jumping in like the legal cannabis space down. Which is the tightest space in the world, which is nothing like, well, we just, it's funny. You can't, it's no money. There's no money. If you're, first of all, you have to,

the only way you make money is you got to be vertically integrated. You're going to have to be the grower. You're going to have to have the spot marketing. Another thing that's got to do with all this tariffs is going on where to travel a lot of problems with. Right. Your packaging, you need to make your own packaging is what we're learning.

You can't keep going to China and getting the packaging. I got this tear of shit going on. And you're going to spend a lot on packaging a month. Wow. You know what I mean? You're going to spend 8 to 10. It depends on how many stores you're in. Right.

You got to, because you've got to have a backup packaging, too, for if it slows down and it's Chinese New Year and all this other type of stuff. So you're learning, I learn a lot about the legal compliance. It gets taxed every five seconds. We just talked about how you sell it for, you buy it for three and sell it for five and just make it two grand ago in about your day.

You created your own taxes because you created paying this person 400 to get the money back. You created paying somebody 200 Westcott. Those are your own things to keep people from behind the game. But that's not a product or price. Yeah. You know, so. Yeah, there's a give and take to it. Yeah.

You sure you risk life in prison, but it's a lot less headache. Yeah, yeah. It's a very, it's a give and take, man. I never felt bad for myself because I was like, dude, the only reason I'm in prison, the only reason I was able to make all the money that I made was because it was illegal because you risk prison. That was the tradeoff. But certainly life in prison is not fair. You know, any kind of decades in prison for weed is not fair. And then the stuff that you see in there and it's not, it's not guaranteed that you're going to make it out.

That you're going to walk out, especially not of a USP. But let's talk about that on the on the Patreon. But what an amazing life you have. What an amazing, amazing life story. Like one of like the last real kingpins from South L.A., dude. South Central. I mean, what is your dad think? He's still kicking, man.

Do you stay in touch with Freeway Rick and Ariel? Yeah, yeah, I still talk to them all the time. Yeah, I still talk to them all the time. They must be proud of you, man. Yeah, they like what I'm doing. They like what I'm doing. And I can always call them for advice. They answer first ring.

You feel I'm saying? Yeah. Like the other day Jim Jones came Came in town I fucked with Jim Jim Jim heavy And then Jim I wanted to talk to Harrio

And I just spoke FaceTime like bro Here you're Ariel Right here You know what I mean So you know I like the fact I don't abuse it

You know I don't like abuse it But yeah Yeah That's amazing Well Where can they find you I mean

Obviously we're gonna plug 40 tons That's the strain If you're in New York Yeah Where else are you in? Minnesota. We're in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New York City. When you go to a dispensary, look out for 40 tons. Yeah. I guarantee it's not going to be Reggie. That's the ironic thing. No, no, no, no. It's not going to be ready no more. But you got to remember, too, the weed in New York is kind of controlled.

It's kind of controlled. It's going to be so strong. The good thing about, no, it's still wheat. It's still strong. Right. But the good thing about, I would say, about the New York market is that you just need to make your brand bigger because they don't have like all the different weeds that we have out there they have a few grows so everybody kind of has the same kind of weed almost oh interesting

you see what I'm saying like it's it's a controlled market so it's better to make money when it's controlled it's like they only got maybe five weeds to choose from so people are really picking the brand that they like right yeah instead of the thousands of the thousands yeah strains brand is better and 40 tons is a great brand so you go pick up four 40 tons, go smoke it. Tell us about your social media. Where else can people find you? You can go to Corvane Cooper.

Yep. You can find me just, if you want to personally just fuck with me. Just go to Corvain Cooper and then 40 tons to see what we got. We got 40 tons.com. We got career fairs that you can go if you want to learn about our career fairs. You could just learn about all the things that we do at 40 tons. Like it's not just a one-stop shop. Like we do more than one thing than just, you know, we do a can of Christmas and give

back to the people that's locked up for cannabis crimes for their families during Christmas. Oh, that's great. You know what I mean? So now we got 40 times foundation to us. So people want to donate to 40 times foundation. I want to donate. Yeah. I will donate.

That is my word. I will put a link in the description and in the intro. That means a lot to me. You know, I was locked up for cannabis. It sounds gay to say that. So that's the main thing we want to do is the people that's like locked up, help them out. And we keep money on their books and stuff like that.

That's our main. thing that we've been trying to project. You know what I mean? Like to project, push that out. How do we, we did a deal with hemper. So we have over 40,000 trays. That's why I should have watched these trades with their faces on it. And you can scan their information.

So now people don't really get rid of their weed trays. So every event, we pass out their face. So now they're popular in all the different markets. Because now in their face, people are like, well, damn, what was that? That's the guy that's serving for five years. That's the guy that's serving for 15 years. So while you're smoking. they can still be in your household.

So we got over 40,000 out of trays. Wow. You're a creative motherfucker. You know that? Yeah. I'm trying to. You are, as the Jamaican say, you're a bad man. Yeah.

I'm trying. I give all the glory to God. I don't want to take no glory. No, yeah. Man is small. God is perfect. Yeah. He doesn't make mistakes.

So, Corvin, what a treat. What a treat, man. You make me miss Callie. So I appreciate you. Come back. Stop with me, man. Yeah, man. bro, it's say less.

Yeah, yeah, I'll come pick you up in the Porsche, man. We just got to hang out. And you still got the Porsche, bro. It's my third Porsche. Let's be clear with that. Man, let's talk a little more on the Patreon. Patreon. Patreon.com slash The Connect Show.

Go check out his foundation. Go buy his brand 40 tons and go follow him on Instagram and message him. And yeah, Corvin Cooper. And hopefully look out for a big documentary that's coming to a streamer. Look, looking to my eyes coming soon, too, looking to my eyes. Oh, fire. One, two, and three a series. Wow.

That's coming. Doc is around the corner. Doc is down. Yeah. We're eating. Corvin. I appreciate you, brother.