We're All Insane - I Became a Millionaire Through Fraud

Episode Date: October 4, 2026

In this episode, we sit down with Nelson Rodriguez, host of Honor Among Thieves, a candid conversation about growing up around crime, getting pulled into a massive healthcare fraud scheme, losing everything, serving time in federal prison, and ultimately rebuilding his life through storytelling. Check Out Nelson:  → https://Honoramongthievespodcast.com → Instagram → Podcast Instagram  → YouTube Sponsored By: → HERS | Ready to reach your goals? Visit https://forhers.com/insane to access personalized, affordable care for weight loss, hair, menopause, and more. → ZocDoc | Taking care of your health just got easier – start here with Zocdoc: https://zocdoc.com/insane #sponsored On This Episode We Cover:  → 00:00:00 - How did he become obsessed with crime stories? → 00:02:04 - How did his parents' stories shape his childhood? → 00:04:22 - Why did Scarface have such a big influence on him? → 00:05:32 - What made him believe the gangster lifestyle was worth chasing? → 00:14:11 - How did he go from being completely broke to making thousands a week? → 00:15:53 - When did he realize he was committing federal fraud? → 00:17:34 - How did the fraud actually work? → 00:22:04 - How did making easy money completely change his lifestyle? → 00:29:34 - What was he spending his fraud money on? → 00:31:12 - How long did he commit fraud? → 00:33:49 - Was he ever afraid of getting caught? → 00:35:41 - Why did he finally decide to walk away from the fraud? → 00:41:10 - How did the FBI eventually discover what he had been doing? → 00:45:10 - What was it like being arrested outside his home by the FBI? → 00:52:19 - Why did he lose his business? → 00:54:51 - What did he do while out on bond? → 00:57:33 - What happened while he was in federal prison? → 01:02:50 - How did prison change his perspective on life? → 01:05:42 - What did he learn from the people he met in prison? → 01:07:28 - What inspired Honor Among Thieves? → 01:11:17 - Why is rebuilding life after prison harder than prison? Further Listening → I Sent My Boyfriend’s Brother to Prison More We Are All Insane: → OFFICIAL MERCH NOW AVAILABLE - code INSANE10 gets you 10% off for a limited time → Join We’re All Insane Mailing List for EXCLUSIVE Content + Discounts  For early releases, uncensored videos and plenty of exclusive content please subscribe to the We Are All Insane subscription channel at https://wereallinsane.supportingcast.fm/. It's $5.99 a month and watchable on Apple and Android mobile apps, Roku TV, Apple TV and Amazon Fire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Please play responsibly. So, yeah, just I guess a brief intro of myself. I host Honor Monty's. My name is Nelson Rodriguez. I'm based out of Miami, Florida. I'm obsessed with everything crime. You know, I love, everybody loves a good gangster story. You know what I mean?

Whether it's Scarface, Goodfellas, Casino, you name it. You know, people really like the stuff. And I'm one of those super fans. So unfortunately, in my life, what happened was I subliminally worship this kind of stuff and I thought it was cool. And I went a different round thinking I was smarter than them and I wasn't going to get caught. And I did. By the FBI.

Gotcha. So, and then. So when did your obsession start, like when you were young? Oh, when I was really little, yeah. My first memories that I can think of were probably watching, I almost had been maybe 11 or 10 the first time I watched Scarface, you know? And I was smart enough to know, all right, don't kill people. Don't sell thousands of kilos of cocaine, right?

Like, don't do that. But there's something about this guy that's really cool. Power, I think. Power, don't take shit from anybody. people respected and feared him he had whatever he wanted there's a lot of different elements of the Tony Montana character that plays

into pretty much every gangster story that whether it's Tony Soprano whether it's whoever you know Sam Rothstein all these characters because it's a world where they live outside of society you know what I mean they don't follow the law we're all supposed to be

law abiding citizens they don't give a fault because they do whatever they want which you can call it a moral and I agree that that it gets to, you can push that so far until it gets super immoral, but there's a side of that that is attractive to people, period. I don't care whether you're a man or woman. And with me, I was just broke little kid. And then, you know, and we were like super broke and we had no money.

And then I watched Scarface. And I was like, fuck, I want that. I have a solution, guys. You know? And again, I wasn't going to deal drugs and kill people. But so, and then where I grew up in Miami, in the 80s, like you heard all these stories. I mean, I grew up in the 90s, but growing up in the 90s, you heard about all those stories

in the 80s. So, you know, my mom came in the Mario Boat Lift in 1980, just like Tony. Like, you know how Tony came in a boat and then he was in a tenant and all that. That really, that was, that legit happened. That's like a huge part of Miami, the history of Miami. A ton of, you know, it's more like high in a high six number range, the amount of people, amount of Cubans came over. A lot of them had criminal records.

Fidel emptied his prison, sent them all over here. And overnight, Miami went from being like a retirement home to like, you know, the crime hotspot of the country. You know what I mean? So growing up with all those stories, the stories my mom and dad told me, I just, so something I just realized last night. Okay, so my mom comes over in the Mario Boat Lift. She comes over when she's like nine.

So she kind of got the real life version of me. I got it on Scarface, but she was like nine. She gets here and she's like, bro, what is going on here? you know, drugs and all this shootouts and all this crazy shit. And then my father, my father actually got here in 1988. He escaped Cuba with a fake Venezuelan passport, got to Panama in the middle of Noriega about to get busted by the U.S. So there was like riots in the streets and people getting shot.

And he literally, he got to Panama in like October, November of 88 and the U.S. federal government went and busted and brought Noriega in in January. So he was literally in the thick of like this insane. So it's crazy to me that my life ended up the way it did. And I like interview gangsters now because it's like in my blood. It's this weird setup. And then of all look at so look what my dad did. So he was in Panama.

He was in the middle of all that shit. He finishes his little like he has to kind of be there in a purgatory for a minute. He gets out of that. He goes to Mexico, which is like another like crazy, you know. And then he finally gets into Texas. and he comes to the United States and then my parents meet and then my parents have this whole oh my god my parents is a whole Netflix yeah I hope they give me the permission to make a movie on them one day because their story is worth telling so every Cuban I'm Cuban so every Cuban kid in Miami has an uncle

a grandfather a cousin a father a relative or several relatives that were like big time dopers in the 80s So aside from watching Scarface as a little kid, like when I was 10 or 11, I heard these stories my whole life, you know? And then you had like the kind of like the echoes of that generation where the kids that grew up in the 90s, they knew all their parents used to do this shit and they used to be associated with all these big guys. So that was kind of like a thing, you know, that was like, I want to be like damn, man. Right. And I have a lot of families. members that got in trouble that way chasing that kind of dream you know so it's it's weird it was just this like it was just accepted like there were some people who were like oh mine yeah you're a criminal

whatever and then other people were like well you know he just took a risk and it didn't work out you know they didn't see it that way yeah so i saw it that way too i obviously i knew it was wrong like i didn't want to end up in prison but again just something about that life was always very it made sense to to me. It's like, this is what a man should be doing with his life. You should do what you want and be successful. So from the time that you watched Scarface and got your first ideas, what age did you really kind of get into that lifestyle? It took me a long time, very long time. I was very, like, another person who was very kind of like blurred the lines for me was my stepfather. My mom and my stepfather met when I was about 12, 12, 13. So right after, at that time, I was living

with my cousin and my cousin was like obsessed with the gangster stuff and that's how i kind of got into godfather and all those movies and then he leaves my mother meets my stepfather and my stepfather is on his third federal prison bid right now he's he's that guy he robbed jewelry stores rob drug dealers set of girl houses you name it this guy is like a professional criminal like oh no yeah for real and then seeing him it was like dude you know and he's like he's like super swoll and cut and you know so It was just always there. I always had some sort of person in my life that was in that element, and I always saw them as like an alpha male, you know?

Even though I knew it was inevitable and they were going to get busted, it was just always something about that. So for me, I never delved into that life because I knew there was consequences, but I knew at one point I might be willing to blur the lines. My case and my life story with crime really doesn't start until like my mid-20s. It takes a long time. because I think what happened with me was I was supposed to be the golden child of my family

I wasn't supposed to get in trouble I was supposed to be like this normal kid that made it you know got a degree or opened the business and like got out right so what happened with me was in my late teens I moved out I moved out when I was 17 I was real young because my mom had to leave Miami so I move out I go through some insane shit Like, bro, you wouldn't even believe.

So I used to drive this van, this white van that had cages on it. So I'm sure you guys know what the bang bus is. That's what they used to call it in high school. He's like, oh, Nelson's coming with a bang. It was embarrassing, bro. But it was the only car I could afford. So what happens is I'm graduating high school. I'm working.

I'm like waking up at 5 in the morning, going to high school at 6.30, getting out of high school at 2.30, going to work at 3, working until midnight. I hated my life. Like I was broke. I like had no money. I drove this piece of shit car. Like I just hated my life. And eventually through, you know, the grace of God and everything, I find I learn what sales is because at the time, I didn't know like, I just understood get a nine to five

and make money. You know what I mean? I didn't know like sales or open a business. I didn't understand what that was. So once I understood that and then I became really. good at selling I made a ton of money it did really good so for those maybe like six years I was a salesman for a company I did really good and what happened is revolving thing in my life you know one of these guys had a really bad coke habit like you see what I mean it's always like there so the leader

of our like sales team he had like a horrible coke habit all that falls apart I'm forced to get a job right so at this job I'm feeling I'm feeling bitter I'm feeling annoyed like damn i had the life i wanted why why me like why do i have to go get a job now after all these years like i'm a lot of mixed emotions that are now putting me in a mindset to where i'm going to make decisions differently makes sense so i'm bitter i'm pissed and then the third major thing that really played into other two more things i was broke and then when i worked really hard to try to like get promoted in my company the management will like suppress me and purposely make me look bad for no reason so now it's like all right i'm pissed i'm broke i'm bitter

and now i want to hurt this company right so i kind of go about my life i didn't you know whatever i was just trying to think of something else to do or and then what happens is i get approached by this guy and this guy says hey i know you know you know you know you know know, this clinic, you can just come and get some physical therapy and, you know, we'll pay you. You didn't know him, right? No. Okay. I didn't know him from Adam.

At the time, I honestly thought it was like a, I don't know, like some sort of research study or some shit. I don't know. It's just, I had no idea what it was, no idea. But the guy was super shady. He didn't really want to explain what it was or whatever. I just, I never, I didn't pay any mind to it. Like six months later, he hits me up again.

Hey, man. you know, we can still do that, whatever. And I'm like super broke at the time. I'm like, all right, man, whatever. You would tell me. So I have to go to this doctor's office. I fill out a bunch of paperwork. I sit there for 10 minutes.

And then the receptionist says like, hey, you know, the doctor's not here. We're going to call you to set up another appointment so you see the doctor. I don't think anything of it. I leave. And like the second I leave, the guy calls me, he's like, hey, you're done? I was like, yeah. Like, all right, come to my house. He sends me his address and he hands me an envelope with $800 in it.

cash. Like I literally, and in my mind, I'm like, I'm still like, what just happened? Yeah. Like, I don't understand why are you paying me? Like, what did I do? So at the time, I wasn't aware that this guy knew every phony clinic in Miami, like every single one. And every one of these phony clinics was billing our insurance for physical therapy. Our insurance billed for physical therapy up to 90 visits a year. year. All those 90 videos added up to like $50,000. So for every one person that was walking through those doors, they were making like 50 grand. I am sure so many people can relate to this when it

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Will Govi is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS. To get started and learn more, including important safety information, will go be clinical study information and restrictions. Visit for hers.com. I didn't know this at the time. They just had me an envelope with $800 and I'm like, okay? That's great, yeah. This is awesome.

Yeah. You know? So the guy's like, listen. listen, do you get this insurance through your job? Yeah, I do. That's where I get it through. And he basically says, oh, okay. Like, immediately, I remember his face. I look at his eyes. And he's like, ching, ching, ching.

Like, he's just like, you've seen those luneitunes where it's like, ding, ding, ding, ding. What a scumbug. So he's like, oh, we could work something out. Like, you can make money if you start sending me people. How many people work at your job? I was like maybe like six, seven hundred. He's like, oh my God, you know.

So he works out of deal with me. And he says, listen, for every person you send me, I'm going to pay you. It started off with something small. It was like between $1,500 and $2,000. And basically what I would do is I'd pay the person $1,000 and I'd keep $1,000 for myself. It was like extra money. It was nothing crazy. So we start with that, but like I'm sending them a few people a week.

Yeah. So I'm making, I go from flat broke to making like four grand a week overnight. This happens overnight, literally from one week to the next. And then eventually, I'm sending him so many people that he feels like forced to pay me more money. So first month passes by. I send him like 10 or 15 people. Second month passes by. I send him another 20.

So by now, again, I don't know how much money he's making off me. All I know is that, like, all right, I could potentially make a $1,000. So I'm like cranking it. And again, I don't know what I'm doing. Right. Like, I don't realize that I'm committing fraud on, like, a federal, like, egregious level. It's so, it's, like, disrespectful. Right.

You know what I mean? It's basically, like, just open the floodgates and just let's ride, you know? So by the second month, the guy's so impressed with me, he pays me double. He's just like, hey, I'm going to start. paying you more. And it goes from like making five, six, seven a week to like double that. I start making like 50 grand a month. Mind you, I've never made this kind of money.

Right. It's like, what do I do with it? So it gets to a point where I'm just like, wait a second. Like consciously, you know when you're like, this is really easy and really good, but this, what's going on here? What am I doing? Like, I'm not looking, at this point, it's like Nelson, you're purposely not looking into, because you love this money so much. You don't want to know what's actually going on.

Yeah. So at one point, one of my, one of the people I sent to one of the clinics is like, Hey Nelson, have you looked at like your, your insurance statement? Said, no, why? She's like, go look at it. Because I was, I went myself too, like, they built my insurance. I look and they that's the first time I saw the billing and how many claims and it added up to like $49,000. And I was like, Like, it dawned on me what I was doing. Yeah. Now there's no denying it, right? So at that point, any normal person would have been like, all right, this is bad.

I'm going to give myself a pass because I didn't know what I was doing. I'm going to stop. Look at my fucking sick mindset at the time. I was like, I'm fucked anyway. If they're going to catch me for making $50,000, they're going to catch me for making $250,000. I look back at how I was thinking, I'm like, you fucking idiot. Like, why would you even think that? You know what I mean?

But it's a mix of a lot of things. It's like, again, had I not been super broke at that time, maybe I would have made a different decision. But because of my mindset and how broken down I was, I think me, I can't speak for other people, but having been in that vulnerable position, it kind of just, you know, I let it right. say too when you know what it feels like not to have it and then you have more than you know what to do with, you're not going to want to go back. Yeah. I'll show that quickly.

Yeah. And then here's what's crazy. When I made that mental switch of like, fuck it. When I knew exactly what was going on and I didn't care anymore, my behavior changed overnight. Yeah. So explain to me, what exactly were these people going to the clinic to do that you were sending? Just signed paperwork, really.

Okay. I see a doctor. The doctor wasn't in on it. The doctor thought it was everything. thing was legit. So they'd show up. It's a physical therapy clinic. They're in on the scam, obviously, because I prepped them before they went. And the owner who's in on the scam might be there or not. Either way, you walk in and it's a normal clinic. Okay. You sign a bunch of paperwork, like a release form, all that stuff. And you sign like the scam was there was a stack of papers

like this. And each one was like an independent visit. Gotcha. And instead of going, getting your physical therapy, signing, leaving, and doing that every time you go, they would go once and sign like 90 sheets of paper. Okay. And then the fraud was because it was going through their insurance. Yeah. And they weren't getting, they weren't rendering services. Gotcha. They were just going to the clinic, signing papers and leaving and billing the insurance as if the person had gone 90 times. I see. Okay. Yeah. It's like, and then here's the crazy thing. If you would have just billed for like a few visits, nobody would have cared. Right. They went above and beyond. But of course, you want to be greedy and make... I ended up having a $7 million case, by the way. So you want to make millions,

you know? So, so yeah. And then the thing was, the guy, I don't know how he knew so many clinics, but there was literally like 15 clinics involved. And here's the crazy thing I found out later. He was paying me, whatever he was paying me, but he was partners in some of these clinics. So in a lot of cases, he was getting half of that $50,000. So imagine how much, if I was making a lot of money. Right. How much he was making. Dude, he was like, crazy. No, it's insane. Let me describe this guy for you. Okay. So this is the kind of guy that at 11 in the morning, he can have $20,000 in his pocket. And by 5 p.m. that day, he literally could have not even enough money to put gas in his car. Like, this guy was insane. And again, instead of looking at that kind of behavior and being

like, I should get away from this guy, it was the opposite. It was like, I don't give a fuck what he's doing. As long as he pays me, you know, we're good. The guy was just, I don't know whether he was a gambler. I don't know if he was a drug addict. To this day, I can't really figure out what was wrong with this guy. Yeah. But there was something wrong with him because literally, and it was the truth. Like, you could look at him his face and you could tell he had no money when he told you, like, listen, I have nothing right now, but I'll pay you tomorrow or whatever. This one time, I remember he needed to pay me and I met him up at a gym and he's like, he texts me. He's like, hey, but you know, it's under the rug of my car. And I'm like, bro, your car is open. You just left you. And then I lift the rug and it's like,

he has like $100,000 in cash under the rug of a car. I'm just like, bro, this guy's fucking crazy. This guy's going to get shot one day. Like someone's going to find out how much money has and they're like, oh, right. For real. So, and then think about this. How stupid are you? What's stopping me from taking all that money? Yeah. When I opened the, you know what I mean? Serious trust.

I know you only owe me 10, but if I open the door and there's 100, I mean, you know? Right. But, you know, I'm just, I'm not that kind of guy. So, yeah, he was, he was an interesting character. Like, and, and the crazy thing is he kind of fell into that whole, again, that kind of archetype of men I've had around me all my life. Like, in spite of this guy. being the biggest car artist in Miami. In spite of this guy being into every scam you can imagine

and every scam I couldn't imagine because it got to the point where like I found out some of the stuff he was doing. I'm like, bro, I don't want, don't even tell me, you know, he fell into that archetype of like people, women love them. He had like five, six girlfriends at a time and they were all gorgeous and they all knew about each other and they all knew he was a scam artist and they all didn't care. But again, he had that kind of like charisma and swagger and I don't know what. Of course. That always helps, right? He wasn't a bad looking dude. He was fit. So now that I, and it's funny, because I'm literally realizing this right now on the podcast. Like, I always had this strange way of gravitating towards that kind of guy.

Because they just had this kind of charismatic energy, I guess. I don't know. Yeah. I don't even know really why. So. So you made the switch mentally? Mentally, I made the switch. and I go from kind of just saving up money and doing this on the side

to now I'm hitting the strip club like two, three times a week, literally. So what happens is I started doing this in the summer, I want to say in the summer of 2017, I quit my job in the summer of 2017, like maybe three, four months later because I'm like, bro, I'm making so much money at this point. Like, it's stupid of me to have a job.

So I quit my job. But the intention wasn't to like do fraud forever. I actually had opened the medical marijuana clinic with a partner. And that suddenly started growing. And I was doing that. And that was actually, that played as my cover. Yeah. No one really questioned.

Like when I would buy somebody a really nice gift, when I'd go on vacation for a week and disappear to Columbia. Like whenever I did these things, it didn't seem suspicious. Right. So, and the crazy thing is it was a legit business. Like, if you looked it up, it was making money. Yeah. So no one, no one knew about all this cash.

So basically, in the middle of all that, I make the decision to quit my job. And then, yeah, my behavior is just, like, unacceptable at this point. You know, I'm going, I'm like at the strip club at 1.30 in the afternoon. By myself, I'm like, the only dude there, you know, literally, spending. Just because. Yeah. Like just because I literally would think like, huh, what's something nobody could do right now? Go to the Scribble-a-130 in the afternoon on Tuesday.

I'm going to do that. And I'd sit there and I'd blow $1,000, you know? And I'd have, this is pre-COVID, so things were different. Now, what I used to do back then for $1,000 would probably cause me $5,000. But yeah, yeah, you know, sit there and have a four-some with three strippers and, like, pay the guard to, like, close the door. Don't let anybody in, you know. Like, just stupid shit, just dumb shit that it's like, fuck, man, you know? And most people are like, oh, whatever, you were young and you had money, but it was so stupid, you know.

I basically started thinking of like, what is all that shit I used to see on those movies? You know, and how can I act all that out now? Okay. I feel like making a doctor's appointment is one of those things that is so freaking easy to put off. The last thing that you want to do is spend endless minutes on the phone waiting to actually talk to somebody. And then when you do talk to somebody, they just tell you that there's not an appointment available for months, which ultimately just leads you to saying, yeah, I'll worry about that later. This episode is sponsored by Zavok, which I absolutely love because they have found a solution to making your appointments so much easier. Our health is extremely important and it matters.

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slash insane. And that's basically what I did. You know, I traveled a lot, a lot. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. I went to Costa Rica. I went to Colombia. Went to Cuba.

I traveled all over the United States. You know, and it would picture, picture, picture like a young Cuban version of the Wolf of Wall Street without any of the prestige. and like twice the craziness kind of that stuff like it was just these insane I remember one time when we were in like Costa Rica I've never told this story in a podcast and I'm here having sex with these two girls

and like my door I didn't lock my door so my friend walks in and he's like whoa it was so funny oh my God and then the girls are like they're yelling in Spanish to get the fuck out and all this side and I'm here laughing I'm like laying naked on my bed laughing because I think it's so funny. Yeah, we did some funny shit. But yeah, it was just, my life just became this never-ending party.

And it was a lot of fun, but it was super superficial. I can't, it was fun and I don't regret it. But for the most part, I was chasing, I was chasing, I was chasing like things I thought I always wanted. But they didn't mean anything, you know. They were super empty and super shallow. you know material possessions and and girls and all the shit that men think they want

it really means nothing yeah it doesn't mean anything at all and the worst thing is that like times really haven't changed right like movies still promote this kind of shit people still think this is you know this is actually a good way of describing what keeps these things in business too yeah you know for sure

the best way I can describe what happened to me was you ever seen the Hulk No Alright well there's a very famous I think it's in the comic book because it goes way back David Banner when he's not the Hulk when he's normal Someone asks him like so what's it like You know to turn into that

And he says something along the lines of Well I have no control I feel like I'm going completely insane I'm unraveling I literally feel myself just giving into my anger and I like it. That's pretty much exactly what was happening. I mean, like, I was giving into my greed.

I was giving into my lust. I was giving into all the shit you're supposed to, like, stay away from. The darkness, yeah. And it felt fucking amazing. Oh, my God. That's the scary part. And that's the reason I think I'll never go down that path again. Well, it's a dopamine hit every time.

Bro. There's no high, like, receiving an envelope with, like, $30,000 in it. and going and just blowing it on like a big party. I just, it's the craziest high I've ever experienced in my life for real. I used to walk around with like $5 grand in my pocket all the time, at all times. Just the feeling of having,

I didn't even spend it sometimes, but just having the feeling of having that kind of money in my pocket was like intoxicating. Yeah. It really was. I remember I had a friend of mine that was, he was one of my friend's dad's older dude. and he's like Nelson the best high in this world is to have money in your pocket

and then when I had money in my pocket I was like yep I get it yep so it was just it was never like I could tell you these insane stories of just debauchery just pure pure unhinged debauchery of like and the crazy thing is I don't know how but I never did drugs I think the reason I never touched drugs was because of my father My father had a really bad cocaine addiction throughout most of my life. So probably just thinking of him and the things he's been through made me not touch drugs, but I was surrounded by drugs. Like cocaine, piles of it, pills, you name it.

You know, I'd go to Colombia and I'd rent this big mansion and it'd be me and two buddies and we have 10 or 15 girls over and all they want to do is snort Coke and snore Tutsi. Tutsi is like this pink. You know what it is, okay. I'm sure. You can tell people, though, in case they don't know. Sure. So Tutsi's kind of like a pink cocaine, but it's a mix of a bunch of shit.

I honestly don't even know, like, what's in it. People say ketamine. Some people say other shit. But you take it just like cocaine, you snort it. And women just get, like, they turn into a different person. Like, the girls that like taking it, they're like, oh, hi, how are you, Nelson? Nice to meet you. And then all of a sudden, it's like, you see them.

Like, they take it and then they look at you and it's like, you are a different. An animal. You are not the same person. Right. Yeah. And imagine in Columbia, it's like they're cheap. It's worth nothing. Like, drugs are probably worth 5% over there of what they are not here because of this short distance that it has to travel.

So you're still at this point, you're still doing the fraud shop. Yeah, yeah. So it was the same thing that you were doing, but you're doing it on a higher scale. Yeah, yeah. I'm doing more, doing more, getting paid more for the same amount of work, basically. Basically. Because as time went on, the only incentive to keep me doing this is for you to pay me more. Yeah. So you're just still bringing him people. Yeah. Yeah. Still taking people to the clinic. So how long did you do this for?

Start to finish. I had two, I had a stop in the middle, but total. I started in like the summer of 2017, early 27. I would say 18 months. Because I stopped and cut it off, which will get to the moment that like changed everything for me. summer of 2018. Okay. So, um, so basically, what happens is,

you know, everything's great. Now, now we're getting to kind of like, I guess, almost a climax. Yeah. Yeah.

So this guy started, I told you about this guy already that he was a cycle with money. Like he literally, so what, it gets to the point where like I'm referring to so many people that we have this running. have. And he's owing me money all the time. Which I didn't mind that first because he always paid me something. Like he always owed me between five and 15 grand, something like that. And

whenever I'd show up to get paid, he never paid me my 15. He'd pay me 10 or 7 or 8 or 4. But he always paid me every time I showed up. So that's why I let it slide. And so one day he's like, Nelson, I don't have, I can't pay you. I have no money. So that's when I started getting worried, right? I was like, all right. It's going to come to the point of one of these days this guy isn't going to pay me. So one day I call him, he doesn't answer the phone. That's not normal because he knows when I call him,

it's for him to send people with the clinic so he can get paid, you know? So for him not to answer the phone, something's wrong. I knew something was wrong immediately. The phone's not even ringing. It's off. I try calling him two or three times that day. No answer. I just knew something was wrong.

But not in the way it actually happened. I thought he took off. I thought he had 10 people like me and he had like $100,000 debt. And he just ran away. He was like, bro, somebody's going to kill me, right? And what I did was, I was like, all right, I'm just going to find this guy. And I'm going to show up with like five dudes. And I'm going to tell him to pay me.

And if he doesn't pay me, I'm just going to beat the fuck out of him. Whatever it is. You're going to pay somehow, right? Right. And you're a gangster now. Well, I thought it was. Yeah. Anyway. So, you know, the thing was, I was like, at this point, I'm already committing a crime. Yeah.

So what's one more charge? You know, whatever. It doesn't. It's crazy. Once I opened the floodgates, everything was like, everything was okay. Quick question. At any point during this time, did you ever have the mindset of I'm probably going to get caught one day or were you just cruising? It never crossed my mind. Okay. So you felt invincible pretty much. I felt bulletproof, yeah. Okay.

For sure. Because I knew what I did was federally illegal. Mm-hmm. But let me try to explain Miami. Miami is a city where things are wrong. Like, people do things that are not right all the time. And no one gives a fuck. Mm-hmm.

No one cares. Yeah. So for me, I was just like another one of these guys that lives in Miami that kind of just isn't really doing things. things on a kosher level and it doesn't matter because we live in the wild west. So it's stupid of me of course because and even making even to the point where like I had, you know, I walk into my house and I opened my closet. I don't know what I did that day. I had like, I was partying the whole day. I don't know. So I go in, I go to my closet and I see this like thing that's blocking me from putting something in the closet and I grab it and it. It's this red pillowcase.

What the fuck is this? And then I dump it on my bed and then $60,000 in cash. Okay. So I moved into a new house and if you've ever done that, you know the air feels a little off at first. Between new paint, new furniture, funky old vents, who even knows what you're actually breathing in? That's why I got Jasper and I am absolutely obsessed.

It's a medical grade air scrubber. So it doesn't just filter the air. It scrubs it completely clean. Smoke, mold spores, VOCs, chemical fumes, all of it completely gone. I feel so much calmer knowing that air in my home is actually clean. Like I'm not fighting invisible stuff while trying to take care of myself and even all of my animals.

Jasper gave me a code for $200 off. Use insane at jasper.com. That's insane for 200 bucks off. We talk a lot about taking care of our minds on this show, but the air we breathe matters just as much. I had forgotten that I had $60,000 in cash in my closet. That was right before this whole conversation with this guy is good at it. Because that was the first time I was like, should I stop doing this?

Like, Nelson, this isn't normal. You had $60,000 in cash in your closet and you forgot about it. Like, that was the first time. My brain started returning to normal. It was the first. And I can remember my mental state just being like, I should stop. This has gotten way out of hand Like I'm not acting like myself

This isn't normal But of course the next day I get a phone call And more money and I kind of forget about that So that's like 30 days before the whole story Of him not answering the phone He doesn't answer the phone I know where he lives So I'm like fuck and I'm just going to show up to his house

With a few of my boys and we're you know I'm not going to his door he's going to pay me So in the middle of me Like really deciding to do that I get a phone call So many calls And she's like, hey, so and so. This is a girl.

This is a lady who did the same thing I did, but she was just, like, worked somewhere else. Or I don't know how she used to get her, like, clients or, you know, insurance or whatever. But she basically was one of me and she worked with this guy. And she said, hey, we need the meet. Immediately my radar, like, my mental state is like, bing, like red alert, red flag. Because she never calls me for anything. Yeah. Right?

So I'm like, all right, I need to meet her. I need to see what she wants. So we meet, she gets out of her car, and she didn't even say hi. Like, she gets out of her car, stands up, looks at me in the face. She's like, this guy got arrested by the FBI today. I was like, fuck. Fuck. Now, all of a sudden, it's real.

Yeah. It's like, because you can- Well, I'm not getting my money. Yeah. Right? So, because I could live in denial up until this point. Yeah. Right?

But now it's like somebody, the FBI arrested somebody. You know. So we part ways. And as a courtesy, I think somebody should warn these guys. Like so everyone knows what's going on. Yeah. But of course, like the greed, it was just like, dude, I was like, all right, I'm going to go as a courtesy and warn some of these clinic guys. but they're going to fucking pay me.

Like, I'm going to go there and be like, listen, this was just happening and pay me, right? So I get there. They know something. Same thing with the lady that called me. I got there unannounced and they knew something was wrong because it's like, why is this guy here? So I go on the back, I talk to these two guys and I'm telling me, hey, this guy got arrested by the FBI yesterday. Oh, who told you this person? I think I happened at this time.

Anyway, I'm letting you guys know what's happening. But aside from that, who's paying me, bro? This guy owed me this much money. And then they basically look at the list And they're like, oh my God, bro, we pay them for all these people I swear to God We're not trying, you know So we work something out

They pay me for whatever Whatever they claim that they hadn't paid him for yet And I leave And at that point, obviously I'm like All right, I'm done No more Right I'm moving on in my life

This was a crazy little You know, kind of I let myself go I'm back in kind of like my normal state of mind I'm realizing how serious this is because apparently this guy got arrested on another case because remember I told you he was into like 50 different scams so in my mind I'm like right he got busted for a different case

he's going to jail my kind of plug to this my connection to this whole world is severed what were you going to do that were you going to go back to the medical marijuana yeah I had been running that this whole time and it was going well okay so I had no it's not like I didn't have like nothing yeah I didn't have no income overnight But I was severed from criminal activity. So it should have been my chance at a fresh start, leave that behind. But of course, you know, like I said, there's a bunch of clinics involved here and a bunch of fake phony clinic owners. One of them gets a hold of me.

And he calls me. And he's like, Nelson, what's up, man? Hey, listen, let's meet up. I'm like, all right. I'm thinking he's trying to give me some information or trying to, like, relay a message. no not at all he's like hey listen this is how much i used to pay this guy you you can take his place if you want and i'll start paying you that and like you would think i would have been like fuck you how dare you don't like don't call me anymore no as soon as i found out he he was getting

paid like five six grand a person and that's what he was willing to pay me i was like sure yep let's do it. And the reason what influenced me to saying yes was with that insurance you're allowed to get 90 physical therapy visits a year.

It was past New Year's already. So everyone that went last year could go again. So I literally just had to tell the same people. And we, so what I did was within like 90 days, I made as much money as I made in a year. I went back to all those people

and we did it all over again. It was like, you know, 80 or 100 people, something like that. So if I made in that year, if I made like 200 grand in that year, I probably made just as much in those three or four months. And again, it kind of just, it was way out of hand. At that point, I had more than enough evidence to stop. You know, but greed, it just like had me by the throat, you know. So what ends up happening is one night I got a call from a friend of mine who,

they're a married couple. They're a little older than me, but they're good people. And they're always having like financial difficulties. So I lend them money real once in a while. I lend them some money. And then they call me and like, hey, can you come to my house? I'll pay you back the money. Are you sure?

I go to their house. And I sit down with them and they tell me Nelson, the FBI was at my house. yesterday. And basically what they told me was they laid out a bunch of pictures of a bunch of people that didn't show me your picture, but you know what pictures they showed me. All these guys, right? And that, that managed to snap me out of whatever trance I was in, you know, like Nelson. Getting too close. No, I was ashamed that I was the reason that the FBI showed up at my friend's house. Yeah. Like I put somebody in that predicament and that's not cool. You know, I never wanted to hurt anybody. I just wanted to make money. And once I realized that my actions,

my actions, not someone else's, my actions were the reason that the FBI showed up at somebody's house. That was enough for me. That was done. There's no amount of money you could have paid me at that point. I really understood like the damage I was causing. The next day, I used to have like a burner from I turned it off. I sent it to Cuba. I was done. You couldn't get a hold of me if you tried. And then that was it.

Like, I went about my life. I had the medical marijuana clinic, which is great. You know, I became, we grew that to like 4,000 patients over a year and a half. Super legit company. We were going to take it public. It was going to be a really cool thing. And then so I stopped. That story I just said of the FBI showing up at my friend's house.

That was June of 2018. Mm-hmm. In July of 2021, I'm on my, one of my family is Columbia vacations. So there was a gap and you're fine. Huge gap. Yeah, yeah. So. 20, 21.

Literally, literally three years because it's 2019, 2020, 2020, 2021. So literally almost three years to the day. I stopped doing fraud in June of 2018 and I get arrested in July of 2020. You should have a good three-year run. Yeah, no, I thought I was in the clear, right? Yeah. I mean, for the first few months, I'll admit. I had nightmares.

I'm sure. Yeah. You know, I was like, they're going to come get me in a day. Especially then that you chose to stop and your mindset probably cleared out. That's when you started like. Yeah, yeah. Guilty conscience, all that kind of stuff. But after like a year and a half, obviously I was like, all right, I'm fine.

You know, I'm living my life. At this point, I have like a stock broker. I'm investing money in the stock. Mind you, this is all clean money. Yeah. This isn't fraud money. I blew all the fraud money. So, like, I even felt like,

Mentally, the reason people in that life, like when you're a criminal, you blow all that money is because it's like a carmic thing. That money's not meant for you. So you have this incessant need to blow it because you know you're not supposed to keep this money. So I wasn't even mad that I blew at all because I was like, that money's not mine. I wasn't supposed to have that money. So it was literally like starting over. I didn't have any fraud money. Everything was legal.

I had a stockbroker. for those of you that know, like the stock market was kicking ass during COVID, kicking ass. Like, things were good. I was making 10, 15 grand a month. My stock worker was like, hey, we made another 10 this month. I was making money. That month that I went to Columbia, I had made more money in one month than I had ever made legally in my life. So I thought I had arrived, right?

So I'm on vacation in Columbia in July, the last weekend of July of 2021. Okay. So I moved into a new house. And if you've ever done that, you know the air feels a little. off at first. Between new paint, new furniture, funky old vents, who even knows what you're actually breathing in? That's why I got Jasper and I am absolutely obsessed. It's a medical grade air scrubber. So it doesn't just filter the air. It scrubs it completely clean. Smoke, mold spores, VOCs, chemical fumes, all of it completely gone. I feel so much calmer knowing the air in my home

is actually clean. Like I'm not fighting invisible stuff while trying to take care of myself and even all of my animals. Jasper gave me a code for $200 off. Use insane at jasper.com. That's insane for 200 bucks off. We talk a lot about taking care of our minds on this show, but the air we breathe matters just as much. We go to Medellin and we go to Guadapé and we go to all these places and we have a ton of fun. You know, my famous mansion parties with all the drugs and the women. And I get back. That was Monday, that Monday. So I get back a TSA agent that like doesn't have his uniform one that just kind of has his badge here or Homeland Security, whatever they are.

They stop me at the airport. They put me aside. And they're like, hey, they ask me a bunch of questions. I'm like, bro, this is so weird. Why are they? They asked me a ton of questions. They kept me there for like half an hour. They searched my whole bag.

They like pat me down, you know, grab my balls, all that stuff. And then they let me go. And I was like, huh, that's really weird. Why would they do that? Later, I found, I added, it made sense. After the FBI arrested me, it made sense. They were basically just searching me to see if they could dump another charger on me.

They were already watching me. Okay. They had been, so when the FBI arrested me, the FBI agent said that they had been watching me for months. They knew I was going to Columbia on vacation. They basically let, he's like, we let you go to Columbia to let you have your last vacation before we arrested you. I was like, oh, thanks.

Right, yeah. He's like, no, we knew you were coming back. And I told him, bro, you must have been super bored. All I do is go to the gym and work, you know? Anyway, so that's Monday. Thursday comes around. Thursday, July 31st, 2021. It's 5 in the morning.

I get a phone call from a phone number I don't recognize. I kind of just turned it off and I go to sleep. I get a knock at my door. Like a strong knock. I'm like, what the fuck? I wake up. my aunt, she's my landlord, my dad's sister. And in Spanish, she's telling me the cops are outside.

They're looking for you. What cops? What are you talking about? Like, me? You know, what did I do? Take a fucking red light? Yeah. So the same phone number calls my phone again.

I answer the phone. Nelson Rodriguez, yes. This is agent such and such with the FBI. You have five minutes to come outside. Click. Mind you, I'm waking up. So I'm like, bro. Am I dreaming?

What the fuck is going on? I go outside. I throw on like a super raggedy strip club t-shirt, shorts, like these torn up slides. I hadn't even brushed my teeth. I go outside. These four cars are in front of my house. Pointing air of 15s in my house.

There's four city of Miami police cruisers blocking off the road here. Four city of Miami cruisers blocking off the road here. And our Channel 7 fucking news van outside my house, recording this whole thing. At this point, I'm trying not to get shot. So I'm like, bro, I don't give a shit who they're here for. Hands up, whatever. I opened the gate to go out and the FBI approaches my house.

I hand my phone to my aunt. I told her, call my parents, tell them what's happening. I texted my business partner really fast. I had the medical marijuana clinic. I was like, hey, I'm getting arrested. I'll call you when I get out. Boom. And I started backing up.

I can't even remember what was said. The FBI agent started talking to my aunt. And I'm here backing up. I literally am just like, Nelson, don't get shot. just, you know, you know the drill. Boom, I back up. Until they tell me to stop backing up, they pat me down, make sure I don't have anything. They cuff me.

They throw me in a car and they take me to FBI headquarters. That's like 30 minutes away. They sit me down in this empty warehouse. And I'm looking around and I'm like, this has to be a mistake. Like, what the fuck I'm here for? Mind you, part of me is like there's no way I'm here for all that insurance fraud. right? Like, I'm in denial. Yeah. And another half of me is like,

what else could it be? Like, this has to be a mistake. Like, there's no way they, you know? I just don't know what to believe. And then the second guy they arrested walks in the door and I'm like, the third guy they arrested walks through the door. The fourth guy they arrested walks through the door. And then at this point, it's undeniable. I know what I'm here for. Yeah.

They fingerprint me. They have this giant thing that looks like, you know, when you open the printer and it's like a piece of glass, it looks like that. And they put your hand on it, finger by finger. Boom, boom, boom. And then you're in the FBI database. Put me in this interrogation room. They open a file this big. They put out all the...

This person ratted on you. This person ratting. They put copies of just copies and copies and copies and copies of text messages. Yeah, I was done. my dad called him while they were showing me all the evidence my dad calls one of the agents and he puts it on speaker and he's telling my dad in Spanish because the guy was Puerto Rican he spoke Spanish he's like oh your son's been arrested on a health insurance fraud case and I'm here like bro don't tell my dad that man come on like anyway from there they take me to the U.S.

Marshall's holding station in downtown Miami that experience was crazy I come there's like this tunnel and then you come out and you're in the middle of downtown Miami and all the big buildings. You literally go from like pure darkness to like, what the fuck? And then it's just like one giant building that looks like it almost looks like the Empire State Building. These U.S. Marshals come out. They're all like 220 pounds jacked, like scary looking dudes. In spite of that, the U.S. Marshals are pretty nice. Anyway, they come, they transfer custody to the U.S. Marshals.

They fingerprint us, take our mugshots. I can't find my mug shot, man. It's so bad. I want it, though. Because it looks horrible. They put us in a jail cell and, you know, kind of wait. And, yeah. There, once I was sitting in the jail cell,

and I'd look at my feet, they kept our feet shackles on, but they took off our handcuffs. So I still had my shackles on on my feet. It was like, fuck. Like, my life is all over, bro. This fucking sucks. And the only thing I can think it was just my mom is bawling her eyes out.

you know and how old are you i was 10 days away from turning 29 my birthday's on august 11th um i was 28 about to turn 29 nothing i was just so tired at that point i kind of lean over fall asleep 12 o'clock comes around we do this virtual court arraignment i make bond they release us around five o'clock. Someone comes to pick me up, they take me home. They take a hot shower and I basically just go to sleep because it's like I'm so drained and I'm drained and overstimulated. That's the only way I can describe it.

Like all my energy is gone and at the same time my brain and my senses are just like so I was just so tired. So I basically just, it's not even that late. It's maybe like 7.30 but I just flop onto my bed. Excuse me, I go to sleep. I wake up that next morning realizing like, you know, what am I going to do? Because of it's a health insurance crime, I was banned from working in health insurance and health care, actually, for the rest of my life. So that's why the medical marijuana thing was just no-go after that.

Yes, yeah, I couldn't work there anymore. Mind you, this is a company I built with my bare hands. So I go to my partner and tell him, listen, you got to sell this because I can't be here. And I ran everything. He didn't do shit. So he basically, he agrees. I'm going to sell it. And then, you know, I'll pay you whatever you're old.

He sells it and he keeps all the money. He doesn't give me a dollar. I'm in the middle of a federal indictment. So I'm not at luxury right now to like look for a lawyer and sue you and do all that. I can't. knew, he knew that. So the company had just spent four years building, gone. I don't have a dollar from that. All the money I had in savings, I had to pay, I paid my lawyer. So I literally go from like business owner money to nothing within 48 hours. And then, uh, like, I didn't

have an identity anymore, you know, because I thought I was like a successful business owner and all this bullshit, which really means nothing. You know, it's just titles that I gave myself to feel important. And then I thought came into my head that changed my life forever. And it was like, damn, bro, if you could lose something that fast, did it mean anything? No, I didn't, right? So, yeah, I mean, so July to 2021, I'm out on bond. I don't know what's going to happen.

Basically, I'm just trying to figure out what I want to do in my life, you know? And I decided to write a book because, I said, all right, if I die tomorrow, that was another question I asked myself at that point. I was like, man, if I doubt tomorrow, if I die tomorrow, is there any proof that I was on this planet? No. You know? So I wrote a book and that was basically like, all right, if I die tomorrow, there's something here. Someone can read it and know who I was.

I did really good. I did like a whole event. I made a few thousand dollars that night. And then I'm like, all right, I want to do more of this. Like, how can I do? And I say, well, me and Joe Rogan have the same birthday. Maybe I should start a podcast, you know? I was a big Joe Rogan fan.

So in June of 2000, yes. Pauls. So you didn't have to do prison time. Okay. So I moved into a new house. And if you've ever done that, you know the air feels a little off at first. Between new paint, new furniture, funky old vents. Who even knows what you're actually breathing in?

That's why I got Jasper and I am absolutely obsessed. It's a medical grade air scrubber. so it doesn't just filter the air, it scrubs it completely clean. Smoke, mold spores, VOCs, chemical fumes, all of it completely gone. I feel so much calmer knowing the air in my home is actually clean. Like I'm not fighting invisible stuff while trying to take care of myself and even all of my animals. Jasper gave me a code for $200 off.

Use insane at jasper.com. That's insane for 200 bucks off. We talk a lot about taking care of our minds on this show. but the air we breathe matters just as much. No, I'm out on bond this whole time. Like, the cases is going on. Yeah. But then I'm just surprised that they let you go in between that time.

Yeah, because I had no criminal record. They gave me bond. Gotcha. You know what I? So, like, the case is pending, but I'm living my life. Okay. Until I get sentenced. Okay, so, but you have no job, basically.

So you're back to, like, square one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so you decide, start a podcast. I started a podcast in June of 2022, which is almost a whole year later. Little by little, I start learning, you know, cameras and shit. I started in an office just with a microphone with no cameras, just audio. And then in September of 2022, I found a studio. I started renting a studio and I had a cat and I actually had video.

And I was like, fuck, yeah, this is what I want to do with my life. This is cool, you know? But at the time, I couldn't tell my story. Gotcha. Because I was out on bond and the case was pending. The case was pending. So it wasn't smart to talk about what happened. So I'm kind of like dipping.

I'm podcasting and now I know that's what I want to do, but I can't do it the way I want to do it, right? So October of 22 rose around. I have a court date. They sentenced me to prison. I get just under a year in prison. Do you know how long the other guy got? Yes, I can tell you.

So this is what the FBI. agent told me. He was going to get 14 years. And he only did two. Damn. Because of how many people he ran on it. Ah, okay. Now, think about this. He got busted in 2018. I got busted in 2021. He got out by the time I got arrested. Think about that. Yeah. Isn't that fucking insane? Anyway. And then you said that it was, yours was a $7 million case. That he started. So remember how I told you he got busted on another case? Yeah. The FBI knew nothing about us. He's the one that's because he was going to face 14 years, he decided, he just told him all the scams he was involved in.

Okay, so that's how you got caught. That's how our case started. Gotcha. Okay. Because of that guy. And did you have to pay anything back or you just had a due time? And it both. So in all fraud cases, you have something called restitution.

Uh-huh. They held, at the end, after I signed my plea agreement and everything, they held me responsible for a little over half a million. and I had to, on paper, I had to pay back $122,000. Okay. Which when you go from making all this money to making nothing, there's a lot of money. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but that didn't happen until after I got out.

That's when I needed to start paying. So anyway, so I get sentenced, but I'm like, man, how can I keep the podcast going while I'm gone? So between October of 2022 and January of 2023, because in January, January, 2023, is when, I had to turn myself into the prison. I recorded a ton of episodes and I scheduled everything to premiere when I was gone. Nice.

Yeah. And I was like, it's a Hail Mary and it's probably not going to work but hopefully one of these things go viral while I'm gone and then, you know, that'll give me some inspiration when I get out. So my sister's 32nd birthday present was dropping off her baby brother at prison.

It's not ideal. I went with my mom, my niece, my nephew, my sister. and they dropped me off at Coleman Federal Prison Camp in Central Florida. They dropped me off. It's like this dramatic thing. The door's closing. They're driving away. They're waving.

You know? The guard tells me to go in a room and fucking spread my ass cheeks and all this shit. And I'm just like, bro, what the fuck, dude? You know? It gives me some clothes. Oh, where you're from? You're Cuban. So prison is very racially divided.

And I'm in minimum. So there's four levels of security in federal. prison. There's minimum security, which is the prison camp, which was where I was at. That's basically your white collar guys, your first-time offenders, non-violent offenders, and drug offenses that have been in prison a while, because even if you're higher custody, like if you behave well, you can go to a lower custody. Then you have your lows. Your lows have offense. Prison camps normally don't have offense. Lows have offense. You're in a real prison now. That's where you start seeing your sex offenders. That's where you start seeing your rapists. That's where you start seeing your murders.

They also work their way down from the higher custody from behaving well, but some of them will never go to a camp because they're violent offender. Then you have your mediums. Mediums are gangland. That's ran by something called politics. They call it politics in there, which is basically just gangs run it. That's where you see like, you know, blacks with the blacks, whites with the whites, with the whites, Hispanics.

And the more west coast you go, the more politically controlled the prison is. So the more West Coast you go, it's like, all right, you're Aryan Brotherhood, you're Serenio, you're a Crip, you're a blood, that kind of shit. There's gangs on the East Coast, but it's not really a big deal. And at minimum security, you knew who was a gang member, but they didn't talk about it. Because they were at risk of getting, like, if they started doing the gang activity there, they'd ship them. They'd take them back to higher custody. So everybody there was chill. You had people who had done a lot of time.

Like I met, I became friends with a guy named Kenny. Kenny had done 32 years at that point. I was 30. I had just turned 30. So I was like, fuck, this guy's been in jail longer than I've been alive. You know, it's crazy. So everybody was respectful. Everybody was cool.

You didn't really have any issues. Everyone was close to going home, so nobody wanted to get in trouble. It was nothing crazy. I'll tell you about one thing that I did see. That was pretty well, but I'll get into that in a minute. So I get there, the Cubans all kind of look out for me. When you get to prison, you have nothing. Literally nothing.

So one gives me a pair of shorts. Another gives me a pair of sneakers. Another one gives me some toothbrush, toothbrush and toothpaste. Another one gives me soap. They all looked out for me in there. And I was very lucky because these were all like older Cubans. They were all like in their 40s and 50s. And they had done time for a while.

So they were good people. Kind of like. And they knew, they could tell. Like when I told them my sentence, they were like, the fuck did you do? Take a stop sign? Yeah, right. Yeah.

Uh-huh. It was cool. Rest in peace to Gadderong. He died after we got up. He had colon cancer. So my first night, I get in the shower. I'm like showering. I take off my shower slippers.

I leave them, the shower slides. I leave them at the end of the stall. The picture, there's like a long hallway. And then on either side, there's these long stalls that go in and you have like a sliding door, kind of like a saloon. Those were the shower stalls. So you had privacy. Like it wasn't like state prison where it's all open. everyone's staring at each other's dicks.

It's not like that. You go in, you have your privacy, you know, dry off come out. So I'm in my shower stall. I'm taking a shower. And I hear this guy Mello. Mello's on his third bid. This time he's doing like 17 years. He's this Puerto Rican guy has a scorpion tattoo across his face like this.

So he's screaming, coo-a, co-wa. He's trying to get, so in prison, especially Puerto Ricans. They call you where you're from. So they call me Cuba because I'm Cuban. So I'm thinking, I'll turn around and I see Mello. Mind you, I had seen Mello in passing. Like, we weren't friends at that point. So I'm just like, bro, what the fuck?

I'm going to die my first night in prison. Fuck, dude. I just got here. And he's like pointing at the floor telling me to put the shower slides on. So I put him on. I finish showering. I go to myself, dry off, get dressed. And Mello goes to myself.

He's like, bro, don't do that. Like, people jerk off and piss in there. What are you doing? That's disgusting. You're going to get fungus on your feet. And I was like, oh, shit. I didn't think. I'm in my head. It's my first day. I'm still like, fuck, I'm in prison. What the fuck?

So, needless to say, I wear my shower slides. Yeah. Gross. It's disgusting. So, yeah, I go to my prison cell in my first night and I'm staring up. I'm sitting on this first bottom bunk of a bunk bed and I'm looking up. And I'm just like, fuck, man, I'm in prison, dude. Like, how'd I get here? I was such in shock You know I just, it was just hard to believe

But I woke up the next day And I was like, all right I'm here Let me try to make the best of this I start making friends I've always been a good judge of character So I know who to not hang around Who to hang around

Who to be friends with And I just started trying to be positive You know, I read like 100 pages of a book I started setting goals So I read 100 pages of a good book every day I worked out three times a day The first workout would be in the morning. I'd play handball.

That'd be my cardio. My second workout would be yoga. I became best friends with my boy G. Shout out to G. He's out too. He's doing things. He's a musician now. He taught me yoga.

And then I'd lift weights right before count time at 4 o'clock. And I just, I did that every day. And I wrote in my journal every day. I started, and you know what's something really cool that happened to me in prison? I reconnected with my imagination. Because we're so simulated by our phones that when I didn't have my phone for a few months, and I was able to write I had the physical experience

of what it was like to get an idea and write it down you know so it did me really good to be away from technology the best way I can describe what prison was for me

was like a time capsule was like going back to the 1970s no phones no internet no none of that shit everything is paper you have to write everything down but it was good for me and I'll say this

another thing that was great was Coleman Federal Prison Camp is in the middle of a forest so there's nothing but greenery nothing but forest and and animals there's literally animals I walk onto the compound like wild hogs and turkeys

and they're like our pets we feed them and shit you know so it was good for me like I remember whenever I was having a bad day I would just walk out into the field and sit like on a picnic table that was by a tree and I would just like you know you know that calm like Bree sound.

It was really good. I would say it's the first time I felt God's presence in my life, for sure. Okay, so I moved into a new house, and if you've ever done that, you know the air feels a little off at first. Between new paint, new furniture, funky old vents, who even knows what you're actually breathing in? That's why I got Jasper, and I am absolutely obsessed. It's a medical grade air scrubber, so it doesn't just filter the air, it scrubs it

completely clean. Smoke, mold spores, VOCs, chemical fumes, all of it completely gone. I feel so much calmer knowing the air in my home is actually clean. Like I'm not fighting invisible stuff while trying to take care of myself and even all of my animals. Jasper gave me a code for $200 off. Use insane at jasper.com.

That's insane for 200 bucks off. We talk a lot about taking care of our minds on this show, but the air we breathe matters just as much. Like I always heard and I didn't, I was an adult. like I didn't doubt people believed in like a god or like a divine being or something but I was like that's never I just yeah it's never happened to me you know and I can say like when I was in prison it was real you know the silence so fucking real dude you know it was just you know it was cool God brought me there you know I needed it and I

met all kinds of great people I'll tell you about one of them my friend Eddie he did he was sentenced to 30 years for drug smuggling he was myself my neighbor my neighboring he was uh he had spent his whole bid reading like all the religious texts he read the the koran he read uh the vedas he read the bible all that shit and um he became like a buddhist and he would ask me all these cool questions he'd be like who are you i'd be like nelson And he say, no, who are you? A man? No, who are you?

And he'd asked me that like a million times until I just didn't. I got it. Like, you are more than all that shit, you know? So, yeah, I mean, there's too many to count. I met. I became really good friends with a guy named Spoon. Spoon was a big time crack dealer back in like the late 90s, early 2000s. Big time.

He became good friends. He looked out for me. He didn't have to. There was a couple of times where, where, some dudes were trying to like pull a fast one on me and he he was good people he looked out shout out to spillman he's doing time in Georgia should be out in a few years hopefully it was uh it's crazy to say but at prison what brought me back to center and of course you know that's where i get the idea to rebrand when i get out right because i hear these fucking insane

stories right because it's one thing for me to be honest about what happened to me but it's another thing for like me to hear these super cool stories you know all these are these fucking drug smugglers and all these Wall Street fraud guys and just all these insane stories. The only way I could have connected to these people is if I went to prison, you know? So basically I do my time and when I get out, one of the one of the YouTube clips had gone crazy. I had gotten like 100,000 views or something. So I mean, to me, now that's nothing. But at the time that to me was like,

mean if we're growing organically with how you even being present. Right, right, right. So I was like, all right, yes. Like, it works. You know, yeah. But this time, what happens is when I get out and I come back, I'm like, hey, guys, I've been in prison this whole time. And then the clips are just going crazy because, you know, people, I guess, like the prison story.

And then immediately I'm kind of getting like a sense of like what direction. I'm like, maybe you should go in that direction, right? eventually I get invited on a really big podcast that's like invites people who did time on and shit and one of the clip one of clip one a clip of me hits like 1.7 million views on TikTok and I was like all right I need to this is this is my lane for sure this is what I need to do so eventually I decided to completely rebrand and that's when I came up with honor among thieves and it's been it's been cool I mean officially I started in March of 2025 so it's been a little over a year and a half And I couldn't have it like my life is better today than what I dreamed of in prison.

Like when I was sitting there in prison and just trying to like picture myself in a better situation and like are the ideal what I want in life, it wasn't as good. Yeah. So I'm very blessed and I'm meeting great people like you. I mean and I'm sure like I'm sure I skipped over a bunch of shit. But yeah, the podcast has been great. Like I've met, I've become friends with super cool people. you know, I'll give you an example. You know how, like, I always worship Scarface, right?

I'm friends with a guy named George Valdez, like friends. Like, he's really good friends. You've seen Cocaine Cowboys? No. I would recommend that. Okay. He's in Cocaine Cowboys. He's one of the guys in the docket series.

He started the cocaine trade in the United States. Wow. They call him the Cocaine Godfather. Uh-huh. Like, this guy was making a million to three million a month in the cocaine trade in 1977. Mm-hmm. he was bringing in 600 kilos a month when the cocaine trade didn't exist. So, like, he's my friend.

He called me two days ago just to say what's up. And so my life is just nuts, dude. I think, too, it allows you to still, because like you said, I think everybody has an interest. It's intriguing to hear these stories and to kind of dip your toes in to, like, understand people's mindset and what they went through. But at the same time, I feel like now you're able to, experience it and hear about it still and still be intrigued by it, but on a legal level and

like a place where you can kind of just appreciate and respect people's mindsets, what they've gone through, where they are now, without having that interest of like, oh, I want to do it. And I think that a lot of that too, like, because I know that you mentioned that people were like, oh, you were young, but, you know, mindset and growth plays a big part. You know, where we are mentally when we're in our teens and even our early 20s, we're a completely different human being than when you're in your 30s and your 40s and you change and you evolve and you grow. And that does make a big difference, you know, age and time and experience. And I think it's good too. Like I always tell people, you know, hearing these types of stories,

even if a younger person is listening and thinks that stuff is cool, it's like they, by hearing a story like yours, it kind of fast forwards them to be like, oh, like, yeah, maybe I don't want to do that. Like it's because a lot of it is glamorized. For sure. That was... And it's good. It's great until it's not. Yeah, it's fun. Until the handcuffs come on.

Trust me. Right, exactly. And then you have nothing. So, oh, I forgot to mention this. Look at how fucking lucky I am, right? The money I needed to pay back, the $120,000. So while I'm on probation, I get a phone call from my probation officer. This bitch was mean.

Like, I didn't like hearing her voice. Yeah. She was a mean person, bro. And whenever she called me, it was never. good news. Right. The last time she called me, she's like, hey, you need to start paying us 15% of your income to pay back this money. Mind you, I'm making like $1,700 a month. Yeah. Because the only job you can find as an ex-con is like shit jobs that nobody wants, right? Right. Or really good jobs and get paid way less because you don't have a choice. That's another thing, man. Getting out

and rebuilding my life was a hundred times harder than prison for sure. Sure. Right. Because you're back in reality. Yeah. You don't have that routine anymore. No. Routine's easy. Yeah. And people don't want to give you a shot. Right. Just don't. So she calls me and she's like, hey. Which is crazy to me because at least they know your background. Like there's people that you hire that have no record, but maybe they could be worse and they just haven't gotten caught or they just do weird shit.

You know, they're fucking pedipiles or something. Like, I never really understood that. Like, I just feel like if somebody's making the effort and wants to work, why wouldn't you? At least give them a shot. Yeah. Because they went to prison. Like, I'm confused. Like, at least just be more, not even more aware.

I don't know. I just feel like you know their background. So why would they want to do something? For sure. I'm of the opinion that at least give them a shot. Like, if they fuck it up, fire them just like you would any employee if they fuck it up. Right.

It's just stupid. But heck, that's the side. It's like when people, like, I mean, it's, I feel like it's not as bad now, but like the whole tattoo thing, people won't want to hire. I love your taxes, well. Oh, thank you. But yeah. It's like, people judge a book by its cover all the time.

You know, I'm going to tell you a quick story about that. A friend of mine, a girl that was trying to find a job when she got out, I referred her to a friend of mine that was looking for people, and she had a background, like job history in that kind of field. She was perfect. But I told the guy ahead of time, like, listen, she's my friend. Like, she just got out of prison. She's going to tell you that.

And I'm telling you that before she even goes. Is that okay? Yeah, yeah, we don't care. my friend was the manager but she did the interview with the head HR guy right so I guess my friend like he just wasn't involved in the hiring process and like the dude made her feel really bad really bad she found out and he's like listen we don't hire fucking criminals here get out like like how dare you walk to my room in the door like bad and I was like bro didn't I tell you And he's like, man, look, I'm so sorry.

I wasn't in the interview. Somebody else took to my boss. And I was like, listen, let's do this. Tell him that you're trying to hire me and put me in there. Right? And I pretend that I was applying for a job and I go in there. And I was like, hey, man, you just interviewed this lady, right? Oh, yeah, she was a criminal.

I was like, yeah, well, guess what? I'm one of those criminals. I'm one of the criminals that, you know, you don't like or whatever. You know what? I don't like 500 fucking pound pigs. like you, stop eating McDonald's, you fucking fat bitch. How about how would you like it if you walked in my fucking company and I told you, hey, I don't hire fat people.

You wouldn't like that, would you? You're probably a great employee. You probably do great other things like you have good skills. But because you're fat, I'm judging you. You did the same thing with her, bro. You judge her just because he has a criminal record. Give her a shot. That's your gangster nowadays.

That's like, that's how it comes out now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. For legal way. I just stick up for people. Yeah. Like, that's not cool. And that was bad.

He called the cops and everything. I mean, but the cops couldn't arrest me. I didn't assault him or anything. Yeah. Just gave him your peace of mind. Yeah, for sure. Because I don't need a job. Right.

You know, what are you going to do? But, yeah, getting out and rebuilding my life was way harder than getting indicted and going to prison and all that shit. No one wanted to give me a shot. I had to prove myself. I mean, I always had the podcast. That's what I wanted to do long term. But you and I both know this takes time. Yeah.

So, you know, finding a job in the interim and survive. and all that, it was tough. But, you know, through the grace of God. Here you are. Here we are. That's amazing. For sure. So where can people find your podcast? You can find, if you go to type in Honor Among Thieves Podcast anywhere, you'll find it. website, Nour Among Thieves Podcast.com. Honor Among Thieves podcast on Spotify, Honor Among Thieves podcast on YouTube, Apple, Honor Among Thieves podcast on Instagram. And you said you have a book, right? I do, yeah. But it's old. It's antiquated because it doesn't talk about my case or what I do now. Gotcha.

I'm writing a second book. I was going to say, you should. Yeah. Now I'm going to write like with a full story. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's incredible.

Definitely. And that's the thing too with like, I mean, you know this now, I'm sure, but with doing things on social media, whether it's a podcast or just anything like this, I feel like there's so many different avenues where you can kind of expand and there's more opportunity. And I feel like if your book did well then, it's going to only do better now. Right. And you also can be your own biggest promoter, which is great. For sure, yeah.

And not only from a commercial standpoint, like monetary success, but now my vision is so much bigger for what I want to do. Absolutely. Well, you see that it can go so much further beyond than what you expect. For sure, yeah. Like I've met all these people. The podcast basically has become a filter to find stories that I really want to work on. So now it's kind of like I have all this gear.

It's not just for podcasting. Now I can make documentaries or make a movie. I can do all kinds of stuff. I know. It's endless. Yeah. That's amazing. I'm so grateful that you wanted to come on here and share your story. It's very, it's so intriguing to listen to genuinely. You're such a great storyteller. Thank you. I feel like when you were talking about like your mansion parties and everything like that, it's like you can literally picture it. It's hilarious. But no, I think it's really important and incredible. And it's a great mix between important but also entertaining. It could definitely be a show. For sure. And definitely you should write, like I said, you should. glad you're doing another book. Thank you.

I think people really enjoy that. Yeah, yeah. I hope I bring it out sooner than later. It's called The Soul of a Man. Nice. It's actually my prison journal. Okay. Cool.

It's the account of every day. I literally wrote in my journal like three, four times a day. Yeah. So yeah. Hey guys. Don't forget about We're All Insane Plus where you can get access to bonus episodes and early releases on Fridays to every Sunday's episode. You can subscribe an app on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.

or visit we're All Insane.com. This family is on the brink of Civil War. Mobland, the hit original series is now streaming on Paramount Plus. We are the Harrogans. Don't know than it? And Google us. From the underworld of Guy Ritchie. Do you want to step up the ladder? I won't come up dead.

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