#1576 - Mariana van Zeller

[0] Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

[1] The Joe Rogan Experience.

[2] Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[3] We did that?

[4] We'd do the podcast before.

[5] What year was it?

[6] 10 years ago.

[7] Wow, that's crazy.

[8] You were one of the first guests that I remember going, I got to talk to that lady.

[9] I go, we got to find them because the piece of the OxyContin Express that you did.

[10] I'm like, that was a mind -blower.

[11] That was when I first found out about what was going to.

[12] going on, the pill mills down in Florida.

[13] I was like, that is fucking insane.

[14] And that was like in the beginning of the podcast, the early days.

[15] It was, yeah.

[16] You reached out to me on Twitter and I was super excited.

[17] Is that what it was?

[18] It's like, do you want to come on the show?

[19] I was like, fuck yeah.

[20] Yeah.

[21] Well, I love your new show.

[22] First of all, tell people what it is, what it's called and how they can.

[23] For sure.

[24] It's called Trafficked.

[25] It's on Wednesdays, 9 p .m. on National Geographic.

[26] And in every episode, we go on a journey, a while journey into black markets.

[27] around the world.

[28] You do real boots on the ground investigative journalism.

[29] You are a fucking gangster woman.

[30] The shit that you did in Peru and in Colombia, I was watching that episode on cocaine.

[31] My hands were sweating watching you do this.

[32] It's like you were, you went to the places where they're growing it, to the places where they make it.

[33] Ooh.

[34] Yeah, that was, you marched with the people that carry.

[35] it through the route when they're carrying it in their backpacks yeah I was like oh my god like you're risking your life like genuinely risking your life I don't like to see it that way you know no story is worth a life so I hate I hate you know we minimize the risk but you know there's these are important stories to tell these black markets are happening all around us they're super widespread I think we have this idea that they're happening in sort of far away lands and deep and secret locations but they're not and they have a real impact on our lives.

[36] So there is a reason why we do the kind of reporting.

[37] And you're right, you know, boots on the ground, old school journalism, I think is more important now than ever.

[38] And we are seeing less of it nowadays.

[39] It's so hard to do.

[40] I mean, to find someone willing to do what you did for that cocaine episode.

[41] I watched it last night.

[42] I was, I was sweating.

[43] I was like nervous.

[44] I was riveted.

[45] It's such a, it's such a dangerous, but yet it's so, much more illuminating than any other kind of journalism.

[46] You could say, oh, this is happening in Colombia.

[47] Oh, this is happening in Peru.

[48] And I'll just sit at home going, oh, I guess that's happening in Colombia.

[49] But to see you who I know there, going there, and to see all the stuff that you had to go through to meet with these people and to gain their trust.

[50] Yeah.

[51] I would say also I would add to that that, you know, we did Mexico with fentanyl.

[52] We did guns.

[53] here in the U .S. going to Mexico.

[54] We did tigers in Asia and all these different scams in Jamaica and Israel.

[55] And I think a big important reason or goal for us with this show, and for me in particular, because it's the way that I approach my job and my career as a journalist, is to not only be there to inform of what's happening, like you were saying, but also I think it's important for people to connect to people in these faraway lands.

[56] That at first glance, we have nothing in common, right?

[57] These are the bad guys operating in far distant lands or maybe sometimes around us, but they're considered the bad people, the people that we have nothing in common with.

[58] But if you actually sit down with them and listen to their stories, and this is the big shocker of this show, and I think it rubs people the wrong way sometimes when you admit or when somebody tells you that, look, actually there is not a lot that differentiates you from the guy smuggling cocaine out of the Peru, the Vrain Valley in Peru.

[59] You both have the same, are motivated by the same goals, which is, you know, happiness, an opportunity in life, a chance for, you know, to reach your dreams.

[60] And unless you actually look at it this way and start realizing that that is more often than not the case, of course there's a lot of bad people there doing it for greed and solely greed.

[61] That also happens.

[62] And I spent a lot of time with those people as well.

[63] But unless you start understanding sort of the root causes of what leads people into these lives, you're never going to be able to address black markets.

[64] Well, you really did a fantastic job of getting close to these people and talking to them, like, you know, they were talking about their family, they were talking about their children, the one guy who is the chemist who wants to get out because he wants to go to school and they're like, this is my last year.

[65] It's horrible.

[66] That story alone, we spent the night with these these mochilleros, these backpackers, teenagers who carry the loads of cocaine on their back out of the valley and spending time with them and, you know, really dangerous work.

[67] They tell us stories about how they hike for days on end out of the Amazon, the Braim Valley, to a place where then it's sent out into outside of the country, to Europe and to the United States.

[68] And you spend time with these guys and you listen to them and it's incredibly dangerous work too.

[69] They've seen their best friends being killed in front of them.

[70] And I asked them, so why?

[71] Why will you ever want to do something like this?

[72] You know, and he's like, look, very simple.

[73] I grew up in a very poor family.

[74] I always wanted to go to college.

[75] I knew that the only job opportunities, the whole economy is essentially sustained by the growing of coca leaves, production of cocaine, and smuggling of cocaine.

[76] So the only job opportunity here I had was this.

[77] And I asked him, why do you want to go to college so badly?

[78] Perhaps it's a stupid question.

[79] But he said, you know, because I want to be a dentist.

[80] And I said, why a dentist?

[81] Because I want to make people smile.

[82] And this just is like, these are the moments that I think will really stay with me. And it was so genuine.

[83] Like the experience was so raw, like all of it from showing the families growing the coca leaves.

[84] And I learned something from it.

[85] I always assumed that it was the organized crime cartels that were growing the coca leaves.

[86] But no, it's these families, these very poor families that are growing these coca leaves.

[87] and drying them out by the road where everyone can see.

[88] So you have children playing.

[89] You have these very poor people that are growing this crop, and the vast majority of it is sold to the cartels, and they're not selling it for a lot of money either.

[90] No, not at all.

[91] It's never the people at the bottom that are making money.

[92] It's always the people at the top.

[93] It's crazy that these are the people that are growing it.

[94] Yeah.

[95] This whole valley has been growing coca for thousands of years.

[96] It's what they do.

[97] And it's also crazy that the thing itself, the coca leaf, like there's actually been people that have made a really good argument that not only should that stuff be legal, but it's probably good for you.

[98] Yeah, the coca leaf alone, if it is not made into cocaine.

[99] It's if you, they chew it, you know, you go to the Andes and all around, they actually chew the coca leaf.

[100] I had an opportunity to do that.

[101] there was a moment where one of them, I mean, you do it.

[102] It helps you without high altitude sickness, and it helps you gain more energy.

[103] And when we were filming with a group, they actually wanted me to try some.

[104] I had tried some before, but I did it as well then.

[105] And it tastes, it's actually, it doesn't taste, it's kind of tastes like a leaf, quite frankly.

[106] But you do feel a little bit more energy.

[107] And there's nothing, there's nothing illegal about that, by the way.

[108] That's completely something that's been doing, they've been, it's been the tradition in this area for, you know, thousands of years.

[109] And when you did it, like what gave you energy?

[110] Like, what did it feel like?

[111] It's not like a bump of cocaine.

[112] Have you done a bump of cocaine?

[113] I actually have not.

[114] You know, it's so funny, because I spent my entire life reporting on drugs and the drug trade.

[115] And I am, you know, people, you know, like do crazy shit for a living.

[116] And yet I am terrified of drugs.

[117] I think partly because I've seen how they're done.

[118] Well, after the OxyCon Express and seeing how many people's lives are destroyed by a legal drug, I could imagine why you would want to avoid the ones that are illegal.

[119] I've never done coke either.

[120] That's why I'm asking.

[121] Oh, you haven't?

[122] No, never.

[123] I think we're some of the only two people.

[124] I took tea once, matte de Coca tea.

[125] Have you ever had that?

[126] Made with Coca -leaves, yeah.

[127] And I couldn't shut the fuck up.

[128] Really?

[129] Which is a problem already.

[130] That's a problem with me too.

[131] That's exactly my problem, is that I am high energy all the time.

[132] If I were to do cocaine, then I don't think anyone could take me. Exactly.

[133] Exactly.

[134] My friend Jimmy in high school, when we're young, one of his buddies was selling Coke, and he just looked at me and he goes, you should never do this stuff.

[135] I go, why?

[136] He goes, because I think you'd love it.

[137] And I'm like, okay.

[138] That's partly my problem, too.

[139] I'm afraid that I'm going to like.

[140] I think everybody loves it.

[141] I think it makes you feel amazing.

[142] I mean, there's got to be a reason why it's so popular.

[143] You know, I've smoked weed and I hated it, actually.

[144] It made me totally paranoid.

[145] Again, probably one of the only ones.

[146] I smoked it for the first time when I was 18 and all my friends had smoked weed before.

[147] It was actually, it was, what do you call it?

[148] In Portugal, it's not weed.

[149] It's stuff that comes from Morocco hash.

[150] And made me totally paranoid.

[151] And I didn't smoke weed a few times.

[152] And again, it just doesn't.

[153] I once ate happy pizza in Cambodia.

[154] That was a funny story.

[155] Happy pizza with marijuana?

[156] Yeah, I had no idea.

[157] I had marijuana, though.

[158] I was filming there and the people that I was with were saying, you can just have this.

[159] And I spent the entire night.

[160] thinking that they wanted to come after and rape me and do all sorts of things it was both scariest night yeah it's uh it's not something you should just dive right into i tell anybody if you if you've if you never smoked pot and you're thinking about doing it just take a tiny bit the point where you don't even think it's working like that's what you want you want like this ready that's it just a little just a little and if you can handle that a couple hours later or the next day, then take a little bit more.

[161] But don't take like five hits and don't smoke hash.

[162] Oh my God.

[163] Hash is crazy.

[164] It's crazy.

[165] That's like really concentrated.

[166] I know.

[167] That's all we had growing up in Portugal.

[168] We didn't have weed.

[169] You're not playing games in Portugal.

[170] You know it's one of the only countries in the world was the first one to decriminalize drugs.

[171] With spectacular results.

[172] Spectacular results.

[173] Yeah, that's really, that was one of the things that I wanted to bring up with you.

[174] because it's so it's such a complicated issue drugs and it's so sad to see from your program to see these poor farmers to these kids who are the chemists who are putting it together and then carrying it out on the backpack and one of the chemists was actually one of the guys who was actually carrying it on his back too which is even crazy and he jumped into the car the first night that we got access to this illicit lab where we've been trying for so long to get this access and suddenly We're driving in the middle of the night to go up to this area where we're supposed to meet him.

[175] And suddenly the guy driving our car, our guide basically stops the car.

[176] The door opens.

[177] This guy jumps in and they're speaking in Spanish.

[178] And I interrupt and say, what's happening?

[179] Who are you?

[180] You know, our car has all our gear and my team.

[181] And he is like, oh, sorry, sorry.

[182] Hi, I'm the chemist.

[183] I'm the one who's going to take you down to my cocaine lab.

[184] Is the guy who's driving, is his name, Cevice?

[185] Yeah.

[186] That's his real name?

[187] Yeah, that is his, I mean, that's his nickname.

[188] Oh, like, Taco.

[189] Yeah, I'm in front of Dan's name, his nickname Taco.

[190] Yeah.

[191] So when you first started to put this show together, how did you make these connections?

[192] Like, how do you do that without revealing sources?

[193] Yeah, for sure.

[194] It's been, I've been doing it for over 15 years, right?

[195] So I've been working in the underworld and black markets almost my whole career as a journalist.

[196] So I have connections in a lot of places.

[197] But mostly we really rely a lot on local journalists.

[198] They're really sort of the unsung heroes of our industry.

[199] They usually don't get the credit.

[200] And they're usually the ones that have the most to lose if something goes wrong.

[201] So we protect the people that talk to us, our sources.

[202] We take that very seriously.

[203] We disguise their faces.

[204] We make sure they're okay with what they look like.

[205] We change their voices.

[206] We don't reveal locations.

[207] I mean, it's a lot of work put into making absolutely sure that no one, you know, that law enforcement isn't going to find them.

[208] And that's because that's what you do as a journalist.

[209] You're there to witness and to reports and inform.

[210] What is their motivation to help you?

[211] I think it's three reasons.

[212] One is ego.

[213] These are some of the best, the best of what they do.

[214] You know, the best we filmed with one of the best guys that finishing fake U .S. dollars in Peru.

[215] He was by hand, you know, note by note, finishing each single one of them to make you.

[216] look and smell and feel and taste like a real dollar.

[217] And he's the best at what he does, and nobody knows what he does.

[218] His family doesn't know.

[219] And so we give them an opportunity to disguise their identity and to sort of boast and talk about what they're passionate about.

[220] You know, the same with the chemists, the same with the senaloa chemists that we filmed making fentanyl in front of us.

[221] So I think partly it's that.

[222] Then it's impunity.

[223] And a lot of these parts of the world where we filmed, there's complete impunity.

[224] So they don't see really a downside to talking to an international recognized name like Nageo.

[225] And there's trust there as well.

[226] And then lastly, and I think more surprising for me, but I think it's the biggest reason we were given constantly is this idea that they know they're considered the bad people.

[227] They know they're the most shunned people in our society.

[228] And we're giving them an opportunity to tell their story and how, you know, people.

[229] people really want others to know, to know why they fall into a life of crime or why they become outlaws.

[230] And that, you know, it was a really big goal for me in this documentary, was to even, again, the people that are more, that we think have nothing in common with us, actually do.

[231] And no matter how far you travel into the fringes of our society, that you can still find people that are redeemable and relatable.

[232] We're just lucky if we live here.

[233] We're just lucky.

[234] You're just lucky that you're born in, you know, if you live in Austin, you're lucky you're born here.

[235] If you live in L .A. or San Francisco, you're lucky.

[236] You're lucky.

[237] You're lucky.

[238] Absolutely.

[239] I say that all the time.

[240] We won the lottery ticket and I don't think most people, if you don't travel and you don't experience this, like I've been privileged to, I don't think we realize that.

[241] We're not grateful enough for that.

[242] I think it needs to be shown in a, like what you showed in that cocaine episode, you see these people, you see these children playing on that car and, you know, and hanging out by these cocoa leaves that are being dried out.

[243] And you realize like, oh, this is, this is not what I thought it was.

[244] This isn't, you know, some movie where you got these bad guys that are, you know, guarding the farm with machine guns.

[245] Like, this is not it.

[246] Like, you just have poor farmers.

[247] Yeah.

[248] I mean, that exists too.

[249] You know, we filmed a lot of armed guards protecting their money in their operations as well, but I would say that in the vast majority of cases, it really is the lack of opportunities.

[250] I really don't believe that anyone is born one day and decides, hey, you know, what I want to do is I want to become a cicario for the Sinaloa cartel and be killed when I'm 25 years old.

[251] I want to kill people and be killed when I'm 25, which happened.

[252] The poverty was, it was obvious even in the people that were protecting their crops and everything like they have poor they have shitty old guns with like iron sights on them and and shitty rifles yeah yeah you can see like this is not some like super sophisticated operation of it's uh it's taking advantage of people that or or is it even it's just like this is the ecosystem right and the ecosystem this is what i was going to get at before only exists because drugs are illegal and if the ecosystem was different if drugs were legal and then all I mean how long would it take how many decades would it have to take before a large pharmaceutical company or some alcohol company or a tobacco company said fuck it let's grow coke and then just started selling it legally like 100 % pure cocaine the price would probably drop it would be much more accessible would people do it more is the question.

[253] You know, that's what we're seeing with the marijuana business in California right now.

[254] Yeah.

[255] It was legalized.

[256] And what's happening is that the people that have been operating these at the time illegal shops for weed and operations for weed are now being kicked out of the business.

[257] And there's all these bigger companies coming in and taking you know, taking away the business for them from them.

[258] Well, there's a little bit of that.

[259] But there's still a lot of people that are just growing it now.

[260] And it's not just big businesses.

[261] I know a lot of people that grow pot.

[262] It's a lot of small businesses too.

[263] And doing so illegally still.

[264] The black market is still huge in California for weed because people don't want to pay taxes.

[265] Well, that was the thing up in Humboldt, you know, like in the Emerald Triangle or whatever they call it up there.

[266] Like, they didn't want any part.

[267] Like, there's people out there that grew pot that voted against it being legalized.

[268] And, you know, I have friends that were trying to explain it to me. They're like, we don't want this to be legal.

[269] I'm like, you are cutting off your nose despite your face.

[270] like you're missing the whole I get you don't want to pay taxes but do you do you like living under the threat of being locked in a cage and do you think that the other people that grow it and sell it or the other people that even possess it but don't you don't you want progress in this regard where kids can grow up and become adults in a world where you have autonomy you have control over your body you have the freedom because like I was saying to this one one guy I was like he was anti -marijuana we had this conversation and I said okay what do you think it should be illegal it goes yeah I go do you understand what illegal means it means you can put someone in jail for doing something that you don't agree with it doesn't hurt anybody other than yourself right other than the person that's doing it like why would if it was just two of us the only two people in the world and you thought pot should be illegal and you made the rule and I wanted smoke pot you would lock me in a cage does that make sense no it doesn't so why does it make sense if there's 200 million people or two billion people it doesn't it doesn't make sense with adults adults should be able to do whatever if you could go buy whiskey which I like whiskey you should be able to buy whiskey why why can't you buy pot it makes no sense and we know whiskey will fuck you up we know there's a reason why alcoholics anonymous exists right people have huge problems with alcohol why why can't we figure out how to do that with these other compounds and they're trying to do that in Oregon.

[271] You know, Oregon just legalized everything.

[272] They decriminalize everything, including steroids.

[273] They decriminalize psychedelics.

[274] They decriminalize everything, which is going to be very weird to see how that works up there.

[275] Well, you have the example of Portugal, though, right?

[276] And again, it's worked really well.

[277] Incarceration rates have gone down, AIDS, which was high, went down, all the money that the government was spending on incarcerating people they're now spending on rehab centers and making sure that people get the health they need.

[278] And this is hard drugs.

[279] I'm not talking about weed, of course.

[280] I'm talking about heroin.

[281] Yeah.

[282] And people with addictions, that's gone down as well.

[283] It's really crazy.

[284] It's been, it's been, there's a problem with people, too, that if you tell them they can't do something, they want to do it.

[285] If you tell them something's illegal, they want to be naughty.

[286] Also, there's a lot of money.

[287] I think mostly it's about the money that's to be made with an illegal business.

[288] Yes.

[289] And I'm not just talking about the traffickers.

[290] I'm talking about corruption.

[291] I'm talking about where all that money ends up.

[292] But in this, what I wanted to get to is like in doing this show and seeing these people from the poor farmers to these kids that are risking their lives and the, like as you said, seeing their friends get murdered for this drug and they're making a tiny fraction of the profit off of this to getting to these nightclubs.

[293] And even the guy that you showed in Miami that was selling Coke, like even he was making a pittance in comparison to the cartels.

[294] comparison to it it's just disheartening it's like they i know they're trying to get by and i know i'm like the guy was talking about like feeding his family you know but you're also you're you're you're in this horrible system that you're probably never going to get out and if you do get out what are you going to do now hey mike uh it says here for the last 15 years you've done nothing like what have been doing oh i've been selling coke right like you can't say that like i managed to get out of the game without getting shot and killed so I'm on the straight and narrow like well thank you for your time like no one's going to hire you I get so much flack for that for showing that side for humanizing this I definitely I get comments on my work sometimes you know especially since the show started airing where people reach out and say and you know there's their stories you know I understand part of it it's for example the one the first one that we aired we aired the first two were the scams episode and then the fentanyl one where we follow the pipeline of fentanyl all the way from the coast of Mexico where we saw we filmed the precursor chemicals that come from Asia being thrown overboard and then we filmed a speedboat that belongs to the cartel or cartel operators picking up these barrels and then moving them eventually to a lab we saw fentanyl being made we saw then fentanyl being packed and then eventually at the end we saw it being smuggled into California from Mexico.

[295] And we were there when a woman, in this case, she was pregnant, American citizen, drove into the United States with five kilos of fentanyl inside, hidden inside her car.

[296] And there was a moment where she actually gets called for secondary inspection, and we're close to her.

[297] We're filming, I mean, we're not filming her because we're keeping the cameras low, but I'm watching what is happening.

[298] And as you know, I've been reporting on the opiate crisis for many years, and I've spent numerous amount, countless times with mothers who've lost loved ones to the opiate epidemic.

[299] So to me, that was very hard on my shoulders, the idea that on one hand I was seeing this woman, and I knew she had kids, she was pregnant, and I knew what that meant for her family if she got caught.

[300] And on the other hand, I also knew what would that mean for American families if the drugs went across and what came through.

[301] So it was a really hard time for me as a journalist, and I think I get flack for that, for no not being absolutely clear that, you know, I think people would prefer if I was just, okay, these are bad people, and because there's so much suffering around some of these traits, right, such as fentanyl, and even cocaine, that I think people just have an easier time in life thinking of the world as black and white, that they are bad people.

[302] We would never do that, you know, us in that position would never do that.

[303] And I think it's a harder, more challenging look of life if you realize that actually it's a lot more gray and that people are a lot lot more similar to us.

[304] Well, I think that's one of the reasons why your work is so important because you do take those risks and you do show the, the human side of the people that we like to demonize.

[305] We like to demonize them and think of them as being just evil, this evil scourge that comes from these other places to our good place.

[306] Yeah.

[307] And I was there to witness it and I didn't do anything to stop it is usually what I get told.

[308] They're foolish.

[309] The people that are saying that are foolish and I understand their perspective as well I understand especially if they have loved ones that they've lost to fentanyl and I know people I know people that have died from it and I know people that have problems with it and not just problems it's like ruin their lives I know people that have had injuries and then from that injury they just went down a road and never returned and they went down a road with the doctor prescribed opiates and they never came back and they're never the same again.

[310] Yeah.

[311] And now they're addicts.

[312] Yeah.

[313] And it's the most helpless feeling.

[314] And if it's family members and if someone you care about, it's, you don't know what you can do.

[315] You don't, no one, they don't want to listen.

[316] They're lost.

[317] And you will lose your life trying to help them.

[318] You will lose your life if you try to pick them up and wake them up every day and take them to a rehab and take them.

[319] You'll lose your life because there's not, you can't babysit an adult.

[320] So what do you do?

[321] And so I see the perspective from the person that's saying, you should do something.

[322] You should have stopped it.

[323] I do too, but I'm a journalist, right?

[324] But you have to do it the way you do it because there's not that many people doing it.

[325] The way you do it, there's very, very few people that are willing to show it raw like that.

[326] And that's what people need to see.

[327] We need to understand that this is like a super complex issue.

[328] Do you remember there was a really corny drug ad, one of those say no to drug ads?

[329] from the Bush administration, I believe.

[330] I think it was the Bush administration, where there was this guy who was one of these silly sort of like Just the Fax Man, Republicans, and they're eating in a restaurant, and the guy's eating.

[331] He's like, he goes, if you buy drugs, you support terrorism.

[332] And he's like, what?

[333] Like, what are you saying?

[334] It was when the terrorism craze, like, I believe it was post -9 -11.

[335] Oh, wow.

[336] And he goes, why do you say that?

[337] he goes because it's a fact it's a fact and that's it like no stats no nothing but this guy who a lot of people represents your father or your boss this like really like cold sort of like fact based no nonsense super successful guy who's telling this fool this liberal fool if you buy drugs you support terrorism and it was like the weirdest campaign and it's it's didn't work and people mocked it.

[338] Oh, surprising.

[339] Well, it's just, but this is the attitude that people have.

[340] Like, you should stop them.

[341] You should stop them.

[342] Without ever questioning what, why are, what?

[343] What you're doing is so important because you're showing, you're showing human beings who got handed like a terrible role of the dice, a bad hand of cards.

[344] That's it.

[345] And they're stuck in this very poor village in Peru with dirt roads and no money.

[346] and no opportunity and no way out.

[347] And this is what most of the people do.

[348] They grow coca.

[349] And we can either choose to ignore it and pretend it's not there and just keep on demonizing these people and keep on consuming and keep on buying because that's why it's because there's demand or else it wouldn't exist.

[350] Or we can actually go and shine a light and try to understand why they happen why these people turn to black markets and why the trade exists and try to do something about it.

[351] Well, in a lot of ways, it's as gross as it sounds.

[352] I think that is Your expose on this is one of the best arguments for legalization To show people, yes, this is all horrible However, you're not going to stop people From doing drugs.

[353] People have been doing drugs Since the beginning of time.

[354] If you say people shouldn't do drugs Because drugs are bad Because it's a fact If you're one of those guys, Like, okay, simple You've just taken One of the most complex, nuanced problems the world has ever known.

[355] Human beings love to perturb their consciousness.

[356] They've been doing it forever.

[357] Monkeys do it.

[358] They drink fermented fruit.

[359] They eat things that they know can get them high.

[360] Fucking Jaguars do it in the Amazon.

[361] They eat leaves.

[362] They know are psychedelic and they lie down and trip out.

[363] Animals love to do it.

[364] Humans are animals.

[365] We're never going to stop.

[366] And as long as there's legal drugs, too, by the way, there's so many drugs, like just coffee, right?

[367] Cigarettes.

[368] You wanted a cigarette before the show started.

[369] Hey, Joe.

[370] Sorry, I rad you out.

[371] It's only when I get nervous.

[372] I get it.

[373] But, I mean, look, these are drugs.

[374] These are all drugs.

[375] There's so many drugs.

[376] You know, is that a, like, a valid parallel?

[377] You know, coffee and cocaine?

[378] No, I don't think it is.

[379] But it's also a drug.

[380] Alcohol, tobacco, all these different prescription drugs.

[381] These are all drugs.

[382] I don't think that we can keep doing what we're doing and pretending that we're doing the right thing.

[383] Yeah, and spending billions of dollars in the process of trying to combat something.

[384] You know, the drug war, you know, the U .S. has spent billions of dollars in something that has been a huge failure.

[385] Yeah.

[386] A huge failure.

[387] Like, violence is increasing in Mexico every year.

[388] The drugs are coming across easier than ever.

[389] Yeah.

[390] So it's not making a dent, you know.

[391] It really isn't.

[392] No, it's propping up organized crime.

[393] The same thing that happened in America during the prohibition.

[394] I mean, that's where Al Capone got all his money.

[395] That's where the Kennedys, allegedly, not necessarily true, right?

[396] Supposedly not.

[397] I think they got a good PR agent, these motherfuckers.

[398] But whoever was profiting off of moonshine and illegal whiskey, they're still selling it.

[399] You know, speakeas were still open.

[400] You had a special knock on the door, and you had to know somebody, but they were still drinking.

[401] People like to drink.

[402] I don't do Coke and you don't do Coke.

[403] So you and I, we could look at this, I think, as objectively as possible.

[404] I think it should be legal.

[405] I don't want my children to do it.

[406] I don't want my friends to get addicted to it.

[407] Neither do I, yeah.

[408] But I also think maybe the only way we're going to really resolve it is if you have treatment centers and rehabilitation that are funded by the profit off of legalized cocaine and heroin and all these other drugs.

[409] If we had, look, if heroin is legal tomorrow, I'm not going to fucking do heroin.

[410] I don't want to do heroin, but it is legal.

[411] In Oxycontin, that's basically the same thing, right?

[412] There should be, if you want to make sense of this, there should be some sort of a percentage of the profits that has to go to rehabilitation centers.

[413] And then there's another one, Ibogame.

[414] Ibogaine has been proven to be the very best method for many people, for kicking addictions.

[415] And not just addictions of chemicals, but addictions of like endogenous chemicals, like gambling.

[416] Like people that are gambling addicts have found great relief with Ibegain.

[417] People that are addicted to alcohol, people that are addicted to a lot of different controlled substances, have found amazing relief through Ibegain.

[418] Ibogaine is not something you get addicted to.

[419] It is a ruthlessly introspective drug, and you have to go to Mexico to do it.

[420] There's Ibegain clinics.

[421] My friend Ed Clay, he started a clinic down in Mexico.

[422] because he got hooked on pills because he got hurt and he wanted to figure out how to get off of him, found out about Ibogaine, did it, it was so mind -blowing, he decided to open up a clinic.

[423] Wow, I knew it was for, I didn't know, I thought it was just for opiates.

[424] I had no idea that it cured, it helped cure so many of the...

[425] A lot of personality disorders.

[426] Wow.

[427] Yeah, a lot of people, there's a lot of weird addictions that people have that are, in many ways, connected to trauma.

[428] You know, Gabor Monti thinks that almost all addiction is connected to childhood trauma, and he makes a very compelling argument about it.

[429] And it's interesting to hear him discuss it because everyone that I know that's an addict has had a fucked up childhood.

[430] You know, it kind of makes sense.

[431] There's something there that was off and wrong or there's abuse or there's something.

[432] And a lot of soldiers.

[433] There's a ton of soldiers that come back and they have severe PTSD.

[434] And then on top of that, they have CTE.

[435] So they have like legitimate trauma, physical trauma to their brain.

[436] And they wound up getting addicted.

[437] And they also get injured in the field a lot, and then they're given oxy cottons and other painkillers.

[438] And, yeah, it's a recipe for disaster, really.

[439] But we have this sort of, we're like a cat.

[440] Like my cat used to play this game where he would hide, but he would hide and his tail would be sticking out.

[441] And I'm like, bitch, I see you.

[442] But if he couldn't see me, he thought I couldn't see him.

[443] And I'd grab his tail and he poke his head out and swat at me. And then he'd go back in there.

[444] I'm like, bitch, I see you.

[445] And we would play games, you know.

[446] But it was fun.

[447] But I would laugh, but like, I think he thinks that I can't see him because he can't see me. Like, it's a childish game, but it's a fucking cat, right?

[448] We're playing this same kind of stupid game.

[449] You know, it's like we're pretending that drugs are illegal.

[450] When drugs are everywhere, we're pretending we're stopping drugs by keeping him illegal, but we're just propping up organized crime.

[451] It's so much worse.

[452] This simplistic approach to it, this childlike approach to it, is there is not a single intelligent person if you laid out the facts and they looked at it objectively would think that this is a successful method of handling this.

[453] Yeah, and we keep spending money, you know?

[454] We keep pretending that we don't know that what we're doing and the billions of dollars we're spending on this is we're pretending that it's making a difference and it really isn't.

[455] And we have a war on it.

[456] This is the shittiest war that the United States has ever fought.

[457] If you think we did a bad job in Vietnam and Afghanistan, but at least we didn't, like the war on drugs, drugs has been a loss.

[458] Like, they've lost every year.

[459] They've never won the war on drugs.

[460] When you showed those Coast Guard people, that was incredibly illuminating because the way that guy described it, where he said, you're dealing with an area that we patrol that's larger than the United States, and we have about four boats.

[461] Yeah.

[462] You're like, what?

[463] He's like, imagine four police cars patrolling the entire United States.

[464] Then you know how these drugs are getting in.

[465] Yeah, you know, I've spent a lot of time with law enforcement and you hear their stories and, you know, they're really out there and the front lines trying to make a difference, most of them.

[466] And again and again, you hear just how frustrating their job is because they know, you know, that they're really not making a dent.

[467] But I think it's also hard to admit in many ways because this is their lives and their livelihoods that if you talk to law enforcement, even now, I actually just did a story for season two about we, black market weed in California.

[468] And even now, you know, they will tell you that that's, they think that it shouldn't have been legalized because they have a point.

[469] Black market weed has only exploded since legalization, but I don't think that not making legal is, it's really about the regulations that are in place in California.

[470] Sounds like they're thinking like cops.

[471] The real problem is my friend John Norris, who's been on the podcast before, he is a game warden.

[472] and he got a job as a game warden because he loves the outdoors and he thought he was just going to check people's fishing licenses and things along those lines.

[473] Oh, yeah.

[474] And along the way, he started finding these grow ops on public land.

[475] And so his department became a tactical drug enforcement department to fight cartels who are illegally growing marijuana.

[476] And so they have like trained Belgian Malamois who attack these cartels.

[477] they get shot at he's lost members of his team like they're like a tactical group now and he wrote a drug was it hidden hidden war was that what the uh the book we have it at the old studio we spent the summer actually filming that those operations um it's crazy yeah and his take is that what happened was when they made marijuana legal what they did was they made growing it illegally a misdemeanor so in most of the country marijuana is still illegal in most states right so if you have 50 states how many states is like 19 or something where it's legal how many states is it legal 80 % of all of the marijuana supplied to the states where it's illegal is grown in california and it's grown on public land and it's grown by the cartels so they move these guys in and they're incredibly industrious i mean you don't talk about hard working dudes these guys walk in like 10 15 miles into public land with all the equipment on their back like their camp they they have like the hoses and and they take the water they create their own dams and take the water from these creeks and they run it into their grow ops that's how they found it they thought that like a farmer was it was channeling the river or a creek away from these steelhead and salmon fisheries and it turned out it was like the cartel yeah like so they followed the the dry creek up into this crazy marijuana grow up.

[478] We went to one of these grows this summer with an operation much like that.

[479] And it was funny because all of the law enforcement that was there, they were brought in sort of, you know, those ropes on helicopters where they come and they drop them because it's really out there in the middle of the forest.

[480] But they couldn't do that to us.

[481] So we had to actually drive part of the way and then hike down.

[482] And it took us like, you know, almost a whole day of hiking through like thick brush to get to this area where they were diverting water and where there's.

[483] marijuana growing all around us and it was all cartel operated and you realize just like what these guys have to go through because then it's also on a weekly basis they have to get supplies and food and they have to get the you know the drugs out of there so it is actually a lot of work if those guys were working like a regular job they'd like be the best employees ever yeah but like this guys dude that's what i see in all of these black markets you know these are some of the most industrious you might not obviously you don't agree with what they're doing you might not even like them but you have to give it to them.

[484] They're industrious.

[485] They're hardworking.

[486] They're really creative.

[487] You know, the things that I've seen that people do to hide their product, to make their product, to make it better, to make it stronger.

[488] It's really incredible.

[489] Well, it's crazy to watch the method.

[490] When you see the method of how they cut the cocaine on your show where they're pouring cement into it, you're like, what?

[491] And then gasoline, just giant jug.

[492] And then like all the other shit that they're all the different chemicals, acid.

[493] They're like, oh my God.

[494] This is crazy.

[495] I had no idea.

[496] I had no idea.

[497] I had no idea.

[498] I had no idea.

[499] That's how they make it.

[500] Yeah.

[501] So another episode that we filmed recently was here in Austin was actually meth.

[502] Meth is in Austin?

[503] Yes.

[504] And Austin's got a math problem.

[505] On my way driving here to the show, I passed by the place where I had filmed just three weeks ago, actually, this guy in his hotel room, a dealer, a meth dealer.

[506] But he was washing one of the things he did before he started getting clients.

[507] And the clients are not the people that you think are meth users at all.

[508] By the way, we filmed, we interviewed a lawyer.

[509] We interviewed a mom with kids at home.

[510] It was an entrepreneur, not at all the people that you think are meth users.

[511] And this guy, before he started, he's washing the meth.

[512] And that's because he says he prides himself on selling good quality meth.

[513] But he had purchased it from Mexico and he wasn't sure about the quality.

[514] So he washes it.

[515] I can't remember what it is the product that he puts in, but it's to see all the other stuff that comes out.

[516] And then you can see just sort of all this other chemicals that are put in there.

[517] and you sort of realized, and when I was filming in the cocaine lab, the same thing.

[518] And the fentanyl lab, too, the amount of shit that goes into these drugs, if that alone is not going to dissuade you from doing them, it's, yeah, it's chemicals, it's gasoline, it's, yeah, lime.

[519] Lime is something that goes into a lot of these, you know, yeah.

[520] They use lime and get rid of bodies.

[521] Yeah.

[522] Oh, yeah.

[523] This meth guy, was he a big Breaking Bad fan?

[524] Was a big Brian Cranston fan, wanted to be the guy?

[525] He was actually much younger.

[526] I don't sure.

[527] You know one guy that we filmed for the fentanyl episode?

[528] It was a cartel chemist.

[529] So this guy was a bioengineer and incredibly smart and knowledgeable.

[530] And we met him in this abandoned location where he's basically making fentanyl and pressing it into the M30 pills, which are fake.

[531] It goes round back to the beginning of the opiate crisis because they make them to look.

[532] like oxycotton, like the 30 milligram pills that Purdue Pharma and Oxycontin.

[533] But it's pure fentanyl, essentially.

[534] And they're becoming really popular on the streets of American part, you know, really deadly stuff.

[535] And so we saw him making it.

[536] And you never know with these guys.

[537] Like I spent time in some of these illicit labs where you kind of get a sense that shit could go wrong very fast because they have no idea what they're dealing with.

[538] And these are very potent chemicals.

[539] But in this case, you know, it's not easy to make.

[540] I mean, it is because it's cheap and once you know how to do it you know how to do it but it's no i can't show up and try to make that the thing the whole thing could explode just because of the chemicals are so potent and yet here he was and we were wearing our hazmat suits and our masks and everything and i started talking to him and he was i mean i suddenly thought i was talking to walter white from breaking that he was exactly that like a geek when it came to chemistry and had always loved chemistry and you know had worked in chemistry for a while and then was approached by this you know a little cartel and they needed a guy who knew how to make this stuff and and he's decided why not i can make a lot more money making this and now he's like one of the biggest chemists for the senolo cartel yeah so when you talk to the people that did the meth did they have a reason the people that that actually consume it when you said you talk to oh they use it yeah the mom and the lawyers it's it's a good party um drug it's a good uh it's a good it's a good it's a good it's a It helps with inhibition.

[541] Oh, I bet.

[542] For people, yeah.

[543] And apparently it really helps with sex, especially.

[544] It's very consumed in the gay community as well.

[545] It helps, yeah, just having a good time.

[546] Just getting wild.

[547] Yeah, getting wild.

[548] Yeah.

[549] Have you done Adderall?

[550] I have not.

[551] Good for you.

[552] You and I together.

[553] Give me some knuckles, woman.

[554] All right.

[555] You have another?

[556] No, but that's a tempting one.

[557] People keep telling me how amazing it is, like just cleaning your house.

[558] Is it really?

[559] Then you just get like on a room.

[560] Oh my God.

[561] Yeah.

[562] Jamie, you've perhaps participated in some...

[563] I've taken it twice, but I've done pro -vigil now twice.

[564] Not the same in any way, shape, or form.

[565] No, pro -vigil is, I have done pro -vigil, and I've done new vigil, too.

[566] New vigils and it's, it's a drug that, now this is, I might be wrong about this, we might have to Google this.

[567] I believe it was created as a performance enhancing drug, but then they said, well, you can't just sell it as a performance -enhancing drug.

[568] as a cognitive enhancer and I do believe it has some cognitive boosting like proven cognitive boosting functions but I think they decided to sell it as a narcolepsy drug as a when they found out that it keeps people awake um it's amazing for road trips this is what I love it for like if I'm drive like if I used to drive to San Diego do a gig and uh the gig would be over at like midnight I'm like fuck it I want to be home and they would drive two hours like around an hour in you start getting that road sleepiness with pro vigil I'm listening to and the book's on tape.

[569] I'm fucking howling at the moon.

[570] Like, I'm wide awake, but I'm not on speed.

[571] Like, it's not, like, your heart doesn't beat fast.

[572] You don't get, like, eh, you just are weirdly awake.

[573] Is this an over -the -counter drug?

[574] No, no, you have to get a prescription.

[575] But it's easy to get a prescription.

[576] Like alcohol drugs.

[577] But I don't think there's a lot of drawbacks to it.

[578] It's so weird that Tim Ferriss, who is all about biohacking and all about like, you know, the four -hour body, the four -hour work week.

[579] He didn't put it in his book.

[580] And he told me, he didn't want to put it in his book because he would worry that people were going to just fucking eat it like candy.

[581] He's like, I don't want to endorse this.

[582] He goes, because I don't think there's such a thing as a biological free lunch.

[583] He goes, when something is doing that to you, there's got to be something that's happening on the other end.

[584] There's got to be something that, and I don't know what it is, and I don't want to be the guy that says, hey, do this.

[585] So I thought that was very interesting.

[586] So how different is Adderall from that then?

[587] I don't know.

[588] I don't know because I have not done the Adderall.

[589] A lot different.

[590] A lot different.

[591] Yeah, James is looking at all.

[592] Like Adderall has amphetamine in it.

[593] This is not.

[594] It says a wakefulness promoting agent.

[595] I don't know what that means.

[596] Yeah, see, but see if the origin of pro -vigil was the first one.

[597] And I believe New Vigil, they did, they changed that it altered it slightly to get around a patent or something.

[598] I forget what the exact reason was.

[599] but these are not they're not speed but I think they are addictive at least addictive in the fact that it has an effect an impact like I was very careful not to take it too often like sometimes I'd take it before a podcast and I'd be like hmm wait even more energy than right now yes I'm I came here right from the gym so I'm pretty pretty amped up um but uh is that how do you stand on steroids by the way, because one of our episodes was about steroids.

[600] I think that steroids are many, there's a lot of different things that are legal now in terms of like you can get testosterone replacement therapy hormone replacement therapy and they basically give you the vial.

[601] But only if you have low levels of those of testosterone, right?

[602] Or can you just you can just kind of get it and you can get low levels pretty easy.

[603] All you have to do like if you want low levels, folks there this is not my advice but I'm just telling you a fact all you'd have to do is eat a massive meal and then get your blood taken because if you want to take your blood like the idea is they take your blood when you're fasting right so you're supposed to fast I think it's 10 hours before your blood work the reason for that is then your hormone levels will you know they'll level out they'll be normal if you crap like that feeling that you get when you take have a massive meal especially like high carbohydrate high sugar like if you eat like three Big Macs and fries and a large Coke, you'll be like, boom, that feeling, get your blood done right then.

[604] You will show very low hormone levels.

[605] You'll show low growth hormone.

[606] You'll show low testosterone.

[607] You'll show low everything.

[608] Another thing is when people have done steroids.

[609] See, I know about this initially because of the UFC, and the UFC had a, there was a testosterone, a T -U -E, testosterone use exemption.

[610] And that testosterone use exemption allowed people to replace their hormones if they showed low levels of hormones.

[611] So testosterone replacement therapy was for people that had some sort of a condition that would allow the doctor to prescribe testosterone for them.

[612] The problem with that is a lot of the people that had low testosterone, had low testosterone because they were taking steroids.

[613] Yeah, exactly.

[614] Right.

[615] So you take steroids, your endocrine system crashes, and then you get on testosterone replacement therapy and you become a super person.

[616] This was a real problem in the UFC for several years.

[617] There was like two or three years where there was a few guys, and I don't need to name names because all you folks know who they are.

[618] All the people that are MMA fans know exactly what I'm talking about.

[619] But these guys where their career was kind of stagnated, they became fucking murderers for like three years.

[620] And then US anti -doping agency got involved with the U .S. anti -doping agency got involved with the U .S. UFC and now USADA is randomly tests everybody.

[621] They kill testosterone use exemptions.

[622] No more testosterone replacement therapy.

[623] And people's bodies melted.

[624] They shrank.

[625] And then you became entirely.

[626] The sport is as clean as you can make it with today's science and today's technology.

[627] But there's some sports, like let's look at power lifting.

[628] Or let's look at bodybuilding.

[629] Bodybuilding is the best one.

[630] It doesn't exist.

[631] It doesn't exist.

[632] What do you mean?

[633] Bodybuilding doesn't exist.

[634] Oh, right.

[635] It doesn't exist if it weren't for steroids, exists.

[636] Regular bodybuilding?

[637] Like, I had a friend, my friend Brian, who lived in Boston, was a natural bodybuilder.

[638] And he was very dedicated.

[639] And he was, like, legitimate natural bodybuilder.

[640] He worked out very hard.

[641] He ate very clean, and he was, like, super, super dedicated.

[642] And you would swear he was on steroids.

[643] He was big.

[644] I mean, like, big giant arms, like, really thick guy.

[645] but just really dedicated.

[646] He is nothing like those giants that you see at the gym that are on steroids.

[647] There are people that walk around, like if you go to like a Gold's gym in Venice in the heyday when all the elite bodybuilders would go there, they don't even look like humans.

[648] They look like walls with feet.

[649] I saw it.

[650] I went to a bodybuilding competition in Vegas for the show where we were following this kid who was mostly not doing steroids at this time.

[651] Like your friend, he was trying to see if he could make it into this competition without the heavy use of, or heavily using steroids and other PEDs.

[652] And it was, he went on stage and you could see the difference between him and the other guys.

[653] I mean, everybody else there was heavily using PEDs.

[654] And then you'd see him, we actually followed him.

[655] We were with this guy called Tony Huge, who calls himself Tony Huge.

[656] Have you heard of this guy?

[657] No, but he's pretty incredible.

[658] He has a huge following, a huge following.

[659] Yeah.

[660] And he calls himself Dr. Tony Huge, even though he's not a doctor, but he is a lawyer.

[661] and he's if anyone wants is interested in he's basically a spokesperson for steroids he's people who are bodybuilders he's also a bodybuilder himself and goes to gyms and competitions and he was with this kid and kids adore him I mean we spoke to teenagers who look up to Tony Huge and want to do everything he does which is mostly PDs and this kid wanted to be he went to Vegas to help this kid out and in the middle of this kid he was like 19 I I believe.

[662] His name is Zach from Florida.

[663] Super nice kid.

[664] Met his mom, all of it.

[665] But had had tried steroids.

[666] I'd had sort of a bad experience with steroids.

[667] Decided he was going to try and do it with other things, but not steroids.

[668] Not testosterone itself, but other substances.

[669] Tony Hughes was helping him out.

[670] He gets there day of the competition.

[671] He goes on stage.

[672] And again, he looks like the others around him who have been doing steroids look so much stronger than him.

[673] And he comes out.

[674] Yet, you know, again, super dedicated kid.

[675] Like this is his life, spends most of his time at the gym and eats right.

[676] and all that.

[677] And in the middle of the competition, Tony Huge says, okay, it's time for us to go back to your apartment and get you ready for round two.

[678] They go back and we filmed all of this and he opens up a big suitcase and inside this suitcase.

[679] It's like the Mary Poppins suitcase that more and more shit's coming out, you know, and starts giving him injections of insulin and all sorts, I don't know, half of the things that he was giving.

[680] And the kids are you sure this is okay?

[681] Are you sure this is okay?

[682] And I'm worried for him.

[683] He says, Okay, I'm starting to feel my heart beating really fast.

[684] You know, you don't, don't you worry, and then he goes back.

[685] And you can actually see the transformation in this kid's body within an hour of him taking these drugs.

[686] I am not jumping.

[687] What is the transformation?

[688] What happened?

[689] His vessels, his blood veins.

[690] Vascularity?

[691] Yes, we're popping.

[692] His veins were, so that's something good, apparently, for these kind of competitions.

[693] You're funny, do you talk?

[694] That's something good, apparently?

[695] I know, I know.

[696] I know.

[697] It was my first time at a bodybuilding competition for sure.

[698] It's weird.

[699] It's so weird, but so fascinating.

[700] It's weird when you see those people in real life.

[701] Yeah, I love worlds that look nothing like what I'm used to.

[702] I love.

[703] I'm so fascinated by them.

[704] I was watching a video last night on Vice of a woman who does bodybuilding.

[705] She's my height and my weight.

[706] She weighed 196 pounds.

[707] And so, and she has like her neck.

[708] is like my neck but her traps are even bigger than mine they start like here they go straight down her shoulders were massive and she was talking like this this is what I eat yeah this is every morning I have to consume 6 ,000 cows she sounded like the rock yeah like it was crazy bizarre it was so bizarre it was so strange to see this weird it's they're like sculptors right and in a way it is kind of an art form totally but what they're doing is freakish but they're all into it they'll all love it yeah this tony huge guy um i actually kind of grew very fun of him uh just because he's so honest about what he does i don't think his message is very safe for kids you know especially and you know taking steroids you know the side effects and you have to be careful but yet him saying you know i am basically uh a human experiment on myself and i'm trying all these things and are videos of him can we see what he looks like this tony huge phil but he's great Do you look ridiculous?

[709] Oh, he's going to love this.

[710] Oh, Tony.

[711] Oh, no, he actually doesn't look ridiculous.

[712] He's that, yeah, oh, Tony.

[713] Tony, he's such a. Well, there's a guy who died recently who was famous for looking ridiculous.

[714] His name was Rich Piana.

[715] Do you know who that is?

[716] Yeah, I remember when I was doing research for this story.

[717] I was hearing about that.

[718] They don't exactly know if steroids killed them, but it's like, you know, if you see a body and then there's a gun right next to the body, like, and the gun, the body has a bullet hole.

[719] Oh, he's pretty big.

[720] Yeah, he's big.

[721] Yeah, but he's tiny compared to Rich Piana.

[722] No, yeah.

[723] Oh, he looks very good.

[724] See, he doesn't look preposterous.

[725] He looks like a very big, strong guy.

[726] Like right there with a shirt off picture.

[727] Still, he looks great.

[728] Like, that is a guy who's in very good shape.

[729] Yeah, Dr. Tommy Hughes.

[730] So he says, okay, this is, I used to be handsome.

[731] This is maybe six or seven years ago when I was 31 or 32.

[732] I was still full -time and Laura wearing a suit, going to court.

[733] meeting clients, da -da -da -da.

[734] So, yeah, so that is...

[735] Basically, he decided to start taking steroids.

[736] That's when he decided?

[737] Is that what it says?

[738] Okay, so that can be achieved naturally.

[739] That absolutely can be achieved naturally, especially with good genetics.

[740] And that's one of the things that I had...

[741] Do you know who Ronnie Coleman is?

[742] No. Ronnie Coleman's...

[743] If there's Mount Rushmore of bodybuilding, he's on it, 100%.

[744] It's like Arnold, Frank O 'Colombo, Lee Haney.

[745] I mean, how many...

[746] Mount Rushmore doesn't have enough heads?

[747] right dorian yates but rony coleman is without doubt on there he was a multiple time mr olympia enormous guy with yeah with spectacular genetics spectacular genetics and ronnie did the podcast and he said that when he was he's really in rough shape now like he can barely walk his back is really fucked up he's had many many surgeries and uh he's basically had every disc and his back fused except for one and has a really hard time walking and even standing up um but when but that's because you know he pushed himself so hard so it wasn't just the steroids he pushed himself through pain so when he got injured he didn't give a fuck he just kept working out hard and stacking weights and you know squatting spectacular amounts of weight but he was i believe he said he was 30 before he took steroids so he was a full -time cop and uh he was competing Just like, I mean, perfect genetics, just perfect.

[748] I mean, he's just a stud.

[749] And then, realize he couldn't beat these guys.

[750] Yeah, there's no way.

[751] Tired to getting his ass kicked.

[752] And so then he got on, like, he had, that's when he was a cop.

[753] I should get pulled over by that guy.

[754] Yes, sir.

[755] Here's license, sir.

[756] Sir, don't squeeze my head like a zit.

[757] He's just a really sweet guy, too, an awesome guy.

[758] But he was very honest about it.

[759] He was like, I couldn't compete.

[760] I was tired to get my butt kick.

[761] And then you started taking it.

[762] So in the USC it's not allowed now?

[763] No, no, no, no, no, no, no. A lot of people get busted.

[764] They get busted for trace amounts that are in supplements.

[765] Like, say if you buy, like, creatine, there's a lot of, like, cheap supplements that you'll buy that they make them in vats.

[766] And the vats that they make them in, they're, like, in China.

[767] And they don't clean these vats.

[768] So they might have made steroids right before they made your shit.

[769] And then they'll throw the next thing in there and make them.

[770] up the creatine, and there's a lot of that, a lot of cross -contamination.

[771] You know, I just interviewed recently for the traffic podcast.

[772] We also have a podcast.

[773] I just started doing a podcast.

[774] I was so nervous before talking to, I interviewed so many people, but I'd never done it for a podcast, so I was here sitting to talk to my first podcast interviewee, and I was shaking.

[775] I don't know, because when it's something new and you've never done it, I don't know, I just got nervous.

[776] Am I going to be able to be half as good as Joe?

[777] If you ever get nervous, go and listen to the early ones that I did.

[778] They're fucking terrible.

[779] Yeah, it's like me in television.

[780] The first things that I did on TV, it was my husband actually who you met, Darren.

[781] Traveling around the world with me, filming our first assignment, or we were freelance journalists.

[782] We bought a little camcorder in Syria.

[783] I was living in Syria at the time.

[784] 9 -11 had happened.

[785] I wanted to be close to the action, learn Arabic, and we bought a little camcorder.

[786] And we went and we filmed with jihadis crossing into Iraq.

[787] to fight against the Americans.

[788] He was Syrian jihadis.

[789] And it was our first story as a freelancers.

[790] And, you know, there was a moment where one of us had to decide who's going to be on camera.

[791] And I'm much more gregarious than he is.

[792] He's, you know, quieter than I am.

[793] And so we decided it was me. And he would turn the camera to me and say, okay, now tell us what's happening.

[794] And I could not put two words together.

[795] And he kept on giving me shit for this.

[796] Like, how can you not say something that is so simple?

[797] And I was like, oh, yeah, wait a second.

[798] I picked up the camera and I turned it to him.

[799] I say, okay, now you say those words.

[800] And he couldn't I'm either.

[801] Well, you've figured it out.

[802] You're great at it now.

[803] You're great at it now.

[804] But I was going to say that I interviewed Tony Bosch.

[805] Do you know Tony Bosch, right?

[806] No. You do.

[807] He's the guy.

[808] Yes, you do.

[809] Because I think you had one of your friends made the film about him.

[810] He's the guy, the steroids in baseball guy.

[811] He was the guy that was providing steroids.

[812] Oh, the Billy Corbyn documentary Screwball.

[813] Screwball?

[814] Yeah, which is amazing.

[815] It's so good.

[816] I can't recommend that enough.

[817] It's so good.

[818] So we interview him for the podcast.

[819] The way Billy Corbyn filmed it with the little kids?

[820] Oh, my God.

[821] It's brilliant.

[822] That's the guy.

[823] Okay, okay, okay.

[824] And he was saying, you know, I was asking, like, isn't it for somebody he apparently loves baseball, he loves baseball.

[825] He has been a huge fan of baseball or his life and then became the supplier of steroids for, you know, the big shots in baseball.

[826] And I was asking, don't you think that's unfair, you know, well, considering that these are illegal and it's just some people are taking them and others aren't.

[827] He was like, yeah, it's unfair is not to take them because everybody's taking them.

[828] Yes.

[829] You know, it's a, it's.

[830] Well, it's the way I felt about Lance Armstrong.

[831] You know, like when people, the real problem with Lance Armstrong was not that he was taking drugs.

[832] It was a lie.

[833] The real problem was the lies.

[834] Yeah.

[835] And also suing the other people that were calling him out.

[836] But in his eyes, they betrayed him and that they were selling him out so that they could get a cheaper deal.

[837] But they were doing it too.

[838] And they were all admitted they were doing it.

[839] So they were getting, you know, immunity.

[840] if you got rid of all the people that tested positive when they took away Lance Armstrong's jerseys or whatever you get a jersey from winning all his victories I mean he has him on the wall in his house you took away all those well who wins then who wins those years well you have to go back to 18th place to find someone who didn't test positive do you know that no I had no idea 18th place and that guy probably just had a really good chemist and he probably's full shit too or maybe he like cycled off right before the race it's a dirty sport Bill Burr has a great bit about it Bill Burr the comedian has a hilarious bit about like our psycho is better than your psycho it's like you're dealing with a dirty sport it's an entirely dirty sport they've been blood doping and they've been doing EPO and testosterone and all these different things and then there's a real argument that it's actually healthier to do that with drugs than it is to not do with drugs.

[841] Because without the drugs, your body has such a difficult time recovering from the massive amount of work you have to do when you're doing something to the Tour de France.

[842] Because you're racing every day for a long time.

[843] Yes, super, superhuman.

[844] You know another sport, I had no idea where apparently it's used heavily.

[845] It's in tennis.

[846] Did you know that?

[847] Really?

[848] Yeah.

[849] Well, I did know that one, we don't have to say the name, but there was a prominent tennis star that the world anti -doping agency or one of them came knock on this person's door and they locked themselves in a safe room and yeah they said oh I think I think there's an intruder someone trying to come and get me and they avoided being tested was this reported yes yes very popular story yeah no need to dig up dirt Jamie don't Google it I happen I already know what you're talking about so I bet you do and a lot of people like hmm things that make you go hmm yeah I didn't know that though but I just assumed that any explosive athletic endeavor whenever it is sprinting that was the other thing remember when Ben Johnson won the Olympics?

[850] Carl Lewis was on the shit too that's what's crazy like Ben Johnson got shamed and Carl Lewis was like he was doing drugs too they were all doing it the dirty secret about Olympic sprinting apparently is that they're all doing something Yeah.

[851] Then it's when you start asking yourself, at what point does it make sense to make it illegal?

[852] Why not just like...

[853] Have you seen Icarus, the Brian Fogel documentary?

[854] Yeah, so good.

[855] It's so good.

[856] So good.

[857] And it's all about that, folks.

[858] It's all about the Sochi Olympics and about how Russia essentially dope the entire Olympic team.

[859] It's insane.

[860] It's insane.

[861] Insane how they did it.

[862] It's crazy.

[863] The documentary is so well done because Brian Fogel, who is the director and the guy who made the documentary, He had a plan, and his plan was film him with no drugs doing this bike race and then come back next year with the supervision of an anti -doping expert from the Soviet Union.

[864] In the middle of all this happening, it gets exposed that the Sochi Olympics, that the urine samples had been tampered with and that there was like micro scratches on there, that they had devised some sort of a method to open up the urine samples and replace the urine with clean urine.

[865] and holy shit it's crazy it's it is the craziest that guy is still the russian guy is still in hiding i had no idea oh yeah he's under like he's he gave states evidence so he's like this guy is under witness protection program yes allegedly he might be in antarctica who the fuck no for you but they offered him as a guest like like i don't like in some sort of remote fashion i think remotely and you didn't want to well well i'd talk about it it's just one of those I don't want to put him in jeopardy.

[866] I feel like that's one of those...

[867] You don't want to do what I do.

[868] No, I don't think you're in jeopardy.

[869] You're out.

[870] You're out in the open.

[871] I just think that guy's life is in like real danger right now.

[872] I mean, he exposed the Soviet Union, the state, like the state -sponsored anti -doping agency.

[873] I don't, I mean, the documentary and the whole case itself, for sure, put that guy's life in danger.

[874] Yeah, that was a good one.

[875] It was, you know, it's whenever I've documented, when, you know, you know, it's one of documentaries, when you start by watching and you think it's going to be about one thing and then something completely different.

[876] Those are the best stories always.

[877] Yes.

[878] Yes.

[879] It's amazing.

[880] So my take on the adult use of these things is very different than my take on the use of them for competition.

[881] Now, I've had people, it was Luke Thomas that was saying that they should just be able to take drugs, right?

[882] Wasn't it?

[883] I believe it was.

[884] He's got a really good argument for it.

[885] That they're doing things and this is for fighters they're doing things they're just they're getting away with it they're doing things in some sort of a sneaky way they're microdosing they're figuring out of way and that if you just like regulated the levels that they could compete at and just let them do whatever they want it'd probably be better for everybody in the early days of the sport I'm sorry Luke if I've distorted your argument in the early days of the sport it was Wild West and everybody was juiced to the gills like if you went and in Japan when they compete in Japan it was actually in the contract that they would actually not only would they not test they would say in all like my friend ensign Inouye he's a legend in mixed martial arts like one of the early pioneers and uh he said when he was in pride it was in all caps we do not test for steroids it was in the contract yeah like so they would test you and a lot of guys like no they tested everybody when we go that yeah yeah they test you go ahead pee in this cup they To throw it over there.

[886] Get out there, get juiced up.

[887] Like a friend of mine went to compete over there.

[888] They told him to get on steroids.

[889] This is one of the Japanese fight organizations.

[890] They told him, we want you to gain weight.

[891] We want you to be bigger, stronger.

[892] Better for TV.

[893] Yeah, better for the show, yeah.

[894] More money to be made.

[895] And, you know, if you're on a host of these performance -enhancing drugs, you will have more endurance.

[896] You'll be able to recover faster.

[897] You'll be able to train harder.

[898] And you'll be able to endure more punishment when you're actually inside the ring or the cage.

[899] So you think they should?

[900] No. I'm torn.

[901] Here's my real feeling that this is, we're trying to stick our finger in a well or in a dam rather that has a bunch of holes and the holes are going to increase.

[902] There's going to be more and more holes and then you're going to have genetic engineering.

[903] And I think we are maybe one, two generations away from CRISPR kids fighting in MMA, kids with perfect genes.

[904] kids that when like say if they engineer myostatin inhibitors into children you know what myostatin inhibitors are biostatin inhibitors are it's it happens accidentally with animals sometimes sometimes with cows but commonly with whippets for some strange reason when they breed whippets sometimes they have this weird error in their genes and they develop they have myostatin inhibitors in their genes and their They're, myostatin inhibitors, apparently what it does is it stops your body's, like, regulation of how much muscle you can grow.

[905] So you have whippets that don't even look like real animals.

[906] If you see them, you'll think they're photoshopped.

[907] You see them, that's a wippet.

[908] That's a myelstatin inhibitor whip it.

[909] Now, a normal wippet is the one on the right.

[910] Whoa.

[911] Yeah.

[912] So they grow massive, massive muscles.

[913] And they literally look like a hulk dog.

[914] Like someone gave a dog, some kind of crazy.

[915] drug.

[916] And then there's the cow over there too.

[917] Yeah, that's a that's a cow that also has myelstat inhibitors.

[918] Yeah, so you have a cow that looks like Ronnie Coleman or Dorian Yates in his prime.

[919] You know, like we're just insanely huge.

[920] Now, it happens occasionally in children, and there have been children that have been born with this aberration, and they're massive kids that are just...

[921] Wow.

[922] I had never seen this.

[923] Yeah.

[924] That one might not be, that That might be, there was one kid, there was one sad one where this, that kid, that's steroids.

[925] The father was given the kid steroids at a very early age.

[926] But there's, if you Google a myelstatin inhibitor, did you, like, I think the one in the middle, that might be legit.

[927] Yeah, that looks, that looks like, it's like a, it looks like CGI.

[928] All right, I don't know.

[929] But there, anyway, there have been cases of kids that have this genetic aberration and they're just freaky muscled as children.

[930] And you think they're going to start trying to do.

[931] Yes.

[932] I think they're definitely going to do it.

[933] I think they're probably doing it already in China.

[934] Yeah, look at that kid.

[935] Okay, that's it.

[936] Yeah, for sure.

[937] Look at that kid.

[938] I mean, that is fucking insane.

[939] The kid's jacked.

[940] That kid's getting all the second graders.

[941] Yeah, I mean, he's got the face of like, yeah, exactly, six year old and then the arms of a fighter.

[942] Yeah.

[943] Yeah, so it's some weird aberration.

[944] Now, with CRISPR, you know, obviously I'm not a scientist, so I'm going to butcher this, but they're able to, there's going to be good things that they can do.

[945] where they can remove genes that can cause leukemia, they can remove genes, that can cause Alzheimer's.

[946] But they're also going to be able to alter people, and it's just a matter of time.

[947] I think right now we're on the third iteration of CRISPR, I believe, where they keep improving the method.

[948] Now, as they continue to improve this method, there's going to be innovation with everything.

[949] Nothing ever stops.

[950] And it's going to be worldwide.

[951] Once this technology is reaching China and Russia and wherever, who's to stop people from making, people with this.

[952] It's so scary.

[953] Well, they've already used it on Google CRISPR used on adults currently.

[954] They've done it.

[955] They've done it with people.

[956] And they actually did it with, I think there was something they did in China, I believe it was, where it improved their cognitive function.

[957] They were trying to engineer something.

[958] It might have been something against HIV, a gene to stop them from potentially getting HIV and it actually wound up improving their cognitive function.

[959] It's going to be weird shit they're doing with people.

[960] You're going to have, like, steroids are going to be like a joke.

[961] Yeah, like a walk in the park compared to the rest.

[962] And cloning too.

[963] I did a story about cloning once.

[964] And, yeah, how in Argentina, actually, which is sort of the center of polo horses and the polo, the sport, polo.

[965] And they're all, the majority of the horses and the best teams are all cloned.

[966] And it's all actually being done by an American company, owned company by this American guy who has diabetes and who's, I believe, somebody in his family died from diabetes, his grandmother, perhaps.

[967] And he's trying to figure out a way that he can clone parts of his body and make them healthier and really fascinating stuff.

[968] Yeah, but whole horses, whole teams of polo teams being run and just cloned from the same horse, which was this champion horse.

[969] How many times can you make a copy of a copy until it's like a shitty VHS tape?

[970] Do you know what's so interesting?

[971] I had no idea is that you think of a clone, you think of something that looks exactly like the other.

[972] Apparently, the part that is more visible, which is the outward skin and the horses, the hair, actually the hair, the color of your hair has something to do with the temperature of you when you're in the body before you were born.

[973] And so the horses that were cloned, actually the hair were different colors.

[974] But in the physical abilities, and health -wise, the way your body operates, that's what's cloned.

[975] Right.

[976] So if somebody wanted to make a perfect team of bodybuilders, they would just clone Ronnie Coleman.

[977] They'd just make a bunch of Ronnie Coleman's.

[978] And the rest would look similar to him, but they're not identical.

[979] But physically they'd have, and also apparently they were saying that the personality of these clone horses were very similar to the original horse in terms of being fighters and not giving up.

[980] and all that.

[981] Oh, that's what's crazy.

[982] Yeah, it's insane.

[983] And that they, I see, this is even crazier.

[984] How they believed the owners of these horses that they actually came equipped with some knowledge that you can only, that horses aren't equipped with, like the knowledge of how grass feels or there was something about the game of polo that you have to learn and practice and some of these horses were born with some of these characteristics.

[985] Wow.

[986] I know.

[987] It was insane.

[988] Do you have children?

[989] I have a son, yeah, 10 -year -old.

[990] One of things that I noticed with one of my daughters in particular, I have an obsessive personality.

[991] Like if I'm trying to do something, I just can't stop thinking about it.

[992] I want to get better at it.

[993] I've had that since I was a boy.

[994] My daughter has that.

[995] But she doesn't have all the fucked up parts about me that I had.

[996] Like I had it because I wasn't getting any attention when I was young and I wanted to be great so that people would pay attention to me. She just has it.

[997] But she gets tons of attention.

[998] So she's like happy and confident.

[999] it but she also she's like a freak like she like concentrates on things she gets really good at stuff but it's very bizarre my wife and i were looking at and she's like she's like a weird 12 year old girl version of me how old is she's 12 so it's this very strange thing that i'm like this passed down clearly yeah because it's unusual the way she is i'm like this is very strange like to see this in a young girl i share i share some my son definitely share some things with me like we both get so excited when we go into a plane every time, even though I fly constantly, I still am the kind of person that I walk into a plane, I step foot on a plane, and I get excited about everything.

[1000] The food, everything.

[1001] He does too?

[1002] And he is like that too.

[1003] Actually, it's before.

[1004] We're on the airport and we look at each other and we're like, yes, we're doing this, yes.

[1005] Do you think that's, well, he must have learned some of that from you know?

[1006] Do you think he learned it?

[1007] Yeah, I don't know.

[1008] I think it's genetic.

[1009] I think it's partly genetic.

[1010] I think we have, I love to say, that I have exploration in my blood because I'm Portuguese and we come from a long line of explorers on the world in history.

[1011] And he has it too.

[1012] But I don't know.

[1013] I think partly, yeah, he just shares with me the joy of traveling and the exploration and the weird of the places.

[1014] Like I took him to Morocco a couple of years ago and because it was so unlike anything he had seen, he was in heaven.

[1015] He wanted to dress with the same.

[1016] The jilabas, as they call the men, wear jilabas.

[1017] He's long dresses.

[1018] He wanted to wear the jilabas.

[1019] He wanted to do everything.

[1020] thing like put the what do you call the thing the scarf on your head like the twaregs there because we went camping in the sahara desert and yeah he really embraces all of it it's really so maybe he's got you like your travel lust yeah yeah and the weirder it is the more he likes it like that makes sense because it's like think of the things that people are inherently afraid of like uh i think was rupert cheldrick was talking about this that children even children that grow up in new york city.

[1021] They're not worried about car accidents or child molesters.

[1022] They're worried about monsters.

[1023] They're worried about monsters in the room.

[1024] They're worried about monsters in the dark.

[1025] And that, they believe, stems from some sort of a genetic memory of cats, big cats, hunting us when we used to be, you know, primates living in trees.

[1026] And that the thing that every chimp and every monkey is afraid of is a fucking cat.

[1027] Like if you live in the jungle, which we all came from Africa as human beings, that is what was killing us and eating us.

[1028] I had no idea.

[1029] Yeah.

[1030] So the thing that everyone's afraid of is something with big fangs.

[1031] It's in the dark.

[1032] That's cats.

[1033] I'm going to tell you a story that happened to me. I actually told your team before coming in.

[1034] I am terrified.

[1035] So I meet with cartel members.

[1036] I meet with these people all around the world.

[1037] And usually I'm not tend to be scared.

[1038] But I'm terrified of big animals and especially big cats.

[1039] I was in the Amazon once.

[1040] I was doing a story about biopiracy.

[1041] there.

[1042] And again, I was my husband, Aaron.

[1043] And we went deep into the Amazon, like really deep to camp with these two Brazilian scientists.

[1044] And we were looking for poisonous snakes and poisonous spiders and the most poisonous creatures in the Amazon.

[1045] We went out at night in the middle of the night with them with just flashlights and our snake boots.

[1046] And initially, I was kind of scared.

[1047] And, you know, they would pick up these really dangerous fer de lance and the most dangerous snakes and all that.

[1048] And I went back to camp after this night thinking, I am.

[1049] the bravest person in the universe.

[1050] I can do this as well if not even better than men can.

[1051] I came back and I wasn't afraid and I did this.

[1052] It's something that terrified me, you know, poisonous snakes, but I did it and I'm so strong and I'm so powerful.

[1053] I'm so brave.

[1054] I'm the queen of the Amazon.

[1055] And then I went to bed that night in these hammocks that we hung on trees out completely in the open and I had a hammock on the far end because I was a woman and the scientist stayed and my husband next to me, but still I was more exposed than them.

[1056] And in the middle of the night, in the Amazon, where it actually gets really cold, if I didn't know that, but I woke up kind of cold and suddenly I felt it.

[1057] There was a breath right next to me, a warm, smelly breath right next to my face, and I'm out in the open in this hammock, and I was absolutely sure.

[1058] Of course, I know it's a jaguar.

[1059] The scientist had just told us that he's not scared of anything except for jaguars because he knows that they are in this area, and they've killed little kids.

[1060] Oh, Jesus Christ.

[1061] So this is happening to me in the middle of the night.

[1062] And I had this reaction that I didn't think was possible.

[1063] You know, when you have nightmares, when you were a kid, and something horrifying happens, and then you want to talk and scream and ask for help, but you can't.

[1064] You're frozen.

[1065] That actually happened to me, where I was suddenly, I felt it here.

[1066] I knew I needed to ask for help, but I completely froze, and I couldn't get any words to come out.

[1067] But apparently my teeth were shattering so damn loud that my husband next to me woke up and said, hey, are you okay?

[1068] And I was able to say no, and then he came up with a flashlight and looked all around and didn't see anything and thought, obviously, I was probably dreaming.

[1069] This wasn't true.

[1070] It told me it's nothing.

[1071] I'm sure you just imagined this.

[1072] This didn't happen.

[1073] The next morning wake up.

[1074] I didn't sleep at all, obviously, but my backpack was full of hair.

[1075] And I was so ready to, like, turn to them and tell them, okay, see, guys, see?

[1076] You think I'm just, like, prayed, and I imagine this stuff, but this stuff actually happened, and here's the hair.

[1077] and then the scientist points out this guy, Paulo, who's great, Paulo says, hey, Mariana, look there.

[1078] There's a dog, and there's this little dog that spent the whole night sitting on my little backpack.

[1079] So it wasn't a jaguar.

[1080] There was a dog breathing?

[1081] Oh, my God.

[1082] I'm terrified, terrified.

[1083] I mean, especially since I was terrified of wildcats.

[1084] A guy in Texas got killed by a mountain lion yesterday.

[1085] No way.

[1086] Yeah, yeah, it was in the news this morning.

[1087] How did what happened?

[1088] Got jacked.

[1089] That's just what happens.

[1090] You know, they, and it was very, really funny.

[1091] They were like, it's so, there's people that were poo -pooing it because there was a mountain line siding in the area and some people think that he was killed by the mountain line, but some people are saying, well, we're not sure.

[1092] It's exceedingly rare that people get killed by mountain lions.

[1093] Why, there's only been 30 recorded cases of people being killed by mountain lines in Texas.

[1094] Like, bitch, that's 30.

[1095] It was 30 werewolves.

[1096] Right.

[1097] 30 people have been killed by werewolves.

[1098] Would you be skeptical if you found a man torn apart.

[1099] Wouldn't you just assume you get killed by a whirl?

[1100] Oh, we got 31 now.

[1101] Like, yeah, cats kill people.

[1102] They're just, if they're for sure, if they know for sure they can get away with it and they're hungry, especially if they're old, they kill people all the time.

[1103] It says there's no evidence of a predatory attack by a mountain lion or maybe even any other animal.

[1104] Yeah, but there's other, here, I'll send you another article that says there is evidence.

[1105] I'm looking from a couple hours ago right now.

[1106] Yeah, there's several didn't.

[1107] ABC News.

[1108] Go to the ABC News.

[1109] That's the one add up.

[1110] Oh, did they change it?

[1111] They changed their position?

[1112] Because Texas officials conflicted on whether Mountain Line is responsible for man's death three hours ago.

[1113] And so how did he die?

[1114] I mean, how did they find his body?

[1115] Was it mauled or not?

[1116] No, we're not going to know unless we get real data from it.

[1117] Right.

[1118] But, uh...

[1119] Yeah, it happens and I'm terrified of podcasts.

[1120] There's a crazy video of a guy walking down this road and the cat comes rushing at him.

[1121] It's insane.

[1122] Throwing her paws.

[1123] It's insane.

[1124] Oh, my God.

[1125] Oh, my God.

[1126] He's backing up screaming.

[1127] And how well did he do?

[1128] He did amazing.

[1129] He kept his cool.

[1130] I know.

[1131] Amazing.

[1132] He's amazing.

[1133] But I didn't know.

[1134] I kind of knew how fast they were.

[1135] But I didn't know it would be that terrifying.

[1136] Like the movement that the cat was making, like waving its arms out wide.

[1137] Like coming to Adam.

[1138] Like a demon.

[1139] I know like a demon.

[1140] And they're just wandering around.

[1141] People like amazing in my old neighborhood.

[1142] I heard that one that was like protecting it.

[1143] Well, he saw the babies first And then he started walking towards it And then it started walking towards him And then he started backing up And it chased him My friend in my old neighborhood Had stopped outside of her house And She saw a mountain lion And started filming it And while she was filming the mountain lion A second one ran right by Look at this Yeah, it's a big ass cat cat that's in fucking calabasasas that's in yeah suburb of L .A big, two cats, two big ass predatory cats.

[1144] There's a lot of them in L .A. Oh yeah!

[1145] Well there's some of them that have been collared and there's some of them that haven't and there's a lot of people that think it's wonderful that they're around.

[1146] Yeah and I'm like okay, look I'm glad they're real.

[1147] I love the fact that a mountain line is a real animal but they shouldn't be in fucking Calabasas Jesus Christ you hippies.

[1148] Like, kill that thing.

[1149] Net it.

[1150] Do whatever you got to do.

[1151] Get it the fuck out of there.

[1152] Like, just eating a bunch of dog eaters and kid eaters.

[1153] Listen, it will definitely eat a baby.

[1154] A hundred percent.

[1155] You got your little baby wandering around the middle of the night?

[1156] It shouldn't be.

[1157] But if it was, and that cat came along, that baby's dead.

[1158] It's going to eat it.

[1159] They'll eat everything.

[1160] They'll eat everything they can.

[1161] They did a study in San Francisco where they, you know, whenever they have what's called the depredation permit, when they find that a cat's been killing a bunch of animals, they'll issue a permit where you can kill it when they kill these cats the most shocking thing was 50 % of their diet was pets whoa yeah 50 % yeah 50 % with dogs and cats yeah coyotes do you know coyote's also in LA are responsible for a lot of little pet dog killed my daughter's dog really yeah killed all my chickens yeah coyotes are gross yeah I fuck Mountainline killed my dog in Colorado I lived in Colorado one of my dogs are killed by Mountain Lion They're no joke.

[1162] No, they're not.

[1163] They're fucking sketchy animals, and they live around people for that very reason.

[1164] And look, no, man, you're in their territory.

[1165] Like, okay.

[1166] What are you, a mountain lion?

[1167] No, it's a person's house, you fuck.

[1168] Like, it's not theirs.

[1169] Once you put a house there, it's yours.

[1170] Can I pivot to bears right now?

[1171] Yes.

[1172] You had a guest, actually, a few times already.

[1173] Steve Ronella?

[1174] Yes.

[1175] And you know that the guy that he tells a story about when they were attacked by bears.

[1176] the guy that he tells always that on his team actually rode the back of the bear he was our assistant dirtmouth yeah dirt myth he's in our team he filmed the cocaine he filmed all our oh he's great he's incredible wow yeah he was the guy who was literally as the bear charged them found himself somehow on the back of the bear as it's running down the hill that's right yeah for several yards Garrett was on the back of a fucking massive bear you hear him telling the which was when we hired him I was like okay tell the bear story it's insane it's a crazy story there's many of my friends were there my friend remi was there my friend yonis was there I know a lot of the guys in that crew and they all tell it the same way that everyone was just like you go to a place that you didn't know your brain like a room in your brain you didn't know you have like oh look at it you never been in here before this is what happens when you're about to die this one happens when a giant super animal is about to eat you right oh my god that scares me And those bears are the biggest bears in the world.

[1177] Yeah, I know.

[1178] That area of a Fognac Island, that's like, those are like the Codiac Island bears.

[1179] That's Alaska.

[1180] Yeah.

[1181] And then you keep thinking about the Revenant in the scene.

[1182] And they're terrifying.

[1183] But again, I love that they're real.

[1184] I love, like, I'm not a person that thinks you should go and kill all the predators that kill people.

[1185] I love the fact that we have this rich sort of just tapestry of life.

[1186] life.

[1187] There's so many different things.

[1188] And I love the fact that there's so many different things, but they shouldn't be in Calabasas.

[1189] They want to like make wildlife corridors over the 101 because these cats keep getting hit by cars.

[1190] Like, um, hey guys, maybe we just concentrating to keep them healthy where people aren't.

[1191] Like, it's not, I don't think we should encourage, you know, there's all this weirdness that comes in California when it comes these animals.

[1192] Like, they kill just as many of them as they use.

[1193] used to, but they only kill them by hiring people to kill them.

[1194] They don't allow hunting anymore, whereas in other places that they have problems with mountain lions, hunting is still legal, like Colorado.

[1195] Like my friend Johnny, he is a hunting guide in Colorado, and he gets hired to hunt mountain lions because these mountain lions will take out calves and cattle, and they'll attack livestock, and once they start going into it.

[1196] So they have the wildlife management companies.

[1197] They have these sort of very calculated processes where they determine how many tags can be issued and how many mountain lines can be sustained in an area without them encroaching on livestock and things along those lines.

[1198] And then you get to this like animal rights argument where people are like, hey, they have a right too.

[1199] You know, they should, we're in their land.

[1200] You know, you shouldn't do anything.

[1201] You should leave them alone.

[1202] what they've decided to do in California.

[1203] In California, the ultimate goal, California is weird in that it's not Department of Fish and Game.

[1204] It's Department of Fish and Wildlife.

[1205] And so that's on purpose because they don't want to think of these things as a resource that people hunt.

[1206] They want to think of them as wild animals that they protect.

[1207] And so the Department of Fish and Wildlife is in many ways populated by people who are animal rights activists versus people who are hunters and fishermen and conservationists and people who understand this sort of pragmatic approach to managing wildlife.

[1208] It's a real complex issue and it's they've decided to just let these animals handle themselves and I talked to one person who's worked with the Department of Fish and Wildlife who said their ultimate goals to have no hunting at all in California.

[1209] They would like the animals to manage themselves.

[1210] Right.

[1211] But when that happens, then the animals, animals kill dogs and wildlife and then you kill those animals so they don't manage themselves so you're paying people to kill the yeah but it's like it's sneaky because it's like you look like you care more about the animals because like we don't allow hunting mountain lines here in California yeah but you still killed just as many you have like hired killers who go and track them down and kill them like it's it's very weird and people who live on ranches they have a completely different attitude because they see these things dragging deers across the road or attacking calves and it's like you live around monsters yeah they're on the front lines yeah you're you're dealing with monsters and again i love those monsters i'm glad they're real i've seen mountain lines twice in my life and it's a pretty cool thing to see them it's wild it's like you're seeing this thing that somehow another manages to exist around people and and it hustles and it makes its way but yeah one of the episodes we did was actually about tigers and tiger trafficking, wildlife trafficking.

[1212] Was that about people that own tigers?

[1213] Both.

[1214] Yeah, so we looked at Asia, where they're killing, you know, chopping up and using tigers to sell for tiger wine, which is a luxury good in Asia.

[1215] A wine?

[1216] Yes.

[1217] They seep the tiger bones, the older the tiger, and the more they're wild.

[1218] So instead of being farmed, because they're also being, tigers being farmed in Asia.

[1219] But the wilder, if they can catch them from the wild, it's even better.

[1220] and they seep them in these vats of rice wine and they stay for years and years, and then they sell this for incredibly, really expensive.

[1221] Wait, how do they do it?

[1222] They seep the tiger.

[1223] So they kill the tiger?

[1224] They kill the tiger.

[1225] And then they let the body rot in a vat of wine?

[1226] And then you might actually be able to find a photo of one of these things.

[1227] That sounds disgusting.

[1228] And then they stay there for years and then eventually they make little, or big bottles of this stuff and sell them for a ton of.

[1229] of money.

[1230] How much does Tiger wine go for?

[1231] They can go for anywhere from like $300, $400 for a bottle to thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.

[1232] Have you tried Tiger Wine?

[1233] No, I did not.

[1234] Did you feel tempted?

[1235] Yeah, so that is the bones?

[1236] There's one that you can see the whole tiger.

[1237] Is that the bones in that bottle?

[1238] Yeah, those are the bones.

[1239] In our film, you can actually see the vet.

[1240] Do they just use the bones or do they use the tissue as well?

[1241] The pelts, they usually take it out because they are also sell Whoa, this is crazy.

[1242] Tiger bone trade.

[1243] Shocking reason why people...

[1244] Oh, you see?

[1245] Yeah, that's a good one.

[1246] The first one, if you press that one.

[1247] That picture?

[1248] You see that?

[1249] Oh, what?

[1250] Yeah.

[1251] Oh, my God.

[1252] So they suspend this tiger carcass inside this enormous vat of wine.

[1253] Let me see that person's face again through the whole thing.

[1254] Look at the dude.

[1255] Is that a woman?

[1256] It's non -binary.

[1257] Don't be rude.

[1258] That could be anything.

[1259] You get out of here.

[1260] We're doing good things.

[1261] Look at that carcass.

[1262] That's crazy.

[1263] So we were trying to figure out who were the people involved in this, you know, sort of tiger cartel land.

[1264] That's you.

[1265] That's for you guys.

[1266] That's National Geographic photograph.

[1267] Yeah.

[1268] So was this something that you actually physically saw yourself?

[1269] We didn't see that, but we saw.

[1270] Look at that picture.

[1271] Other things.

[1272] Yeah.

[1273] That picture is wild.

[1274] Do they take the meat off of that thing before they put it in that or does the meat just rot off?

[1275] I'm actually not sure.

[1276] I know they definitely take the peltz because they can make a lot of money out of the health.

[1277] Go back to the photo.

[1278] Jamie, scroll down so I can see that.

[1279] That is wild.

[1280] That picture is so disturbing.

[1281] It's just so weird.

[1282] It's like it's got no tissue on it, but it's like a dinosaur in the zoo where it's like sort of suspended in a walking position.

[1283] It's so strange.

[1284] So much money to be made by these tigers.

[1285] But then we came to the U .S. and we looked at a crazy shocking number, which is that there are more tigers in captivity in the West than they are in the wild and the entire world.

[1286] There's more tigers in Texas than there are in all the wild of the world.

[1287] Isn't that crazy?

[1288] crazy.

[1289] Yeah, yeah.

[1290] I had a whole bit about it in my 2016 Netflix special.

[1291] Really?

[1292] You didn't?

[1293] Yeah, about how crazy Texas is.

[1294] Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, there's, I think there's somewhere around 5 ,000 tigers just in Texas.

[1295] Yeah, it's insane.

[1296] And I like that we so tend to look at Asia and criticize these people are being crazy and I can't believe what they do to these animals.

[1297] And yet the commodification of tigers is happening right here because it's all, they're making money out of, you know, roadside zoos and taking selfies with the tigers and.

[1298] Or, Or just rich assholes who have a bunch of tigers.

[1299] Mike Tyson had a tiger, and it was really funny.

[1300] He was telling me on the podcast that I think he's buying horses.

[1301] And someone said to him, you get a tiger.

[1302] What's up?

[1303] We got a list of here.

[1304] They had used tiger parts.

[1305] There's a lot of various tiger parts that are used for various medicine things.

[1306] How much of it has to do with the rectile dysfunction?

[1307] It's obviously been scientifically disproven.

[1308] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[1309] The fat prescribed for dog bites, feces.

[1310] Cure for boils, hemorrhoids, and alcoholism.

[1311] Eyeballs, treatment for malaria and epilepsy, nervousness or fevers in children, convulsions, and cataracts, claws, a sedative for sleeplessness.

[1312] Wait, the brain.

[1313] Can you go up again?

[1314] The brain is the best.

[1315] A treatment for laziness and pimples.

[1316] Now, what is it about certain countries?

[1317] Because I don't want to say Asia, but it's in Asia, where they like these.

[1318] weird exotic things that are proven to not be functional like like rhino horn yeah rhino horn is a thing that they love in uh certain circles in china right that's where the big trade like and it's the way it's described to me by a friend who's chinese was that it's more of that it is very difficult to get and like so you have some people over your house and you're like would you like some rhino horn I'm like, oh shit, this dude's bawling.

[1319] He brought out the rhino horn tea, and you all sit around with pinkies up and drink your wine.

[1320] But not that you really think that, I mean, they know about Viagra.

[1321] It doesn't, it's not, they don't think that this is really, I think they do.

[1322] I do think because they're paying so much money, I do think that they believe.

[1323] Really?

[1324] And traditional Chinese medicine, there's a belief that a lot of these things have been scientifically disproven, but they still believe it.

[1325] I do think because who is going to pay, you know, $10 ,000, $20 ,000 for a bottle of tiger wine, if they don't think that it's not just for the taste.

[1326] I think the way my friend was describing it, the culture values things that are difficult to get, that are exclusive.

[1327] Yeah, the more expensive it is, and the difficult it is to get, that is for sure.

[1328] But I think there's an enormous, the traditional medicine part of it.

[1329] Right, because there's a big part of it too.

[1330] It's probably difficult for us to understand this long history of the use that's been, like it's been sort of celebrated use of rhino horn and tiger parts and shit?

[1331] Yeah, I mean, it's...

[1332] Yeah, like we don't have a frame of reference.

[1333] Right, I mean, we could, if we, you know, don't want to be in popular, but if we looked at religion, right?

[1334] They poured your shot of the rhino horn.

[1335] Would you take a little, just see what's up?

[1336] Or a tiger wine?

[1337] I should have tried that tiger wine.

[1338] We actually got our hands in a tiger and bottle of tiger wine for the show, and we were able to gain it.

[1339] Did anybody try it?

[1340] No, we didn't.

[1341] I opened it up and I smelled it, and it's just a powerful alcohol.

[1342] hall smell um not particularly good nothing nothing that i would want to try like a moonshine type smell yeah but kind of bitter like not that's the tiger i would drink moonshine any day god it's so strange what people are willing to do to get something that's not even that it's not enjoyable like not it's not like you eat it and you're like oh my god this is the most amazing thing ever did you see see of shadows the documentary about the tatuaba fish no what is it How about the what?

[1343] Tatuaba fish is this fish that exists only in the Gulf of Mexico, apparently, and it's highly prized.

[1344] The bladder of the Tatuaba fish is highly prized in Asian China as well for its medicinal value, which has been disproving it too.

[1345] But in order to get the Tatuaba fish, you have, yeah, this is it.

[1346] Wow, pretty fish.

[1347] And they're kidding.

[1348] So that's the Vaquita.

[1349] In order to get the Tatuaba fish, they're killing the Vakitas.

[1350] What is it?

[1351] A couple dozen left or something.

[1352] Yeah, they look like dolphins.

[1353] No, that's the Tatuaba.

[1354] The other one is the Vakita that has the round nose over there That's the Vakita Why do they kill the Vakita?

[1355] Because they get caught in the nets But it's the only place in the world Where these Vakitas And there's only like 20 left Or something like that Just a few dozen left in the world And they're these beautiful creatures So the film is actually really well done It's also a national geographic film But they go and explore The whole market for this And how cartels are involved And it's pretty animal It's beautiful right?

[1356] It's like a dolphin fish Oh, it has a blowhole It's so pretty.

[1357] Wait a minute.

[1358] So is it a dolphin?

[1359] Is it a mammal?

[1360] This is it called Vakita.

[1361] Yeah, I believe it's a mammal.

[1362] Oh, wow.

[1363] It's just a weird porpoise.

[1364] So cool, right?

[1365] Yeah, very.

[1366] Yeah, very strange.

[1367] It's sad that so many of these are being destroyed just because of.

[1368] And this is because only 30 remain in the wild.

[1369] Oh, wow.

[1370] And so this is because of this one fish.

[1371] And what is so great about this one fish?

[1372] Again, it's the belief that it has some.

[1373] sort of medicinal value, the bladder of the Tatuwaba fish.

[1374] Yeah.

[1375] You know, in BC, you're not allowed to, if you hunt bear, like they hunt, like black bear is a, it actually tastes good, like it's a commonly hunted meat in terms of like the pioneers used to hunt deer and like even bison, they would just cut the tongues out and use the hide, and they would hunt black bear for the meat.

[1376] weird like black i've had black bear it actually tastes good does it seems like it shouldn't but it tastes good but the point is that because of uh chinese medicine in chinese medicine bear gallbladder is very valuable so people were shooting bears just for the gallbladder so in bc if you hunt bear legally you're not allowed to gut them because they want to make sure that you're not doing it just for the gallbladder so in some sort of a weird twisted logic you leave the gallbladder there to because you can't be in possession of a bear gallbladder.

[1377] So it's really anti -conservationist because, like, first of all, I don't think there really is a medicinal purpose for the bear gallbladder, but in certain animals, like with buffalo, when the Native American, like particularly the Comanche, would eat the buffalo, they would take the gallbladder and squirt the bile over the liver.

[1378] And they would eat raw liver and use the bile as seasoning, because it's kind of salty, I guess.

[1379] I've never tried it this way.

[1380] So they had a use for it.

[1381] But if you ever did that with bear, like bears are predators.

[1382] Like you can't eat them raw.

[1383] Like you would get really fucked up.

[1384] You'd get trichinosis and all sorts of parasites.

[1385] But I don't know what they're doing with the gallbladder.

[1386] They think, but it's so common that they actually had to pass a law to say that you can't gut the bears.

[1387] So when you shoot a bear, you have to leave all that stuff.

[1388] You can't be in possession.

[1389] of it.

[1390] So, like, if you shot a bear and you, you know, took the bear and, you know, butchered it and all that stuff, you have to leave the guts.

[1391] And that's because they're trying to prevent it from being sold to the black market.

[1392] Yeah, because people will hunt them just for the gallbladder.

[1393] And we'll pay a lot of money for them.

[1394] And particularly BC, like Vancouver has a large Asian population.

[1395] And some of these people have this belief that there's something in the gallbladder.

[1396] The sea bladder from the fish, it says in this article that many of, of the Chinese store them as they would store gold.

[1397] They cook them in soup.

[1398] It's good for their skin.

[1399] Instead of buying a Ferrari, they buy a bladder or two.

[1400] They sell for upwards of $100 ,000 a piece for one.

[1401] Same.

[1402] Yeah.

[1403] It's insane.

[1404] A fish bladder.

[1405] Wow.

[1406] It's like the bladder that allows them to stay buoyant.

[1407] It's so, oh, so it's an air bladder.

[1408] Yeah, it's a swim bladder.

[1409] Weird.

[1410] It's weird things.

[1411] Like sharks fin soup.

[1412] Have you ever had sharks fin soup?

[1413] I had it once Long time ago Like before I ever heard that it was a bad thing Like that they were killing sharks for it I think like in the Maybe the early 90s or something like that I don't even remember where I was But I remember eating it goes okay You had it at a Chinese restaurant I think I might have had it when I was young too Yeah Like I think it was okay to have back then And then eventually I watched some documentary Where I saw that they catch these sharks And just hack their fins off Throw them back in the water I'm like, whoa.

[1414] And you stopped eating it?

[1415] Yeah, well, I only ate it once.

[1416] I don't even remember.

[1417] I'm pretty sure I ate it, but it might have been bullshit.

[1418] You know what I mean?

[1419] Like, sometimes you go to a Chinese restaurant and like my friend Ed told me that at some Chinese restaurants, they would say it was scallops, but it was really skate wing.

[1420] So they would take like, and they would punch holes in a like a stingray wing and sell that as scallops.

[1421] Like, I don't know.

[1422] But whatever.

[1423] That was.

[1424] That's a thing where, for whatever reason, it's prized, but it's not that good.

[1425] Like, there's weird thing, like lobster.

[1426] Like, if lobster somehow or another was like some thing where you really shouldn't eat it because it's terrible for the environment, it's destroying lives, and there's only four lobsters left, and look, I got lobster for dinner.

[1427] It was like, ooh, and he sat around and ate it and, you know, put fucking tinfoil over the window so nobody could see in.

[1428] Then it would make kind of sense.

[1429] Like, god damn, lobster is delicious.

[1430] Lobster with melted butter is pretty tough to be.

[1431] It makes at least a little bit of sense.

[1432] But from what I understand, like these things, whether it's a tiger wine or, you know, rhino dick or whatever you're eating, it's not good stuff.

[1433] There's a dish in Portugal that I love and that has been banned that I used to eat as a kid.

[1434] It's the baby eels.

[1435] Have you ever tried it?

[1436] No. It's the best.

[1437] It's been banned?

[1438] It's been banned.

[1439] Meanwhile, you can get heroin there.

[1440] I know.

[1441] Without going to prison.

[1442] But I used to eat it a lot.

[1443] And, yeah, we call them Angoulas in Portugal.

[1444] It's also a dish, apparently, in Spain, but they make it better in Portugal.

[1445] And it's full of olive oil and garlic, which is all unique to make something taste really good.

[1446] And it's these tiny little worms, essentially.

[1447] They're mini baby eels.

[1448] And I guess it's bad for the environment, so they stopped eating the abuse stop.

[1449] But that's the kind of thing that I understand, again, like the lobster filled with butter, where you understand why you'd pay the amounts of money because it is really good.

[1450] Yeah, things that are delicious makes sense.

[1451] Yeah.

[1452] But like fish bladder or tiger soaked for years and years.

[1453] But it's weird.

[1454] Stuff that's exclusive is weird.

[1455] You know, it's like there's a desire to be one of the few people that can eat this thing.

[1456] Yeah.

[1457] It's just, it appeals to a weird aspect of human nature.

[1458] Yeah.

[1459] I mean, you can apply that to cars as well.

[1460] It's all the stuff that I don't.

[1461] Well, in doing this show, your show is all about trafficking things.

[1462] What was the most disturbing?

[1463] Was there a most disturbing episode for you?

[1464] There were a bunch of situations in each episode.

[1465] I think we did one, actually.

[1466] I've covered the gun sort of trade and illegal guns here in America, but I had never, and I've always wanted to do a show about where I explore the pipeline of guns going down south from the west to Mexico and how it's contributing to the violence there.

[1467] and we were given incredible access.

[1468] The films essentially started with a car of a woman being loaded with AK -47s and AR -15s in L .A., just a few minutes from my house, right next to the 7 -10 Freeway on the middle of a weekday night.

[1469] It's insane.

[1470] We can see them packing the guns.

[1471] We interview them, and these are L .A. people who live in L .A. and who work essentially for the cartel.

[1472] And we saw them packing this car, and then we saw that night we followed that car crossed the border into Mexico.

[1473] Nobody stopped them.

[1474] I mean, there isn't even any border patrol when you're going south, only when you come north.

[1475] And then we saw the guns being sold to the middleman, and then eventually heading to Xinaloa.

[1476] And we were in Sinaloa.

[1477] I don't know if you read in the news last year.

[1478] There was a when Ovidio Gosman, who was the son of El Chapo, remember he was...

[1479] Oh, yeah, we saw that.

[1480] Yeah.

[1481] And then they basically took hostage of the whole city.

[1482] There was a siege of the city of Kuliacan, the capital of Sinaloa, and the cartels wouldn't let it go and were threatening the whole city with violence if the authorities wouldn't release El Chaposan.

[1483] And we were actually in Simulahua reporting when this happened.

[1484] And all around, there were, again, American guns.

[1485] There was AK -47s.

[1486] There were even 50 Cals.

[1487] There were trucks with 50 calibers coming from the U .S. And, yeah, and we filmed with, essentially we spent time with three Sikarios, three gunmen from the Sinaloa cartel.

[1488] All of them had and owned American guns.

[1489] And since then, two of them have been killed.

[1490] We spent time with three, and it's been only a year and two of them have been killed, and they were 20 -something -year -olds.

[1491] And at the end of the film, and I think, you know, we thought, okay, we've gotten to the terminus of what they call the Iron River, which is the pipeline of guns coming from the West to Mexico.

[1492] Called the Iron River.

[1493] They do.

[1494] They even have a sense.

[1495] for it, which is Mexico, the U .S. supplies the guns, Mexico supplies the corpses.

[1496] That's what we heard, like one of the guys that we interview said.

[1497] And the U .S. has become the supermarket of guns for Mexico and for a lot of Latin America.

[1498] You know, I spent time reporting on the violence in Brazil, and you go to the favelas in Brazil, and, you know, you look into the guns and where they came from, and it's from the U .S., the majority of them.

[1499] Did you ever look into the fast and furious debacle during the Obama administration?

[1500] Yeah, it was a debacle.

[1501] It was horrible.

[1502] Explain to people what happened.

[1503] It's been a long time, but I'll try my best.

[1504] What was happening is that the EATF, which is the agency responsible for tobacco and firearms, was allowing, had an operation happening where they knew guns were being sold and smuggled to Mexico, and they were allowing this to happen because they were trying to figure out, gain information from this.

[1505] and what happened is that one of those guns eventually was used to kill a border patrol agent, I believe.

[1506] I think it was an ATF agent.

[1507] Or is an ATF, I'm sorry, so we were used to kill an ATF agent.

[1508] Or maybe, it might have been border.

[1509] I can't remember.

[1510] But they were heavily criticized for this, for sure.

[1511] They literally supplied guns to the cartel.

[1512] Yeah, they were allowing them to go to the hands of the cartel because they say they were trying to get information, you know, from where those guns were going, which is essentially what we filmed.

[1513] We saw the whole process of where.

[1514] where they arrive, how they're shipped, what they do to avoid border blocks.

[1515] How do they get the guns?

[1516] It's insane.

[1517] So I, this blew my mind.

[1518] I had no idea.

[1519] So when they told me, okay, we're going to get access to this Iron River, this operation happening, and it starts in California.

[1520] I said, you're wrong.

[1521] They can't start in California because we have the most restrictive gun laws.

[1522] It's not possible.

[1523] It's probably you're wrong.

[1524] Not the most restrictive.

[1525] Some of the most restrictive in the country.

[1526] You can get a handgun in California.

[1527] Good luck trying to get one in New York.

[1528] I know New York has the heart, yeah.

[1529] But some of the most restrictive, and especially compared to Texas and Arizona.

[1530] And I thought, you know, this is probably wrong.

[1531] They're telling us it's California because we get a lot of times they tell us it's one place because they don't want to spill the beans immediately before they trust us.

[1532] And eventually they, and eventually it was realized that it was happening in California.

[1533] So we went to meet with this guy who lives in L .A., just again 15 minutes from my house.

[1534] And there he was in this house.

[1535] packing the guns and he had his cousins working with him and helping him out and he says he's been doing this it's been the family business for years and years he started working for the family business when he was seven years old yeah um and helping with the gun trade and the drug trade he's also involved in the drug trade he was seven he said no how old was he when you met him uh now he's in his 30s oh jesus christ yeah and uh he and i talked and i asked him so where you know and this was one of them was a semi -auto, AR -15.

[1536] It had the scope.

[1537] It was super professional looking.

[1538] The other one was a bit little, was an AK -47, and then he had a couple of handguns.

[1539] And I was asking, how did you get your hands in this?

[1540] And I, having done reporting on this, definitely thought it was from a gun show, or, you know, getting people to go to shops and buy stores and buy guns legally and then selling them on the side.

[1541] And he said, in his case, he gets most of his guns from law enforcement, from LAPD or from military down in the military bases in Southern California.

[1542] And that was really shocking.

[1543] Wait a minute.

[1544] So LAPD illegally sells guns.

[1545] Or not, I'm not sure it's not everyone, but they have a connection.

[1546] That's what he told us.

[1547] He has a connection.

[1548] So they get guns, confiscate guns.

[1549] That's right.

[1550] And then illegally sell them to this guy who brings them down to the cartel.

[1551] So the AK -47, he had, I believe it was, the AK -47, he said, so this gun here, for example, this belonged to my homemate, my, you know, guy that works with me or I'm friends with, the LAPD found it, confiscated it, and then we have a connection, and they sold it back to us for $1 ,000.

[1552] Oh, my God.

[1553] Yeah.

[1554] Yeah.

[1555] Of course, this is really hard to prove, and obviously, it's not all of us.

[1556] Right, he might have been bullshitting because he hates cops.

[1557] He totally could be bullshitting.

[1558] Yeah.

[1559] But how does he get his hands on these, you know, guns?

[1560] What are the other options?

[1561] Like, is it only one source?

[1562] I mean...

[1563] So this is a guy that is done time in prison, so he can't buy them.

[1564] Right.

[1565] You know.

[1566] But I mean, is this...

[1567] Were there other sources that were bringing guns down?

[1568] Did you look at other cases of different individuals?

[1569] No, so we were following this one group.

[1570] How did you find out, well...

[1571] Without giving away your source.

[1572] How did you find out about this?

[1573] Through connections that I have in that world.

[1574] And it's one of the sort of bosses that we meet later on when we...

[1575] arrive in Sinaloa that we actually interviewed him in a strip club and he's the one he essentially told him it was because of me I gave you access to this whole iron river and you know one of the biggest reasons why is because Americans always point as those Mexicans as being responsible for everything and I wanted to show you guys Americans how it's your guns that are responsible for the violence here holy shit yeah it was incredible um what now when an episode like that airs.

[1576] Is that when it aired yet?

[1577] No, that's the last one, and it's a two -hour.

[1578] It became, it was, there was so much there happening and because we were there during the siege and I mean, they were arming themselves for that case, for the Ovidio Guzman.

[1579] If that were to happen, we went and visited a bunker loaded with, again, AK -47s, AR -15s, the lot, where they were arming themselves for something.

[1580] And then the event happened as we were reporting.

[1581] So it's a two -hour, and that's a really good one.

[1582] I mean, I don't know right now, because resources are so strapped if there's anything that anybody can do any differently than what's being done currently, like what budgets are.

[1583] But I do know that your piece on the OxyContin Express had a giant impact on legislation.

[1584] They literally, people saw that and then people saw the podcast that we did and were alerted to what a gigantic issue it is and politicians started talking about it and constituents started talking about it and people like, hey, what are you doing about this?

[1585] Yeah, we were called by law enforcement around the country and senators in Florida trying to, you know, sort of get more knowledge of what we'd seen, what we'd witness, and if we could try and help in any way in changing the laws there.

[1586] And eventually they did.

[1587] I would think that if I was the cartel and I relied on this Iron River, I would not want someone like you exposing it just so I could snub my nose up at the Americans unless they're so brazen that they think no matter what happens, there's always going to be this.

[1588] pipeline of drugs and guns and there is always going to be up and down there is so much money to be made and not just in mexico but here in the u .s you know with corruption and people being involved in this there is not much encouragement there for it to stop and i think part of it you're right it's impunity i mean this guy can do whatever he wants you know he has been doing whatever he wants they basically with that siege they made the mexican government they brought it down to and they said if you don't release this guy we are going to kill the families of the military you know they surrounded the compound where the military families lived and they said if you don't release this guy we're going to kill everyone inside and they would have yeah that was a telling moment when they released him like who is running this show oh this is not the government yeah we spoke to seen a little state police woman actually who was in tears saying you know I was there I went out.

[1589] I protected Mexicans that day, my fellow Mexicans, and the moment that she realized that they were going to give him up, she just broke down in tears, and she said all of this for what.

[1590] You know, I put my life on the line repeatedly for what.

[1591] Yeah.

[1592] Do you think that these exposés that you're doing currently, these episodes, do you think that they have the potential to have the kind of impact that the OxyContin Express had?

[1593] I hope so.

[1594] That's always the goal as a journey.

[1595] journalist.

[1596] Always.

[1597] You want to have some sort of impact.

[1598] Again, I'm not law enforcement.

[1599] I'm not there to stop them from doing what they do, but I'm certainly there to create awareness.

[1600] Does that make your job harder, though, to know that if people find out that you can, in fact, put the brakes on whatever business, illegal business they're running?

[1601] But I can't.

[1602] I mean, I can by raising awareness, yeah.

[1603] Yeah.

[1604] Yeah.

[1605] Oh, does it stop?

[1606] Does it make my job harder in terms of gaining access to these worlds.

[1607] I don't think the people want this.

[1608] I mean, in some situations, yes, people are making a lot of money.

[1609] But I don't think that the actual, the majority of the operators like the backpacker kids, you know, like the mule, you know, like the scammer in Jamaica that we interviewed.

[1610] They, I truly believe that that's, if they could, they would lead another life.

[1611] Did you go to Nigeria for scammers?

[1612] No. Do you know Jamaica's become the new front lines of Canada?

[1613] So the calls that you get on your phone are actually coming from Jamaica.

[1614] Really?

[1615] It was one of my favorite episodes.

[1616] Did Nigeria just make enough money?

[1617] They're like, we're out.

[1618] Yeah, I think we're on to Nigerians.

[1619] And Jamaicans are just, they're so, have you been to Jamaica?

[1620] No, I have not.

[1621] It's, I'm Jamaicans, I'm obsessed with them.

[1622] They have such great accents.

[1623] They can make, they can impersonate an American in a second.

[1624] Yeah, they're really, really good.

[1625] And so we spent time with, like, all these scammers.

[1626] and, like, surrounded with their bodyguards with guns, and one of them told us, as we started interviewing this guy called Victor, I'm putting on his mic, and he tells me, I'll only let you do this, Mariana, because you're a woman.

[1627] If you were a man, you wouldn't touch me, you know.

[1628] And then I go on, I said, okay, Victor, what do you do?

[1629] Let's start this.

[1630] What do you do?

[1631] And he says, you know what I do, Marianne, I'm in the money game.

[1632] You call it scamming.

[1633] I call it the money game.

[1634] And then he said, you know, and then we start talking more.

[1635] And then he says, look, I was even thinking of robbing you and your crew.

[1636] I was going to take away all your gear, we're going to rough you up a little bit, but you're a nice person, so I'll let you be.

[1637] Whoa.

[1638] And, yeah, so we ended up interviewing five or a handful of people there and sort of listening to their stories and why they do what they do.

[1639] And there was Tweety, the female scammer, she's an incredible woman who tells us a story that she works at a resort in Montego Bay, we're full of Americans, and every day she goes to work knowing that the Americans spend more money in a day at the resort than she makes in a week or a month working there.

[1640] And she comes back home one day, and her grandfather is very sick and needs an easy treatment, but can't get it because she doesn't have, she can't afford it because health care is very expensive in Jamaica.

[1641] And she realized the only way she can get, she can save her grandfather is by turning to scamming.

[1642] And she starts calling Americans.

[1643] There are these lead lists that actually sell for a lot of money.

[1644] A lot of them are coming from call centers because Jamaica has become sort of a center for call centers because it's cheaper labor.

[1645] They speak English fluently.

[1646] So they do call centers for legitimate businesses?

[1647] For legitimate businesses, and then they, on the side, they sell.

[1648] They scam on the side.

[1649] They get their hands on these lead lists, which is names of numericans.

[1650] I got my hands in some of these lead lists.

[1651] So they get the, say, like, Dell computer, I don't want to do.

[1652] Yes, whatever it is.

[1653] Any, whatever company has an issue with customer complaints or customer service.

[1654] They call them, they answer the phone.

[1655] Yeah.

[1656] So they even get lists that come from Vegas casinos of clients, people that go to Vegas casinos.

[1657] house.

[1658] And so somehow these cameras also have their hands on these lists with names from hotels.

[1659] So I had, it was a stack, I don't know, 50 pages or something of name after name with phone numbers.

[1660] So they call and they say, hi, Mr. Smith.

[1661] And they do the whole thing.

[1662] And it's fascinating.

[1663] We saw them doing it and they say something like, okay.

[1664] So hi, Joe, how are you doing today?

[1665] Hi, Mr. Rogan.

[1666] How are you doing today?

[1667] You say.

[1668] Fine, thank you.

[1669] Did you go to Whole Foods today or last week?

[1670] Yeah, I did.

[1671] I knew you did because, sir, you just won the lottery.

[1672] Wow, I did.

[1673] You did.

[1674] It's a big price.

[1675] It's a Mercedes -Benz, and it's waiting for you, sir.

[1676] Wow, what do I have to do?

[1677] Well, you just have to pay the transportation fee.

[1678] It's about $500.

[1679] That's it?

[1680] That's it, sir.

[1681] $500 for a for a Mercedes.

[1682] How do I pay this?

[1683] Yeah, exactly.

[1684] So you use my credit card?

[1685] Yeah, so you can use your credit card.

[1686] You can buy a little credit card, you know, one of those prepaid ones, and then you do it.

[1687] And then they actually send you, in some cases.

[1688] is the key to the Mercedes -Benz.

[1689] Oh, that's hilarious.

[1690] That's insane, right?

[1691] So you are at home and you get the key, and they call you, sir, have you received your key to your brand -new Mercedes -Benz?

[1692] And you say, yeah, I have.

[1693] Oh, so then, dang, you're more than willing.

[1694] Now you just have to pay tax, and it's only $5 ,000.

[1695] And you go, and you go, and you go.

[1696] Because you got your key.

[1697] Yeah.

[1698] So they get you for $500, and then they get you for $5 ,000, once you get the key.

[1699] Yeah, and then it's really sad because we also, you know, show the other side, which is Americans, even some committing suicide because they've lost all their savings.

[1700] It's very sad.

[1701] There was a show on scammers once that was really sad because there was this man, he was in his 60s, and he was convinced there was this woman in Europe that he was having a correspondence with, and it was really a scammer.

[1702] And he went over there twice.

[1703] He never talked on the phone, just exchanged emails and photographs, and never talked on the phone, but they made a plan to meet somewhere, twice.

[1704] So twice, this guy went over to Europe, and his family, his daughter in particular, was trying to tell him.

[1705] And you could see he felt like such a fool, but he was still holding out hope because he really was convinced, but then here he was in Europe and nothing was happening.

[1706] And he's like, where is she?

[1707] Like I told her, we're here.

[1708] This is such a bummer.

[1709] It's a real man scam, I think that's called.

[1710] it's a bummer right but it's also it's like don't say it don't say it's the law of the jungle oh okay i thought you were going to say that it's that because i heard this a lot that people are stupid who fall for this but it's not like i've no no it's not it's not stupid it's not that they're stupid they're vulnerable you know and it's it's weird when when you have vulnerabilities and you have people that take advantage of those vulnerabilities you know that are also vulnerable like financially vulnerable and they have a lot of incentive to try to do things and it turns out to be profitable and then it turns out to be their business and you go well that's awful that's terrible but is it terrible to buy an iPhone because when you buy an iPhone an iPhone if you follow you know I talked about this the other day with Matthew Iglesias if you follow an iPhone all the way down to where the metal comes out of the ground you find slave labor I know.

[1711] Like, this is a fact.

[1712] When you go to Foxcon, you see the people that work for the company that actually constructs these phones.

[1713] There's fucking nets around the building because so many people jump off the top of the roof.

[1714] They just put nets up to catch them.

[1715] This is, is that okay?

[1716] No, that's okay.

[1717] Well, you're taking it.

[1718] We're all somehow or another a part of this weird food chain.

[1719] And the food chain takes advantage of vulnerable people.

[1720] If you call me up and say, you know, all you have to do is give me 500 bucks.

[1721] and, you know, I'll give you your key to your Mercedes that you just want.

[1722] I'd be like, oh, for real?

[1723] Yeah, hang on.

[1724] And I'll just put the phone down and I'll go watch TV and I'll leave.

[1725] Fuck you, man. Or I'll hang up on you because I'm not dumb.

[1726] I know, but, okay, but wait.

[1727] So there was a good friend of mine in L .A. who recently got one of these phone calls.

[1728] It wasn't a Mercedes -Benz.

[1729] They said it was L .A. or it was the power company.

[1730] I don't know if they actually knew it was L .A .D .W. But they said it's the power company and you were late in payments.

[1731] and he was going through something, and he believed it.

[1732] And they said, you're very late in payments.

[1733] And if you don't pay $500 right now in the late fees, we're going to cut the electricity at your house.

[1734] And he was in the middle of doing a million things as kids, you know, his job, everything, and decided, okay, what do I need to do?

[1735] Give me, I'll pay for it easily.

[1736] Oh, boy.

[1737] And then, yeah, it was a scam.

[1738] So how much they get them for?

[1739] I think it was like $300, $400, $500, something like that.

[1740] It was in thousands, but it was definitely.

[1741] Well, he might have been distracted, you know?

[1742] Yeah, he's zigmy, you should have zacked.

[1743] Yeah, I know.

[1744] I love that.

[1745] This is the food chain.

[1746] This is the ecosystem.

[1747] It's weird.

[1748] I mean, there's, it's not like, we were talking about the people that live in Peru that grow the cocoa leaves.

[1749] This is not fair.

[1750] Nothing is fair.

[1751] It's not fair to be them.

[1752] And if they can make a phone call and trick some gringo and just sending some cash, like, I don't know.

[1753] There's a sucker born every minute.

[1754] It's not just that there's a sucker born every minute.

[1755] Like, it's not fair that you get to be born.

[1756] in Philadelphia, where this person is born in Peru.

[1757] It's not fair.

[1758] I'm not saying that you did something bad to be born in a nice place.

[1759] No, I know.

[1760] But it's not fair.

[1761] I think many would argue that actually Peru is nicer than Philadelphia.

[1762] Well, in many ways.

[1763] It's gorgeous, right?

[1764] No, it's true.

[1765] That is funny, right?

[1766] Like, financially, you're better off living in New York City.

[1767] But as far as, like, natural beauty.

[1768] Yeah, we don't know.

[1769] One of the things that was really strange was when, and made me nervous, was when the people in the town found out that you guys were there when you were with the guy that was making the Coke and you had to get the fuck out of there immediately.

[1770] What was that like?

[1771] It helped that I had Dirt Smith, Garrett Smith, the bear rider with me. I thought when it was crazy.

[1772] So we just the whole day was insane.

[1773] We finally get access.

[1774] We get on the road.

[1775] This chemist jumps into the car with us.

[1776] We're going out there.

[1777] And then we get there and it's completely night.

[1778] Middle of the night there is not even a moon that day.

[1779] So it was dark, dark, dark.

[1780] And, you know, We're not at Gio.

[1781] So we come geared with all these flashlights and headlamps and we're ready for everything that can happen.

[1782] But we get there and the guy tells us, okay, no lights allowed because if the population, if the people around the village of see you, they're going to be pissed and they're going to come after you.

[1783] Because the people need the money from the Coke business.

[1784] Yes.

[1785] And they would have had to, you know, given the OK, although this guy said it was his cocaine lab and he wanted to give us access.

[1786] And so we just had to be discreet.

[1787] But there was no way that you could get the green light from the entire village.

[1788] They would never agree to it.

[1789] No. And also, he doesn't want the entire village to know that he's running his cocaine lab there.

[1790] Right.

[1791] So although they know that the whole economy is sustained on coca leaves and illegal cocaine, that, you know, they don't want, they don't know exactly where.

[1792] I wouldn't say that the whole population knows exactly where the drug labs are.

[1793] That's hidden and secretive.

[1794] So he was gaining his access.

[1795] He didn't want the population, the people around it to know.

[1796] and he also thought that if they were going to know they were going to want to come after us, not just us, but him as well, and try to harm us.

[1797] Was that the most danger that you had been in while filming this series?

[1798] No. There were other moments when we were filming with the Sikarios, the gunmen and Sinaloa, for example, and they told us that while we're with them, we're protected, but if the Marines show up, that there's nothing they can do, the Marines will start firing at us, and we are going to be stuck in the middle.

[1799] And two hours into filming with the Sikari, their walkie -talkies start buzzing and we know some things off and they turn to us and you could see they're panicked and there's a marine helicopter coming our way and there's this really uncomfortable situation where we're like stuck they start going out with their cars we go where our car is out in the open and we see the helicopter and do we follow them and then they're going to think that we're with them and if they start shooting at the car they're going to start shooting at us too or do we pretend that or we stay here and hide and look even more suspicious So it was a really nasty moment.

[1800] No, by Marines, is it the Mexican Marines?

[1801] Yeah, the Mexican Marines, which are feared in Mexico, very feared.

[1802] And, you know, see, from perspective of someone here, you think that everyone's on a take down there.

[1803] The Mexican Marines were the ones that went after El Chapo and taught El Chapo.

[1804] They're considered the cleanest.

[1805] They're the only ones?

[1806] The cleanest.

[1807] The cleanest.

[1808] The cleanest.

[1809] But, you know, but it's one of those things, like in America, we think that no one, is above the influence of the cartels.

[1810] And that's the...

[1811] In Mexico.

[1812] The narrative.

[1813] Yeah.

[1814] And did you hear their story recently?

[1815] Was it the minister, the defense secretary, I believe, in Mexico who was caught at L .AX and charged with being involvement in the drug trade?

[1816] Yeah.

[1817] And then sent back to Mexico.

[1818] And then...

[1819] And then...

[1820] Oh, they sent them back?

[1821] Yeah.

[1822] Oh, yeah.

[1823] So they caught him.

[1824] It's going to be charged here.

[1825] Yeah.

[1826] And then they're like, oh, sorry.

[1827] Go ahead.

[1828] Take them.

[1829] Yeah.

[1830] Some sort of conversation happened behind closed doors between the Trump administration and the Mexican and they let him go oh fucking trump yeah wow what a crazy scene yeah um when filming a show like this and then um and then and then releasing it do does it give you a sense of satisfaction of completion do you feel connected to these each individual stories like what is it like to make such an it seems so intense absolutely they're all you know We put so much, you have an idea how much work goes into every single one of these pieces.

[1831] You know, it's months and months of preparation, and then it's months of editing.

[1832] And it's, you know, it's been two years in the making, two years to this day, more or less, when we started working on this series, and it finally was released.

[1833] And, yeah, I mean, every single second that you see in the film is thought out and heavily studied in research to make sure that we're getting everything right and that we're making good television at the same time and that it's compelling.

[1834] Well, you nailed it.

[1835] You really did.

[1836] I mean, it's so compelling.

[1837] It's so good.

[1838] I mean, you're out there doing fantastic work.

[1839] I really, really appreciate it.

[1840] And I just want to say thank you.

[1841] Thank you for your work.

[1842] Thank you for being here.

[1843] Thanks for coming on again.

[1844] It was cool to see you after all these years.

[1845] It's been wild.

[1846] But all right, good luck with the show.

[1847] And tell people again what the name is, when they can see it.

[1848] For sure.

[1849] So it's trafficked at 9 p .m. Wednesdays on National Geographic.

[1850] And then you can catch me on the traffic podcast as well.

[1851] will be competition for gerrugia's Yes And there is, trafficked And social media I know you're on Twitter Because that's how I got a hold of you That's right, Mariana VZ on Twitter and on Instagram Which Instagram is my preferred method Of social media ing Me too All right, thank you Mariana I really really appreciate it Bye everybody