The Sevan Podcast - #197 - Jorge Ventura

Episode Date: November 6, 2021

 "Cartelville, USA" Documentary. Americas number 1 reporter is back on the show. This time he talks about his new film, Cartelville USA. A look at some California's drug cartels. The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Getting better at timing that. I'm getting better at timing that. 7.14, one minute early. Jorge Ventura. I don't think you have to argue that he is the, I don't know, premier border reporter. There's no one going deeper into the border. There's no one that knows about the border. There's no one exploring the border situation, uh, more than him. We had him on the show. When did we have him on the show? I think it's been less than a month. This kid, and I only call him a kid cause he's younger than me, but he's, he's a savage. He's, he's so good at what he does. He goes down there, he's bringing back, um uh quality uh honest uh reporting um the there's the i hate to i hate to break it up in segments but there's obviously the human human human interest

um compassion part that like no one wants to see people um struggling the way these people are as they cross the border and uh, uh, cause they're just in some way, you know, what, what's the line we're all, we're all somehow related within five degrees of separation or six degrees of separation. We all know each other and that's when shit gets real. Um, but on the other hand, it's a, it's a mess and it's a jeopardizing the security of this country, their country. Um, kids are being hurt. Adults are being hurt and it is no bueno.

I am going to, he just finished a, uh, short documentary. It is called cartel ville. Um, it is not what is happening at the border, but it's what, what's happening in California and Southern California and what he refers to and I guess what is called the Antelope Valley, Palmdale, and I think Lancaster.

So I'm going to show you this trailer now. These marijuana girls are either connected to Mexican cartels or high-level criminal organizations that also have used human trafficking as they've used workers to work these girls. On this girl, there are five Chinese nationals that were working this girl that are undocumented, don't speak any English, and are most likely were human trafficked here into the United States to work on these illegal grow-ups. Their whole purpose to come here was just to tend for the girl, and then it helps cover their costs for whoever brought them over. The Mexican cartel related operations that have exploded in the Antelope Valley.

It doesn't stop. We're 300 miles away from the border. And we have one of the largest illegal drug operations happening in the backyard in the high deserts of Los Angeles. Legal drug operations happening in the backyard in the high deserts of Los Angeles. It's accelerating to the degree that we were just. This looks like a video game. This isn't a video game. This is real. Those are assault weapons. I mean, they are way ahead of us. We can't seem to get. One way ahead of us. We can't seem to get one step ahead of them.

This is the cartels. We are very, very close to driving down the freeway and seeing bodies hanging from the overpasses. That is what's coming so There it is. It's crazy. A few, I don't know, 20, 30 years ago, I was in India, Africa, China, all over South America, Central America. As I've told you guys before, I filmed documentaries and I filmed in over a hundred countries and there's things that I would see around the world. And they were always really, really tough situations. And there were things that I would see around the world that I never thought that I would witness here in the United States. And one of them was tent cities. You would see these massive slums or just tent cities or just people just living in tents all around these massive metropolises that dwarf, you know, New York City, just these huge cities. Some huge cities of millions of people would basically be tent cities. You wouldn't see any what we consider homes in them, like wooden concrete structures. That being said, they're here today.

You can't go anywhere in California, I feel like, without seeing a tent city. And so that is here. And now what this documentary exposes, and we're going to have Jorge Ventura, one of the filmmakers on here in a minute who has been a guest on the show before. You're going to hear stories of things that are going on in Southern California that you cannot believe is the United States, let alone California, which should be the greatest state in the union, being that I think if it was its its own country it would be like the fifth or sixth world's largest economy and yet there are cartels setting up drug operations on land that they don't own and and no one is stopping them and and these aren't isolated incidents these are like this is on the reg and so uh we have uh jorge ventura um he was on the show before uh his his what he's very well known for and even what i would consider famous for is his work that he's done at the border showing um just the chaos what i would i think his words were a humanitarian crisis at the border uh lex um if you

uh are you watching mad on his channel i don't know what you're talking about but you almost pissed me off you're lucky you didn't go anywhere wow i had no idea it was as bad oh man and that's the thing let's find out let's ask him is this is this just more drama bullshit or is this real because i watched the doc it came out today um uh and i watched it it's 36 minutes long and it's not it's not um part of me is like who gives a shit let these guys grow weed wherever they want what do i what do i care but um there are some implications um that uh and some things we definitely need answers to. Jorge, what's up? Hey, how you doing, man? Good.

Good to be back with you, brother. Thank you. We just watched the trailer. Awesome, awesome. I'm glad. It's called the Cartel. What is the official name? Cartelville, USA.

I don't have the title right from man i believe it's cartel cartelville usa um americans flee as cartels take over their uh small towns out here in the good old united states and it premiered this evening premieres tomorrow tomorrow and where does it premiere so the cool thing is we got um our own website for it so it's going to be cartel doc.com so cartel doc.com you get to watch the full trailer there the full documentary if you can't get to cartel doc.com but i think you guys should um you could also go on daily color.com and then our daily color website will redirect you there. For anyone that follows me on Insta, it's going to be really easy. You just click that link in my bio, and all the links are going to be there.

Okay. I'm going to write it here. Do I have your Instagram right there, JorgeVenturaTV? Yes. Yes. Okay. And so the website, tell me the website again, cartel.com. So, yeah. So cartel, then D-O-C.comel doc.com so um yeah so cartel then d-o-c.com doc um so yeah we're gonna have its

own website which i think is gonna be really neat um like that you could kind of get all the info there you can watch the trailer you could leave a review and then obviously from there you can share it on to any family and friends and and that do i have it spelt right there at the bottom yes sir yes sir god look at technology just a one-man show i just typed that shit in and bam there it is i love it um i watch the doc uh it's 36 minutes of of well very well um spent time uh especially because uh it's it's so relevant right now with all the other work that Jorge is doing in regards to what he's seen, witnessing and reporting what's going on in the border. Let me start with like a – why should we care?

Like marijuana growing is legal in California. Like the documentary explores the fact that people are coming into Antelope Valley. Where is Antelope Valley exactly for those of us who are geographically? Yes. So Antelope Valley is in North L.A. County. So let's say like, you know, for folks who live in Los Angeles, when you go to Vegas, you pass the Antelope Valley. So we're in North L.A. County. We're kind of on the way to Bakersfield as well. Very desert rural community. We got communities out here like Neenak, Palmville, Eastside, Lancaster, Valencia, Acton. And essentially what I guess what I would say is the reason we should care is because, you know, like let's say, you know, if you just talk to someone off the street and say, hey, did you know about illegal marijuana operations?

The big thing is people just shrug their shoulders and say, well, yeah, it's just weed. Like, who cares? It's probably like two hippie dudes in the middle of nowhere, you know, smoking pot, growing their own pot. No one has an issue with that. It's that these cartels are kind of creating this huge criminal black market enterprise, and it's connected to human trafficking, human smuggling. And there's a high, there's a violence element attached to this too, because it's like these cartels are coming in and they're actually starting to shoot at American citizens.

You're going to see it in documentary. We interview San Bernardino County, Shannon Dykus, the sheriff who mentioned to us that his officers have been shot at the LA County sheriff here in LA County, Alex Villanova, same thing. So there's a criminal element. There is a human smuggling, human trafficking element connected, which is like, we're basically seeing basically slavery on American soil with labor trafficking is the word for it. But there are two other issues that are, well, the one issue that's extremely important to Californians, even if you don't live in this area, is the water theft of these drug cartels. So since these are illegal marijuana operations, everyone knows in the world

that marijuana needs water to grow. These cartels are stealing the water from our California aqueducts. If they don't get it from the aqueduct, they'll drill their own illegal well and tap into the water lines, or they'll go to these other American citizens that live in these desert communities and they'll tap into their wells and steal their water. So a statistic that should scare everyone is every day these illegal marijuana operations are operating, between 3 million to 9.6 million water gallons are being wasted. And if you live in California, you know how crucial water is, especially with the drought. I live in Palm Ville. So if our household goes over a certain threshold on the water gallons, we get billed

pretty heavy and then we get a pretty bad tax on it. So these cartels are stealing water, they're shooting, and there's a connection to a lot of these homicides. So the police are fighting these bodies buried in the middle of the desert, connected to illegal marijuana grows. Some of these workers that have ran away have been shot and killed. So a lot of these migrants are essentially being forced to work these grow-ups and also the environment. So these guys are bringing in pesticides and chemicals that are illegal in the United States. They spray this on the marijuana because they don't want any bears or any outdoor animals to eat the marijuana. But the thing is, these chemicals actually seep into the desert ground and into our riverbeds and then make it

into our water. So environment, water, the huge criminal element with the shootings and like threatening real American citizens with weapons, all this stuff, there's a real estate aspect as well. So for us, this is a pretty big deal. And the reason I think, you know, I picked this issue is because it is extremely underreported. I can't find many people that even know that this is happening. So here in LA County, where I'm at, we have over 500 illegal marijuana operations. In the documentary, we not only spend time in LA County, we swing over to our next door neighbor, San Bernardino County. San Bernardino County has over 1,000 illegal marijuana growth. So just between two counties, we're at over 1,500 and they're controlled mainly by three criminal

fractions. So we found the Mexican drug cartels are involved, which is more connected to Sinaloa. We find that Chinese mafia is involved. So the Chinese mafia is smuggling Chinese national migrants through our southern border and then using those migrants as labor traffickers here in the United States. And then our third group is the- Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. The Armenian-

Hey, hey, hey. hey hey hey hey go ahead if you have to if you have to spread vicious rumors go ahead but but but seven i i do feel that you know all these he's gonna say the armenians he's gonna say that the innocent sweet little armenians just a little old grandmother's eating their baklava. He's he's he's saying that they're somehow involved with these big marijuana farms. OK, so there's a lot to unpack there. First of all, that's for people who don't know. Is that about 300 miles from the Mexican border? I would say so, yes. OK, so for those of you who don't know, there's another huge metropolis south of Los Angeles and it's called San Diego.

So a lot of people think Los Angeles is is right on the border it's not um there's san diego and then and then of course there's a bunch of other stuff but for just ease it goes la san diego and the mexico so this is northern uh los angeles it's basically a desert is that fair to say yes very very desert kind of had kind of has the wild wild west type of vibes out here. OK. And there's two things going on in this documentary is reporting basically two things. One of them scares the shit out of me. One of them is like whatever. Basically, there's one faction that's basically buying real estate and growing this marijuana on the real estate.

And for what? And somehow that needs to be just made legal. somehow that needs to be just made legal like they need to get those people in line with buying the water buying the right permits growing the right number of plants getting jumping through whatever fucking red tape there is the part that scares the shit out of me and this is i think we need to clarify this when you say that there are 500 illegal grows in this area what was the name of the area you called it antelope valley yes palmdale okay okay um and then a thousand in san bernardino county my neighborhood alone in santa cruz probably has 500 illegal grows he's not talking about like the 18 plants i had in my backyard last year and you'll see this in the

documentary and this is the part that scared me the the cartel is so brazen that they're putting up basically farms on land that they don't own. Exactly. And that's the kind of shit that you kind of think only happens out in foreign countries, like south of Mexico and south, right? That someone could come onto your land, prop up a farm, and if you go mess with them, they'll shoot you dead. But that's what it's starting to look like, right? testing the waters of putting up and they're big farms they're like one or two acre indoor farms right they're these just tons of maybe more and in our in our in that documentary uh so we do a kind of a drone shot and we we discovered a legal marijuana operation that was 10 miles long i mean this thing looks like it was operated by like Amazon or Jeff Bezos.

And that's, I think the biggest, I think what people are gonna be shocked is just to see how wide open and they use it brazen. Like these guys know nothing's going to happen to them. They know that they're not going to be approached. And when I interviewed these homeowners who are living next to them, they legitimately have no goal zones now in these communities because they know, hey, we hike over there. We ride our quad over there, it's going to be our last visit. These guys shoot at American citizens all the time. It's not like they're being kind of like sneaky about it. I mean, they're out in the open.

They still water all the time out in the open. And if you call the local sheriff to say, hey, sheriff, can you come out here? We're witnessing water theft. The sheriff's like, hey, we're an hour away. So by the time we get there, that process is done. The reason why the police doesn't even go out there to these communities is because they know that these cartels are heavily armed. And for instance, like an LA County sheriff, they did a 10-day raid on these girls here in the Antelope Valley back in July. And those LA County sheriff, they couldn't even do that operation by themselves. They had to do this with Riverside County,

with Ventura County. They had to get in contact with the DEA and the DOJ to send special agents. So this is an expensive procedure, even when it comes to raids. So in July, they raided up to, I believe it was like $1.4 billion worth of illegal marijuana. I mean, just a 10-day operation cost the department $1 million. Wait, they confiscated $1.4 billion in marijuana in those 10 days? Yes, and they arrested 131 people. The majority of those individuals arrested were undocumented immigrants, most likely connected to human trafficking. So when I talked to LA County sheriffs, they say, look, the big problem right now is Prop 64. So Prop 64, when it passed in California, it legalized cannabis statewide. No one is arguing on that

issue. Okay. That's not the problem. It made illegal cultivation from a felony down to a misdemeanor. And that just kind of let open the floodgates on this black market industry. So for a legal grower, they got to jump through hoops and red tapes to get it legalized. Then they get tax heavy. So they're not really incentivized to do it legally. It's to do it illegally. We even found out that 80% of the marijuana in California is all black market. So the state isn't seeing any tax revenue. And basically the Mexican drug cartels are saying, hey, if we could go into California, not only can we do this black market, but if we get caught, we're just going to get slapped with a misdemeanor charge. I'm talking about $500, like $700.

If I run a red light right now, these guys will take away my car in a month and tow it forever and take away my license if I don't pay that little traffic ticket. But if you're doing criminal element stealing water, I mean, you're going to get a $500 misdemeanor. So when I talk to LA County, they say, hey, what helps us when it comes to the charges is we're looking for weapons. We're looking for human smuggling. We're looking for women and children on these girls like that. We're going to attach a felony charge when we bring it to the LA County DA, George Gascogne L.A. County D.A. George Gascogne, very progressive, soft on crime. He came from San Francisco. So you already know this guy's not not, you know, not good. So he's very soft. But our next door neighbor, which is their D.A. in San Bernardino County, is Jason Anderson. Completely different approach. This guy, Jason Anderson, 100 percent against the stuff.

He's going hard. The L.A LA County Sheriff's in San Bernardino, I mean the San Bernardino County Sheriff's, they are, I mean, just ways ahead of LA County when it comes to actually containing these grows and making a raise. And look, San Bernardino is the biggest county in the United States when it comes to landmass. I mean, it runs all the way to Arizona.

So they have a thousand of these grows and they're just trying to somehow manage it, but it kind of seems like they're playing whack-a-mole right now. In your estimation, is there someone on the inside on the take? So I haven't found it yet, but it just seems like that something like that is going on where whether it's a board of supervisors are being paid off, city council members or even the D.A. There's something involved where these guys are not even addressing the issue. The thing that I try to also make – It stands out in your documentary, by the way.

That was the first thing I'm like – you obviously interview a lot of police who are very serious about it, and you interview a lot of people who are very serious about it. But the whole time I'm like, man, someone is on the take on the inside. There's no way this can be happening unless someone's on the take. on the inside. There's no way this can be happening unless someone's on the take. And I think the one thing that kind of surprised me too, bro, was that like, you know, just a couple months ago, you know, we had a recall race here in California. I didn't even hear this issue when it came from Newsom and the Republican candidates that ran against him. I didn't hear this issue about it one time. I didn't say, hey, we have a cartel, drug, illegal marijuana, water theft, human smuggling crisis, you know, happening.

This is not a new issue. I want to make people clear. Like this is not like, oh, my God, I discovered this issue. This started up in northern California. So we're from northern California and it trickled here and they found the desert. And the desert is perfect because there's literally no law enforcement out there. I mean, it feels like, you know, when we're reporting out there, I like we were basically in mexico because if these guys confronted us you know no no local sheriff was going to save our life so that brings me so there is a scene in the movie where you guys roll up on a guy who's stealing water from a fire hydrant and uh absolutely nuts to me right just a i'm just a i'm a suburb kid like no one messes with fire hydrants you'd be in big trouble and the guy's just brazen he doesn't give a shit uh and then there's also

you guys um i don't remember the exact details but you are at a bust they bust it and you basically say hey when they bust these places um they basically within a month are rebuilt. And you went back two weeks later and you can see that it's already been the fencing around the farm is already being rebuilt. The cartels are like they don't even care. The cops come bust the place and the cartel comes back and rebuilds the farm. It's that's one of the things that I can't even believe that it's really frustrating. Yeah. And that's that's what I'm trying to point out to these people is is hopefully like, look, I want this documentary to open people's eyes to say, how the hell do we let this happen with policies where we literally have drug cartels in our backyard and they're they operate in the wide open? And it just seems that they're getting more emboldened and bolded. And this all

starts from the Southern border. So I just want to put out a quick stat for everyone. So Axios in September put out a report saying one out of every three unaccompanied children, minors, that get released into the United States, the government loses track of. The situation got so bad that the DOJ, Department of Justice, is running an investigation on our own government to see if we are releasing unaccompanied minors to labor traffickers. So in this documentary, you will see real life labor traffic. This is part of labor trafficking, getting forced to work these girls. And then what these cartels do is then they arm these migrants so now these migrants are literally fighting other migrants with another cartel faction and it's just become a huge mess they're literally turning a lot of these desert communities into ghost towns because

they've taken over the properties and then you know a lot of these people they get sick of living here after after shootings and cartel and the water theft they're like why would i put up with this so um you know so once they sell their house, guess who's buying that house? The cartel, because they're always willing to pay above market value. Exactly. Are these guys fighting each other? Are these guys having problems with each other? The Chinese, the Armenians and the Mexicans, are they so far so good? They're not fighting with each other. Well, look, they're all fighting for controls of certain areas. So, for instance, in Acton, California, when you're in Acton, 90% of the illegal marijuana grows in Acton are connected to the Armenian crime organizations.

What the Armenians like to do, what we've seen from our reporting, is Armenians like to buy homes. And what they'll do is they will not do an outdoor grow. They'll gut the whole inside of the house and do an indoor grow. So the Armenians like the indoor grow. It's the Chinese drug cartels and the Chinese mafia who are more connected to these large outdoor grows

where it's just massive amount of acres and land that they're doing this with. Chinese ambition. How are the dispensaries involved? What are they doing with this weed? How's it being offloaded? So, I mean, look, the main thing for these guys is to get all this pot, and then what they'll do is they'll ship it to the East Coast

where they can make three times the rate. Now, will they sell it to a legal dispensary here or there? Yes, they will. For a legal dispensary, it's like, hey, I can take this weed, no tax, off the market, off the books. Why not? That's not the big issue. The majority for them is shipping it to the East Coast.

The problem is – I kind of want to – I don't want people to be like, oh, this is like anti – this has nothing to do with the pot. Like if it was two hippie guys in the middle of nowhere, it would be great. But it's just all the criminal elements connected just for this product. connected just for this product. So maybe we have to revisit Prop 64 and say, do something like, hey, if you're a legal grower, you could maybe grow up to, I'm thinking 25 plants, or maybe a little bit higher. You go up to a 30, 40 plant. And then after that, it has to be a felony or something like that, because we need something where these cartels are paying the price. And if they're undocumented and you get a felony charge we gotta deport these people i don't know why we're not deporting like send them back and and you know you can't be here you you committed a felony here and you're undocumented

or or do something to completely completely something needs to be done to completely undermine the business side of it right like basically whatever we've done, when proponents of legalizing marijuana were standing behind it, one of the cornerstones of that was, hey, legalize it and it'll take the wind out of the sails of the cartels. And whatever they've done with that law has not taken the winds out of the sails of the cartels. Unfortunately, what it's done is it made it so that they can grow it in the United States. They don't even have to just grow it in Mexico now, right? Exactly, exactly. How is the rest of the political turmoil and chaos in this country also adding to this?

Do you know what I mean by that? Basically, the whole country is obsessed with racism and sex. And by sex, I mean this misuse of the word gender, politics. How is that? Is that opening up the doors for these people also? So that's that's a great question. And kind of what played a role, Sevan, was when it's the Black Lives Matter protest last year. And the reason why I say this is because obviously, guys, you know, as you guys know, last year, there was a huge defund the police movement, especially here in Los Angeles. know last year there was a huge defund the police movement especially here in los angeles and it worked you know city council started cutting funds started cut uh cutting you know units that the law enforcement here needs so that really played a part into what we're seeing now because now when

i speak to you know alex villanova here the la county sheriff they're like hey we wish that we could be like san bernardino county and have marijuana enforcement teams every single day you know making raids but we don't have the money to we've literally been you know kind of handcuffed by the defund the police movement um so that's playing a role a lot of this progressive policies here in la county have played a role in it because now it's like almost we don't want to throw anyone in jail we're literally letting you know rapists and murders out early um in the in our board of supervisors here in LA County,

we've got one Republican, Catherine Barger, who is trying to voice this issue against four liberals that don't see this really as an issue. So the defund the police movement played a major role in opening the floodgates in this cartel problem. Is Sheriff Villanova the one that went live today on his Instagram? Did you see that? Is that the guy? I'm not sure if he went live, but he's making headlines right now because he's saying he will not enforce the vaccine mandate for his sheriffs. Yeah. And he also said something else that was fascinating today. He went live on his Instagram today and I follow him and he was basically talking about the supervisors and how they were enforcing gender equality in the workplace. Now, first of all, that's the complete

misuse of the word gender. There is no such thing as gender. Gender is someone's imagination. It's what we make up. Like, for example, I don't know what my gender is because I refuse to imagine what it is. I know what my sex is. It's male. How do I know that? Because I have a penis. My gender is irrelevant to me. Irrelevant. I'll wear a dress, paint my nails, or I'll wear a cowboy hat and shoot guns. Like, I don't give a fuck. But he uses the word gender, which frustrates me because it's a misrepresentation. But gender is like snuffleupagus, just not real. But he basically – it was fascinating because the LA County supervisors were saying that he needs to have a more inclusive men and women in the sheriff's department. And then he starts reading the numbers of men versus women in the department. department. And then he starts reading the

numbers of men versus women in the department. I cannot believe the equality they have. And by equality, I don't mean it in the sense that Martin Luther King used it. I mean it in the mathematical sense. There's a ton of women. There was a point where there were two assistant sheriffs and one male assistant sheriff. There's like 12 division heads and six of them are women. These are like the very top of the food chain in the, in the, um, LA County Sheriff's department. I just couldn't believe it. Anyway, that's a whole, uh, other story. Um, I don't want to get sidetracked on, but, uh, but, uh, but I, but I'm anyone who, um,

everyone should follow that guy, the L.A. County sheriff. What's his name? Villanova. Alex Villanova. Yes. Yeah. He's he's fighting. He's fighting. He's fighting the good fight. What happened? There was a guy you're interviewing in the documentary and he gets a phone call from his neighbor and they say, hey, there's a marijuana grow on your property. So go ahead. Yeah. So essentially what happened with him.

So his name is Frank and we meet it with Frank. So Frank has massive land out here in the Antelope Valley. We're talking about a 40 acre property. So he was kind of explaining a story one day where he gets a call and his friend says, Hey, I think you're growing, you know, are you growing pot in your, in your backyard and stuff? And, you know, Frank's like, oh, absolutely not. And what he found out that was that these cartels were growing pot on his land with his water. And they made this kind of it was almost like a three mile. I've never seen anything like I don't know if I'm even explaining this three mile black kind of pipe that was literally stealing water from Frank's property and offloading it back to them wherever they were. So it was something that was fascinating because we, you know, I you know, I didn't, I, you know, I had no idea about this, like things like this were happening. So Frank was just kind of explaining the process of like,

Hey, this is how I found out that they were stealing water for me is they had a three mile long black pipe connected to my, one of my water pipes stealing water. And then they were, they were, you know, cause his property is so big, they were actually growing weed on his property. So it was, it was fascinating to, to, to see something like that. And, and, you know, because his property is so big, they were actually growing weed on his property. So it was it was fascinating to to see something like that. And, you know, Frank Frank shared that information. And it's like I said, it was it was insane. And, you know, I want to say this one thing. So all the people that we interviewed, I want to make it very clear. There's never been a story. You can look up local news, any any coverage on these marijuana grows here in the desert. I can't speak for North Cal, but here in our desert, these

residents were all too scared to even do interviews with the local interviews, any mainstream. They would never want to be on camera. They agreed to be on camera with us because they trusted us, and they were like, hey, we want you to tell our story because no one is fighting for us. So, you know, for these people, Congressman

Mike Garcia is a very big deal because to have a representative that's actively talking about this, bringing this to D.C., talking to the D.A. and D.O.J., it means the world to them. Because living out here in the desert, it almost feels like no one represents you because since you're in a rural community, you have basically no media coverage. No politicians ever come out to campaign to you because you're you know, since you're in a rural community, you don't have you know, you don't have money for them. They'd rather go to like santa crita and valencia so for these people this election coming up in 2022 for mike garcia and uh his opponent democrat chrissy smith it's everything and for those who don't know last year mike garcia won in a special election against chrissy smith by less than 500 votes so this is going to be a really close

election next year. And if Christy Smith wins the Democrat, it almost feels like this war against the cartels will be officially lost. Oh, man. There was a scene in the movie where you go into a home and it looks like in its abandoned home and you find guns in there, or a gun sitting on a bed now what's so so you basically said that when you're out there it's basically the wild wild west or no you said

it feels like it's like you're in mexico right and and a sheriff could be hours away from you tell me about that scene how did you end up at that house were you scared why was there a gun there did that mean someone was coming back for it can that house were you scared why was there a gun there did that mean someone was coming back for it can you fill me in on that was there a police officer with you yeah so this was very interesting kind of during our reporting is like we'll do is our we would interview a homeowner that was literally like living next to these girls and normally what happened is after our interviews the homeowners would always be like hey if you want i could take you to the marijuana girl you want to hop in my car? And we would be like,

Oh, let's of course. So after, after we finished an interview, the homeowner said, Hey, just two days ago, LA County just raided this, this illegal marijuana grills. Like, if you want, I could take you to the grill. He's like, I don't think we could get on the property, but I'll take you to the grill. So he takes us to this grill and we actually bust open the lock. I think LA County put a, the sheriff's put a a lock on it we bust it open and we did some filming inside a girl that was just raided so it's kind of showing people the infrastructure the poop houses that that little chemical pool that they kind of build with all the chemicals yeah and then usually what they do is there's always a trailer or whatever because that's where the worker will live and like i said

they armed these people so it was fascinating that while we were there that the weapon was still was still there so we got some footage of that and then the you know we just got out of there but basically that was the that was the illegal girl that was raided in less than two weeks it was already back up because with the infrastructure and it was back back to running again do you tell the um the police hey we went to this house and i went in the house and i saw a gun there uh we did we did report it yes it's i mean i have so many questions like did they did the police see the gun and leave it there i mean it it begs more questions if someone's on the take that right there is something that we were wondering too is why was you know the weapon just left in the trailer?

I've never seen anything like this. I was shocked to see it. But that's one thing that frustrates the residents is, like, let's say they make a bus on a grow. You know, they don't destroy the infrastructure. A lot of the infrastructure stays there. So another cartel or that same faction would just say, hey, in or two let's get that thing back up and running and that's exactly what we saw there literally less than two weeks it was already back up walls already had the the uh the hoop houses and that was kind of a big moment because we want to show the audience of like this is literally

playing whack-a-mole in real life it was really cool that you showed that by the way when you showed the perimeter had been rebuilt and all that wood and that means someone's pumping a lot of money into it too because we know plywood's like i don't know 70 bucks a sheet now and that was like a couple acres of plywood i mean they had they completely built a plywood fence up around the the raid the raid and another little tactic what they'll do and i didn't this, it's called malt, is they'll literally use a bunch of dirt and kind of a little bit of some trash and they'll build up these what they call brims. So literally they'll make a wall with dirt and they'll surround the whole growing operation with these walls of dirt. So like, let's say if you're driving on a major highway, you know, like the 138 out there.

And if you just look to your left, you won't even see, you won't even see the hoop houses or anything because the dirt is so high. So for you, you're just like, oh, it's, you know, it's just a desert, whatever. You get a little bit closer. You're like, wait a minute. There's an illegal grow up happening inside this, inside this wall of dirt. Are there so many, what would it take to stop this? So I remember hearing during the housing foreclosures, I don't remember if it was 2008 or 2011, they said it really doesn't matter if your house gets foreclosed on because there's so many houses that have been foreclosed on that no one can kick you out of your house for like six years. Like the police won't be there for six years to kick you out or something because it was just insane, right? Is it like that here? It's like there's so many illegal – like by illegal grows, we're not talking about the kid who has 14 plants in his closet and the law is six plants.

God knows there's a million of those in California. But are there so many of these big farm grows or these massive indoor grows that there is no stopping it is it completely lost on the battle of eradicating them one by one like the game you're saying playing whack-a-mole and does it have to be more of a legal or a political thing like hey okay what we're gonna do is we're like they have to figure out a way to make marijuana so cheap that it knocks these guys out of business like what's what's the solution here do you see what i'm saying like you're saying they can't pull these operations out fast enough exactly so kind of the way that i'll explain it is you know when you're let's say you're in a big city like new york or la and it feels like on almost every street corner there's a starbucks

and mcdonald's when you're in the desert out there it feels exactly like that so you look left you look right as far as your eye could go operation operation operation operation operation so it does feel like the battle is lost on that end i think something that could like i don't have look the answers or the solutions if i did i'd be probably the mayor of the city but look i think one thing that would that would that would for sure help is and i don't know how this looks like, is attaching a felony charge once you pass a certain limit. And like kind of what you said earlier, look, if the legal is six plants and a kid is growing 14, that's not what we're talking about here. Something more on the mass scale where like if you are over 40 marijuana plants and you're in an uncorporated area in Los Angeles, it has to be

an automatic felony with a pretty heavy charge. What scares me about that, Jorge, is that if there is someone on the take, then it's going to be four high school kids who decided that they wanted to grow 300 plants, but they didn't have the savvy that the Armenians, the the chinese or the mexicans has that's why i feel like it's a tough one i'm not opposed to it i mean i'm just exploring i'm just

exploring it here with you i'm not i'm not opposed to the felony but i just see it as like i feel like we have to undermine the whole business like just basic maybe somehow and either de-incentivize them to sell it because of the finance reason or incentivize someone like philip morris to come in and just fucking take over the market another kind of and i'm glad you brought it up but i kind of another way that i've heard just from local law enforcement is maybe increasing the water theft penalties maybe make it like fail even if you still yes still five gallons of water yes felony charge heavy fine because i'm way more down with that with that you can't even grow the weed so like with that you can't even get started on everything else that we're kind of seeing so maybe something like

that i know san bernardino county um like their board of supervisors they got four republicans versus one liberal so they're every day introducing legislations like this. Another one that I heard from San Bernardino County Sheriff is if there's a property owner and you actively sell to these guys and you know there's a grow happening on your property every day that there's a grow, you're going to hit you get hit with a ten thousand dollar fine. So, you know, within 10 days, you're not at one hundred thousand dollars, maybe hitting them like that because that's a big fine. $100,000, maybe hitting them like that. Cause that's a big fine. So something like that I could see because right now $500 misdemeanor. I mean, these operations are up, you know, the one that you see me embedded in, I'm in like an $100,000 operation. So it's like $500 misdemeanor. I can't see it that way. Maybe like a heavy fine like that. I like something on the water theft. I feel like, I think every Californian could agree because the water is the most precious part. And we interviewed people with water bills up to $1,200, $1,600, $2,200 because these cartels go in the middle of the night, will tap into their well and just pump it up, pump it up, pump it up, pump it up.

And these guys wake up with this huge water bill and the water district says, hey, well, it says it's coming from your household. We need that money by the first. I'm not sure i think i've seen signs when i lived in santa barbara that if you because there's tons of um avocado orchards there and in ohio california and i think i've seen signs on properties that say hey if you steal avocados from here it's a felony and i think that there is a serious because there is so much farmland in California, I think there are serious crimes about stealing food from farms. Basically, just – I mean you've seen it as you drive up and down the 5 or the 101. I wonder if there's something there. But either way, I don't – it would just suck.

It just sucks because I think someone is on the take, and it would just suck if the wrong people were getting busted. I agree. The problem – I don't have a problem with the growing of marijuana. I have the problem with the guns. I have the problem with the stealing of the water. I have the problem of dumping the toxins. And basically, it sounds like whatever laws they've passed to make marijuana legal were a joke because the whole point of those laws was to decriminalize it. And instead, what they've done is they've incentivized even more criminal activity, which is kind of a joke. And that's the thing too. And they're like

another kind of factors. They're literally changing neighborhoods because once the violent increases, the water theft, people don't want to live in these neighborhoods anymore. So what they'll do is they'll put up the property to sell. Well, guess who wants to buy that property? It's these guys because it's another kind of resident off the list for them. And it's more control of those neighborhoods. So they're changing even communities. And I really feel bad for these folks. The type of people that live in these communities are the type of people that don't want to live in the city, that want to raise their families away from the city, more a peaceful life where you could just hop on your quad, you could ride your horses. That type of living is what people are used to in the desert, and it's changing rapidly.

So I really feel bad for these folks. Even yesterday, because I just got back to my hometown, I drove to an area called Neenak, and there was these two couples that we interviewed that they're featuring a dog. I went to go visit them one more time before the release of the documentary. You should see how they're doing. Both of those couples are already putting their house on the market. One is headed to Texas. One is headed to Texas. One is headed to Tennessee.

And then the one who's headed to Texas literally told me that a cartel member approached them directly and was asking about the house. And this is how you know that they're interested in using these houses as grow-ups. A normal homeowner wants to know about the bedrooms, the kitchen, all the regular home stuff. The schools. Exactly. These guys want to just know is where's your well and where's the other access to the other water line so they don't they don't care about even about the property they just say hey where's your well and how close are you to the california aqueduct so they knew that was a a huge red flag and the thing is that these cartel guys is they're willing to to pay way above the asking price so if you're a real estate agent you're

making great commission and if you're a real estate agent this doesn't even affect you because you don't live in these communities where you're selling these homes. You're making a fat commission check. You get to look like a boss when you talk to your colleagues of how you made a fat sale. So there's even a real estate aspect that's connected to this as well. And you went into the one house and there were those Chinese nationals. They're basically they're basically slaves. Yes, sir. And how does that work? They basically say, hey, we'll get you into the United States, but you're going to have to work. And then they come here and they're at the mercy of these people. Yeah. So this is this is like I said, once again, it's connected to the border to the border issue. So so so one of the things is, is how migrants pay their way here. I mean,

one of the ways is they literally sell everything and then they'll pay that fee, that smuggling fee with their own money. Another way is that these cartels got really smart and says, hey, all these migrants basically already got family in the US. So what they'll do is they'll collect the payment from the family in the US, then smuggle that migrant over. The third way, what we're seeing, and this is what Axios put out a report in the DOJ, is these migrants who can't pay off the debt with cash or anything have to pay off that debt with labor back in the United States. So, you know, I don't know, you know, it could be a year, it could be two years, it could be five years. So that's where you see these migrants literally getting treated like safe indentured servants. I mean, their living conditions are horrible and they're working day and night with these with these girls.

And they have to be armed because just in case they get in a gunfire fight with another cartel and another faction out in the deserts. It's something that we saw in San Bernardino County a lot. And the great thing is the sheriffs gave us a video of a cartel shootout that we put in the documentary. So it's it's like I said, it's something that like if you you know, if you pull someone off the sidewalk and say, did you know this was happening? They would think, yeah, right. This is not happening in the U.S. That sounds like a movie. I'm telling you, man, it's right here.

And I live in Palmville and I cannot believe that these guys are now in my community actively operating. Yeah, it's nuts. when I saw it I was like wow and I and I drew a parallel to it that 30 years ago when I used to see um when I would be in India or Africa or somewhere and I would see these tent cities I'd be like man we don't have those in California and now we have them everywhere right and I would never and I think this is somehow related to just this downgrading of our culture and of our country that basically this can happen here now this I would have never thought that this could happen when I was a kid. And I don't think it was happening when I was a kid. And for some reason, it's okay now for people to be living under overpasses and there to be 50 tents on every corner and for the cartel to be growing on our land. It's absolutely nuts.

So basically, they're not afraid of anything because what the cartel does is they put these people there to work on these farms, and there's no risk to them except the cash. There's no risk in regards to if the cops come, they don't go to jail. Exactly. So everything that we're seeing has emboldened them. We interviewed Tom Lackey, an assembly member out here here who says, well, everything is on their side. I mean, the thing is, the risk is so low and the reward is so high. I mean, it makes it worth it. If I was in a cartel, I'd be like, why are we starting up more illegal marijuana operations in the Andalou Valley?

It's desert. It's rural. You have access to water. You have no law enforcement on you. The Americans that do live there are scared because they know you are violent. And we've seen those consequences. I mean, we spoke to one resident and it's in the kind of last part of the documentary.

You know, her and her husband were hiking out in an area called Neenak, Western Antelope Valley. And they accidentally stumbled on an illegal marijuana operation. And they accidentally stumbled on a trailer that, and we're in that abandoned trailer, you'll see it, where there was 40 migrants living in there, human smuggled and you know they were approached by a car to remember who said hey if you come back to this area we will shoot and kill you he pulls out his

phone pulls up the photo and he's like this is what we did to this guy last month and it was a guy shot and killed in a in a red truck we even we even rode up to where he was buried with you know we ended up getting film of it that same guy who threatened them stopped our car when we were when we were filming so it was it's it's a real it's the real deal out there and it's it's something when the sheriff is scared to go out there i mean they literally say we're you know we're not going to go out there we got to go out there with a whole unit we got to go out there with other counties we got to go out there with a dea doj um so it's happening like i said this this you know the first time that i personally heard about it i think it was around 2017 i was listening

to a joe rogan podcast and he was interviewing a man named john nor who was a park ranger i believe they call it um i forgot the exact name for it but he was a our park ranger i believe for california fish and wildlife and i think he was he was our park ranger, I believe, for California Fish and Wildlife. And I think he was in San Bernardino County where his job was literally looking at the environment, making sure there's water still in the stream. You know, hunters are not doing this, not doing that. And then he started to see that little by little, all the streams that he would basically monitor, the water would go out. And he was like, wait, where's this water going? And then he started to stumble on these illegal marijuana operations.

Then those migrants that were operating those marijuana operations started to shoot at him. So he was like, wait a minute. We got a big problem here. And one of the things that he kind of mentioned was like, hey, we can't find enough park rangers that want to work this job because who wants to be paid thirty five thousand dollars a year and have a cartel problem every day you have work. It's just absolutely not worth it. So that was the first time I heard about it and never reached my radar again. I believe Amazon in 2018, 2019, or I believe it was Amazon, they put out a documentary called Murder Mountain up there, I think where you live, brother, up there in the North California area. Like I said, it kind of started there in Humboldt County. And now it's made its way to the desert.

The thing, and like I said, here, especially in the desert, look, this is fact in all California, but especially in the desert, we are in a major, major drought. So the water that is being wasted every day is really killing us. And it's hurting us really, really bad here. I can't put enough words on just the water aspect of this issue. Are there meth labs out there too? you hear anything about that yeah so so one thing is even before the illegal marijuana operation where i live enola valley i believe we were ranked third in meth labs that were happening here so like out here in the desert obviously we got fentanyl labs cocaine meth labs so that was something that was always here and then now we're kind of hit with this illegal marijuana so we're just getting hit every single angle um out here in the in these desert communities

do you have any concern being a journalist on on a story like this about your safety i mean obviously while you're out there there's there's the safety issue but i mean afterwards um yes so that's something that's been on my on my mind more, especially because the thing is, is, you know, the past coverage of this, you know, you'll see in an article or two by local media. No one has really took in this issue like head on. And so we're taking it head on. You know, we're talking about it. We're giving speeches in different parts of California now speaking about I was just in Riverside County on Monday, speaking to a group of 400 people that, that are also affected by this and stuff. So I've been worried about it, man. But, um, you know what, I'm really passionate about what's kind of happening in my home community that it, you know, that, that we're away. Oh, we lost you you cut out jorge all the way i'm back i'm back okay so so you were saying you

were passionate about it it's your home community now you're gone again jorge that's not bad 50 minutes 50 minutes without it without an outage we have an internet we have a water problem in california an internet problem i'm hardwired in i'm hardwired in i'm a professional now because i'm blaming me give jorge the credit for this for this blip in the in the system in the matrix jorge you there uh one of the things while we wait for jorge to come back one of the things he said that i believe is a huge problem is the defund the police thing but here's why i think it's a problem i think it's a huge problem not because they're defunding the police but because they say they're defunding the police and if i was a police officer and i do know a lot of police officers it would really

really demoralize me it would really demoralize me as citizens we are not doing our part uh-oh this is getting worse now a screen went black let's see we got a little we got a little spin wheel how how how is it can you guys see me i want to i want to know if this is jorge's fault or my fault can you guys see me is the show still up and running damn colin you're on fire this evening uh the name of the documentary cartelville usa you can check it out at cartel doc dot com it is also being shown did he say on fox where did he say he said somewhere when we get him back we'll ask him let's see if he'll pop back on maybe uh i'll tell him uh oh is he gone no do you guys hear me

you're good the bad cops demoralize the good cops ah Ah, it's not even the bad cops, man. It's the society. It's the society. Well, it's the one or two rotten apples that all society is focusing on. It's the fact we have something like George Floyd and everyone wants to blame every cop in the world for how bad they are. When in reality, the guy who's the bad guy is the guy who's driving around your neighborhood high on fentanyl, high on meth, putting guns on – invasions putting guns on women's stomach okay you think he'll come back let me text him hold on uh uh try again that was all caps let's see society too if we love the good ones man we love the cops yeah i mean we have to we basically have to support all of them. We basically have to always give cops the benefit. We always have to give cops the benefit of the doubt.

We cannot let one rotten apple spoil spoil spoil the bunch. You can't be like, hey, there's a guy who killed George Floyd and that was therefore all cops are bad. You can't do that. You also can't make George Floyd a hero when he doesn't have a redemption story. He's not Malcolm X. Did you see that vote, brother? Did you see that vote? Minneapolis, they had a chance to take away the whole police unit with a public safety team and they rejected it.

So there you go. When did that happen? Literally two days ago. Awesome. Yeah. I mean, think about this. Think about this. The Capitol riots, 30 million in damage.

The damage in Minneapolis to protest the killing of George Floyd, who was high. And I use the word killing only because they said it legally. Who was high on fentanyl, high on methamphetamines, drunk, and who was a porn star. By the way, you can go watch his porn on Porn porn hub or porn tube i i'm guilty as charged um and uh you can and and uh he he was was uh convicted for put doing a home invasion and putting a gun on a pregnant woman's stomach you you can't just all of a sudden start hating all cops and be like defund the police it's it's nuts it's nuts we have a deal with them the same way we have a deal with the mailman the same way we have a deal with the garbage person you got to put your

garbage out you can't park your car in front of your mailbox these are the police same way we have with firefighters this is why we need a better government cartel it's true i mean sure sure um uh jorge um Sure, sure. Jorge, we talked about the water issue. We talked about whether this can be fixed through eradication through police force or whether it needs to be a law that's passed to de-incentivize them, change the competition around the business. We talked about how close this is happening to the border. Oh, this is what I wanted to ask you. A little off topic here. Oh, and so this can be seen in two places. This you can go to cartel.com and watch this, or you can go to where was it?

Was it on Fox or where was this? You can go on our website with the Daily Callers. Just go on dailycall.com and they'll have it really easy. Well, they'll redirect you to the website. So that's the great thing is we have our own website for this. This is how you kind of don't have to really depend on the YouTubes anymore when it comes to shadow banning or any type of stuff. So we'll have our own website, either carteldoc.com. You can also get the trailer there as well.

So if you want to send a friend or a family member the trailer before they watch the full doc, you have that ability too. Before they watch the full doc, you have that ability too. And we're really, like I said, we're just excited to be part of something like this because this is the first ever documentary for The Daily Caller ever. So no reporter has been able to do this. And I'm glad that we were able to do this. And to be honest, we did it without being, you know, we're not Fox News where we have millions of dollars in backing and all that. We had to do this

from the ground up, lay all the groundwork, do all the dirty work. We had to do the risk ourselves. I think a lot of people, you know, a lot of people always ask me like, are you out there with security? It's like, absolutely not. It's just, it's literally just us. You know, like there's a lot of these reporters that I've met and I've seen them in the rights, you know, they could come, they do their quick live shot. And then they got like a group of six guys that just throw them in this all black SUV and they go to their five-star hotel, and they sip cocktails all night. That's not us, man. So we were out there grinding every single day and night.

I mean, people told us that we were stupid for being out there. We didn't listen. And there hasn't been, when it comes to this reporting on this story, there hasn't been as much video evidence footage, all this compiled ever, like ever. So you're going to see this. I saw a local report by CBS News. And look, it's not knocking them. Great report. But the whole time the reporter was telling the story from a L.A. County Sheriff helicopter.

So she's up in the sky. We went to the ground. We went to ground zero. We went to these grow-ups by our by ourselves flown drones over them and everything so you're not going to see all this video evidence when it comes to this story compiled into this one big package with the interviews that we've got in i think people are going to find it very uh informative yeah there there are so many there's so much hardcore reporting in it the fact that you went back and revisited the drug west two weeks after it happened and saw the rebuilding of it the fact that you showed the chinese nationals

you have the slave labor the fact that you um were in the house and you came across a gun as you're um the fact that you show all the massive grows the fact that you show this this barren desert landscape with just grows everywhere and when he means grows they they if you didn't know better they just look like it just looks like farms but you just know that nothing would grow out there and he and he shows all the hoop houses and when you say hoop houses that's because those are those things that we're all very familiar with in california because they're everywhere right they're basically um just pop-up greenhouses that can be hundreds and hundreds of acres right and

what they'll do is they'll have the white tarps, and then they'll also have a black tarp as well. So like that, these criminal cartels or whatever, they can manipulate the seasons, and they're able to get to about three to four grows per year. So this is how they also maximize that use of land there. For those of you who don't know, by that he means, and I used to grow a lot of weed, so I know this. Marijuana is basically just seasonal, right?

So you have to trick it into flowering. Flowering is what it does when it makes the marijuana. So you have to basically shorten the days and make the plant think winter is coming. And that's when it starts flowering. And that's what causes the marijuana. So what Jorge is saying is basically they can pull even in the summer when the days are long, they can pull black, black tarps over the grow and trick the plants into thinking it's a, it's wintertime. And to do that, you also need a lot of free, cheap labor because that requires

a lot of work. Someone has to be there twice a day to pull those tarps on and off. Jorge, there is some footage of you. I think I saw it on Fox and I think I saw you being interviewed. I think it was on Fox. Maybe was um maybe it was the daily caller but you were at the border different story people were jumping subjects here and you were doing some filming and you were approached by a coyote with a gun yeah so so i'll kind of holy shit yes let me give you guys a a quick breakdown a little context on that story so about three yeah please please paint that picture yeah please yeah so i'm in um so we you know our sources, you know, our sources are saying, hey, head to Yuma, Arizona. So, you know, for those who don't know, all of our reporting on the border has been basically just Texas focus.

So we haven't been to this part of Yuma. Our sources tell us go to Yuma because we're seeing all types of different nationalities, you know, kind of cross the sector called the gap. So we go to this gap. Nationalities, what do you mean all different? By that you mean even more than latins more than like yeah so when i got there i was meeting men from ubekistan from georgia from india from romania from brazil i mean i was like whoa we have just did it we've never seen so many different nationalities kind of taking all this one round especially coming from i mean to be honest i didn't even know where you becca stan was till i met these guys had to like research i was like okay so we go to this part i thought it was a made-up country maybe it is um so the reason why they call this one sector the gap is because there's literally a gap of a border wall

and the the mexican town across yuma arizona is losadones. So when I was there, I was fascinated by this one route because we would actually get video footage of these human smugglers and they'll walk up right to the middle of that Mexico-US boundary in the middle of that, they call it the Colorado River. There's no water in the river, but they call it the Colorado River. And they'll literally take the cash payment from the migrants right there in the wide open before officially smuggling them into the US. So I found that fascinating because you didn't really get that in Texas. What we did get in Texas was the boat raft, but we didn't get like- And you saw evidence of payment through the bracelets. Oh, with the bracelets. But we didn't get to see the cash, the cash transactions. I was

fascinated by that. So I spent a whole week documenting that. I came back home, and I got three, these three other reporters called me and said, hey, Jorge, come back to Yuma. We want to document some of these human smugglers. I'm like, no problem. So I go back to Yuma and it was a Friday morning. It's around seven in the morning.

We get to the gap. So I tell one of the reporters, his name is Justin. I say, hey, Justin, I'm going to go down to the midsection. Can you please come with me? I'm going to need an extra body down there because the thing is when i was down there last week and and i kind of came back to the huma side even border patrol was like hey man like we don't even go down there because we're like afraid that we're gonna get stabbed by these guys he's like so we're like don't don't go down there but i went back down there with my guy justin and when we were filming this one human smuggler. Now what made this already kind of a red flag is when we're down there and you

see a human smuggler, they're always smuggling multiple people, at least three to four to five, you know, up to 10, 15, 20 people. So it's always multiple people. How do you know who the smuggler is? How do you know who the smuggler is? Are they wearing different clothes or they're different ethnicity? How do you know which one is the smuggler? I mean, it's just, it's just obvious.

They're the ones who are like directing where the migrants to go and they have like no backpack on them so you know they're the ones who are giving them directions guiding them so like i said you're always seeing these mothers bring multiple people so the red flag here was that this this this one guy which we found out is mid-level to high-level cartel according to border patrol but so we see this one human smuggler only smuggling one male this one male that he was bringing in had a big black backpack that border patrol is telling us they think there was a fentanyl in there so that already was a red flag so we see these two guys coming obviously one of them is a human smuggler and

we're taking video and the human smuggler is taking a cash payment as they're walking and he's taking a cash payment and to be honest it completely slipped my mind because i was so fascinated by the video it slipped my mind to be like wait a minute what's gonna happen when he comes to the boundary and he sees me filming i just forgot that you know we're gonna have an altercation so we're filming him he obviously gets to the boundary he notices that i'm filming and his tone just it it was very aggressive. It was in Spanish. So the guy freaks out.

Whoa, whoa. So real quick. So sorry. When you say the boundary, is it a no man's land? It's like not Mexico or the United States. It's just. Yeah. It's kind of like a no man's land.

Like there's like not a real boundary there to like, you know, you can walk through, walk out, but you're kind of in the middle of it. What they call it. If you look back, how far back is the is how far back is the United States? How far back is a 7-Eleven? I would go back to the US. I would say less than I mean, I think I would say like 300, 200 feet. OK, and then are there any is there anyone over there or you guys are just basically now out in the desert by yourself?

We're basically out there kind of on our own. We do call it kind of a no man's land just because of you know you could just walk walk through and out so you know we're filming the guy obviously sees that we're filming and is very angry is is asking us why we're filming who we were and then as he's saying this he puts his hand on his gun and just was getting aggressive and then so i stopped filming because i was already scared and I stopped filming. And as soon as I stopped, he tells me a couple of times, put that phone on the ground, put that phone on the ground. And so I'm assuming that he was going to steal the phone to basically take away the video evidence. So I don't know if this was like a, a, a fight or flight moment,

but as soon as he told me that my mind went blank and all I did was turn around and I just ran right back to Yuma. And I said, I kind of told myself, I mean, you know what? And where was Justin? Justin ran too. So Justin is, is running with me. So, and I was around who ran first and Justin followed my lead. But my, my kind of thinking was, I was like, you know what? If this guy shoots, then he shoots the, but the ball isn't is in his court let's see if he's gonna do it but all I knew is I wasn't gonna stay there and I definitely wasn't gonna give a cartel guy my phone so you know I run I get back to safety in the Yuma the the border

wall and the two other journalists that we came with you know run up to us they're like hey what happened what happened we saw that and we told him what happened. Then I, um, I look back, I turned back around. Did you see him when you stopped running? You know, I just, I didn't even look back, man. You know, I was just like, boom. And as soon as I got back to Yuma, I looked through the video and then there was a part where I could, I could get a perfect frame of him with the gun. So I screenshotted the, the, the, you know, the video picture. And I sent the picture to a reporter. His name is Julio Rosas of Town Hall Media. Julio Rosas is a great friend of mine who's always on the front lines. We're basically brothers. We met during the BLM ride. So when you cover those

moments with somebody, you grow pretty close pretty quick. So I sent it to Julio. Julio gives me a call, make sure that i'm all right then i sent that photo to bill malusion of fox news and armenian that sounds armenian that sounds armenian no no white guy white guy bill um so i sent it to bill malusion bill bill goes back is messaging me back and says okay man you gotta post that on twitter so i go on twitter i post it it goes crazy viral of course and then you know i go back to the board of the very next we go back to the same spot early in the morning next next day which is saturday we go back and border who you and justin go back together yes and then border patrol comes up to us and says hey were you those guys that encountered that

armed human smuggler we said yes and then he was like our whole border patrol sector in yuma had a whole briefing on that photo and they're like that photo was so good for evidence he's like we're actually sending our boater our they call it a boar tack which is the border patrol tactical unit that is actually armed so while we were down there we got to to see the armed Border Patrol agents actually running investigations. And according to our sources, they told us that that guy that we ran into was a mid-level to high-level cartel member. And they believe the individual that he brought in brought in large amounts amount of fentanyl. That's why he was armed. That's why he was only smuggling one guy.

So very, you know, I'm just smuggling one guy so very you know i'm just going to be straight up uh you know very scary situation i've never been in you know i've been in some close kind of moments you know covering rides coming borders but nothing where i was kind of front to face with a cartel member and he was threatening me to shoot me and he was threatening to steal my phone so i've never encountered anything even remotely close to that moment. Basically, he's trying to mug you too. Kill the evidence and then who knows, kill what next. You're painting a picture that I think is important for clarification.

As just your typical fucking wealthy white guy sitting here in my house in Santa Cruz, California. The way they depict the border is that, um, the coyotes are smuggling people across the border because it's so dangerous to cross the border and they need help. And so they make money. That's not the picture you're painting. They're basically guarding the border. They're basically border patrol agents who are fucking that you bribe to cross.

Yeah, it sounds like any jackass could cross if they would just if all the bad guys would leave, people could just cross, come and go on their own. These people are basically. So if I tried to cry, if I was a Mexican and I are El Salvadorian or Haitian and I tried to cross that border without pain, i wouldn't be worried about the u.s border patrol oh absolutely not i'm worried about these other guys because i didn't pay the holy shit it's so crazy that they don't that that needs to be clarified that needs to be so clarified that the border is not inherently dangerous it's basically turned into a business huge bit and the thing is for these, for these cartels, they're just exploiting the migrant crisis. Cause for them, it's like, Hey, not, not only are we able to rake in extra cash is these migrants. We're going to use them on almost as like a diversion tactic. You know, we could put in a hundred people smuggling through Yuma.

So meaning like on the U S side border patrol agents, I'll have to rush all their units to this one sector. They have to apprehend these migrants. They have to separate the unaccompanied minors from the families, processing, call extra units to pick them up. So when they're doing this, the fentanyl is coming into this country at a record. I mean, the border is already open. And then when you do this, it's just basically wide open. And the cartels, they love this stuff. wide open and the cartels, they love this stuff. The last figure that I got from a border patrol agent is every single day, these cartel groups or human smuggling groups are making up to $14

million a day just off the smuggling of humans. We're not talking even about the drug money that they're making. This is just off human smuggling. You would think you could make the numbers where I could just go down there and be like, okay, I'm going to take $10,000 and I'm going to pay people a hundred. I'm going to pay them to cross the border and I'm going to pay them to do it over here so that over here I can smuggle drugs across. I wonder if those caravans are, are cartel funded. I would imagine that they are,

you know, they have to be playing a role because for them it's like, Hey, this is a, this is like a gift for us, you know, because it's like here here here is more of our diversion units or whatever you want to name it. But, yeah, it's it's honestly fascinating stuff to be at the border. And, you know, you're an anthropologist. You know that you're an anthropologist. Don't let anyone tell you that you're a reporter.

You're an anthropologist. You're an anthropologist. Don't let anyone tell you that you're a reporter. You're an anthropologist. Just the way you just the way I heard you say that when you saw the transaction going down and you forgot that, you know, you were studying it so much that you forgot you were going to have an encounter with them. It's like you're a guy that just saw two endangered species that are birds mate for the first time and you captured it on film. You sound like such an anthropologist. It's so awesome. No judgment, just observation. You're just like, you're just taking it all in. Yeah, man. And look, at the end of the day, we've never seen anything like this at all. My first time at the border was back in March. And I remember even in March, how fascinating that was, is because when you read about the border, you're always reading the numbers and statistics and this and that. But when you're there and you get to see the actual bodies, the actual humans, the unaccompanied minors, the migrant women that were sexually assaulted and

raped, it really changes the game. And I think I've told you this before, but I think it's appropriate to call what's happening at the border a humanitarian crisis. I do believe that it's an appropriate label to call this a humanitarian crisis. You know that saying that we're all within five degrees of separation of knowing each other? And it's amazing that that's true for those people too. Yes. So we're within five degrees, and that's where the humanitarian crisis go is we can't forget that these are these are you know it's our distant cousins these are other people's moms daughters kids and and that's where the term humanitarian crisis comes in right because

these are just people and they're being abused and uh being abused. And then on the other hand, the people who are abusing them are being put in this situation as being a means to an end for them. Yeah, it's a mess. It's a mess. I just want to add, President Biden could really curb the illegal migration or migrant search all by reinstating and following the Remain in Mexico policy. I mean, just removing that one policy, just open up the floodgates for this stuff. Because, you know, if you're an illegal immigrant and you cross into this country and you look to seek asylum under Trump, you would have to remain in Mexico to that court order. So a lot of migrants were like, well, what's the point of me making this dangerous journey and paying the cartels only to be told that I have to wait in the border town, which is,

as anyone knows, these Mexican border towns are extremely dangerous. So for them, the risk just wasn't worth it. And under Biden, the risk is super low. All they know is that they as long as they get to the u.s they're going to get released and you know they're basically here to stay what happens if you if you get caught then you get released in the u.s and then they give you a court date and then you don't show up to your court date and then later on you get caught again nothing nothing as long as it's not a violent crime.

You're still you still just just another court date. All I know is that they'll they'll they'll just basically make you immediately go to the court date. And it's still like a long, long process. The problem is, is the system is so overwhelmed and backlogged with all these migrants that that court order might not be for another three years. So that's something that Border Patrol mentioned to me. And he says only 13% of the time, those migrants even show up to the court order. So essentially if you come to the U S you get a court order. I mean, dude, I mean, you're basically free to go because it's, you know, it can take up three years to get here. And if you're a migrant, you're like, well, why am I even going to show up? I'm earning the U S I'm, you know, doing my thing my thing. The whole system is just not helping us. We're letting all these people in who we don't even know if they're going to integrate

into our culture. Do they even have the same values as us? I think that's really important questions to ask is our culture and our values in this country are changing so much. We got to make sure if we're bringing anyone in is if they are, do they believe the systems that we believe here in America? So just that's another thing I think we need to talk about is, you know, the changing dynamics of that as well. Is it is it just not like as we talk, are people just coming across the border? Like it's just, I mean, as we're talking right now, people are literally getting smuggled on boat rafts in Roma, Texas right now. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year there's people just pouring over the border does anyone go the other way good question i think um if if things

keep going like this in this country for this next year you might have americans having to seek refugee in mexico so so it's just a one way of course it's just one way unless you like you're running like unless you like killed your wife and your family and you're running from the feds, you don't go there. Amazing. Hey, man, I'm so excited that I got a chance to talk to you again. I'm so excited that I got a chance to see your documentary. You guys, I played the trailer of it at the beginning of the show. You can go to cart cartel doc.com you should follow um jorge ventura uh tv at instagram is that

your same handle on twitter twitter is going to be different twitter is going to be my last name which is ventura in the word report and one ventura report okay okay that's where all the smart people go twitter i don't go there and there. And I look forward to having you on again. One final question. What is next for you? What else? So you're still covering the border. What else is next for you?

So right now, the thing that we're working on, a mini doc, I just got done with some filming of it, but I'm going back soon, is out there in Loudoun County covering the school boards, the teachers' critical race theory. So we're doing a doc on that. I'm going to be back in the East Coast pretty soon just to finish our filming on that. So that's going to come out. Obviously, we have this coming out. And then after that, I believe we will be following a little bit of the fentanyl that's moving from Mexico and making its way to like the Rust Belt States, the Ohio's, the Michigan's, the Kentucky's. So we're going to kind of be following fentanyl a little bit more.

We're still going to be following this illegal marijuana operation story. So you'll see me spending time in San Bernardino County, Riverside County as well, connecting with their sheriff. So kind of, you know, kind of a little bit of everything. kind of a little bit of everything. And, and, and anytime, you know, if there's a big story that,

that kind of pops up, you know, news always changes, but if there's a big story, you better bet your ass off. We'll be there on the front lines covering it. So a little bit of everything, but we got Loudoun County coming up.

We got a Fenton on coming up. We will be back at the border soon, but I know that caravan is, is should be hitting us sometime in December. So you'll see me back at the border. So a little bit of mix of everything. Uh, Jorge, umorge um this this show the sebon podcast is a fantastic place for you to practice before you launch your next documentary so come here use this venue with just a few small people that watch here and you can knock the rust off of, uh, off of your presentation. Please, please, please come

back when that show is done. I will say this after we went on our first show together, man, I had, it was amazing to see the amount of people that said, I've never heard about you before. Um, until seven months podcast. So I really appreciate the Avenue that you really opened up for me. Cause I just love just the amount of DMs I was getting. I have never heard about you before. That was really awesome to get. So I'm excited about that. We're a small posse, but we're pretty eccentric.

My crew is the CrossFit crew. My crew here is basically people who believe in personal responsibility and personal accountability. And within the ranks, there are a lot of Republicans and a lot of Democrats and a lot of everything and a lot of libertarians. And we've basically used our fitness and our love for each other and support ourselves through health crisis over the last 30 years to get on the same page. But then all of this shit started happening, right? Forcing kids to get injections, Black Lives Matter, pretending to help black people, really just hurting black people, calling people racism when they're absolutely not racist calling people homophobic when they're not homophobic changing the definition of words that kind of brought us

together even more and like basically since we are a personal responsibility accountability cult we're kind of like fuck you try to cancel us we'll come after your ass we don't care so i like that man and and i did notice i got i got um after our podcast i got a lot of mma guys following me i think good um i will tell you guys this i am going to be looking um here locally where i live but i'm looking to sign up at mma gym soon so hopefully i get it yes start hitting the mats a little bit because i really want to do i need that self-defense out there, man. I really do. Well, awesome.

Um, and I will talk to you soon. Stay in touch. Have a good one, brother.