The Team House - International DEA Ops: Pakistan, West Africa, and the Cartel Pipeline | Dan Dobas | Ep. 394

Episode Date: January 31, 2026

Dan is a former U.S. Army airborne soldier who later became a DEA special agent, working everything from wire-driven investigations to high-risk takedowns. He shares how he went from law school and a Wall Street legal job to federal narcotics enforcement—covering LA task-force work, Bridgeport gang cases, and deployments to Quetta, Pakistan and West Africa that put him on the front lines of how trafficking networks operate overseas.Today's Sponsors:Blue Chew ⬇️https://bluechew.com/Get 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code "HOUSECALL"GhostBed⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/houseFOR 25% off! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics...JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouseTo help support the show and for all bonus content including:-live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video-early access to shows-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseSupport the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse___________________________________________________Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured__________________________________Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/——————————————————————Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseSocial Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6SubReddit: ⬇️https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"0:00 Start 1:22 Bridgeport Roots: War Movies to Service4:50 Law School + Wall Street (Why He Quit)7:09 Decision to Enlist: Starting Over12:10 Airborne Life: Training + Early Army Years19:26 82nd Airborne Stories + Leadership Lessons27:45 Leaving the Army: The Road to DEA28:55 DEA Academy: Guns, Raids, Informants38:28 DEA LA Ops: Wires vs Door Kicks44:33 Deployed to Pakistan: Quetta Mission57:55 Connecticut: Bridgeport Gangs + Big Takedowns1:23:13 Cartel Raids: “Iraq Vibes” + Air SupportBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Welcome to the team house. I'm Jack Murphy here with today's guest, Dan Dobis, who served in the Drug Enforcement Agency, had a good long career after a stint in the Army, college education, and then was sent all over the world with the DEA. Thanks for joining us today, Dan. No problem, Jack. Thanks for having me. This interview was supposed to be in studio originally, but it's just as well that that didn't happen. and Dan has a new job. He's starting. Our producer, Dmitri, would have had to drive through some kind of crappy conditions in the city. And I'm getting a cold. So I apologize if my voice sounds a little raspy during this interview.

Dan, tell us a little bit, if we begin at the beginning here, with your origin. Tell us about, you know, how you grew up, where you grew up, and kind of how that took you into the next phase of your life. Sure. So I was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and we lived there until I was about five in the same house that my father was born in and his family lived in since the early 1910s. And then we moved to Trumbull, Connecticut, which was the suburb north of Bridgeport. I grew up playing sports. And it was like football in the fall, basketball in the winter, baseball in the spring, baseball in the summer, swimming in the summer. but also playing war in the woods with my friends and my brother. We got toy guns every Christmas, everything from like Tommy guns that made noise

to sawed off shotguns that shot, you know, rubber darts. But my father had been in the Army Reserve in the mid-60s, and one of my uncles was in the Marines during the Korean War. but other than that, nobody in the family was in the military. And so, I mean, was the military or government service sort of like on your mind as you went into high school? I mean, was a lot of times I've thought about like my, the career path. I mean, I grew up with my father watching every war movie you could think of, like the Sands of Iwo Jima, the longest day, the Green Berets, back to Batan, Midway. I mean, everything you could think of, he watched him and I watched it with him.

And it's weird. Like we played, like I said, we played war and stuff. And then all of a sudden it seemed like at ninth grade, we stopped. Like, I started playing sports, like, you know, year round. And I think other things like growing, you know, growing up. I mean, there's only two guys I went to high school with who joined the Army out of high school. and one of them, one of them, I think both of them got kicked out. But I often wondered like why, like watching those war movies and reading books about World War II,

I never, I never went into the military out of high school, never even thought about it. But I did want like some job. All I knew like back then, like it seems like my life, like I never had a mentor, like to steer me in a direction. But I knew, I heard of the FBI and the DEA. And it seemed like exciting jobs. But instead I went right to college in New York City. I went to Manhattan College, which is, it's now Manhattan University. It's in Riverdale up in the Bronx.

Again, I played sports, played intramural sports. And I was inducted into the Manhattan College Honor Society and the National History Honor Society. But then again, I ended up going right to law school, right? Not enlisting. I thought if I had to do it over again, I would have enlisted out of college. It would have gave me a lot of options and more time. But I then went to Brooklyn Law School, and I graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 1996. And I applied to the FBI, and they told me, you don't have any work experience, so we're not going to hire you.

I applied to the DEA, and they said, we're in a hiring freeze. We don't know when we're coming out of it. And it was like a lengthy hiring freeze. So I actually got a job right off Wall Street working for national discount brokers, which no longer exist in the legal department. So I took the subway to work and got off at the Wall Street stop like 10,000 other people every day. And about what year is this? So I graduated from Manhattan in 93 and Brooklyn law in 96. Okay.

So excuse me. you're working this job. And I mean, I take it that you kind of found it unfulfilling at a certain point. It was, but it was interesting. It was my first experience with like careerism. Like these Wall Street guys all thought they were Gordon Gecko. And so here I was in the legal department. And I had the one of my tasks was to, you know, mediate this or, yeah,

mediate disputes between clients and the firm. And they had a very, you know, white shoe firm on retainer for large cases, but my, it was a small office of three other attorneys plus a supervisor and myself. Actually, thinking back on it, I actually did a small claims case for the firm in Queens night court, and I won. So I always joke around that I retired from the legal profession with a record of one and oh. But I remember in law school, I remember talking to my parents and saying there was nobody really like me there. And that's why I always like I kind of turn my back in the profession because they would ask you, you would get a question and you would ask three different lawyers or people. And you get three different answers. Like, you know, one of them would be wildly off the mark.

So basically my third year, I was running the intramural sports program and, playing basketball in three different leagues all over New York City. So you're staying pretty busy that way, I guess. Yeah, yeah, it was, yeah. When was it that you decided to go in enlist? Because that is a pretty drastic jump from working at this firm and, you know, you passed the bar exam. Oh, no. I didn't.

I passed the part that's called the NPRE, the multi-state professional responsibility. but I didn't even want to take the the S.A. You know, multiple choice part, I didn't even want to take it. And because I graduated and I would think it to myself, okay, I just finished seven years of school. I need to go do something.

Like, I was in really good shape and I wanted, so I took the NYPD test and I finished really high and they got me down to their recruiting facility in LaFRAC City. And then they wanted to get, like they signed a background investigator

to me. They wanted me to start in the fall, and I was like, whoa, well, I don't, it's moving too fast. And one of my friend's roommate was a district attorney in Brooklyn. He said, hey, I know you want action, but with NYPD, you'll make some arrests and you'll look up and it's 10 years later. But in retrospect, I probably, that's what I wanted, right? So I, uh, so getting back to the bar, so I didn't want to take it. And I was like, I'm ready to do something. I even joked around about joined the French Foreign Legion just to do something, like, you know, exciting to me, whatever. But my family convinced me and my friends convinced me, and I signed up for a bar review course late.

And then so I thought it was at the school. So I figure, okay, there'll be an instructor and I'll knuckle down and study because I had passed the first part, no problem. And then what do they do on day one? They roll in a huge TV. with a with a VCR on wheels and they pushed play and that was that was the the bar review course. I'm like this isn't going to work for me because it was like 95 degrees. I was living in Brooklyn.

It was hot and I was miserable. So I ended up taking it with my friend. I mean, we took the subway there the morning of to the Javitt Center and like it was a crazy scene. People were showing up in limos. people were throwing up in garbage cans, people were chain smoking. So I asked my friend, I'm like, what is going on here? Like, what are these people doing? He goes, this is their life, dude.

Like, they wanted to be lawyers. You don't want to be a lawyer. They do. And this is it. This is like, you know, live or die for them. So I remember getting the results, and I just missed it. But I got, and I knew I needed a job. Somebody from Manhattan had college had worked at national discount brokers.

And I did a resume. and sent it in and I did an interview and they hired me. And I started thinking about, you know, after the FBI and DEA were like a no-go, my student loans were come and due. And I didn't know what to do. And my father found out that the military had loan repayment programs. So the first service that we looked at was the Air Force. I wanted to be a security police officer, figured I'd get law enforcement. enforcement experience. But what I think happened if I could remember was we missed the class was

supposed to be at Lackland. And there wasn't going to be another class date for like a year. And, you know, the firm wanted to keep me. They wanted me to, they're like, take the bar again, pass it, take the stock brokerage exams like Series 7, Series 63. We want you to stay. But I just couldn't do it. So then my father found out that the Army had the Army had the loan repayment program too. So I took the train home to, we went to see the recruiter in Bridgeport. And this is before I knew they had quotas, right? So he's like, you know, you have two degrees, but so you know you can't go in as an officer, right? And my father was like, why not?

He's like, because officers make too much money. And I was like, I don't care. I don't care. He's like, so you want to enlist? I'm like, yeah. He's like, what do you want to do? I was like something exciting, something in the field. So he shows me a video of guys wearing BDUs and all cameied up with

Karen heavy rucksacks. He's like, this is called ground surveillance. It's ground surveillance systems operator. I'm like, yeah, sounds great. He's like, and I can get you an airborne guarantee. I'm like, what does that mean? He's like, most guys, you have to fight to get to airborne school. It's a re-enlistment incentive.

you know, it's a requirement for another job. You'll go right to airborne school after AIT. I'm like, yeah, sign me up. I'll take it. And he's like, all right, all right. So he signed me up. And I signed the papers and I went back and I handed in my two-week notice at the firm. And no one could believe, like they thought I was lying, right?

So this is pre-GWAT 1997. and I mean, they're like, yeah, I remember, this is a personal story, but I was kind of dating a girl who was dating a professional wrestler. And we'd only gone on a couple of dates. And then I was going home to take the ASVAB and sign the papers. And I hadn't seen her. And I was just concentrating on the Army. I remember after I turned in my two-week notice, she came down and started giving me the business about not calling her and this and that. And I'm like, no, I'm not blowing you off.

I just joined the Army. And I turned in my two-week notice. She's like, yeah, you're so full of it. You're like everybody else. I'm like, no. I just joined, I joined the Army. I'm leaving in two weeks. And I'm going to basic training.

And she didn't know what to say. And my friends didn't know what to say either. And I do know that when I left, when my dad took me, he told me my mom started, started crying when I, when I drove away to go to basic. Yeah, I can imagine. Fellas, you already know what time it is. It's time to level up. And Blue Chew just drops something crazy.

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Yeah, it was it doesn't exist anymore. It was 96 Romeo, which was ground surveillance systems operator. It was tactical, like a tactical intelligence job. So they had ground radar systems. One was mounted on a Humvee. One was man packable. But they kind of got away from that. We went to the Rembas, which was remotely monitored battlefield sensor system.

Those are seismic, aren't they? Yeah, yeah. So they could, so we would find like roads and trails, like high speed avenues of approach. We'd lay the sensors down in strings and we'd fall back, either fall back to like a, like a, what you'd call a fob now or a cop. Or we'd just make up, build a height site. and we'd monitor the sensors, and they were, even back then, they could detect wheeled vehicles, tracked vehicles, people moving. They had a very crude IR camera that we could set up, like on a tree branch that could,

it didn't work that well back then, but it was pretty advanced for the time. Then the sensors got smaller. But, of course, what sucked is our rucksacks were full of sensors and batteries, and we had to jump them in. I mean, I'm getting ahead of myself, and we, you know, we would love to run the strings of sensors because our rucksacks would get, would get lighter. The MOS, what happened was at first they gave the sensors. They started training SF groups on the sensors. And from what I understand, then they gave the sensors to SF. And then everybody in my MOS, this was after I had got out and got picked up by DEA.

Everybody had to reclass. I think the Marines still use them. And I'm sure the Army does too, but that was the MOS. We were always attached to an infantry unit, like an infantry platoon or company, like what they called back then slices. Now they just call attachments or whatever. But my team, first I was a sawgunner at first, then I was the radio, the RTO, then I was.

assistant team later, then I got promoted to E5 and took over a team, but we were always attached to an infantry unit. And I was, I was always attached to the 504th. That's who we supported the first, the first brigade. And I mean, now you're kind of, are you getting kind of the, the satisfaction that you hoped you would find after leaving a previous job? Yes and no. I mean, no, and this is unfortunate, no, because I was always still looking at like FBI, D-EA, CIA Secret Service. So I didn't give 100% to the job. I mean, there's still like three or four guys from the Army I talk to or text on a regular basis. And I, one of my friends, he did 20 years. He retired at a special operate socks and special operations down to tampa i think um yeah he was an intel guy um he actually

supported the unit for a long time so once we hooked up a few years ago i asked them straight up i said hey did i make a mistake getting out like should i have stayed in and he's like no he's like you deployed just and we could talk about that right uh you deployed just as much as we did he's like you ended up making a lot more money than i did you probably put up with a lot of less BS than I did, but no, you made the right decision. But I was going to tell you my my career in the Army was like, like, trying to try out for different things and getting like weird things happening every time. Like what, so when I was at airborne school, they said, the guys from a regiment will be here after last formation. So if you're interested in trying to

rip was ripped, then go see him. So these guys, And they still had black, black berets then. So they were at like a little table. So I lined up with a few other guys. And I was like, you know, I'm interested. I want to go to Rip. And he's like, what's your MOS? I was like 96 Romeo.

He's like, what the hell is that? I was like ground surveillance systems. He's like, he checks his list. He's like, no, we don't have that in the regiment. So me not knowing anything about anything, we just standing there. So there was two, like an E6 and E7. And they were looking at me like, you know, I had three heads. are like, all right.

I'm like, okay, what? He goes, that means you can't go to rip. Now, move out, dumbass. Move out and draw fire. Get out of here. And I was like, okay. And then when I got to the 82nd, Colonel Flynn now, well, then became General Michael Flynn,

National Security Advisor. He's probably the best leader I've ever come across. I still actually have, he sent me a birthday card when I was in E4 and signed. I still have it. But someone had told me I should go to CID, right? And I was like, what's CID? He's like, criminal investigation division. You could be a special agent.

So I went to my chain of command, you know, not knowing they frown on a new guy trying to get out. And they're like, nah. And I was like, okay. But they're like, you got to go see the colonel. So I went to see Colonel Flynn. And he's like, you know, I think you need to learn the job a little bit. And we can talk about CID at a later day. but you need to learn your job.

So move out. And I was like, Roger that, sir. And then I tried to go to selection twice. Like after I was established in the 82nd, the first time the Sergeant Major said, you're in a shortage MOS. You're not going anywhere.

And I was like, Roger that, Sergeant Major. The second time, there was another NCO who had been in the Gulf War and he got out, he was in the 1001st, he got out and came back in, and he was his dream to go to, to be an SF. So he's like, let's go to the briefing. So we went to the SWIC, we got the pamphlet, they said, how much you should be rucking, how much weight. And then we, I think, I can't remember the sequence, but again, we went to the Sergeant Major, and he's like, you ain't going anywhere.

And you're in your NCOs, this time I was in E5, you're in a shortage MOS, you're airborne, you ain't going anywhere. And I was like, the other guy was like, it's volunteer. What do you mean? And I actually thought about going AWOL and showing up at selection. But thank God I didn't. And this guy I heard he had done a couple tours in Korea. He was a great soldier. Had a Korean wife actually volunteered to go back because at the time, if you were in Korea

and you volunteered for selection, you automatically come back. So I got out and then I heard that they denied him to go to selection. He was in E6 at the time. So I felt bad. But yeah, it was like I was volunteering for all these things and like getting shot down. It was like wrong place, wrong time when I should have just concentrated on leadership. But I have to give the Army credit. They are the first people that like noticed some leadership potential in me.

I was scheduled to go to Air Assault School. The 101st would bring in mobile training teams, but the list was so long we had to go to a selection, like a battalion-wide assessment in selection, and I did well, and I was on the list to go to the next one. I remember being in the end-of-day meeting where the platoon sergeant puts out the info. So I'm sitting there.

And so my nickname in the 82nd was Doc, not because I was a medic, because the first sergeant found I had a law degree. So I remember he called me over like the first week after PT. And he's like, Dobis, I hear you have a law degree. What is that? I was like, what do you mean? First sergeant's like, what kind of degree is that?

I was like, it's a juror's doctor. He's like, juror's doctor. All right, we'll call you doc from now on. Get the hell out of here. So he's like, the platoon sergeant's like, Doc Dobis, there's a, there's an E5 board. There's a promotion board in three weeks. So start studying, get your class A's in order, you're going to the board.

And I was like, no, no, Sergeant. I'm going to Air Assault School next month. He's like, no, you're not. You're going to the board. We need a team leader. You're the next one. Get ready. I'm like, no, man, I'm going to Air Assault School.

He's like, you're telling me you'd rather go to Air Assault School. You know, back then it was like, again, pre-war. How many badges can you get, you know, double bubble? So he's like, you're telling me, you're. you'd rather go to aerosol school than be an NCO? I was like, yeah. He's like, you're such a dumbass. He's like, get your class A's ready and start studying.

And I was like, all right, so I did. And I got promoted to E5 and I went to what's now known as the Warrior Leaders course. Then it was PLDC, primary leadership development course at Fort Bragg, which is one of the best ones in the Army. It's like lockdown, 30 days. But you learn leadership from the ground floor up. So it helped me later on with DEA. So talk to us about that, about that transition.

When did it come that you had decided that you had enough with the needs of the army and that you were going to take another stab at law enforcement? So it came time. I don't know if it was like six months out or 90 days out. So they sent me to the reenlistment NCO. And I went to see him at headquarters. He was a humid guy. And he had like a mustache and like long black hair.

And he's like, so what do you want? And, you know, this time, even though I was getting loan repayment, I still was paying my student loans. And I was living in the barracks. I finally got the nice E5 room. But the barracks were built in like 1953. They no longer exist. I was like, I like a bonus. He's like, oh, let me see what we can do.

He's like, okay, I can get you $4,500. I was like, $4,500 a year. He's like, no, $4,500 total for four years. I'm like, nah, it's not going to work. So I left and just went back to work. And then I think it was like 90 days out or maybe more. They asked me what I was going to do. It was like, I'm getting out.

So the first sergeant talked to me. He wanted me to go to OCS because we had another college graduate who had played college football. He was getting his package ready. He was going to OCS. And he did. I heard he graduated. And he was in 1001st. But to be honest, like I didn't want to be treated like a private.

again after being an NCO. I don't want to go out to Fort Benning and be treated like a private again. So I didn't know what to do. The CIA had a briefing at Bragg and I went and I was the only listed guy there. Everybody was a captain or a major. And I did some application for them and there was no go there. So I started applying. But then I didn't know what to do.

I kind of wanted to stay in because I kind of liked it. So finally I went to see these two warrant officers at headquarters. Both were human guys. One guy had 1001st combat patch, and I heard he had been in Vietnam and got out, breaking service, and came back in. He was pretty old. And the other guy had a first Marine Division combat patch, and I think he had been in Beirut. So I was like, hey, Chiefs, I don't know what to do. I mean, you know, the first sergeant said, he goes, the 80 seconds to old army.

He goes, you know, he goes, it's spit-shine jump boots, rest uniform, fresh haircut, you know, clean beret. He goes, the rest of the Army is not like this. If you want to go do something else, something different, you can do it. But they said, listen, you're airborne. You could pick another job. They're probably going to send you right back here. If they don't send you to the 82nd, they'll send you to the 18th Airborne Corps, like, I think the 525MI. you know, because there was a guy I knew who was a, I think it was a 97 series.

It was like counterintelligence special agent. He was always, well, these guys were getting in trouble because they had creds. They had credentials. So they were like going into Fayetteville at the bars and showing their creds. So finally they had to lock them up in the company, I mean in the headquarters safe. So I was like, I was like that sounds like a cool job. But they said, listen, you have your degrees, right? I remember what he said, he goes, you know, you go, you need to go be a special anus in charge

somewhere. I said, what? He goes, you need to be a special anus in charge somewhere. And if you don't like it, you can come back. We'll always take you back. So go try that. If it doesn't work out, we'll see it right back here. So I just decided to get out.

And it was kind of a rough transition. It's where I first learned that like the machine goes on without you, right? I had a awesome, I think it was a four-man ground surveillance team. I was the oldest guy, obviously, but I had, like, great team members. I think it was down to two guys at that time and me. And one guy who was the first guy I met in the 82nd, he got killed in Iraq at Talafar. He was with the third ACR. I actually wear, I have his KIA bracelet.

and they wanted, like the guy gave me one of the nicest compliments I've ever had. He goes, when I become a sergeant, I want to be like Sergeant Dobis because he treats us, you know, I hate to pound my chest and, you know, talk about myself, but he's like, he treats us with respect, lets us do our job, but we know that if we mess up, he's going to hammer us, but he lets us do our job. So, but I, you know, it struck me. Someone's going to, someone's going to take over the team. and, you know, they'll forget about me, you know, sooner rather than later.

So I moved back home to Connecticut and I got a job clerking for a judge in Connecticut's Superior Court while I applied to every agency you could think of. And was the DEA the first that responded or what kind of led you there? Yeah, so I was in the process with like FBI, ATF, Army Intelligence and I was actually supposed to go down to I was scheduled to go to Fort Meyer or Fort Belvoir for an interview with Army Intelligence

so all of a sudden DEA was the they called and they offered me an offer me a spot in the Academy in January of 2002 so I accepted it I grabbed it my father wanted me to hold off and go interview with CID no it was Army Intel sorry because

part of that job was travel DEA offered me the job I just jumped on it and it turns out I spoke to a lot of guys in law enforcement and they're like, were you like fixated on D.A? I'm like, no, he offered me the job first. And like, yep, same with me. I want a guy I work with now applied to many police departments. And the one he went with was the first to offer him a spot in the academy and he jumped on it.

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Some exclusions apply, see site for details. And thank you, GhostBed for sponsoring the show. please check out the link down in the description and support our sponsor. So you went to the Academy in 2002? Yeah, January 2002 I started. Go ahead. I was just going to ask, what was the training pipeline like? So it was 16, it was either 16 weeks or 18 weeks.

I think it was 16. Sometimes they add classes, but it was, anything and everything you could know want to know about narcotics. But it was firearms. And it was known as the toughest firearms qualification course in federal law enforcement. It was a hundred round course back then that started at the 50-yard line from the prone, if you could believe that. So we learned undercover.

We spent a lot of time in the raid house, learning entries. we learned anything about drug law enforcement, like what we call a by walk, a buy bust. But we learned how to run what used to be called confidential sources and not called confidential informants. We learned how to run them and operate them to such a good extent that later on, when I was in Pakistan with DEA or Mauritania, North Africa,

and, you know, Intel guys and military guys were trying to run what they, you know, called sources, it was it was not, not good to our standards. It was like we learned that from the jump and, you know, they really drilled down and you how to run and inform it. And then when he, when he got out to the field, some guys specialize in, you know, technical wiretaps. Some guys love to work with informants. So the, the course of instruction was pretty good. You also have a pretty extensive law course of instruction, you know, academics, you testify. learn how testify in front of a judge.

They bring in judges, have a moot court. There's like emergency vehicle operation or tactical vehicle operation, you know, the Hogan's Alley part using simunitions. They did have, back then, they had like punishment PT, where if somebody screwed up in class or something, because we wore, we had like gray polo shirts or black sweatshirts, black BDU pants and black boots. But we had punishment PT.

which has been eliminated, but I thought it was going to be like the military, but it wasn't. It was, you know, it was easier. It was also where I, again, come into contact with careerism and people that aren't all. Because, you know, in the Army, everybody's working toward the same goal because if you don't achieve that goal, like you could die, right? Like you're on a jump, and if you don't know the procedures or how to link up on the ground, because we didn't have GPS yet, where we got the slugger or the plugger.

Right, yeah. So we have to link up on the ground, but, you know, somebody could get seriously hurt or die, but in DEA, not everybody, and this hit me in the field, not everybody was, you know, working toward the same goal.

But, you know, instead of being a jerk, you have to understand that people have family stuff in different situations, but it was a different experience. And at what point did you become a badge D.E.A. agent? So I graduated from the Academy in May of 2002 and at that point you could go up to the

office that you hired out of. So I hired out of the Bridgeport, Connecticut office. I reported there and they were looking for volunteers to go up to New Haven, if you know, Connecticut. So they were up on a big wire with a source in the Bronx. So I volunteered and I did a, my 60 or 90 days in New Haven, working this wire, and then, you know, packed up my stuff and PCS to my first duty station, which was the Los Angeles Field Division, the Riverside District Office. And I had only been to California once in my life when, so when I was in the Army, went to JRTC twice, right?

Never been that hot, never been that cold. It was a winter rotation at JRTC and a summer rotation. and then went to NTC, took my team to augment the LERS section, the 11th ACR, was the Ops so we augmented, we were augmentees and I learned the other side. I learned what Op 4 did, but we also got to finish early and we rented, or we took the, like the mill van and went to, went to L.A. It just drove around. So I remember I got orders like the last week of DEA Academy.

I was in L.A. And they called me down to the front of the office and they said, the same. Jack said you're going to Riverside. And there was two instructors that had been in L.A. I was like, where's Riverside? It doesn't sound so bad. It must be near like a river or the water. And they started laughing.

And they're like, you'll learn. You'll know. And Riverside was in the inland empire. It was like the met before law enforcement chased super labs across the border. It was like the meth capital of America. The two biggest counties landwise in America, right? San Bernardino and Riverside. So I reported to the office.

We have a field training program with a field training agent. So my field training agent who then became my partner, he retired as a lieutenant colonel out of Air Force OSI. He actually deployed to Iraq multiple times, won a Bronze Star working with the Italian caribinari. They got a lot of the deck of cards guys. But here's where I got lucky. He was assigned to a local task force that was full.

of SWAT and ex-Swat guys. So they bang doors every week. We work nights. First, the first summer I was there, there were times we did two entries a night, which will never happen in law enforcement again unless something drastic changes. I mean, I worked so hard. I actually got run down and got the flu. I had to take sickly because we were working till like three, four in the morning.

And I didn't know, but the local guys got overtime. We didn't get overtime. but the amount of entries that we did, and I later checked near retirement, how many entries I did compared to guys, any agent I knew, and I far away surpassed the amount of entries that we did, all because I worked on this task force. It turned out my partner, who I was partnered with in the stack, he was number one, I was number two.

He was an 82nd guy, and he was a, in football, I'm a Raider fan. he was a Raider fan too. In fact, and we still stay in touch. He retired as a captain from the Riverside Sheriff Department, but we were number one and two in the stack, and we became really close. There's two guys that I can owe to the fact I didn't starve when I was a new agent because I was paying student loans.

I bought a truck. I rented an apartment. So my FTA and my partner from the Sheriff's Department had me over their house almost every weekend feeding me. So I didn't starve. So I owe them. I owe them a lot, those two guys. So being a narco cop in L.A., like the image that comes to the public's mind is like Denzel and Training Day.

Like, what's the reality of it? There's guys who did a lot of undercover. And they had, they were pierced, had a lot of piercings and this and that. And even there was a, there was a guy I know who I was friends with. He did, he, he was a black guy. He was an ex-football player. He did undercover. But, you know, that, that, that, the criminal stuff, no.

That, that, that didn't happen. And then there's tons of guys who just looked like normal guys, you know, working cases, right? Because we're, our job title is actually criminal investigator. And we're supposed to be disrupting and dismantling, you know, complicated, uh, drug trafficking or now transnational organized criminal organizations. So, but yeah, no, like rolling around in a, in a, uh, a car like Denzel had and, and, you know, no, like everything was accounted for, like money we paid informants, money we did, you know, made buys on undercover. I mean, I only did on, like undercovers now for everybody. I did it in my life, I think three times. Once,

once I posed as a guy who just got out of the army and I was all scruffy going to a bar trying to get a job as a bouncer because my task force had word that they were selling selling meth out of the bar. Another time they did the same thing. They dressed me up because I had to

well hopefully check a box on the field training agent program to do undercover. So they sent me to a trailer to try to buy meth from a woman who lived there. And then the last time was when I, after I got back from overseas and got back to Connecticut, I played a lawyer, like a preppy lawyer wearing a polo shirt and khakis,

trying to buy Coke from another female dealer, although she was a hard ass and she never sold to me. And that was the extent of my undercover work. So all your stuff in L.A. was really like, overt you guys were mostly kicking indoors going after, you know, serving warrants. Yeah, the task, and there was a lot of state and local task forces in Southern California. They did a lot of the entry work. And there were also in the DEA offices, they're broken up into, into task forces,

which are a combination of agents and local, state and locals that are deputized, right, call them task force officers and enforcement groups, which are all agents. So most of the enforcement groups did a lot of the, the Title III wire stuff, try to get, you know, work your way up to the top of organizations and the state, you know, a lot of guys competed to be on the local task forces because you were out of the office away from the flagpole. And like me working nights, I got night differential, but I was away from the flagpole. And even when my partner went to Iraq, my boss kept me on the task force and I was a young agent, but we were doing good work. I had a sergeant

from the sheriff's department as my boss. He wanted to make federal cases. So I learned by doing it. Like they made me do the federal paperwork. So we did a combination of casework and kicking doors because, you know, there's no crime before overtime. So anything, those guys love the OT, but I love the experience of kicking the doors with them. During that time frame in L.A., did you have any particularly hairy entries that you recall? There was one entry that we did right before we were in the raid van. we arrived like at 9-54 and we hit the house.

It turned out it was like a maze in the backyard. It was like a tire maze. Do you remember the old shoot houses made out of tires? So they were all stacked up. It was a meth dealer. And I didn't even know what was going. I got lost. It was like a maze.

And I had to call on the radio from my guys because it was such a bizarre scene. And the other time was we were a perimeter team for the Riverside Sheriff, SWAT team, which was called, I think, S-I-B, no, EST, emergency services. So they rolled up. It was a fortified house, and they threw flashbangs. But we were on comms with them, and they breached the door, and there was a pit bull, and we could hear the SWAT guys screaming at the people inside to hold that. door will blow that effing dogs head off and there were a lot of flashbangs went off there were more the more complicated entries and hairy entries when i was took over a task force but those were two that stuck in my mind but we did we did so many uh when i was an agent those two years was that tire maze

like actually were they actually using that as a shoot house or was that just some meth head making a maze in his backyard that was a tweaker who had who had junk piled up inside the house. And we could, I remember we could, so they used a method of entry called the two-man, like the modified flood or two-man cell. And somehow I got separated from my wingman, but I hooked up with this guys behind me. And we, we couldn't get through the house. There was so much junk.

It smelled, it smelled musty and terrible. Then we, we cleared the house and we made our way to the back, the backyard. And it was like, there was no roof, but it was like another. There was so much stuff with these tires stacked up in columns. I tell you, I thought I was going to get lost in there forever. After your time in L.A., you got an overseas assignment, right? Yeah, so we were reopening our office in Kabul, and they put out a solicitation for, I don't know if you ever heard of the Fast team.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so the Fast team was starting, but it wasn't going to be a permanent thing. So I put in for that, but I didn't know anybody to try to get hookups. So I didn't get it, but I got an email like a week later from the ASAC, the GS-15, who ran the AFPAC theater. He's like, hey, I saw your resume. I saw that you put in for Fast. We're going to be expanding our offices in Afghanistan and Pakistan. So if you're interested, please put in for it.

and the solicitation will drop next week. So for like one of the few times in my life, I put in for it and I was selected. So I went to the overseas orientation. I went to the State Department School and the DEA overseas training, which is very far advanced. Now they have like a personal recovery section. Back then, I mean, you know, I had never been overseas at all. but I was going to a country where, you know, the tribal areas were insane. You know, the PAC government didn't go to the, was the federally administered, the Fata.

Yeah, yeah. And in Balochistan, which I ended up spending a lot of time in. But I soaked up all I could going to the State Department, you know, going to their library and looking through the books on Pakistan and stuff. And so you weren't going there to actually be on a fast team or was there one in Pakistan? No, the fast team. So at first it was a TDI assignment. Then it became permanent in Afghanistan, mostly in Afghanistan, but they went to Central America also. But after that first TDII, I think it took fast like a year or so to get off the ground.

So what I was part of was the Islamabad country office. And there was also the Kabul country office. So we were there for two year. Kabul was one year. Islamabad was two years. While the fast guys did like not 30 to 90 days in country and then jump back out, we were there for the duration. And what was your mission in Pakistan? So technically we were called special agent advisors.

So we advised our Pakistani counterparts, which were the anti-narcotic force. So they had an unmarked house in Islamabad that we were supposed to go to every day and work with them. They operated strangely, a lot of strange things going on. You know, in the city and like how we, how we, we would, like, so they were, they had a vetted unit, right? We would vet them. They had to be drug tested and polygraphed. Well, after a while, after like a year or two, they refused to be polygraphed and they failed the drug test. And some of the, some of the counterparts were like, we need to smoke hash to do undercover work.

It's part of blending in. So that unit got abolished. But one of the best things I did was down in Quetta, which is in Balochistan, it's one of the most dangerous cities for Westerners. There are no Westerners. The Brits had a safe house down there. And there's a huge army base that has an airstrip and had a housing area. So the Brits were on the housing area. And we would just go down for a week at a time and stay with them.

but our vetted unit had a had a section down there. So we had to help them, had to work with them, especially on technical surveillance. So my bosses were like, we're going to rent our own house. So I went down a bunch of times. And the only way to get down there was take a king air piloted by a Dina Corps pilot from Islamabad to Quetta. So we rented the house from a broker. And I went down there with like a rucksack full of gear.

and I think of some MREs and an M4 and a Glock and I got to the house and there were no locks on the doors. So there was no running water. There were no utensils. There were no bowls, no cups. So I was freaked out. I was like there's no, I'm in Quetta by myself in this house. There's no locks on the door. There was a lock on the bedroom door.

So the first couple of nights I slept. with the M4. It was like basic training. I had the M4 in bed with me and the I think the Glock was under my pillow. And as soon as I got up in the morning, I raised holy hell with my boss in Islamabad. I said, get the carpenters or whoever over here

and get some locks and I need funds to outfit the house. So I ended up spending six months down there on the border and it was funny. The Dinacore had to contract.

So the State Department had bought the packs of Vietnam-era Hueys, right? And the Dinacore guys were teaching the packs how to fly. They had some good pilots, but also the one thing I didn't understand was maintenance, right? They didn't want to do maintenance. They didn't understand maintenance. So they were trying to teach them how to take care of the helicopters. But there were a lot of. of interesting things.

Like for both years I was there, I, well, let me, let me backtrack. So the house we rented, you know who we live next to? We live next to the Iranians. The Iranians had a consulate in Quetta. So I was friends, I became good friends with the, with UKSF guys, first SAS, then SBS. They would take, they were training their own counterparts.

They would take me out, help them do surveillance. do entry training. So we would drive around. And I saw, like, I was over the black BMW or a Mercedes. And I was like, who is that? And they told me, the Iranians. And they drove me by to consulate. And I took note of the car.

And then, like, a couple days later, I was driving our old land cruiser back to my house. And I see that car parked in the driveway next to mine. So I get out and go up onto the roof and I'm watching them. I think one day I followed them. And they went, so it was the Iranians who worked at the consulate, lived right next to me. I tried to pass it up the chain in Islamabad, but it didn't go. I don't think it went anywhere. Yeah, I became good friends with those Brit guys.

They had me at their house. Again, food and drink and help, you know, I helped them do their own training. I had a video of them. They're trying to teach the PAC's entry training. and they're non-aggressive, non-athletic. They're doing like bunny hops through the breach point and the Brits are screaming at them.

But they actually had a, they made a survival map of the city of Quetta and they made all, they color-coded all the intersections and the checkpoints. So I made my own. And, you know, if anybody got in trouble,

they could radio into the house. say I'm at Blue 6 or Green 3 and you'd know exactly where you were. So I kept that map with me and I framed it because they labeled like were the, you know, there was Hazara Town and Pashtunabad. You know, it was a, they would build this mud brick houses up on the side of mountains. Outside of Quetta, it was like the Baluchistan Desert. It was like the Thar Desert, I think. I don't know, or maybe just Balochistan, but it was pretty crazy.

but one of the other things we did that was great was I wrote up a concept of operation I think the guys in Quetta said that the Pakistani Coast Guard wanted training and the Pakistani Coast Guard at that point had no boats they guarded the coast like they literally guard the coast by driving up and down the one coast road that was you know bordering the Arabian Sea there that runs up to Iran so I wrote up a plan gave it to the State Department I said we want to train Pakistani Coast Guard who wants you to buy

enough equipment to outfit the Coast Guard and so I wrote the Kahn Op, gave it to my boss, he approved it, gave it to the State Department, they approved it, they bought all this high-end gear, we had shipped to Islamabad, I had to convince the Dinocor guys

to fly it down to Islamabad, I had to convince the Pakistani colonel who was in charge of the air wing to ferry the gear and us and the helicopters down to the Coast Guard base at Posney, and then brief him on this mission. So we ended up training them in how to safely load and unload helicopters,

how to fly in a helicopter, prisoner search, vehicle search, the desert patrolling. And it was me, a Navy SEAL lieutenant who was attached at the time to the embassy, Marine captain who was attached to the embassy and the Dinacore guys, one of which he was a retired first sergeant from RTB who was trying to buy his dream was to buy

beachfront property in like Costa Rica was trying to save up as much. So he was down here for the duration trying to save up money. And I remember we were trying to build a gym on the base. And so we had money and me and him drove into Quetta.

So it was, if he can pick picture this, it's me, and wearing like, you know, 5-11 pants and a shirt, and this black American former first sergeant, we had like $10,000. We went to like a gym store in Quetta. We had like $10,000 cash and pistols in Quetta, and guys are, you know, giving us the stink eye. We're trying to buy gym equipment. And that was the first place. I remember waiting outside to leave and I saw these little kids running on the street. One had blondeish, brown hair. One had red hair.

And I told the guy I was with, like, what are these, what are these Westerners doing down here? This place is crazy. He's like, those are Westerners. Those are those are Pashtuns or, or they're whatever. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, he's like, you're a history major? Who was here? I was like, well, Alexander the Great was here.

The British were here multiple times. The Russians. He goes, that's, that's who those kids. And I heard them speaking like a, uh, uh, uh, Urdu or Pashtun, and they were, but they were, one kid had red hair and like blue eyes, inner kid had blondeish. I couldn't get over, even now, like you could tell it, it made an impression on me. And they were speaking like, I don't know, it was Farsi or whatever.

I couldn't believe it. But the descendants of all those armies that had been through. And one thing we haven't really talked about, I mean, what was the actual purpose of the DEA being in Pakistan at this time? Was it mostly about interdicting opium coming out of Afghanistan? No, there wasn't a lot of interdiction on my side. I mean, a lot of times when we were in Quetta, we would take the Huey's up and we do interdiction flights because they did have camel caravans of opium, you know, hash, heroin going from Afghanistan down through the desert to the Makran coast, you know, to the Arabian scene. they had the, their, their fishing boats were called Dows, right?

The Dows would pick up the heroin and they'd take it to wherever it went, Dubai or wherever. But we were, well, when I was getting ready to go there, they were letting us go out on operations, right? They were letting us go. They would have these huge piles of hash and they'd burn them in Americans, but they shut that down. Like they wouldn't let us go out on ops with them. me being in Kuwait, I tried to make the most of it.

I could. And on the interdiction side, that was mostly in Afghanistan. So what we were doing, we were doing a lot of intel gathering, but we were training our counterparts in the anti-narcotic force on how to do investigations, how to do narcotics investigations the right way. And, sorry, as your time in Islamabad, And in Pakistan, winds down. What was your next assignment?

So I could have extended, but I chose to come home. There was a spot open in my hometown office in Bridgeport, and I put in for it. And my bosses did make a call because Pakistan was a hardship. And they told me, you know, this is a hardship tour, but they called back to D.C. and said, hey, this guy did a great job for us. There's a spot open in his hometown. You know, thinking back on it, I probably should have stayed another year because the money, you know, hazardous duty pay, post-differential was really good. But I had met my future wife.

And I remember, so I met her, you know, so we were there for 90 days like at a time, right? We could take R&R. So it was in-country for 90 days, take R&R, out of country, back in-country. and you had to take your last R&R before your last 90 days in. So I met her when I came home on my last R&R, and we stayed in contact. And when I came home, she picked me up at the airport. And, I mean, she's told me subsequently,

I looked like I was fried. I looked like I was burned out. You know, I had, I had a, I think I sent you a picture. When I was in Quetta, I grew a beard. I was dressed in Chalwar Camis and a pack hole. And the, the A and F counterparts actually took me to the bazaar in Coetta and they said just don't talk. Okay, keep your mouth shut and we'll take you to the bazaar.

And I picked up some things that most, you know, Westerners couldn't pick up. They said the only thing wrong with you is your shoulders are too wide because you're, you know, you're trying to work out. But you blend in, you know, decent amount as long as you don't talk. And the first time I came home and showed my mother those pictures. and I have a lot of them. I was like, who's this, you know, terrorist? She had no idea. And I was like, that's me.

And she's like, what? And I think that's me. So she didn't even know it was me. It was, it turned out to be a good time, but it was hard to live in. Here we go. I hope viewers can see that if you're watching this on the YouTube's. You're pretty convincing there, Dan. That's the roof of our, that's the roof of our safe house in Quetta, which, unfortunately,

doesn't exist anymore with they closed it down but it was a good post you know to keep your foot keep your hand in what's going on in baluchistan you know quetta was always big with the with the taliban um so it's a shame we don't have it anymore but it is it's a dangerous place so you head back to bridgeport um yeah what was what's there to do in bridgeport for the DEA so Connecticut is a user state it's not a source state Also, it's a through state, right? The source is mostly New York City. So narcotics are trafficked up I-95 through Connecticut to Massachusetts to Rhode Island.

And there were some violent street gangs in Bridgeport. They still have high-rise housing projects. So it's mostly a task force office. A lot of task force officers from the state. local departments really help us do our job. But again, I hooked up with the locals. I ran with the Bridgeport Police Department. They had a, excuse me, they had a new team called the neighborhood enforcement team. Again, they work nights. I worked with them for about a year, trying to help them, you know, with narcotics operations. And then I got to go to,

at that point, I was a tactical instructor for DEA. And I had gone to, I had gone to, San Bernardino Sheriff Swat School when I was in L.A. I got to go to Bridgeport Police Department Swat School. And both schools, they made fun of me as like the only Fed. Gave me some extra time in the gas chamber. But those guys were great, great instructors. And it was a pretty new team, but they were pretty squared away. And I was lucky to get to go to their SWAT school.

But one of the best cases I did with a DEA, agent and a bunch of task force officers that we got assigned case specific was to dismantle a violent street gang in Bridgeport called the Stack Boys. We basically dismantled it from the top down. They were, their base of operations was a housing project called the Green Homes, the Charles Green Homes, and they had some houses throughout the city. But we utilized undercovers and confidential informants, and we bought them up to the federal threshold.

A lot of the main leaders of the gang, and we had a pretty big takedown. We hit multiple locations and basically dismantled the gang. It was a pretty good case. About how many arrests did you guys make? I think it was roughly 16. But what's funny was what I could remember.

So when we did a lot of warrants, we didn't find, it was like street level amounts of drugs, right? We did find a decent amount of guns, but a lot of them had boxes and boxes as sneakers. So most of them, Nike's and Sean John and stuff, but I remember doing one of the interrogations to one of the most violent guys. And I found I said, hey man, where's the money? Like, we've been following you guys for like over a year. He's like, there's no money. I was like, what do you mean? He goes, we buy sneakers, we pop bottles, we go to the club. Yeah. He goes, there's no money. He goes, we spend it all. And I was like,

that's why it was a, I'm going to use that line on the IRS. There's no money. I've been, I've been popping bottles. What are you talking about? I still remember he, he looked at me like, again, like I was an idiot. He's like, there's no money. He's like, hilarious. He's like, you saw how many Jordans I had. He's, we're popping bottles in the club. He's like, there's no money. We spend it all. That's why it's a significant, local impact case and not, not a, you know, a cartel case like that. Yeah, but still, those cases really help, like, the neighborhoods, like working people, where those gangs live and operate.

So it's good to dismantle gangs. Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, presumably they were deep into the local drug distribution network. Yeah, 100%. 100%. And after some time there, you start, coming up on potentially another overseas assignment? Yeah, so they started.

So North Africa was, well, I guess the DOD, the DOW now, was they were getting their own intel reports that cartels were warehousing cocaine, if you were, in North Africa. There were covert air strips in the desert. So they approached DEA and said, would you, if we paid for it, would you send teams of agents and analysts to the North African countries? So, of course, DEA said yes, as long as you're paying for it. So I put in for it, hope, again, one of the lucky circumstances, I put in for it on a Friday, and I highlighted my experience

in Pakistan. By Monday, the head of the program was calling my boss and said, can he be here you know next month can he deploy next month so it was a two-month tdii and i was hoping against hope to go to morocco or algeria the course i end up in moritania which is a fourth world country right it's one of the worst countries i think for development supposedly there's still slavery in moritania there was only one hotel the state the like i was hoping to live on the embassy grounds there was only one hotel in the capital city of the capital city of Nahuachat where where they would put Westerners up now I remember going to a briefing a cut in-country briefing uh with the agency at DEA headquarters and they said al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb is is in Mali and Mauritania if they

catch Westerners they're looking to you know cut your head off on video so I'm like oh all right so some of the fast guys had volunteered to go and they're like how are we going to get our weapons in, because we had no office there, and they're like, no, you're not taking weapons in. Like, what do you mean, no weapons? Like, well, maybe ask at the embassy when you get to the embassy. So those guys dropped out. So in retrospect, they were smart. I should have dropped out. So you know what they gave me? They gave me a Blue Force satellite tracker. So like, if you're getting caught, activate the satellite tracker, we'll know you're in trouble. So I barricaded my door in that hotel every night and I slept with the satellite tracker because Noakchat was like the

wild west and then um we befriended the the marine security guard detachment um and they lived in the city but they took us to the beach it was again a wild experience up it was right where the Atlantic Ocean ended right the coastline of Africa zero development um we would go out into the water and schools of fish would swim within our, you know, in and around our legs. If that was America, it would be like Ocean City, Maryland or Atlantic City. It was like this beautiful coastline. The same as I was when I was on the Arabian Sea, no zero development. Some French expatriates had tried to open a beachfront restaurant and it didn't open. So they like, it was a shack just selling like, I don't know, drinks. But as far as the eye could

see there was zero development and then if you went north it became one of the it's like an unincorporated country it's right there at the like the the northwest tip of africa before you get to Libya it's like it's like it's like bandits and pirates west western it's the name escapes me now but it's not even a functioning country but i think it like it's the northern border of Mauritania and the western border of like Libya. It's the, I don't know, it's barely a country. And they say smugglers live there and there's no government. If I had a map, I would show it to you.

Yeah, I'm looking at it here. Actually, why don't I go ahead and just use the share function again here? Just trying to find the right tab. Sorry, guys. Here it is. Okay. So you're talking about up in this area over here. Western Sahara.

That's it right there. So there's Mauritania, and it's all desert except for the coast, but western Sahara is like what you would call like an unincorporated city or unincorporated area in the U.S. It's totally lawless. What we heard was a lot of smuggling and stuff. So getting back to our original point about one of our original points of the DEA Academy, well, when we got in country, we asked if we could, our, my team leader asked, the ambassador if we could, you know, get issued weapons from the agency. And what we heard was the agency said no, no weapons. So I worked, we worked with the guys from the military attache office.

And there were some Marsac guys who were, you know, had grown their hair out and were in plain clothes. And they were trying to run informants up and down the coast. And we tried to help them. But it was like they just didn't get to training on informant management. that DEA does. It was kind of, I don't want to say disturbing, but they weren't getting good intel and they had a good source,

but you can only do what you can when you're on a TDIY. And let's talk a little bit about why you were there, because as I understand it, I want to hear your perspective. A lot of drug trade running from South America to West Africa and then up north into. European markets. Was that something you were looking at?

Correct. That's what we were tasked with gathering Intel on. And I did, I mean, we did actually find, I couldn't believe it. We were driving around the city of Nahuachat. We went to the airport and we found a Russian cargo plane. So we took, you know, I was on the perimeter of the airport. I took, we took covert pictures of it and we transmitted them back to, we had. an analyst with us, she transmitted it back to headquarters. It turned out that plane had been reported

as destroyed, crashed and destroyed. So the tail number that we found, it had been repainted and renumbered. And we had heard that Colombians were moving in, trying to open businesses, but, you know, the Mauritans didn't really want them. They didn't know what to do. But we did find that one plane. It was like a Russian version of a C-130, I think. I don't know if it was like an Antonov or Tuplov or something. But it had been reported as crashed, and we took pictures of it at the airport and sent them up. But yeah, they were, we had heard stories of or read reports of desert airstrips farther in in Mali and farther into the Sahara there where they would just land and then take off bound for Europe with, and Europe has a big cocaine issue. but that's where that was like the midway point to transport the cocaine to Europe.

Yeah, I read somewhere that in this area of like the Sahel, there are places like you can just land a plane anywhere in the desert. Yeah, we were told the same thing. Yeah. It's such hard packed, you know, compacted hard packed sand. It would just take an organization a little bit of work to make it, you know, to make it landable. What did you start to find?

Like, did you start to map out these networks and how they'd, moved the cocaine through this region? Well, what my team did was just gather intel in Mauritania. I mean, we went to, I think the port on the west coast is Noadi Boo. So we went up there. And the Mauritans were good. There was a lot of smuggling issues, you know, via ship, via Tao. If there was law enforcement presence in Mauritania, they just moved to western Sahara.

So we gathered what we could on, you know, like we, there was a, you know, a fleeting Colombian presence in Mauritania. So we reported it. The same with the, with the, with the teams in the other North African countries. And I don't know what, what came of the info, the intel. Like, you know, unfortunately like a typical op, we, we gather this intel and report it. And we don't, we didn't know what, we don't know what happened. Sure. Yeah.

That's how it goes sometimes. You're a little piece of the puzzle. Yeah. And then for you, you got promoted to be a group supervisor, right? Yeah. So I came to the point where I didn't. And being an NCO in the Army helped me because I was, you know, nervous about promoting. But I knew at least what it was about.

And I could do the job. So we started putting in for jobs, you know, had input from my wife on places that we would move to. and had a bunch of interviews, was even told I was selected for, I remember being at the range and my boss, and her boss came up to me and congratulated me for being promoted to a supervisor job in San Diego,

and the career board cable came out the next day, and somebody else got it. I put in for the task force in Riverside, that was detached. It used to be run by the state and locals. It was based at Palm Springs Police Department, but DEA took over the management. It was still run by a board of chiefs and captains,

but DEA, the task force commander was DEA, and it was by an hour away from Riverside in a desert. So that's the job I got, and we were allowed to live. I was the first supervisor to allow, I was only the second one. They hadn't had a supervisor for 18 months. So I had to get manpower, get equipment, but I was allowed to live out there. And we covered a lot of area from Palm Springs all the way out to the Arizona border.

Excuse me. There was a checkpoint. There was a Border Patrol checkpoint at the Arizona border. And then down past the salt and sea to like where we're not to where. to where Imperial County starts. So it was a massive, massive area. And I had never, I needed to get a, uh, really learn it and learn how, how high the temperatures got in the summer.

The highest I saw was 121. Uh, I had a brand new government car. We were on surveillance. I was parked in a parking lot. And my car, it was, it had been driven off, off the car carrier in downtown L.A. and driven out to Riverside. And I drove it to pack, uh, to Palm Springs.

So it had like, I don't know, 120 miles. It was overheating just sitting there. And the temperature read 121. So in the summer, it could get to like 115 for a week at a time. It was brutal. But there were, you know, it's a big smuggling area because the interstate 10 goes through the area, right, all the way out to Arizona. We have to respond to that Border Patrol checkpoint a lot of times. And a lot of times they would make a seizure.

A lot of it was like meth secreted in hidden compartments and they x-rayed it. And so we'd have to go out and take custody of it and drive it back and book it into Palm Springs PD. It was really, and then take it to Riverside the next day. But it was, I had to do a lot of liaison because we were based at Palm Springs PD. So I met with the chief every week. I work with a captain and a lieutenants every week. And we were co-located next to a sheriff's department. street team. So we sat next to each other. So we had to really, he had to really do a lot of

liaison because it would have taken one small thing. The chief would have told my boss, hey, I want this guy doobos out of here. And I would have got moved back to the office or whatever. So we had to do liaison. But we were lucky enough to be co-located with the desert regional SWAT team. And we could use their facility. They had an air, they had an abandoned building on the Palm Springs airport. We could train there. Sometimes they, sometimes they. would observe us with our training. I was able to utilize a separate pool of money to buy my task force the best gear in the entire division. We had Liberator headsets with low profile, low cut helmets and greens. So we all looked the same. So we ended up doing the most entries of

any group in the division when I was there. But some of those neighborhoods in Indio and Coachella were heavily infested by cartels. Yeah, I was going to ask, you know, what was sort of your experience and the difference between the first time you were there and the second? Had it changed? Yeah, so first, the area was more developed.

Not only Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho and Mirage, but Riverside City was more developed. but the emphasis, well, there was a heavy emphasis on technical surveillance, and my group did that, but I also had agents who loved working with informants. So I gave them the latitude to do whatever they like, not like best, but whatever they, whatever they could do best, right? I wasn't micromanaging them. I wanted them to do, as long as they were doing something and producing, that was, that was good.

And they all, they all produced. But again, and I guess I was kind of naive, like growing up and again, experienced careerism and politics for the first time, which I don't mesh well with, it turns out. So, but the core group of the task force, and the task force was, you know, DEA, FBI, HSI, Riverside Sheriff's Department, Palm Springs Police Department, Border Patrol, the Indio Station. We worked great with Border Patrol. They gave us two agents and a third with a canine. I had my own canine for my drug dog for a while, which DEA doesn't have their own drug dogs.

My task force had a TDI drug dog. So a lot of different agencies had to make it work. But we had great success. while I was there for five and a half years. And I was talking to one of my mentors from Connecticut and when I got rotated to headquarters, so the DEA management career path is you hit five years, you go on a list to rotate to headquarters

to do what in the Army's equivalent of like staff time. You have to learn, you know, how the mothership operates. And he was like, it's a shame. He's like, he's like, you were there for five years. You did all that work. And he goes, I bet you had that the Coachella Valley wired, right? I was like, yeah, I did.

I could call on any PD, anybody for help. We put on a kind of like stay off drugs, stay away from drugs day at the Palm Springs minor league stadium. I had the Customs and Border Protection Black Hawk fly in and land on the outfield grass, give tours. I mean, we had vendors give, you know, food for the guests. It was just, you know, going out and talking to people and not sitting behind the desk. You could get these relationships going and you could get things done. What were some of the more interesting busts that you did during this time? You mentioned that some of them were a little dicey.

Yeah, so there was two in particular. there was a compound in Coachella close to the Interstate 10. It had like multiple outbuildings. And there was a main house. And if I can remember, I think the owner was linked to a cartel. And I can't remember how we got a warrant. And we got warrants for the outbuildings. So I think we had four teams hit the outbuildings simultaneously.

And we had a helicopter overhead. We had LZs picked out for METAVAC in case somebody went down. But there was no blue-on-blue. We successfully cleared the outbuildings. We found an illegal cockfighting operation in one of the outbuildings. We found, I can't remember what drugs, what dope we found. But that was complicated. And another one was we were going to hit a house

in Coachella on a street that was heavily, it was all Mexican, but heavily cartel. So I got, I reached out to CBP and I said, here, we got this, we're doing this entry on this house. Can you give us air support with your night sun, right? Can you light up the backyard looking for squatters? Because it was a nice house. So we had multiple meetings and we had a briefing and we had

we were going to close off, sheriff's units were going to close off both sides of the road. We had a perimeter team and we had another team that was right behind my stack. We were the entry team so we could pass out prisoners or not prisoners, but people that came to the door because at this time, we had kind of segued from, you know,

the hostage rescue type breach and go in and breach and clear. I had an FBI agent. my team who was a former first group guy and what had trickled down and I'm sure you know those guys from the unit Bob Horrigan and Michael McNulty I think they they they got killed on an entry because there was a barricaded like RPRPK or that was in Al Qaim and if our viewers go back in time we have an interview with a former operator Jesse Betcher who was there on that operation so you guys can go back and actually hear it, you know, from somebody who was there. But yeah, you're absolutely right, Dan.

So, so, you know, and everybody wanted to do breach, you know, breach and hit, right? Like, kind of like a hostage rescue type thing. But they started going to callouts. So it went from like the unit to SF to FBI, HRT to FBI SWAT down to our level. So this former first group guy who was an FBI agent told us, he goes, it's going to be, we're not going to call out, but we're going to do breach and clear or breach and hold. So we breached the front door and we did a call out from there. So what we did was we got, well, let me backtrack. After the briefing, we took off in a convoy, right?

And we had a sheriff's, a marked car leading us. And I was in our unmarked raid van. And I looked behind us and there's like a convoy. of like six or eight vehicles following us. I look to my right and there's a Black Hawk following us in parallel. And I thought to myself, this is some Iraq type shit right here, even though it's not anywhere near that level, but I'm like, nobody else, and I'll give a plug to my team and me, nobody else was doing stuff like this.

I wasn't on a specialized team or the fast team. And I had a Black Hawk paralleling us and we shut down the street. We did the breach. And I had team internal radio and a radio to the helicopter on approach. I told the helicopter lighted up. And it was hovering above the house and they lit up the backyard. And again, successful. No friendly injuries.

A couple of arrests. And I don't remember if we seized anything. But what I do remember was when the entry, we were searching the house. People came out on the street and they were filming us. they were cursing at us. And for one of the few times, maybe, maybe if someone hears this, they'll disagree, but I lost my, I lost my bearing and I went on to the street and I was yelling back at him. And I needed some of the sheriff's guys to pull me back and shut me up because they,

they were saying, they were cursing at us and filming at us. And I was, I was, you know, I was, I was mad because it was had a stressful morning, right? With this, the helicopter and the multiple teams and stuff. And I wasn't having it. I wasn't having it. That's not the way to act, you know, especially when you're on, you're in the middle of a, middle of a street. We want to, we want to, you know, we want goodwill.

But at that point, I had had it. You know, I had it. And it was a cartel, you know, a quote unquote cartel neighborhood, sympathetic. And we were pulling guys out. I can't remember if it was off a wire or an informant, but it was, it was a complicated thing. And, you know, the task force, it was a mix of guys. guys who were in the military, like myself from the 82nd and a first group guy, we had another 82nd guy.

We had guys who weren't in the military, but we trained together. We got extra training, and we were always safe, and we did a lot, like I said, the most entries in the division when I was there. Awesome. And so after all these adventures, you did have to return to the mothership, right? Yeah. So my number came up and we moved. I mean, we were, you know, my wife's from New England.

I'm from New England. So we wanted to get back to the East Coast. But so I show, and I was kind of recruited to the chemical investigation section by my predecessor. He was another L.A. guy. One of his friends recommended me to him as a guy who was running his own show. My predecessor did a good job, like bringing this section up. to the major leagues and getting them in the game. He knew that, excuse me, he knew precursor chemicals

and tabling and capsulating machines like we call pill presses were the wave of the future synthetics. So he dropped a lot of dead weight out of the section and he recruited some real go-getters and we started to work with the intelligence community and the combatant commands. So for the first like six or seven months, I was what they call a staff coordinator.

I was just there, didn't know what to do. He was like, oh, create some program, create some initiative. But I didn't even know what that meant. So it took some trips out to the field with people from the section to brief the divisions on what we did and what we could offer them. And then, lucky enough, we had a great relationship with customs and border protection. They run the National Targeting Center in Sterling, Virginia. And it's what a real watch center should be.

It's high tech. There's a watch floor that has their screens all over. There's a massive screen that has a spinning globe. It identifies ships on the sea that are suspect. Maybe ships that have turned off their ID. But a lot of agencies are there. And so my boss selected me to be the first, well, actually the second 1811. There had been in 1811 there a month before me.

and the SES from customs kicked them out because he didn't like him, didn't like his attitude. So there's a lot of pressure on me. So because, and I wasn't just there for chemicals, I turned out to be like the catch-all for DEA. Anything to do with DEA had to answer. And we did a lot of great things working with our agents overseas,

trying to seize loads of fentanyl precursor chemicals. but those guys, those men and women at NTC, treating me like one of the family. I've never been treated better by a local agency. I still talk to them now. And then when my boss retired, I got promoted and I was able to stage three subsequent agents at NTC full time to be a liaison officer and help with, precursor chemicals and pill presses and binders and equipment. So it was a great, great relationship and it's a great place to work.

Let me ask you more about that. I was actually going to bring it up later, but since this is part of where you came in touch with it in your career, let's hit it up right now. Tell us about precursor chemicals and sort of the effort to interdict them, either abroad or before they get to where it's actually, what they're used to to manufacture methamphetamines, right? Mostly now the big drug is fentanyl, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so, yeah, like obviously you need chemicals to make meth, but fentanyl has replaced meth in a sense, but to get, I mean, there are specific chemicals just made to make fentanyl, but many of these chemicals, a lot of them are called dual use or really multi-use chemicals. And I didn't understand the scope, not only of the chemical trade worldwide, but the scope of international commerce. Like, whether it's via maritime, air, or rail, or a truck, it's insane, the scope of it. So when you hear a politician or the head of an agency say, we're going to disrupt the flow of chemicals, you know, please, you know, I'm retired now, but call. call me and let me know how you're going to do it because we worked that problem for five and a half years and I even went as far as trying to find and they're doing it now I don't know what under what

authority trying to find the US the US code to allow for a visit board search seizure VBSS mission we went to we had a great relationship with the joint agency task force West in Hawaii when I was out there for a visit, I talked to some seals. And I said, hey, if I had information that a freighter was bringing chemicals to the U.S. or Mexico, would you guys do a VBSS mission? He's like, of course we would. He's like, give us the info. But, you know, if I set that up, I probably would have got fired.

But it was like so frustrating because mismanifesting or mislabeling, the chemicals is a massive problem. corruption at the ports, you're not going to, if a load of fentanyl chemicals is secreted inside a Connix box full of, pick, pick something, you know, magnesium or any, any chemical that's used to make 100 odd products, you're not going to find it. So, and then the dual, like, we would beg for, for intelligence on these chemicals, because, we wanted to find the source of the diversion, right? So, for example, were the chemicals thrown overboard with a flotation device before they reached the port? Did the ship meet with and mate with a smaller ship like a DAO or a fishing vote to unload the chemicals?

Did the chemicals were they stolen at the port or at the airport? were, okay? Were they stolen right out of a bonded warehouse in either one? Did they, through the proverbial fall off the back of the truck on the way to the factory? Or was somebody at the factory corrupt and were they just taken there? But it's very hard to get that intelligence. For example, at some of the labs overseas, the barrels of chemicals, the bags, the labels are ripped off. but we would beg for anything like pocket litter, phone numbers they found on,

so we could try to see what the network was and where the diversion was happening so we could try to at least interdict it. I've heard that much of these chemicals come from, or they did, from India and China and I believe Thailand may have been involved also. Are they manufacturing these chemicals? Like in their mind, are they even thinking about the drug trade? Or that's like they're manufacturing industrial chemicals in their mind. And then it gets hijacked along the way by bad actors.

Well, there's many issues with China, like the geopolitical issue. Like, are they engaged in like, I don't know, what do they call it, the 100-year war? Or like hybrid warfare, yeah. Is it hybrid warfare so they can try to, you know, degrade the U.S. from the inside, without firing a shot, but there is Chinese organized crime that wants to make money. But, you know, reference India. They just have massive chemical industry. In my experience is no, I mean, yes, stuff does get diverted, but they're just industry, right?

They're making money, making massive amounts of chemicals and pharmaceuticals. But China, you have to wonder, you know, and you see reports, you hear things, but, you know, you don't. know until we were you know we did you know hit loads but fentanyl precursors are a lot largely coming through the air right we had a phrase in my section that the fentanyl war is being fought in the air and we had and for a while we were doing well and then i don't know what happened but it became very very difficult to get fine chemicals fentanyl precursors in in air shipments um And then, of course, like I said, there's the mislabeling, mismanifesting, which we're always trying to get ahead of. But the corruption, there's so much money in the international chemical and legitimate chemical chemical pharmaceutical world and the commerce, the scope of the commerce, to try to get my head around it and say, how are we going to tackle this?

We're a small section at headquarters that's not really operational. How are we going to tackle this program? We came up with a lot of initiatives and programs to try to tackle it, do the best we could for the American people. What did you find was most effective in going after them? If we could work with our partner agencies, a lot of times we ended up coordinating efforts with the IC and the combatant commands. And then when when Trump took over his second term, you know, the military kind of took, kind of took over in a sense that set. But we found that these agencies didn't know what we were doing and they wanted to know what we were doing. But it was it was and they wanted to help.

We would show them the programs that we had, the initiatives, and a lot of them ate it up. I mean, we were going to the agencies a lot of times, sharing info, but you just don't know what happens. We weren't read into a lot of their programs, but we were willing to help however we could to try to get a grip on this program, because our honest problem,

because if there's roughly, if 100,000 Americans were doing, dying a year and the problem is originating on our doorstep, you know, the southwest border. We want to do what we can do and work with who we can work with. So every agency and combat and command I worked with while I was, the section chief was great. I mean, I couldn't complain really about any of them. It just wished we had worked closely with them sooner because we were actually doing a lot of the same things. And, you know, a lot of times they had more resources, but we would, we would fill in a

lot of blanks for them with the stuff that we were doing and the stuff that we knew. A couple other subjects I wanted to ask you about that are sort of like current events, but you were in this field until pretty recently. So I'd love to just hear, you know, your perspective with your expertise. One of the big things that's come up over the last year, drug smuggling from Venezuela to the United States. And we have these drone strikes and airstrikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Where would you rank Venezuela as far as drug trafficking? Would you consider them like a serious or imminent threat to the United States?

Personally, yes, as far as the amount being smuggled. But it was, I'll tell you, it wasn't on my, I've heard the phrase it wasn't on my bingo, card that we were going to, you know, drone Venezuelan boats. And there's a former DEA, ASAC, who was stationed in Venezuela, and he's been on the mic drop podcast multiple times. He has a lot of good insight. His name is Wes Tabor.

I listened to his first podcast where he goes, you know, he has a lot of, he puts DEA management on blast, right? How are our leadership, how leadership. how leadership is lacking, but he has a lot of great info because he was stationed in Venezuela. But it's interesting that even inside the agency, there's a lot of agents I know

who are against droning the boats. For a lot of issues, you know, they say it's quote unquote illegal or bad for our brand, right? DEA was never associated with drone strikes on boats until, you know, leadership goes on Fox News or wherever, and they're asked about it. So then we get linked to it. And a lot of people have a bad opinion of, but I was kind of shocked to find that there were agents who were totally against it. I personally think that it hadn't been, you know, I'll give you a backstory.

We hosted this chemical conference, right? My section called Chemical Working Group. Biggest chemical conference in the world. This year it had over 200 attendees, 15 foreign partners. We had two VIP speakers from the White House, including Sebastian Gorka. He told us, you're all great at your job, you're all working super hard, but what you've been doing for the last 20 years, it's not working, is we're going to try something different. And this was after like the first boat got hit.

So we all were looking at us like, you know, what's going to happen, what's going to happen. And we saw what's going to happen. So it hadn't happened before. And, you know, our bingo card was filled with Mexico, Mexico, Mexico, Mexico. But what do you think about this approach that we've taken towards Venezuela? Do you think it's like meaningful or effective from a law enforcement perspective? I do because it got, I believe it's gotten to the point where the, these international criminal organizations,

they're not just drug trafficking organizations anymore. They're involved in so many things, are so embedded in so many countries and have so many different things besides narcotics, and they're so wealthy and powerful that they have to know that the equation has changed, right? They have to know that they've poked the bear enough times so that the bear is now awake.

Okay, and the bear is not going to just maybe extradite you to the U.S. in five years or eight years. Like, the bear might push a button and you might wake up dead, right? You and your family or your labs, right? With the amount of Americans that were dying every year, this hadn't been tried. And a lot of my friends in the military in the D.C. area, like at the O.F. 5-06 level. We've been discussing this for years before the Venezuelan drone strikes, and they were all for it. And we actually would game it out to an extent. Like, what are the second and third order effects? What's the trigger for, you know, somebody to retaliate in the

U.S.? And I know we would actually socialize it to other agencies. Like the State Department was totally against it. But the military was totally for it. And if, if it would, you know, degrade these eight, these organizations, I'm, I'm for it. And you mentioned, uh, Mexico. That was going to be my next question is, um, excuse me, um, Mexico is kind of like next up, right? Kind of, at least that's what we hear about in the press that now it's, you know, going after the cartels in Mexico. Um, what do you think would be the, the right approach for us to counter the cartels, the

Mexican drug cartels. If they would give us full access and full cooperation, we obviously have the tools through, you know, through seventh group obviously works central South America, right? J-Soc, the train, you know, I'm not even talking about direct action. I'm talking about the training piece. And we've been, we've been doing, you know, J-Sets for years. it's just it's a question of access and how much how much they're going to how much they're going to give us how much access what about going unilaterally like you know we we did the recent raid and grabbed up maduro um

i mean i bring it up because there's like talks about this you know it kind of like high levels of the government what do you think about the united states operating unilaterally in mexico Well, I know a lot of the, I don't know what you call them the vet vet bro network on YouTube and Spotify, they talk about this. I mean, I'll tell you, I love all their podcasts and respect, you know, what they did. But a lot of them don't know what they're talking about. Unilateral, I mean, one part of me says these cartels have been operating, they've been playing against the JV team for the last 10, 15 years. So let them come up against dev group or the unit.

They would open up a world or hurt, in my opinion. And actually, a lot of my friends who I don't see, you know, don't talk to anymore because I'm retired, they military felt the same way, right? And I feel that but what's that going to do? You know, and speaking to others in the government, there's the issue of trade with Mexico. There's the immigration issue, the remitter issue. And then obviously it's, I mean, we can do what we need to do to defend our country and protect the people, but unilateral action at a country on our doorstep is a big, big line to cross. But if you're

asking my personal opinion, it's a line that could be, that probably should be crossed. Because as I if it rises to that level. Because what I said before, I'm of the opinion that these cartels have been playing against the JV team for so long and they've been poking the bear and poking the bear. Well, guess what? Now the bear is awake. And you're not going to stand against the bear, but it's going to open all kinds of, like I said, second and third order effects that does the country have the stomach for that?

I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I can't help but think to. Iraq and Afghanistan where, you know, these units were incredibly effective and very good at what their job was, but we still lost the war, right? I mean, DEA sends a lot of agents and analysts down there, and we, again, we have vetted units that mentor the Mexicans, but it seemed like when I was in headquarters, every time we took two steps forward, we'd take a step back. Like, there'd be great vetted units, and all of a sudden

we have a great counterpart and he'd be reassigned across the country. You know, why is that? You know, we're making great progress. Seizures were made, but, you know, and how, how, I mean, it's a black hole of information. I hope it's getting better, but I still speak to a lot of people, you know, at headquarters and in the field. And, you know, it's not, it's not that good. no matter what they say on a macro level, I'm talking about the guys on the ground,

men and women on the ground, and it's a black hole of Intel. You're setting aside some of the idea of like a delta force rate or something like that, you know, because of some of the strategic considerations, what do you think would be the correct approach? I mean, you mentioned working in a much closer relationship with the Mexican government.

What would maybe that look like? I think it would have DEA and military units embedded with the, like, I mean, you know, because you, you were embedded, right? When you were in SF, did you help train the Iraqis? But on the ground with them, right? Actually, and, but is the corruption so vast that they can't stand for an American unit to be on the ground with, you know, Seymar or Sedana or another, another Mexican police unit. But we have the expertise in training from DEA to the military. And it's just, I don't have confidence that they would let us let us there.

Although, you know, we, I know like seventh group put some, some, some, some ODAs in to train, but to what extent, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think the Mexican government is very sensitive about colonialism and, like, having Yankee soldiers on their streets would not fly well with them. Maybe you could put like a seventh group guy or a DEA guy who is, you know, Latino and it's like almost completely invisible, you know, with the rest of the Mexican unit. But yeah, I don't think I don't think putting like American soldiers on the ground would go over well.

No, plus. So one time a few years ago, one of my friends from the Army, we, we approached the state department people that we knew with this situation. and they said, do you understand, like, they brought up the Mexican-American War and how much, you know, Yankees are despised back from the Mexican-American War. So it was kind of eye-opening to me, but, uh... Yeah, the term gringo, if I recall, right, it comes from, like, one of those border wars that we fought with the Mexicans.

Yeah, maybe when we were chasing Pancho Villa through... Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it was Black Jack Pershing and George Patton, and maybe, I don't know, we're trying chase them, chase them down. So tell us about your retirement from the DEA, when that came about and sort of where you are today. Sure. So it came about recently. I wanted to get back out to the field. I didn't want to stay at headquarters. I figured after 24 years and overseas twice in two different war zones on two different continents, worked on both sides of the country, plus was a instructor, a tactical instructor and a counselor at Quantico for basic agents.

Plus, you know, learning the politics at headquarters, I had a lot to offer out to the field. But I wanted to do it at the senior executive level. But the process is different now. There was no interviews. There was just like calls. So, you know, I talked to a lot of my friends, excuse me, fellow GS-15. and I had people tell me, like, did you put in for that job? It wasn't advertised.

This wasn't advertised. You know, and they can do, you know, to do what they want. But if that option wasn't there, let me see what's out in the civilian world. So there were a lot of interesting things, but there's a lot of people trying to get out and trying to get jobs now. So I retired on December 5th, and I went to work for. a company called Maven on December 10th. So I've only been there since Dan, but it's a great company. Roughly like 600 approximate people.

They have a global law enforcement aspect, and they have a military, like a SOCOM, counterterror aspect, and they support all the combatant commands. So it's so far, I have no complaint so far. are, it's all new to me. It was kind of crazy going from one agency, 24 years, to another job and having to learn like new terminology, new verbiage. Even, even their outlook had a different screen than the one I used. I couldn't even send an email at first. I was like, where's the send? I don't know what was going on. But yeah, like I said, there's a global law enforcement component and like a military component and their headquartered in Alexandria.

And they have an office outside our second or in our second home, me and you in Fayetteville. Oh, yeah. No, that's great. I mean, Dan, thank you for sharing all of your experiences with us. Is there anything else that you'd like to, you know, talk about or riff off of before we get going tonight? No, I just, like we talked about. before, I never thought that, you know, like I, I, I, you would want to, like, you would want to, like, you would want to talk to me, right? Of course.

So would. Because you have, we had so many, I guess maybe we're conditioned to, to think that other units or other people do more than us or, but like I said, I saw another podcast where they said, you know, how many stories can you hear about Hell Week? How many stories can. I agree. How many stories can you hear about? Buds. How many stories can you hear about the Q-course, right? And let, let, let, let's get men and women on who, who were there in regular units, whether it's the 82nd, the 101st, let, let's talk to DEA, you know, DEA doesn't get a lot of publicity, I don't think, compared to FBI or CIA.

But, um, the one thing I would say is like, there is, there is, there seems to be like a leadership vacuum in there's a leadership. I've been hearing there's a leadership problem in government since I got promoted. But it's such a difficult leadership's a difficult animal because can you be trained to be a leader? Are you born with a little leadership ability and experience, you know, helps you. But then you have the things that I don't mesh well with and a lot of my friends don't, which is careerism and politics.

Like one quick story. You're friends with. Yeah, like a quick story. One of my friends at headquarters, we were looking at a promotion list and, you know, we're commenting on the people that we knew. And he turned to me and he asked me, why are you getting met? He's like, you've been in the Army and he was in the Marines. And he's like, you've been in DEA for 20 odd years.

He goes, you have to know there's people who can do, they're good at one thing. And it's getting promoted. And that's what they're going to do. They didn't do the job. They can't do the job. So don't get mad. You know, just roll with it. He's like, he's like, you did, you're doing your thing.

It's fine. I said, you know why it makes me mad? This is going to sound archaic, but it offends my sense of fairness, right? And then at the end of the day, I said, you know why else it makes me mad? And this would apply to me if I was in the Crusades or the Civil War. I said it offends my sense of honor, right? It's dishonorable to be involved in these political games and careers and for personal gain. I've never accepted it.

Now I understand it being in Washington for five and a half years. I mean, I was able to go to the White House twice and briefed the National Security Council in person on pill presses and precursor chemicals and I briefed them a third that was during the Biden administration and I briefed the Trump NSC in a skiff on the impact of you know tariffs on China and and things like that. So I got to see a lot of and talk to a lot of people in so many different agencies and a lot of the agencies had the same problems that we did. But it's it's the leadership problem that that has to be dealt with. in some point, but I've often thought that a lot of these agencies are almost too big to be run

by one person. There's no way that one person can run a massive agency. Just like the president, how do you keep a handle on a country like this? There's so many components going in so many different directions and there's so many different factions. It's so tough to provide leadership. I know that I forget who was maybe Colonel McKnight from the old from the Ranger Regiment from Black Hawk down said the last the last unit you could actually have influence on leadership wise was the battalion I think because even that was like say 800 to a thousand guys but you still you were with them every day you took orders from the brigade but once you promoted to brigade commander or hire he goes you're not going to influence those guys. It's the platoon leader, the company commander. And on my level, it's the group

supervisor, the task force commander, right? And when you become an ASAC or a section chief, you still can, it's tougher in the field because there's multiple groups. I mean, I had the biggest section at headquarters, roughly

between like 18 and 24 people in Washington and in Hawaii, so I could influence them directly. But once you get higher and you have, you know, so many disparate elements, it's tough to exert leadership. Yeah, I mean, I can see that. And, you know, sometimes the type of person that is really good at getting promoted, you know, when you accept that type of system, you end up with very toxic leaders. And that trickles down throughout the entire organization, right? I just couldn't, I couldn't accept it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't

know if like those archaic notions that I, you know, hung on to. But I'll tell you, there's a couple times that my, my unit chief, he'll know who he is, had to hold me back from like jacking somebody up against the wall in headquarters, right, in suits because, because they're off the wall ideas, you know, treating people terrible. I don't know if you remember. One of the things in the old army was the ability, there was hazing. But you could take off your top, at least in the 82nd, because that's where the rank was.

And there was a sand pit behind the barracks. And if it got to that, you could go wrestle or fight. And it was amazing the things you could work out just by wrestling somebody. I mean, my squad leader hit me in the face once, and I deserved it, right? But from then on, I understood his message, and I had to fly right to give an example, be an example to the younger guys. But he clocked me in the face. And the first sergeant saw it and wanted to know if I wanted to prefer charges, and I said,

no, I deserved it, right? But like sometimes I would just get so frustrated that I would I would want to, you know, I want to get physical to make them see the correct point of view. But I know you can't make decisions out of emotion because a good decision is never made out of emotion. But it's good to have people that you could bounce ideas and you could vent to also, right? Especially when they're smarter than you. Well, Dan, again, thank you for doing this. And the answer is, yes, I do want to talk to you and people like you.

And we've had a bunch of DEA guys on the show. And I like interviewing them. I mean, for one reason is because, like you said, how many podcasts about buds do you really want to listen to? It's a totally like new experience that's somewhat outside my wheelhouse. I'm hearing stories for the first time. I've never talked to a guy who was stationed in Mauritania before, right? And then the other reason is when I'm interviewing like CIA guys and J-Sy sock guys. I feel like I'm pulling teeth to get information out of them. But with DEA guys,

especially, and because all their cases are public after they're prosecuted, you guys are like very open and able to talk about what you've done. I don't know, do you know, or did you know he passed away? Larry Leveron? No. He was a DEA guy. He was one of the dudes that was down in South America, like the 80s and 90s. I remember getting him on the phone a few times. And Man, he had the craziest stories. Back when they were, like, flying, it was actually Vietnam-era pilots flying Hueys down there for DEA guys and Navy SEALs down in Bolivia and Colombia. Yeah, the last, one of the Dinacore pilots stationed in Coetta was a Vietnam veteran who had finished. I think he was on like Operation Lamb's Song 719, which is the last big offensive.

and he was a he was a hewi pilot back then. But yet, like, DEA does so much work all over the world that there's so many stories. Like, one, I had the Dinacore pilot dry. So one quick story, in Pakistan, we all got assigned high-value targets, high-value traffickers. Most of them were Afghani or Pakistani. And one of them, his phone came back to this obscure village,

high in the tribal area, like elevation-like, I don't know, 8 to 10,000 feet. So I had the pilot take me, fly me over the village, a place where his sat phone came back to, and I took a lot of surveillance photos. And when I got back to the embassy, that was when Donald Rumsfeld had pre-positioned

J-Soc guys at all hotspot embassies, but just one guy, like 90 days at a time. So we had dev group guys. So I told them, and they were great, like one-on-one. They were great guys. team-wise we had some issues with them but maybe at the

you know at the gym or at the bar but uh there was one guy actually um before I finished my story he was killed he was an agency contractor he was in the book Not a Good day to die about Roberts Ridge they called him Goody

Michael Goodbo I think his name was but I would work out with him at the gym. Super nice guy. I didn't know him. One time I was at the embassy and Islamabad ready to go on leave. I was with another guy from the military office. And the other guy was there.

He's like, do you know who that guy is? I'm like, no, I just work out with him at the gym once. He goes, he's an American hero. He's like, go read the book, not a good day to die. He's the guy, Goody, who saved the Chinooks from getting shot down. He found the Dishka position. So guys like that, you just, you didn't know who they were. but they were great guys.

So back at the embassy, after taking those photos, I told the dev group guy what I did. He's like, oh, you want us to go pick the guy up? I was like, what do you mean? He's like, if you want, we'll go to that village and we'll grab the guy, but we'll bring him back here. And if I did it, I probably would definitely got kicked out of the country. I would have got fired.

But I came close to saying, yeah, let's go get this guy. You know, that stories like that, like being in Pakistan during the high, of the GWAT. And actually going into Afghanistan, I escorted a delegation of Pakistani, of Pakistani anti-narcotic force officers to Kabul for a high-level meeting. And they ended up screaming at their Afghan counterparts. And I took a C-130 back with a Kodel,

a congressional delegation with all these senators. And it was like, you know, I can't believe I'm doing the stuff like this. Yeah, I think also the DEA fast teams is sort of like an untowell. story and there's a lot of untold stories around that. If you know any of those guys who would like to be interviewed, feel free to pass them our way. Otherwise, thank you again, Dan. Thanks for doing this interview.

Thanks for having me. Sharing your many years of experience and expertise with us, please hold on just a moment. Sure. And for everyone else, we'll see you guys next week. Thanks for tuning in. And hopefully I won't be sick next week. I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both the Team House podcast, the Aiz On podcast, and the High Side news outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor. The newsletter is going to be once a week. It's going to come into your inbox and you're going to get the most current podcasts on Aizon and the Team House and whatever's topical or current on the high side.

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