The Joe Rogan Experience - #1302 - Ed Calderon

Episode Date: May 22, 2019

Ed Calderon is a security specialist and combatives instructor with over 10 years experience in public safety along the northern border area of Mexico. Follow him online @EdsManifesto http://edsmanifesto.com

Boom, boom, boom, boom. Boom. What's up, Ed? How are you, man? Great. Thanks for coming here, man. I appreciate it. Thank you for extending the invitation.

Well, I love your Instagram. It's very informational. And tell everybody what you do so people get a handle on this first. I'm a non-permissive environment specialist. Basically, I teach people how to live, move, and travel in places where they probably shouldn't be traveling. You know, how to get out of handcuffs, how to get out of zip ties. And, you know, I show people how to survive in such environments. My background is in law enforcement in Mexico. So, you know, I spent a lot of time down there. And over the years,

that's kind of led me into teaching myself how to survive in that environment, and apparently after a while that made me kind of sought after as far as teaching other people how to survive in such environments. So I've been doing that for a while here in the U.S., military, law enforcement, civilians. Yeah, and you started working in law enforcement what year uh it's 2004 2004 so you started before everything got really crazy yes yes uh so you can you can kind of trace back where it officially kicked off uh by the uh the start of the uh Felipe Calderon's presidency, which is the second to last president we had, he basically said, you know, full on war against the cartels. And by that time, I was kind of just getting done with my training in northern Mexico as a police officer.

And what I thought was going to be, you know, community policing and stuff like that turned into a full-on you know here's a assault rifle and just go climb up on that humby with those military guys and let's go arrest cartel members oh jesus christ so you thought you were just getting a regular law enforcement gig yeah i mean realistically there was no such sort of kind of job description this was post 9-11 i was actually in med school and the economy and all over the border with the tightened security and stuff like that kind of went down, you know, down the drain. And most of the money that I was using for med school, you know, went away. And, you know, that and the newspaper. Young, unmarried individuals that don't have any kids, you're welcome to join type thing. Wow. Young, unmarried individuals with no't have any kids you're welcome to join type thing wow young unmarried individuals with no kids they want that specifically yeah that was uh probably a big alarm

mill shit or something in my head but the uh but the but the um the the you know there were there weren't a lot of opportunities for somebody my age there that didn't have a career and i thought it would be you know everybody said don't go you know but yeah i would have said that what's your friend i was like ed but it was it to me it was a challenge uh and a lot of people said i couldn't do it and i did it and then it turned into something that wasn't what it most most people expected when they went into it you know it was a full-on urban warfare type situation wow so post 9-11 the borders get tightened up and the economy gets very bad in the border towns is that what happens because people can't get through as easily uh it's uh yeah it's heightened security so commerce isn't uh is

freely done on both sides uh border waits that used to take an hour now would take three hours or four hours depending on the time of day so you know things got affected um also you know a worldwide recession situation kind of happened so everything kind of went down the toilet you know i have a lot of family in the border region and all like most of our family businesses that uh that we had you know basically kind of tanked and that during that time so from 9-11 to here we are 18 years later it's been a pretty radical change yes safe to say yes uh 100% change like what if you had to like try to describe it so i mean uh basically the uh the part of the country that

i had most of my experience is the baja son, Sonora, Juarez type region, northern Mexico, basically. What happened is that all the cartels started fighting for the most rich drug routes on the planet. One of them, of course, being the city of Tijuana. So the city of Tijuana, that's the corner of Latin America. It's the most cross-border on the planet. And with that, there's a lot of commerce that goes on in that region. A lot of things get shipped to Tijuana and then driven up into San Diego. And a lot of people have business on both sides.

And among all of this movement, there's a giant organized crime war going on. It used to be overt, like on the streets. Middle of the day, you would see these cartel convoys arriving at a restaurant and all the cartel guys outside with their AKs and stuff like that. This was 2004, 2005 era. And what is the military or the law enforcement attitude towards that? Like, how do they handle that? So, we go back to 2004 when I first got it started, and it was look the other way. Really?

Yes. Look the other way? Look the other way. That was specific instruction that you got? It was one of those things where I went there, and I got a firearm. Here you go. Here's your Glock 17. Here are your two magazines. here's your mosberg 500 and uh you see all those uh cars

over there we don't uh ask them for anything let them pass that's you know we don't do anything wow of that nature and then it would see members of the military as well kind of uh go the other way type situation 2000 this is 2004 do you think that this was just to avoid conflict or what was it because of corruption it's it's always corruption i mean at always levels at all those types of levels down there during this time there was a lot of corruption um things changed but you know things in a way in some levels are always the same there's definitely some sort of pact going on some sort of fear based pact during that time. And when Felipe Calderon finally said, you know, enough is enough.

We're going to declare war. He basically militarized a lot of the counter narcotic efforts in Mexico. So the military went from being, you know, from being in their bases or manning stations out there to actually actively going out and looking for cartel cells and trying to eliminate them. So basically army on the street type situation. And another thing he did was basically a lot of the police chiefs around the country were being traded out for former military officials or military guys, officers.

One of them was Lieutenant Colonel Lizaola. I don't know if maybe your audience could look him up. He's a very famous lieutenant colonel from Mexico. Actually has a documentary on him called uh mexico's most uh bravest man very pretty interesting guy um he was the one that uh headed us up he directed us at the start of this these operations against the cartels and he basically said you know this is uh this is in the policing problem this is a counterinsurgency problem. So we're going to, whoa, we're going to militarize it basically. And after he kind of took control,

everything, everything in the, in, in a change, you know, there weren't as the cartels weren't as overt as they were. So it started going underground. So when you joined,

you expected it to be regular law enforcement. When it became this counterinsurgency, militarized effort against the cartels. Was there every time where you were like, I got to get the fuck out of this job? This is too dangerous. Yeah. I mean, my generation, I was part of the seventh generation of officers going through this program, policing. officers going through this program, policing. And out of my generation, the first year we had two of them in jail for corruption charges and

three dead. Out of how many? Out of 23 guys. So out of 23 guys, five gone. Two of them very dramatic. Two of them were kind of the origins of how I got into the whole counterabduction type thing. Two of my guys got picked up outside of a hotel in the downtown Tijuana. And by cartel members dressed as federal police officers. The whole nine jars, the uniforms, the car, everything cloned. these officers the whole nine jars the uniforms the car everything cloned they got uh they got asked for their papers outside and got put into a van they found them a day later you know uh

horribly you know mutilated and all this type of stuff tortured tortured you know and that kind of you know that was the this that's just real this is real and i should probably have a you know escape plan yeah and uh but it wasn't uh i didn't know anything else basically so it wasn't like i had something to fall back on right and it was good pay for what it was and yeah but fear that that's when fear got you know the stress must be insane yeah it's you're always on yeah uh there's a you know we always had this uh thing on the on the meeting wall it said there's no vacation even when there's vacation you know you would go on vacation you would get your gun to go on vacation of course you know it was pretty insane now have you ever been confronted yeah yes yeah of course i mean there's no there's the there's no uh it's not you know i have a lot

of friends that are in uh military up here in the u.s and it's not like uh it's not like them they go off overseas and they they do something in a different country with different people with don't speak the same language. I was doing all of this in the place I grew up. Ooh. Right. So I knew some of these people at times, you know,

I, um, we, we, every now and then I would say, Hey, I know that guy from when I was a kid or we were in school together. And now he has a plate carrier with an AK 4747 and a gold gun on his pants, right?

And it's like, whoa. The gold gun's a big giveaway. Oh, gold guns are, you know, that's how you know. Yeah, there's some amazing websites that document all the different stuff that the cartel has, but they love gold guns. gold guns yeah that's uh you know chapo got like a gold a very special gold gun when he was uh when he was named uh one uh one of the uh top uh earners and forbes of the forbes list i think he got his number on the gun and everything the second to last time he got caught because he got caught a lot of times and escaped uh somebody somebody in the military that got him took it you know oh no and it ended up in the museum i think

it's i think it's in a museum somewhere in mexico city uh where a lot of these gold guns that's up that's a war trophy for those guys right so there's like a gold gun section of the museum yes yes there is mexico city wow yeah that's pretty wild uh gold gun gold ak-47s you know now if everything is so corrupt down there how does a guy like el chapo keep getting popped i mean because when i when i saw his escape yeah i was like this is hilarious the fact this guy goes to the toilet and then he opens a door and whoop he's in a tunnel and on an electric scooter and goes a mile pops up on the other side and they had everything set up for him with electricity like uh i mean uh you know the uh, I think the thing that people kind of don't understand about the corruption is it's not just corruption because people are greedy.

It's also fear-based corruption. So if you don't do what I say, we're going to kill everybody in your family, even your dog, that type of thing. we're going to kill everybody in your family, even your dog, that type of thing. Right. So after little Chapo got escaped that last time, you know, all of the staff at the jail got, you know, put in prison. Really? So they were all part of it. There's rumors that they were, you know.

It seems like somebody had to hear all that digging. Of course. I mean, it's only a mile away. It was pretty deep. Yeah. Some things that should have been patrolled weren't patrolled. It was a pretty good, well-made tunnel for what it was. Really well-made.

So a lot of the people that El Chapo actually used for these tunnel operations, because the same people that he used for the tunnels in the border region all the active tunnels that are somewhere you know along the border uh all those guys were pulled in from uh from uh silver mining uh companies that used to operate all over mexico that kind of went into the toilet so they were looking for jobs and wow get el chapo out it's good job that's the order or drug titles you know when you saw all that shit go down with sean penn and sean penn visiting el chapo and sean penn writing an article for rolling stone like were you like what in the fuck is going on here uh yes uh for a lot of

for some reason that might not be, you know, mainly was why are they giving him this celebrity status? Yeah. You know, there's a lot of glorification and a lot of, you know, people venerating some of these people down there, you know, and they do a lot of harm, you know. So he's basically giving a voice to somebody. It would be the equivalent of somebody up here giving a voice to somebody that was responsible for a lot of harm you know so he's basically giving a voice to somebody it would be the equivalent of somebody up here giving a voice to somebody that was you know responsible for a lot of damage that

done to the u.s you know it's why do you think they did that like what what what was the roman it was it was romantic right there's something about it it's like here's sean pant one of our biggest movie stars yeah with one of the biggest drug dealers ever. I mean, he is El Chapo down, because I've been to Sinaloa, and I've actually done classes there, which was pretty surreal. He is a folk hero. He's Robin Hood, basically, to these people. When the surreal moment that I had down there, I was driving along this bad, bumpy ride highway, and all of a sudden turned into a nice kind of highway. And the guys that I was with told me, oh, yeah, the cartel made this highway. And the back part of it, that's the government part of the highway.

This is the good one. Schools, careers, lawyers, doctors, uh, careers, lawyers, doctors, uh, all their careers paid for, um, by the cartel, immigration processes of people that want to come over here, sponsorships,

all that type of stuff on both sides. Right. So the, the span of influence that's, you know, that's how he kind of got to where he was. You know, he was always helping people and he was investing in people,

and these investments would pay later on. In a lot of ways, it sounds like he benefited them. He benefited some aspects of the community. Yeah. I mean, the reason why the military couldn't get him, people could take corruption, but because he had a human shield around him. All these towns owed schools, hospitals,

instead of Christmas down there, they celebrate the Day of the Kings. So he would get presents. Mother's Day, they would all get presents, that type of thing. So why would we want to help the military come in here and get El Chapo? He's doing this type of stuff? And that is the same all over Mexico with some of the cartels. The hearts and minds type approach is what makes some of these groups long-lived. So how much of an effort is there to eradicate the cartels?

Because if you can get a guy like El Chapo, who at least in terms of like popularity, is he at the top of the list? As far as popularity? He's at the top of the list as far as popularity. But as far as like the actual drug dealers, is he at the top of the list or are there more clever folks that hide underground? Yeah, there's rumors of people above him

that are still out there somewhere. Yeah, that's what everybody, like, that's the great conspiracy. Is that like, El Chapo is basically the bank manager. Well, you know, he has a compadre. You know, a compadre is somebody that if you're the godfather of my kid, you're my compadre, right? So he has a compadre out there, El Mayo Zambada. And he is still out there, El Mayo Zambada, and he is still out there. And the extent of how he works and where he works is unknown.

So he's more slick. Exactly. He tries to stay more low-key. Well, some people get sick with the fame, probably, and they want to go outside. Well, once that TV show Narcos came on. Yeah. side well once that that tv show narcos came on yeah then every well people i don't i think there's a lot of people who did not realize how crazy the life of pablo escobar was yeah and what really went down in colombia yeah i mean it's crazy uh paulo escobar was a single you know he was a

phenomenon in his time and age but he was one man now imagine replicating that type of insanity over the span of mexico and it's about eight or nine guys you know that was the 90s early early 2000s uh because these guys were you know legion of doom type thing where they would be enemies but they would have reunions and they would meet up and kind of agree on, you know, certain things and stuff. Yeah. Just like in the Pablo Escobar show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they really do that.

They get together and have meetings and sometimes they kill each other. That's a reality. You know, they do at times or did at times because things are currently, after El Chapo, you know, things kind of shifted and changed. What happened? Well, main thing is a power vacuum. are currently after el chapo you know things kind of shifted and changed what happened uh well main thing is a power vacuum and with the power vacuum and legalization on this side of certain substances substances like uh marijuana uh the the the pot fields are now poppy fields. And new things like them now

dedicating themselves to heroin instead of the weed, which mysteriously, there's still weed fields down there for some reason. You know, you guys are way better at making it than anybody down there, but for some reason,

there's still some weed fields. Well, I think it's a lot of access, especially in the states where it's prohibited. Yeah. It's just they're probably more willing to get it to the people. That's probably it. Meth precursors being brought in from China to Mexico

or now being made in Mexico, like industrial level stuff. Right. And a new upsurging cartel down there that is trying to overtake the Sinaloa cartel, the new generation cartel, is coming out of Guadalajara. And they're kind of really militarized, kind of wing of a cartel activities

that are trying to take control over the whole thing. What is the plan in terms of the government i mean if they if they can take out a guy like al chapo what is the plans to eradicate all this and is there really a plan to eradicate it or is it one of those things where it's sort of a plan on paper but realistically they sort of accept the fact they're never going to get rid of these people so uh i have a like i have a thing i like basically uh kalcoatl was a feathered serpent. And I have an image of a feathered serpent biting its tail. Mexico has a problem with amnesia, a six-year cycle of amnesia.

Every president comes in, has all these plans to eradicate the cartels. President goes out. Nobody likes him anymore. New guy comes in and says, well, I have a better plan. And that's the cycle we always go through. it's a big issue in mexico yeah and current currently we have a leftist president that doesn't want to have anything to do with the past uh administration there are more on the right of the spectrum his name is andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, AMLO, vocally supporting Venezuela, that type of guy. Apparently, he has a good relationship with Trump.

That's what people say. But his whole thing was amnesty for the cartels. That's a campaign promise. Amnesty? Yes. What does that mean? Exactly. Nobody knows what that means.

But that's what he was saying that was do you have a plan for this amnesty or is it just like a statement it was a statement and now if you see uh counter narcotics operations throughout the country they've uh the military is not as active as it used to be whoa uh some of the cartels are growing in influence. Because of amnesty. Could be. Basically, I don't see the efforts that were there when I was active down there. Things change. So I don't know. I truly think that the absurd, because we're on route to having the most violent year in Mexico as far as cartel-related deaths, right?

When I got out, Tijuana had been on the top most dangerous cities on the planet list, and I actually worked there when it was on the top. And through efforts both from the government and through people like Lieutenant Colonel Leyza Ola, Tijuana was gone off the list of most dangerous cities in the world, and now it's again at number one, right? Yeah, you sent me that. I was pretty shocked because you don't hear about that here. It's six murders a night.

I was down there two days ago, and it's basically cartel on cartel so they're cleaning each other out and just bodies appear in the morning you know and bridges hung from bridges tortured shot you know that's you know but again the there's nobody's doing anything about it they should you know but kind of turning a blind eye in a lot of ways oh and so with this leftist president this guy with who has this idea of amnesty the the people that are in charge of handling the cartel the the military and the police officers they've got to feel like a little abandoned yeah or maybe some of them have a business plan and they're

working at one side oh so that's a problem too yeah so so people that aren't aware you know we have a separation of powers down there as well so the army constitutionally shouldn't be engaged in combating the guardrails they shouldn't be engaged in police roles, but there were some amendments done to the constitution and, you know, laws passed, but you have to realize that some of these people that are fighting the cartels in a policing type role from the military, some of them can't read, right? Or some of them come from rural parts of Mexico that shouldn't, they shouldn't be doing that type of activity. So you get a lot of, you know, a lot of failures on that side of the fence. We do have some high-level SF community members in Mexico that are doing the work, but they're few and far between. And then you have the federal police, which has gone through about four or five name changes in the past, you know, 10 years.

Because every time, well, not going to call them that, change of uniform because they're all corrupt. Jesus. But now they're this police, right? So they just change appearances. They change the name, you know, but. Try to refresh the public opinion of it. There's a famous, you know, investigation,

federal investigation police called the AFI. And they were like modern investigative federal police it's gonna go after and they were corrupt as hell you know and they all they did was you know get a name change and all these guys got shuffled around and literally i was like hey i know you like what what no no i'm i'm this now you know but they're still the same person who compromised. Yes. Yeah. So those are the federal guys, right? Currently, they want to do like a national police force. And you're like, wow, they're going to get new people that are going to be national police force? No.

It's the same guy. Just change your uniform. Change your hat. So that's on the federal side, you know. So we're pretty wanting their state side. Each state has their own police force, investigation police force, and a preventative type force. And these are politicized

because each state government may be opposed to the federal government. So there's some static there now. And each municipality has its own police force and they might be completely different politically than the state and federal so it must for you to have your life on the line over there and see all this chaos and obvious either lack of organization or outright corruption it must be insanely frustrating yeah

i mean well the uh putting people in that were clearly guilty of things, you know, and then seeing them come out. Or the legal system down there that I had to endure, you know, you would have to go and do a face-to-face with all these people, right? Go into a federal courthouse, leave your firearms behind, do a face-to-face with these people inside that you just got for however many tons of cocaine or pot or whatever. And then go outside, and they're outside. Now I know who you are.

There's no anonymity in that regard, so you would have to sign things. And then seeing some of the people that were with you working on your side and seeing how some of them would fall into corruption charges and then sue the government and then get their jobs back. But now you have somebody that's compromised within your own unit. Wow. So they did try a few things to try and clean out police forces. One of them was a plan they called the C3 plan. It was like a filter for police officers down there. It's still in action,

but it's questionable if it's effective or not. I saw a lot of people go through it, and later on they would turn out to be cartel guys. Basically, they would do a background check, FBI background check, polygraph exam, drug testing, all of these things to see that you were you know clean to work on these police forces the problem is that the polygraphs turned out to be unconstitutional to fire somebody over them so a lot of these people got hired back after they would fail poly basic polygraph exam so again it's a lot of attempts to clean it up, you know, and you would be on the level and all these people wouldn't be on the level, but they were still there. What percentage of people are not on the level, if you had to guess, roughly? I mean, I'd say it would depend.

I'd say 30% probably. That's a lot. My experience of the people that I worked at, 30% weren't on the board. You must cherish the 70. Oh, like family. Yeah. Like family. And you would know when some of these people weren't on the level because I have this running joke that I went in with the same car that I drove out of the office with.

car that i drove out of the office with you know a shitty truck that i had that i bought uh that i bought when i uh you know off my own dime first truck first car and i drove out of the office when i quit the when i quit the job that same day you know i drove i drove out of the office in that truck but a lot of these guys would come in with their, you know, Hummers and H2s and just weird cars. They're like, wait a minute. This doesn't make sense. Like, we are working the same office. Why do you have a three-story house? It's so obvious, though.

Prove it, you know? Yeah, but the obviousness of it. Oh, yeah. The blatant. You're driving a nice car, living in a big house, and everybody else is like, what? Yeah. You're driving a nice car, living in a big house, and everybody else is like, what? Yeah.

There's obviously these unwritten rules of you wouldn't tell on this guy. Of course. But it's obvious. Yeah. And when it came time to share information of a certain kind or we're going to go over here and you would have to turn around and look around and see who was listening. Yeah. You wouldn't trust a lot of these people. So how are we going to do our job if we can't trust the people that are working with us? Who was it that recently called for decriminalization?

Was it your president that called for a decriminalization of all drugs in America to go along with Mexico? Is that what it was? Yeah. To try to do something about the cartels yeah we're on the brink of legalizing marijuana in mexico right now like there's been a few landmark cases and you know it's gold rush type situation right now there's a lot of companies down there that that have had experience up here that want to go down there right uh so the culture is ready for it i think do you think that would help i don't know when it comes to legalizing pot up here it hasn't helped down there as far as

lowering things actually made things kind of worse how's it made things worse uh they changed i don't know they changed the uh they changed what they were producing so that the reason the reason why there's a heroin heroin epidemic up here and fentanyl epidemic up here i think has some relationship with how things got legalized up here and how they switched um product down there so uh lighter colored heroin is coming down from mexico and i've seen i've i've worked with law enforcement up here in the u.s uh doing classes and and kind of you know they send me like, what do you think about this, Ed? And I've seen that lighter colored heroin pop up in places as far off as Chicago.

So you know because of the color? Yeah, the color, the smell, the consistency, you can kind of tell if it's Asian or Mexican. Is it a different strain? It's probably a different strain. And it's also the amount of sun it gets in the region where it's asian or how is it a different strain like it's it's a probably a different strain and it's also the amount of sun it gets in the region where it's being grown it's high higher altitude so it's lighter color not as stinky i don't know uh but i think it's a relation that that kind of relates to the legalization issue down there they didn't affect them in the pockets they just switched uh product it's got to be it's such a strange relationship

because the reason why these drug cartels have so much power is because they're selling drugs to the united states yeah so it's like you have this connection to this country that has this great big wall that it wants to build and on one side everybody's buying up all the illegal drugs and the other side everyone's killing everybody to try to make and sell these illegal drugs. Yeah. I mean, and there's a lot of holes underneath that wall. Yeah. And drones.

Yeah. Drone technology. Is that wall going to help anything? Well, the wall's already been up for a few years. Part of it. In places like Tijuana, which is like one of the richest drug routes on the planet. And the drugs cost the same, you know? It's the same.

Yeah. And what about like the ocean? Can't they just take a boat? I've seen one large submarine in my time working. Really? A large? Like military size? Like scientific size.

Where the fuck does somebody buy a submarine? Online, apparently. Really? Yeah fuck does somebody buy a submarine? Online, apparently. Really? Yeah. You can buy a submarine? You can buy a small submarine for a small amount of money. I think the main part of the submarine ownership is maintenance. The reason we found it is that it wasn't properly maintained, so it-

Sunk? Yeah. No, it actually floated. It couldn't sink. Oh. And it had a bunch of things hanging off behind it. Submarines scare the shit out of me. You can't see where you're going.

Well, so yeah, I've seen submarines, drones, like a squadron of drones with a bunch of loads on it flying. How heavy can a drone get and still fly? I've seen full like two kilos on it. Really? Yeah. can a drone get still fly i've seen for like two kilos on it really yeah so just flying the coke over the top yeah and the only reason we i found out about those one of those crashed uh in uh in a roadside next to the border fence were you around when that cia drug plane crashed in mexico with uh tons of cocaine on it yeah i wasn't there but i was aware of that situation what the fuck is that about i mean realistically uh there's there's a

lot of americans running around in mexico yeah that's that's that's and there's a lot of cowboys right yeah a lot of people say listen we just make this one run. They're like, the government doesn't give a fuck about us. My pension sucks. It could be. Could be. Every now and then, and this isn't a secret. Every now and then you would see a dude out there that's blonde, tall, and has a bunch of tattoos that don't belong down there working on the military side of things in Mexico. Or some dude dudes doing something

in some place in your and that you would get a call you know oh they're they're fine just you know just leave them alone you know so who knows you know who knows so if it's three out of ten we're corrupt where you were it might be like one out of ten cia. I mean, you know, usually we would get to, since I have a pretty good spoken English, I would get sent places for training or for liaison work with some people that would go down there. And I would never know where the hell some of these people were from, you know. So who knows? It seems like it's very loose, like there's a lot of room for fuckery uh calderon era and bush administration era it there was a lot of there was a lot of stuff going on

uh obama administration era after uh the whole fast and furious thing things kind of went dark for a while yeah explain the fact a lot of people don't know what the Fast and the Furious is. It sold guns to the cartel under the guise that this is the way they would track the guns. Yes. It seems so fishy. Oh, I learned about it from CNN. And a few of my friends were killed with some of those guns down there, which is, you know, everybody talks about the U.S. agent that was in Mexico was killed by some of these guns, but there was a lot of, you know, Mexican agents and people, civilians killed by these guns as well.

So there were very specific types of guns, you know. So imagine somebody giving you a shopping list about the types of guns you want, right? Including in these lists were.50 cal Bar barrett rifles and fn57s which are very it's a it's a pistol with a very high velocity round that goes through uh soft armor like the type of stuff that was issued to us right so all of a sudden we're seeing these space pistols in the hands of the cartels in very specific parts of the country. We're like, but what a preposterous idea that they're going to sell it to the cartel so they could track them. Well, that sounds like horseshit to me. That sounds like someone's trying to make money.

And they said, oh, well, just say we're selling it to them to track it. Well, the suspicious part is that all of them went to one specific cartel, the Sinaloa cartel. So it sounds like such horseshit. The fact that, I mean, who went to jail for that? Eric Holder didn't go to jail. Oh, he should have. He should have. He should have.

I mean, there's blood. People died. There was a, I can't say the name, but somewhere in Baja uh a little girl lost her arm uh an agent that was a friend of mine got killed and the wife got killed with fm57 that directly related to that uh whole thing right so you can go to jail for fucking tax evasion but this guy can get away with that uh just the the idea that you would run that by people and they would go, yeah, good idea. Give them guns. And to be clear, I don't know the realities of that operation on this side.

People say it was happening way before. All I know is that when that happened, nobody told us. And there was definitely some weird resentment on part of the government down there. Some people down there. As far as, you know. And there was some weird conspiracy theories going on as well down there. some people down there as far as you know and and uh there was some weird conspiracy theories going on as well down there how could there not be yeah i mean that seems like it's conspiracy theory right in front of your face yeah just the fact oh yeah we just sold them the drugs or the guns so that we could track them yeah no one's gonna die it's not

like a bad idea the main thing you would hear is people settlement and fast and furious executive privilege lawsuit between doj and house it's just this is how it ended or wrapped up within the last two weeks i guess really this is just wrapping up yeah just some settlement on wow because this is from what nine years ago ten years ago at least and the guns are still showing up so i don't know how many of them. I've never known what numbers. But last time we found some. And I actually have images of the ones we found. They were buried in somebody's backyard inside of a water barrel.

And all of them were obviously U.S. origin guns. And they're like, what do you mean? obviously us origin guns and they're like wow what do you mean all of them had very specific uh accessories on them that nobody else in the world puts these accessories on their guns is at the u.s because they're pretty ridiculous accessories like what kind of accessories um things that had things uh letters on them like uh see you in hell type things on them and punish your skulls punish your skulls are the big one yeah uh and that is hilarious that a cartoon skull has from a marvel comic book has become a gigantic part of spec ops yeah it is it is pretty ridiculous well the main rumor down there like conspiracy theory wise and you would hear all sorts of

things you know uh because down there there's there's no such thing as top secret clearance in Mexico, you know. There's like, hey, don't say anything. You know, that's about it, you know. So you'd hear crazy, crazy things. Main thing was that the U.S. was planning an invasion, you know. They're destabilizing the region so they can put boots on the ground. Oh, Jesus. You know, that was the going conspiracy theory going on.

The U.S. invading Mexico. Yeah. How fucking crazy would that be? Well, you know, as far as a reaction on the side of Mexico, people, and this is, again, this is purely speculation and weird rumors that I would hear. Again, this is purely speculation and weird rumors that I would hear. People were planning to poison drug loads on that side to create a health crisis in the U.S. as a reaction. That was pretty, like when I heard it, it's like, holy, who's talking about this shit? So full out war almost.

Could be. And then you would try to see, well, who's doing that? The cartels? So the cartels of the government are the same thing? Like, what's going on? Right, right, right. And again, this is just weird stuff you would hear. What a crazy, this is a crazy perspective, right? The cartels would poison the drugs to punish the Americans for the military invading the country.

Yeah, yeah. To create a health crisis in the u.s so they would you know have to go back wow i mean the rumors you know do they know how many guns they brought over uh i've heard all sorts of numbers we never got told the same number nearly 2 000 firearms were illegally purchased for 1.5 million according to the doj inspector general report fuck hundreds of guns related recovery the united states of mexico yeah uh 50 cals were so the the it's and it's always an escalation with the cartels right so the we they would get uh ak-47s and we would get uh german main g3s that were the same around the same caliber and we could fight German-made G3s that were around the same caliber, and we could fight back, right?

And then all of our leadership started rolling around in armored vehicles, so let's get 50 cals to make holes in these armored vehicles. So it's always been an escalation. Jesus Christ, you guys were getting 50 cals so you could shoot holes in the armored vehicles? Yeah, so the cartels were getting them first and then then we had to get them because they were rolling around in our vehicle so mad max type armored vehicles they would make they would first first they would make them like homemade mad max armored vehicles uh they they found a few online somewhere one of them was

called la bestia which is like a giant. All that was missing was the guy with the guitar on the back of it, you know, like in Mad Max. And they would use these to roll into town. And like, how would you fight that? Right. So you had to get a.50 cal. Or get the military to shoot them from the sky.

Oh, my God. There's a famous video from somewhere down in Mexico where they shoot a Vul uh rifle down at a cartel member in a car an armored vehicle but then you see well you know well uh checkmate checkmate government against the cartel but then you realize that the cartels like the new generation cartels in guadalajara have actually downed helicopters in guadalajara military helicopters because they have anti-aircraft capabilities. Jesus Christ. So then now you're like checkmate cartels. Where does this go?

I mean, how far does it escalate? That's the thing that you have to think about. So killing and death is not at the industrial level that is being done in Mexico. Not just killing, but, you know, disappearing bodies, making bodies disappear. I was around when they got the stew maker. The stew maker was a guy that worked for the Sinaloa cartel in Tijuana. And he would get rid of bodies using caustic soda. Right.

So he would get bodies every night and he had these, basically these industrial level, just barrels of it, just going. What is caustic soda? It's a chemical mixture. Yeah. You can get most of the components at a hardware store.

Basically it dissolves bodies, you know, and you would get, get some of this mixture. He said in interviews that he got trained by Israelis how to do that. So who knows if that's true or not. But in the night, he said he would get rid of dozens of bodies. And this gets rid of everything, DNA, bone, everything. So there's a lot of families in Mexico that are looking for their kids for years,

and there's just no way of giving them a body. And the amount of youth that goes into cartel work and just gets, you know, killed there, it's just, it's whole generations and whole towns of women and old men. You know, they're out there which is like whole generations just gone you know all the men in the gun i've gone to gone to a few small towns where like they looked at me like youth you know a young man it's like so it's rare at some places it is because the men

are all getting killed all getting uh got got in the All getting got in the cartel operations and killed or recruited, forcefully recruited or voluntarily recruited, but the whole generation is just wiped out. Now, the people in your line of work, the people that are boots on the ground who really understand the problem, what is the thought in terms of what could be done to fix this? in terms of what could be done to fix this? I think the main thing is any sort of plan to fight the cartels that involves just a six-year plan won't work because that's what the main problem has been with Mexico. Your presidential term is six years? Each president comes in with a six-year plan. He either does really good or does really bad, and then it gets forgotten, and another one comes in.

There's also definitely an addiction to money from the U.S. side for counter-cartel operations. There's a Plan Merida, it's called. It's an international plan where the u.s pays for uh counter narcotics type operations in in mexico so there's an addiction to that money on the side of the government so there's a lot of interest for that to keep going you know so they don't want to resolve the problem as much they want to in some ways you know yeah um they they refuse to professionalize the police forces down there. They don't put enough effort in that in that regard.

You know, good people that are there that I know there's some amazing guys down there doing amazing work. And they get passed up for promotion because they don't they don't have any they don't know anybody high level. They don't work for either side of the game. You know, so a lot of these people just get cast aside you know and uh you know it's kind of hopeless in that regard you know a lot of a lot of the good guys uh when they get uh when they come out of the job there's only a few options to them right um i had i had options but a lot of the guys that go out of the job don't. So they get recruited by the cartels. Did anybody ever attempt to recruit you?

Yeah. You get offers. What kind of offers? There's a famous corrido, which is like a Mexican folk song, called I'm Going to Talk About My Past. And it's a pretty interesting song it's about a cartel guy that used to work as a cop and then somebody from his past approaches him and says you want the kids have a talent you want to you want to do a job you know that's what you would get you know people within the police forces asking you you want to you want to work

on the side that was the entry you know and or you know we'll pay you this much what is it like when you say no uh it's pretty pretty hard it's uh it's not it's not it's not specifically saying no um but just saying i'm not the one to ask for this and and you say you know i'm not the one to ask for this you know what i'm i'm i'm only in this for the money for my paycheck. And, you know, I don't want to risk anything. And how do they leave that? They're not happy usually, you know. So you get on a list sometimes.

And, you know, it's something that follows you. But it's a much better thing than actually getting into one of these guys' pockets. Once you take something, you're theirs. Right. Like the mob. Like the mob of thing it's a lot of these uh guys actually took uh you know they they have a lot of these cartels down there they kind of venerate the whole gangster era in the u.s it's like a thing oh so it's like a thing they looked up like look up to you know right so like you see a lot of uh gold-plated uh thompson machine guns down there if you take picture with them so there's a a lack of professionalizing the police

force yes and then you think it's a conscious effort i think i think it's uh so you keep them fairly incompetent i think so you know a lot of ways we i we were we were, as a group, the group that I used to work with, there was a lot of efforts to professionalize us to getting a career path to actually making a career. Right now, where I used to work, there's no pension. There's no retiring. Wow. you know there's no retiring wow uh if you want to get uh any sort of a credit for anything the credit the credit companies won't uh even touch you because you're too high risk you know too high risk because you might get shot yeah wow yeah well it is the most dangerous city on the planet all right so so they they wouldn't touch us um and realistically culturally being a cop in mexico is you know male porn actor and

cop are probably along the same range as far as shame you know wow yeah uh we wouldn't eat at any restaurant that we didn't know the people you know because, because it would spit in there. Really? Yeah, there's hate. You know, there's hate. Why do they hate cops so much? Like, as a culture in Mexico, police culture in Mexico has earned it. You know, a lot of guys working both sides. A lot of guys being, you know, again,

the whole, you're going to be a cop because you know somebody in there and people that shouldn't be in any sort of public service. So there's a lot of corruption, again, a lot of corruption, a lot of things done wrongly by the cops, a lot of abuses, a lot of human rights violation type situations. So it's earned. So the big shift over there in terms of crime in terms of cartel crime occurs first with september 11th the tightening of the borders then it starts to ramp up after that

because of what uh the the government first started uh targeting certain uh cartel heads you cut one head off, Hydra. Yeah. Two heads spawn. Two heads, three heads pop up. Power vacuum. Power vacuum. People fight

to try to gain power. Yeah, and the cartels realize, you know what? We are standing on the richest drug routes on the planet.

So we should probably, you know, start fighting over them. Yeah. And also, also what happened is that, you know, a lot of these people, it's something that Americans kind of don't get yet.

This isn't a Mexican problem anymore, specifically, as far as the cartel violence going on. A lot of these people had their kids up here in the U.S. in the 90s. A lot of these cartel guys, you know, El Chapo had kids in the u.s in the 90s a lot of these cartel guys you know el chapo has kids had kids in the u.s and a lot of these people are now coming of age you know um so cartel influence in the u.s is a thing you're going to start seeing if you're already seeing it but you're going to see more of it because a lot of these people are actually american born the uS. citizens now working in tandem with any sort of interest down there. So that's going to be the new shift.

And people are sometimes kind of horrified by some of the stuff that I post up, some of the cases down there. People can look up the Los Palillos gang in Southern California. Lillos gang in Southern California. There were an actual cartel group that would kidnap people in the U.S., dressed as federal agents in the U.S., and drag them back down to Mexico. Now, this happened almost, I think, nine years back. But this is happening in the U.S. It's not something foreign anymore. A lot of people want to think that you can build a wall and keep all that down.

Don't get me wrong. Build that wall. I have nothing against it. But selling it as a security thing, I don't think it makes that much sense. In a lot of the parts where it is up, violence is rampant on both sides. But the argument would be that if the wall didn't exist then it would be too easy to come back and forth okay um at all spots um yeah it could could you know but again drug tunnels uh catapults yeah drones uh for drugs and in terms of like

kidnapping people and a lot of other things that you cut off at least some of the vehicle routes yeah i get it i get it and i think again i'm not against the wall you know build the wall um Camping people and a lot of other things. You cut off at least some of the vehicle routes. Yeah, I get it. I get it. And I think, again, I'm not against the wall. You know, build the wall. I interviewed a guy. I do articles for a few magazines, and I interviewed a guy who's a coyote.

You know, coyote. He moves people from the border. And he said this about the border. Because I asked him in the interview about the border wall he said it's good for business you know uh you make something seem like it's harder when it isn't and it's good for business well so you say listen i can't get you over three thousand it's got to be five yeah it's tighter yeah or fly him to canada and they walk down which is that was his one of his one of his new favorite methods you know so northern united states probably got a lot of mexicans now yeah the canada border border is hilarious it's a path yeah it's a carved out 100 yard path we we

put pictures of it up the other day we're like look how hilarious this is the difference between mexico and canada canada they make it easy to know where the border is like just get across here hey you'll be fine snow mexicans you know yeah it's really strange well i mean it's the the amount of creativity and problem solving that goes on on the on the criminal side you know um if if if your best plan is, is a wall of a secure wall, these guys have been working against that best plan for the past 20 years. So they are, they're already way ahead of the curve, you know, in that regard. Uh, there was interesting time in, uh, drone and people can look this up. Uh, drone technology had a, had an upsurge in innovation in Tijuana out of all places in the world for a time. Like, why?

That's funny. I wonder. And what they were doing with those. What could be done to radically curb this? Like, if you were the king of the world, said, Ed, what are we going to do? First off, legalizing some of the substances would probably help uh that would help a lot um that's a pretty good question but even some substances that are legal like fentanyl is essentially legal because you can get a prescription for it

but you're never going to have like fentanyl just over the counter. It's just too deadly. Another thing that I think about, and that's a very good question. I wish I could answer it. I think everybody wishes they could answer it. Everyone just sort of shrugs. So the cartels aren't just a drug-fueled business. They also have money that is in property and legitimized businesses.

They work in human trafficking. It used to be you can cross that border and go to the desert and cross it yourself, but now you have to pay a toll. Protection rackets on both sides of the of the border um sex trafficking piracy like like you name it they have they have hands in it right so so they just essentially took that drug money and just diversified a crime business diversified you know they've been diversified for a long time like there was a recently There was recently three cartel members from Sinaloa in Malaysia released out of all places. So just think about that. Two Sinaloa cartel guys somewhere in Malaysia got caught somewhere, and now they've been released, and they got a hero's welcome in Mexico.

They got a hero's welcome? Oh, yeah. Really? Well, Sinaloa, again well sinaloa that you know again sinaloa is a pretty that's uh i have this uh nickname for mexico i call it the upside down you know uh because everything's basically upside down right and uh yeah these guys uh got funny thing is that the mexican government was involved in their release and then they you know send them back and you know here's welcome what were they doing all the way over there in that part of the world?

I don't know. Diversifying. Diversifying. So no one has a real plan. Here it goes. Malaysia pardons three Mexicans on death row. Oh, they were on death row. Damn.

You want to talk about a kick-ass corrido, like a folk song sung about you? Those guys are probably going to get an amazing folk song you know um so there's a lot of romanticism connected yeah i mean it's uh it's romanticism it's religion there's definitely some some occultism uh involved in a lot of the uh higher-ups in these cartels uh i can remember when i found out about the narco music these what are those songs called uh Corridos, the folk songs. There's a lot of them. And all of them have a secret language in them sometimes, or they're all a history of something that happened.

And you pay somebody to make one for you, or somebody makes it for you. And then if you do a good corrido song for somebody, the rivals will send somebody to kill you. Really? So even the musicians are on either side of the cartel kind of groupings as well, which is pretty weird, I know. Wow. So if you're for the wrong cartel, if make a song you kind of have to like go into

hiding or or not or not play any in any places where the rival cartels you know territories are oh jesus christ will they come to your territory to come get you if you like yeah no yeah there's there's gonna be a been a few high level uh singers mexican folk singers that got there you know killed uh for messing with uh girlfriends of cartel members or for singing the wrong song in the wrong place uh so that's in the culture and and and the religious uh occultism the cartels have as well you know it's a pretty interesting thing um things like santaerte, the death cult that is kind of in different parts of Mexico. It's like, think of a very dark Freemasonry type thing, right? Certain levels you have people that are part of that cult, from the cops to the military to the cartels. It's kind of to prostitutes, to drug dealers.

to prostitutes, to drug dealers. It's interesting how that kind of also has an influence on the way some people go into very risky businesses like being cops or cartel guys and how they wear or empower themselves by some of these occult iconographies, you know, like a reaper. Or the Trinity is Jesus Malverde, which was a folk hero from turn of the century Sinaloa. Basically a bandit that got caught and killed and he turned into a saint. Now there's a giant church to him in Sinaloa with a bunch of money stuck to the walls

and pictures of guys in the U.S. with like a F-150 truck or a Hummer. Like, thank you, Malberto. I'm living the dream now because of you. Wow. Two roadside altars with a statue of the Virgin Mary. And then you look behind her

and there's a reaper behind it because it's a hidden Santa Marta shrine, and they do that so the military doesn't destroy them because they have standing orders to destroy these things, which shouldn't be, but, you know, it's kind of religious persecution, but they actually do that. It's so different than the United States. In a lot of ways it is.

I don't think we understand like all this like i think the average person has no idea about the songs no idea about the culture of it all they have no idea the depth and how deeply it's connected to society down there i mean the death the death cult worship is i think you could probably trace it back to the Aztec days. So there's definitely, when you see all these highly violent, bloody cartel executions and things like that, I don't know. I think there's some sort of genetic memory from those times. It's not abnormal physically for some of these people to do that type of thing. Ripping somebody's heart next to a tree,

there's videos of that stuff out there. I remember getting contacted by people that I knew on this side of the border in the U.S. that were very curious of why all these people from the Middle East were looking at all these cartel execution videos. And then a few years later you had ISIS doing some high production execution videos that were inspired by the cartels. Wow. Isn't it interesting that we don't think about that?

We think about, oh my God, look at ISIS. They're cutting people's heads off. What did they learn from Mexico, which is connected to us by land? You could fucking walk there. You don't have to fly to Afghanistan. You could walk there. It's not in Libya. It's near La Jolla. Yeah.

it's near la jolla yeah you just it's you go to la jolla you see these fucking multi-million dollar estates with this gorgeous view and everyone's driving ferraris and porsches 20 minutes drive you're in tijuana yeah the most violent city on the planet right now that's so crazy yeah and when i go to san diego that's the one of the first things i think is how what a juxtaposition how crazy it is that this is the border to mexico and it's all military san diego is filled with fucking seals and rangers and marines and bases and it's just all military down there it's so military influence and it's right next to the most violent dangerous city on planet earth more than karachi more than pakistan uh we were uh we were insured by metlife and the metlife agent said said something along those lines like you're better off going to afghanistan or iraq than you know working here basically numbers wise and was like, thank you for that.

That felt like a good pat on the back. But it seems like they're getting cartel-on-cartel crime confused with regular person crime. But that's how it always starts. It usually starts off, and again, this goes back to everything cyclical down there, that snake eating its tail. So you get cartel on cartel crime, and then they finish each other off, and then they realize, well, now what do we do? So they start abducting people.

Extortion. Just for money. Extortion comes into play, protection rackets. Cross us guy. Now they're very bold. Now they're at a party somewhere somewhere and somebody looks at them funny. So they come back and they shoot up the whole party. I like your daughter.

She's pretty hot. I'm going to steal her. And if you do something, I'll kill you. And you're never going to see your daughter again. That's how it starts. That's how it starts kind of growing. Just bold, brazen and cruel. That's how you get it.

Sociopathic. That's how you get it. Sociopathic. That's how you get to that point. And again, I experienced it back in the 2006 era. And I saw it get into all the way to when the whole of the municipal police were, basically the army surrounded the municipal police office of the police at Tijuana. And they took all their guns. And a few of them were taking on a plane ride to Mexico city. And for a few weeks, there was no armed police in Tijuana and the municipal armed police. Imagine somebody, imagine somebody disarming the whole LAPD, all of the LAPD and just having the army in there instead, you know? Wow. So you would see,

you would see these events and then things calming down, you know, the only success story as far as, uh, as far as the city coming back from the brink was Tijuana for when, when all that, uh, like the raging drug war went down. Uh, Lieutenant Colonel Lisa, all of the guys that I used to work with, uh, he took numbers down, like everybody down in Mexico that he he got hired then on to go to Juarez to try and replicate his success. The only successes were there because he basically treated the problem as a counterinsurgency problem, not a policing problem.

And he got nine attempts on his life. The last one took the use of his legs. And he's currently uh he's currently running for mayor of tijuana believe it or not and he's uh he's in a wheelchair but he's still i wouldn't want not want to mess with that guy wow uh yeah we're we're uh in fact my myself and some members of my family are actually helping out with his campaign but he's you know he's he got a his uh one of his campaign offices got shut up shut up recently so is there any plans or is there any push to try to treat the entire problem as a counterinsurgency problem to replicate the success that they had in tijuana

no it's it's uh that was a solution brought in by the right side of the political spectrum in the in mexico so it's it's a no-go right now because everything's to the left this guy just got in office he's uh he's uh he has a few months in so yeah he just got into office so so you got five and a half more years of this dude. We're in for a ride. That's all I can say. Yeah, kindness doesn't seem to work when you're dealing with cartels, it seems like. No, you give them a hand and they'll take your feet. That's a Mexican saying.

Ah. Man, for you to have been in that business and to sort of be connected to it but outside of it now, does it seem like, I mean, it must be incredibly frustrating, but it also must feel futile. Like you've wasted time almost because there's no progress that's ever going to be made. I have a weird experience that I had. I burned about two acres of pot somewhere in Baja towards the end of my career. And then things happened politically. A bunch of shakes up somebody's office. I got called in, and the director of the institution that I was in at that time was a shady character. And I decided to say, you know what? My mom had just passed away,

and that kind of affected me a little bit, a lot of it, you know? And starting a family and stuff like that, and it said, you know what? This is not worth it. So I left. Quit my job, handed everything in. People were suspicious about why I did it you know like you probably

found a million dollars somewhere and you're right running or shit like that right so i had to leave in a hurry you know got a few threats uh gladly i uh gladly i had i luckily i had some great people on this side of the border friendships that i've've developed for a long while. And they helped me out, you know. I went to Denver about two weeks after I got done with the job, and an old lady handed me a special cookie at one of the dispensaries. And I saw the people walking in, you know, and it's like, is this what I've been, you know, burning and chasing people in the middle of the night and looking at drug planes and violence and all this?

This is a lady with a cookie. Now it's a store. It's a beautiful store in Denver. There's a store in front of L.A., in front of the improv that I have to put a video up because me and Andrew Santino were there last night making fun of it. I'll send it to you, Jamie, right now because it's so ridiculous. They have shit under glass like you're looking at art pieces. I mean, again, I don't know why they're still producing pot in Mexico when you guys have it in the stratosphere as far as an art form. I'm going to send you this right now, Jamie.

Yeah, well, they definitely have it down now but it's just it shouldn't be illegal in the first place and that's not hurting anybody i just sent it to you um there's a bunch of uh there's a large uh shamanism and occultism all over mexico and and mushrooms have been used down there for like forever yeah and uh you know growing up and stuff like you would see it and it was you know the demonization comes from the conflict around it not that it's right you know well there should be real demonization when it comes to things like fentanyl to just whack look at this to turn the volume up so we can see hear this people don't understand the state of marijuana in Southern California.

I'm inspecting the crystals, Joe. They leave behind a magnifying glass. This is no bullshit. These are all in glass. So you can look at the crystals because a lot of these marijuana dorks are like wine dorks or any other thing where people really get into it. You take it too far.

When you're looking at weed under glass, if Joey Diaz would be here right now, he'd spit in your mouth. He'd spit right in your mouth. If you try to have weed under glass like it's a fine Chardonnay or some nonsense. What is it? It's just weed, man. That's all it is. It's just fucking weed.

Andrew Santino speaks the truth. It's just weed, man. That's some anti-Grocho type level stuff, right? How ridiculous is that? They give you a magnifying glass and they had all these displays with the, this is a hybrid. This is an Indica Strong hybrid. This is a Sativa Strong. Sativa dominant. How are you supposed to smell it on that glass?

Good question. Yeah. The rice stores have a little jar that you can smell through. It's a very good question. We would just grab all of it, machetes, and just put it in a big pile. And just chop it up? And look, where's the wind coming? From over there?

I'm going to sit over here. Wow. Yeah, you would get a pass after that, so it was fine. You got to get a little fucked up burning all that stuff. Of course. Secondhand smoke. Peanut butter M&Ms. That was my thing.

Was there a sense of frustration when it was legalized in so many states in the united states in some regard yes what are we dying for what are we fighting for why have i lost brothers exactly uh you know uh you know a lot of people were killed over finding tons of pot somewhere and now it's fine yeah now you can just buy it. But the frustration isn't with the pot itself. Again, it's what happens around, the politics around it, the amount of money invested into fighting it and violence and interest around it. But the plant itself, again, my mom used to grow it

and put it in a jar with alcohol and rub it on her muscles. And it's a thing. It's always been there. And all of a sudden, you have full-auto machine guns protecting it in a grow somewhere. And full-auto machine guns in another place, people coming in there to burn it because you shouldn't be selling it. people coming in there to burn it because you shouldn't be selling it it's just while while i was doing it uh you know my mindset was these are bad people when i when i started you know these are bad people they're drugs and later on i was like just a just a just a plant stinky plant so people are smoking it and never never in my life did I encounter a hyped up pothead that wanted to fight.

So I was like, they should make this exclusive. It would calm down. Coke is different. Meth is different. Of course. But pot. When you were talking about how everyone with a six-year plan, it's not going to work. It's never going to work it seems to me that with the romanticism of the cults and the way that it's

ingrained in the culture and that they they look at these people like folk heroes that this is a generational problem it seems like like many generations before it changes and calms down and i i would struggle to to think of what would be the thing that could cause it to calm down like what what could be the catalyst for change? Yeah. And, and more so than things kind of, uh,

things are getting even more complicated now with, uh, my migrant caravans going through, through Mexico now. And now you have all these displaced people from South America now adding on to the problem of an already. How big is the caravan? We hear about it on the news, like from Fox News talks about it,

like scare tactics. So I was, I don't know, and people can fact check me on this, but I was probably one of the first ones to publicly say that they were going to go, the first caravan is going to go straight to Tijuana. Everybody goes, no, they're not going to go straight to Tijuana. It's too far off. They should just go to Texas. And to go straight to tijuana they're this is too far off they should just go to texas and they went straight to tijuana and you know there were about 3 000 strong when

they got there and maybe a bit more and you know a bunch of memes came up because of it uh as they were going through all the mexico most of the people were pretty welcoming because they weren't going to stay. They were like, here's a water. Like when somebody's doing a jog or running a marathon, they would hand a water bottle and good riddance. They finally got to TJ, and TJ is very conservative. Politically, it's a very conservative place. And they met with a wall of protesters wearing Make Tijuana Great Again hats. No.

Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. And I may or may not have produced a few of those myself. And all of a sudden you see the mayor of Tijuana with a Make Tijuana Great Again hat on his head. Wow.

And the reason why they were so adverse to these guys coming in is that they were, a lot of them, gang members, you know, 14th Street gang members. The reason why they didn't go the other route is because they would have to have crossed Los Zetas territory, which is a cartel that has problems with the 14th Gang. So they were carteling that. They were complaining about the food they were getting at the shelters. This is a third world country feeding third world migrants migrants and we were feeding them tortillas and beans and there's a famous lady that was like i'm not gonna eat this this is pig you know it's pig meat so it's trolling on another level wow uh so um these guys came in but people started calling the people from tijuana racist the brown people people from Tijuana racist against other brown people.

Wow. And you would see some of the news agencies from the U.S. come down and volunteer groups, hippies, with sending all their donations to these people in some of these migrant caravan camps. They would grab the donations, turn around, and sell it on the backside. All of these things they would sell on the backside. So we had just absorbed about 2,000 or 3,000 Haitian immigrants after the earthquake in Tijuana. No problems at all. They're integrated into the culture.

All of a sudden now we have Haitians in the culture. No problem at all. But these guys came in and they were really kind of disruptive in that way. Do you think it was because of all the attention they were getting? Yeah. That's what they wanted. They wanted to create some sort of situation on the border. So they rushed the border a few times.

I was around there when the famous picture of the lady with the kids running towards the border happened. They were throwing rocks at the border patrol guys, and they got the gas in response. And that's when she was running away. Yeah. And they had a lot of people there. So they had been throwing rocks. Yeah. They threw rocks constantly.

That was their thing. It's funny how a photo can give you a totally different perspective. Again, anybody that's doubting any of this, go down to Tijuana and ask the people from Tijuana. The Tijuana people did not want those people there. They saw them as disruptive. Crime went up. One of the encampments that they have was next to a school. The school had to be shut down because of all the needles and stuff that was getting found outside of the playground in the school.

It was a massive nightmare. and stuff that was getting found outside of the playground in the school. It was a massive nightmare. And then we would see it on the news, and it was like flowers and, you know. The narrative. Yeah, the narrative was like, I don't know what these guys are talking about. Well, Trump is such a polarizing figure that anything that would be anti-immigration like that, like anti-migrant, they just don't even want to hear it but they you know the the weird thing is how so a lot of people uh mexicans like trump you know yeah which

is really well yeah why is that i think uh the whole our i'm going to defend our people type thing that's that's like that yeah and a lot and people have to remember most mexicans are very conservative you know catholic conservative guy so it kind of resonates with them a little. But, you know, again, we're divided as well as you guys are politically. So there's a lot of to the left type leading people down there. So they, you know, again, narrative, you know, divide and conquer. But the people on the left, what is their perspective on the migrant caravan? Oh, support it, you know, open the borders, you know, let them through. But they're not boots on the migrant caravan oh support it you know open the borders you know let them

but they're not boots on the ground no well they're not not that you're not boots on the ground their cities are not the ones that are hosting all these people right right right they're not right there while it's going down they don't have a realistic perspective yeah so it's just it's a narrative so imagine these this caravan came into TJ and affected the businesses, the cross-border and tourism business of all the people that live there. So a lot of businesses actually closed down because of these people coming in. Really? Yeah. And the only reason they came in was to disrupt and create an international scene, which is exactly what they did.

So did they plan on actually trying to get across? They were planning on jumping the fence and claiming asylum on the other side and the famous uh lady frijoles that i kind of made famous on my instagram account she jumped the fence claimed asylum went to texas and then her and her sister assaulted somebody somewhere and then she got arrested got deported probably so you know that's kind of the story of these people. And then you would attract some of these people on social media. So they would be all poor in the Miami Caravan videos they would have on the news.

And then you would see them on their social media accounts from back home, Louis Vuitton bags and stuff like that, you know. Maybe a fake one, but still, you know, they were fronting. They're flossing. You know, it's a weird dynamic on the border. And as far as I think it's being utilized in a lot of ways as a political type thing is currently because of the president you guys have up here. And correct me if I'm wrong, but they do make an effort to not go into tourist areas and to resort areas. The cartels? The cartel. Well well this is the thing because they own it or they have investments in it that's why oh so like if you go to putamita

or something like that you think they have investments they it's in their best interest to have things you know quiet yeah a lot of people so i do a lot of training as far as do a lot of classes stuff like that, travel safety things. And people are amazed with some of the cases that I bring forth that they think they're going to get abducted or drugged by the cartels in some discotheque somewhere down there. Yeah. And it's usually Americans traveling down there, doing their thing down there against other Americans and then coming back up. It's a perfect crime. Oh, really?

Yeah, there's a lot of that. Oh, didn did not happen with a guy who killed his girlfriend down there yeah there's a case something like that i think somewhere in the caribbean yeah that makes sense like that would be a good way to get rid of somebody a lot of those cases made a mistake the cartel got her i miss her so much man a lot of a lot of the a lot of the uh the drugings that happen down there during the spring break type era that type of time frame it's always Americans against Americans kind of doing that stuff. And people think the cartels are drugging people. No. Sometimes it's Americans taking advantage of the whole being in the foreign land type thing.

I was staying with my family in Puta Mita at the Four Seasons. And we had these golf carts. And you could take the golf carts out of the resort. And they're like, can we take the golf carts to the town? They're like, sure, go ahead. We leave the resort. The first thing you see is a military vehicle armored with soldiers standing at the border of the fucking Four Seasons with machine guns on the roof of this thing, standing there ready to rock in case anything goes down.

Yeah. Probably waiting for the rival cartel guys to come through. So again, a lot of these people legitimized their business years back, so a lot of the money in those resorts probably traced it back to cartel interests. Wow. So it's just deep it goes it permeates the entire culture yes it's um it's it's it's part of the business model and

you know a lot of the money that moves around down there there's some sort of relationship with it jesus christ man it's gotta feel for you for a guy like you who gave your blood, sweat, and tears and was a part of trying to stop this, it must feel so strange to watch this nightmare sort of play out. so many Marines to my life. I don't know why. I have a few SEAL friends and mostly just crazy Marine guys. And I've been learning about what post-conflict is, post-conflict or being a veteran,

a combat veteran, is through them, through their eyes. Things like post-traumatic stress disorder and stuff like that, TBI, are things that I didn't even know were a thing till i came up here no one talks about it in mexico it doesn't exist it's not you know it's not discussed no you if you go into a situation and you you know do something somewhere you get

a few days off you know that's about it you come back to work wow and uh medical wise you know you like i i've been discovering all these issues i have from that experience down there and it's like what kind of issues uh you know my nose is pretty as pretty has been pretty substantially destroyed and my i have a few you know head injuries and you know i didn't know what they were you know i just it's stress you know wear the body, it's my age. I'm 36. I shouldn't be feeling like this. And through them, they kind of pointed me into like,

you probably have this because this is what I had because I was in Iraq. It's like, I wasn't in Iraq. You might as well have been in Iraq. Well, that's the thing. And also, you guys recognize your veterans. Not enough. Not enough. There's no such thing as a veteran down there.

Somebody, one of my asshole friends, marine friends, gave me a Mexican drug drug war veteran hat because all they all those guys had their own hats you know so i think he gave me this mexican drug war veteran hat and had an eagle you know being strangled by a snake and it was pretty funny you know but it but it made me realize how there's a bunch of guys down in mexico that amazing things and they get no recognition because it's a war that they deny right there's nothing happening there's no war happening this is the cartels and but there's no war you know even the current president said you know this is the end of the drug war because i said so kind of thing oh so there's no war anymore okay because why the war is over did you have any

involvement this is barely related but did you have any involvement or know anybody that had any involvement with those Mormon cults that are down there? Yes. I do know people that in the Juarez region, that some of the Mitt Romney's family members in that region area yeah i i knew some federal i know some federal police guys and military guys that uh were curious about the amount of firearms that these guys have because they had some uh they basically fought the cartels off how crazy is that well it's you know it's pretty it's pretty interesting being there and finding a white guy that speaks amazing english and it was born in mexico and he and there are mormons they're mormons and they they have to get like a visa to travel to

us but people don't know that like mitt romney's dad the reason why mitt romney's dad never ran for president is because he was born in mexico yeah yeah yeah i mean there's a lot there's a lot of white mexicans which is another weird thing that people don't know about. Sure. Canelo. Louis C.K. Yeah. Louis C.K. Mexico. Canelo, yeah. Anybody that's of Irish ancestry, if you go into a bar in Mexico, some bars in Mexico,

you can probably get some free drinks if you tell them you're Irish, because the Irish betrayed the Americans in the last Mexico-American War. Ah. And a lot of them stayed down there and married some of the locals. I got an Irish last name. I'm one quarter Irish. American war. And a lot of them stayed down there and married some of the locals. I got an Irish last name. I'm one quarter Irish. That's how you got a Conelo probably, right? Yeah. The Mormon community in that area, basically a few of their members got abducted.

And the cartels were, you know, wanted to do more against them. The cartels wanted to do more against them, and these guys apparently got some high-powered long-range rifles, and they were shooting at these people from afar. They set up this whole security apparatus around their town, and the Mexican government basically looked the other way and kind of said, well, it's fine. Just don't get too crazy with it. the other way and kind of said you know it's fine just don't you know don't be get too crazy with it there was some sort of interaction as far as uh them trying to appease things with them you know because realistically the the town that they're that they made out there is a paradise i mean amongst other towns in that area it's a beautiful place really the beautiful plates very organized what is it called is Is this it, Jamie? This is their Mormon little town?

So what kind of military did they have that protects this town? Like they've made their own military? So I actually got to do a few reconnaissance things there. This is passing by. And what I saw that they had were a bunch of basically machine gun nests on some of the hilltops and they lit the uh they limited the amount of access points to that little down so they had the bear basically there what happened when the people got abducted i think one of them got killed and then you know they wanted to kill other people and that there was there was this whole thing they went to government for help, and they didn't say anything.

So somehow they procured firearms down there. So they started defending their own. What a strange story that is. Because they left the United States when polygamy was illegal. Yes. When they started making polygamy illegal in Utah, they went, well, we'll just go to Mexico. Because back when they did it, there wasn't even cars. So it was like no big deal to live in Mexico. You're riding a fucking horse no matter where you are yeah no no difference no and they said we'll go over here but it is a nice i

mean again it's a weird american like town in the middle of juarez i mean how many people goela uh it's probably in the thousands, tens of thousands maybe. Wow. Yeah. All Mormons. All Mormons and a lot of Mexican converts now. Really? Yeah.

There's a lot of Mexican converts down there as well. And are there more than one family, more than one of these towns? I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of family names in that region. They're kind of famous. Wow. I think one of the bar They're kind of famous. Wow. I think one of the barons are one of those. But it's only this one town?

It's one of several. There's a few out there. There's a few Mormon communities out there. Wow. It's all the same sort of deal. Armed to the tits. Discreetly armed. I don't know if it's as open as it was, but back then when it was really rowdy,

they were openly doing things to keep people from not coming to their town. And they're full-on Mexican citizens? Yes. Wow. But they speak English and they're white. They don't speak Spanish? Some of them do, but they don't need to because they live in this community and they don't go out of it a lot.

It's a weird place. That's fucking really weird. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's like when you're over here and you look, do you see it any differently from looking at the situation over there and how crazy Mexico is from America, like how ignorant Americans are to how bad it really is?

Yeah. I mean, so I've been up here for four years now. Mexico is from America, like how ignorant Americans are to how bad it really is? Yeah. I mean, so I've been up here for four years now as a resident, right? And I came up here at the weirdest time probably in U.S. history as far as, you know, when I was going through my immigration process, Trump, you know, got elected. So it was pretty interesting, you know. And, you know, being pulled to both sides of the political spectrum, you know, and seeing how people would talk about Mexico

in ways that were, like, unrealistic or, you know, just weird things that you would hear. It's like, that's not how it is. You know, that's not how it happens. What's a big misconception? That it's a Mexico problem only and that the influence and the cartels aren't here in the U.S. too. They're all there everywhere. The border thing is like that's the border, but they're on both sides.

There's definitely a cartel here in the U.S. So then most Americans thinking of it as a foreign problem. It's foreign if you live far from the border, maybe. But it's everywhere. It's everywhere. That's one thing that I always see. And also that it's a problem that Mexico should fix itself. I also hear that.

No, they should fix their own shit. itself you know that's a lot they also hear that now they should fix their own yeah but their own them you know the problems down there you know stem from firearms and money coming from up here and the big drug market and you know the money going into some corrupt hands down there at times and then basically them burning the manual every six years and just starting anew on their fight does anybody else say this other than you like does anybody say that politically over there them burning the manual every six years and just starting anew on their fight. Does anybody else say this other than you? Does anybody say that politically over there? There's a few people.

There's a few people. I was actually in charge of the governor of Baja's security detail for two years, almost three years. I was put there because he was a very good friend of Felipe Calderon. He was his compadre. And he was very high level and there was a lot of threats in his life. And again, he was heading up the tip of the spear for the counter cartel operations in the whole of Mexico. And he implemented a plan in TJ that was then replicated throughout the country. And he would be very vocal in his, you know, counter cartel rhetoric and how we could do

better and how we should all work together. He developed these groups called boom groups, basically army, municipal police, state police, all of them working together in these operations groups and just going out there. And it's the jurisdiction of everybody here to do whatever we need to do and he was pretty you know instrumental his name was Osuna Millan and he's out of politics now and he had a lot of threats on his life and it was pretty interesting working with him he's one of those people think all politicians corrupt out there it It's not true. There's some good ones.

He was one. Definitely, I worked directly with him. And I could tell you that he was one of those good ones. And Lieutenant Colonel Lizahola, who's now running for Marip Tijuana, he's one of those vocal guys. There's a reason why they've tried to kill him nine times. He's saying something. He represents something. There are good people down there willing to fight.

It's just that there's a lot more bad people willing to kill. You must have seen some horrific shit over the course of your career. Yeah. Yes. Yes. All the bodies, the brutality, the torture, all that type of stuff down there. Again, I tell people working down there is the closest thing to the wild west you have currently it's basically people and when the people say third

world country that's there's a lot of cosmopolitan places uh just across the border that aren't necessarily alien to american eyes right yeah now imagine all this, you know, crazy things happening down there. Like there was a famous firefight in Tijuana, La Cupula, which is basically there was a big cartel stronghold inside of this castle type thing. You know, it had a big giant dome on top of it. La Cupula shootout. And when you, when that happened, basically a bunch of everybody responded to this thing and it was next to a school and kids were being evacuated from and it was pretty horrific a lot of the people on the inside they had a lot of people abducted on the inside and they had they basically

executed all of them and some of the people on the inside with the cartel guys would put zip ties on themselves and you know kneel down the ground so they would you would think it was them and you saw uniformed police officers inside of their shooting outside to uniformed police officers so you would see how the crazy corruption and you know la shootout happens bank robbery two guys with ak-47s hollywood that one militarized the whole policing in the united states that type of thing happens in t in mexico in mexico every day and nothing happens nothing changes you know that's that's that's crazy part you know how how something how that just is part of the normal now down there nothing changes no no adjustments no adjustments no evolution you know these guys used to roll around dressed as cops with clone vehicles and now they roll around in taxi cabs and are more

discreet in how they move these guys used to use drug mules and drug tunnels now they use unmanned drones and other means to cross their drugs so they're always kind of evolving and adjusting and the government is trying to smash it with a hammer for the past you know 10 15 20 years just whack them all whack them all what made you start your instagram account because your instagram account is excellent it's ed manifesto and it's all you you talk so much about the problems that are going on over there and you also do a lot of situational awareness stuff you show like what's wrong with this picture yeah what do you see here yeah uh main thing was when i started i was still active down there so

it was kind of like a reporting you know so i was trying to share things with people to try and raise awareness. But after that, it became more of a thing of I just spent over a decade working in this environment down here, and I have nothing to show for it. So I need to take that experience and make it worth it for people to share some of that experience with other people. And to make it, you know, just to make it, I had to justify it to myself. I need to make it worth my while to having done that. There's not a lot of people doing what you're doing, though. No, no. The strange thing about me is my English and the fact that I worked on the border, about me is my English and the fact that I worked on the border. So I had the opportunity to cross that border and, you know, share some of those experience up here. Like I've been to the FBI

Academy, uh, surreal, you know, this kid from TJ is now at the FBI Academy showing some weird shit, some weird people, uh, secret service, uh, academy. Uh, some of your, some of your SF guys have, you know, contact contacted me and I've done work for them. And I show them like, wow, Ed, that trick to get out handcuffs, that's pretty cool. Where did you learn that? Who showed you that? 15-year-old kid, TJ, showed me how to flip handcuffs and weaponize them. That's pretty gnarly.

Flip them and weaponize them? Yeah. So there's ways of releasing your handcuffs and flipping the side of the arm of the handcuff so it looks like it's still on, but it isn't. And somebody approaches you and you flip it open and use that thing as a meat hook. And a 15-year-old kid showed me that after he tried to apply that on one of our guys. And that's the stuff I wrote in my little manifesto. Basically, a manifesto. It was a notebook.

And I would write all these things down, document most of them. And when I would come over here to the U.S. to do training, I did some training with NCIS in Coronado during my career. And some of those guys were team guys, SEAL guys. That's how I met a few of them. And they were like, hey, Ed, this is how we do executive protection in the Middle East. I was like, wow, that's how i met a few of them and they were like hey ed um this is how we do uh executive protection in in the middle east i was like wow that's how we do it right across the border right down here what yes yeah what really yeah wow that's crazy god yeah and you know we'd show

them a flash drive with a bunch of pictures from stuff down there and they would like be blown away by it and sharing information and and and and kind of basically making use of that experience. A lot of people down there are mute. They don't share that experience. They don't think it's worth anything. I think I realize that that experience in that gnarly place is worth something, at least as far as sharing it. Not a lot of people think that.

Kind of, you you know we downplay ourselves we have this uh problem in mexico most mexicans are very uh doubtful about themselves you know there's a like we're mexicans like what what what would we have to share with these high level guys you know and you know being in a place like that low means low equipment low training being creative that's a lot of things that come up from that experience and being solution-wise as far as keeping safe. Well, I think part of the problem with the United States and Mexico is our view of Mexico. And someone like you, what you provide is a realistic perspective and real information, real photographs, real stories. And just enough, and then this conversation, just enough where enough people hear it, it'll shift the idea of what is happening in Mexico a little bit.

I mean, again, thank you for this invitation. Thank you. I have this weird comparison that I have with you as far as this podcast. I've listened to it way back when. And I remember this whole feeling of being around a campfire and hearing people talk about their things and kind of passing the pipe. It's pretty interesting. know you know passing the pipe that's it's pretty interesting that's something i've only kind of seen as far as exchanging information of that like uh around campfires or shamans or sweat lodging type situations down there a lot of our guys were native so they would do i would get invited to these sweat lodges and stuff like that you know you get that exchange of information

but yeah definitely start talking about it that's the first step and a lot of people don't want to talk about it because of fear. People are like, hey, aren't you afraid of talking about this? I was afraid for 12 years. Yes, I am. But I know that nobody else is going to, if not anybody else. Well, if you stop and think about how many guys have worked on the border, how many guys have worked in these counterinsurgency operations and how few are talking about it or and how many

of them died nobody knows who they are right how many are still out there nobody knows who they are or you know uh sicario that movie sicario yeah those people are looking at that movie so a lot of the followers are suspicious of that venice el too having an MP5. I was the only Mexican rocking an MP5 submachine gun down there, right? What did you think of those movies? Horrible. It's horrible. Unrealistic.

If somebody doesn't hire me, I'll do it for free. I'll consult for free on that. I'll make it look a bit more closer to what it is. But it's... The main thing is how everybody saw that movie and that that's how they would. You know, that's that's the reality. You know how fiction is kind of a basis for reality. So Sicario 2 comes out and it's basically the United States declaring the cartels a terrorist organization, you know.

The cartel is a terrorist organization, you know? And I saw that and I was like, hmm. Usually fiction kind of has a way of influencing reality further on the line, you know? That Denzel Washington movie called Siege where a bunch of terrorists attack New York and then militarize New York. And that's kind of like a president for 9-11. So you see Sicario too, and then, you know, we're going to terrorist, Trump now says they're going to,

they're thinking about declaring the cartels as a terrorist organization. That's pretty interesting. Mainly because realistically, Mexico has been calling them terrorists forever. Yeah, what did you think about that, about Trump doing that? Do you think that that actually is something that could happen? If you're going to militarize efforts against it, not just consider it a law enforcement type situation, I think people should be afraid down there if you do go that route.

But just realize that's going to be open warfare, not in a foreign country across the ocean. It's going to be right next to your border. Yeah. Where people can walk across yes or make things happen down there that will affect you up here yeah in a very real way you know and it'll get ugly before it gets better uh you know i i hopefully it doesn't you know but that's realistically but if that doesn't happen if they don't treat it as a terrorist organization and try to have some sort of impact on it what could be done i mean i think i think culturally they're trying to get us ready for that you know i don't know i mean i think that's what's that's what's happening

you see a lot of the cross you know borders uh u.s military assets training Mexican Marines down there and having an open relationship with them. You see that, and the push is to maybe preparing for something. I think they're preparing for something. What could that be? I don't know. So what we get about it publicly is just a small sliver of the actual conversations that are being had. Yeah, and also there's a lot of misdirection.

There's a lot of misdirection that I personally see in myself. Subterfuge. Yeah. But listen, Ed, I really appreciate you coming down here and enlightening us and telling us all about this, and I really appreciate your Instagram account. The Instagram account is Ed Manifesto. What else do you have? Social media? Ed Manifesto what else you have social media

Ed Manifesto on Facebook as well and edmanifesto.com alright beautiful thank you brother appreciate it man

thanks for coming in here thank you bye everybody