#1302 - Ed Calderon

[0] Boom, boom, boom, boom.

[1] Boom.

[2] What's up, Ed?

[3] How are you, man?

[4] Great.

[5] Thanks for coming here, man. I appreciate it.

[6] Thank you for extending you the invitation.

[7] Well, I love your Instagram.

[8] It's very informational.

[9] And tell everybody what you do.

[10] So people get a handle on this first.

[11] I'm a non -permissive environment specialist.

[12] Basically, I teach people how to live, move, and travel in places where they probably shouldn't be traveling.

[13] You know, how to get our handcuffs, how to get out of zip ties.

[14] And, you know, I show people how to survive in such environments.

[15] My background is in law enforcement in Mexico.

[16] So, you know, I spent a lot of time down there.

[17] And over the years, that's kind of led me into teaching myself how to survive in that environment.

[18] And apparently, after a while, that made me kind of sought after as far as teaching other people how to survive in such environment.

[19] So I've been doing that for a while here in the U .S., military.

[20] military law enforcement civilians also yeah and you started working in law enforcement what year uh it's 2004 2004 so you started before everything got really crazy yes yes so you can you can kind of trace back where it officially kicked off uh by the uh the start of the philippa calderon's presidency which is the the second to last president we had uh he basically said you know, full -on war against the cartels.

[21] And by that time, I was kind of just getting done with my training in northern Mexico as a police officer.

[22] And what I thought was going to be, you know, community policing and stuff like that turned into a full -on.

[23] You know, here's a assault rifle and just go climb up on that humby with those military guys and let's go arrest cartel members.

[24] Oh, Jesus Christ.

[25] So you thought you were just getting a regular law enforcement gig?

[26] Yeah.

[27] I mean, realistically there was no such sort of kind of job description this was post 9 -11 I was actually in med school and that uh the economy and all over the border with the uh tightened security and stuff like that kind of went down you know down drain and most of uh most of the money that I was using for med school you know went away and uh you know that in the newspaper young unmarried individuals that don't have any kids you're welcome to join type thing wow young unmarried individuals with no kids they want that specifically yeah that was probably a big alarm mill shit of something in my head, but the, you know, there weren't a lot of opportunities for somebody my age there that didn't have a career.

[28] And I thought it would be, you know, everybody said, don't go, you know.

[29] But, yeah, I would have said that.

[30] What was your friend?

[31] I was like, Ed.

[32] But it was, to me, it was a challenge.

[33] And a lot of people said I couldn't do it.

[34] And I did it.

[35] And then it turned into something that wasn't what it most people expect the one they went into it you know it was a full -on irving warfare type situation wow so post 9 -11 the borders get tightened up and the economy gets very bad in the border towns is that what happens because people can't get through as easily uh it's uh yeah it's heightened security so commerce isn't uh it's freely done on both sides uh border waits that you should take an hour now would take three hours or four hours depending on the time of day So, you know, things got affected.

[36] Also, you know, a worldwide recession situation kind of happened.

[37] So everything kind of went down to toilet.

[38] You know, I have a lot of family in the border region and all, like, most of our family businesses that, uh, that we had, you know, basically kind of tanked during that time.

[39] So from 9 -11 to here we are 18 years later, it's been a pretty radical change.

[40] Yes.

[41] Is that safe to say?

[42] Yes.

[43] Like, 100 % change?

[44] Like, what, if you.

[45] had to like try to describe it so i mean uh basically the uh the part of the country that i had most of my experience is the baha sonora Juarez type region uh northern mexico basically what happened is that all the cartels started fighting for the most rich drug routes on the planet um one of them of course being the city of tijuana so the city of tijuana is that's the corner of latin america it's the most, it's the most cross border on the planet.

[46] And with that, you know, there's a lot of commerce that goes on in that region.

[47] A lot of things that ship to Tijuana and then drove it up into, into San Diego.

[48] And a lot of people have business on both sides.

[49] And amongst, among all of this movement, you know, there's a giant organized crime war going on.

[50] It used to be overt, like on the streets.

[51] Middle of the day, you would see these cartel.

[52] convoys, uh, arriving at a restaurant and all the cartel guys outside with their A case and stuff like that.

[53] This was 2004, 2005 era.

[54] Um, and what, what is the military or the law enforcement attitude towards that?

[55] Like, how do they hear that?

[56] So we go back to 2004 when I first got it started and it was looked the other way.

[57] Really?

[58] Yes.

[59] Look the other way.

[60] Look the other way.

[61] That was specific instruction that you got?

[62] Uh, it was, uh, one of those things where I went there and I got, uh, I got a firearm.

[63] Here you go.

[64] Here you go.

[65] your Glock 17 here are you two magazines here's your Mosberg 500 and you see all those cars over there we don't ask them for anything let them pass that's you know we don't do anything wow that nature and then it would see members of the military as well kind of go the other way type of situation this 2004 do you think that this was just to avoid conflict or what was it because of corruption it's it's always corruption I mean at always levels, at all those types of levels down there during this time, there was a lot of corruption.

[66] Things changed, but, you know, things, in a way, in some levels, are always the same.

[67] There's definitely some sort of pact going on, some sort of fear -based pact during that time.

[68] And when Felipe Calderon finally said, you know, enough is enough, we're going to declare war, he basically militarized a lot of the counter -narcotic efforts in Mexico.

[69] So the military went from being, you know, in their bases or manning stations out there to actually actively going out and looking for cartel cells and trying to eliminate them, right?

[70] So basically, Army on the street type situation.

[71] And another thing he did was basically all of the police chief, a lot of the police chiefs around the country were being traded out for former military officials or military.

[72] guys, officers.

[73] One of them was Lieutenant Colonel Lizaola.

[74] I don't know if you're, maybe your audience could look him up here.

[75] He's a very famous lieutenant colonel from Mexico.

[76] He actually has a documentary on him called Mexico's most, uh, bravest man. Very, pretty interesting guy.

[77] Um, he was the one that, uh, headed us up.

[78] He directed us at the start of this, these operations against the cartels.

[79] And he basically said, you know, this is, uh, this is in the police.

[80] leasing problem, this is a counterinsurgency problem.

[81] So we're going to, whoa, we're going to militarize it, basically.

[82] And after he kind of took control everything, everything in the, and it changed, you know, the cartels weren't as avert as they were.

[83] So they started going underground.

[84] So when you joined, you expected it to be regular law enforcement.

[85] When it became this counterinsurgency militarized effort against the cartels, was there?

[86] Every time where you were like, I got to get the fuck out of this job.

[87] This is too dangerous.

[88] Yeah, I mean, my generation, I was part of the seventh generation of officers going through this program, policing.

[89] And out of my generation, the first year we had two of them in jail for corruption charges.

[90] And three dead, you know, just five of how many?

[91] Out of 23 guys.

[92] So out of 23 guys, two in jail.

[93] Five gone.

[94] gone.

[95] Two of them very dramatic.

[96] That's two of them were kind of the origins of how I got into the whole counter -abduction type thing.

[97] Two of my guys got picked up outside of a hotel in the downtown Tijuana.

[98] And by by cartel members dressed as federal police officers, the whole nine jars, the uniforms, the car, everything cloned.

[99] They got, they got asked for their papers outside and got put into a band.

[100] They found them a day later, you know, horribly, you know, mutilated and all this type of stuff.

[101] Tortured.

[102] Tortured, you know, and that kind of, you know, that was the, this.

[103] This is real.

[104] This is real, and I should probably have a, you know, escape plan.

[105] Yeah.

[106] And, but it wasn't, I didn't know anything else, basically.

[107] So it wasn't like I had something to fall back.

[108] on.

[109] Right.

[110] And it was good pay for what it was.

[111] And yeah, but fear, that's when fear got, you know.

[112] The stress must be insane.

[113] Yeah.

[114] You're always on.

[115] Yeah.

[116] There's a, you know, we always had this thing on the, on the meeting wall.

[117] It said, there's no vacation even when there's vacation, you know, you would go on vacation.

[118] You would get your gun to go on vacation.

[119] Of course.

[120] You know, it was pretty insane.

[121] Now, have you ever been confronted?

[122] Yeah.

[123] Yes.

[124] Yeah, of course.

[125] I mean, there's no, there's the, there's no, it's not, you know, I have a lot of friends that are in military up here in the U .S. And it's not like, it's not like them.

[126] They go off overseas and they do something in a different country with different people with don't speak their same language.

[127] I was doing all this in the place I grew up, right?

[128] So I knew some of these people at times, you know.

[129] I, um, we, we, every now and then, I, I would say, hey, I know that guy from when I was a kid, or we were in school together.

[130] And now he has a plate carrier with an AK -47 and a gold gun on his pants, right?

[131] And it's like, whoa.

[132] The gold guns, big giveaway.

[133] Oh, gold guns are, you know, that's how you know.

[134] Yeah, there's some amazing websites that document all the different stuff that the cartel has, but they love gold guns.

[135] Yeah, that's, uh, yeah, El Chapo got like a gold, a very special gold gun when he was, uh, when he was named, one of the top earners in the Forbes list, I think he got his number on the gun and everything.

[136] The second to last time he got caught, because he got caught a lot of times and escaped.

[137] Somebody in the military that got him, took it, you know?

[138] Oh, no. And it ended up in the museum.

[139] I think it's in a museum somewhere in Mexico City, where a lot of these gold guns, that's a war trophy for those guys, right?

[140] So there's like a gold gun section of the museum?

[141] Yes, yes, there is.

[142] Mexico City.

[143] Wow.

[144] Yeah, that's pretty wild.

[145] Gold gun, gold AKKKKKs, you know.

[146] Now, if everything is so corrupt down there, how does a guy like El Chapo keep getting popped?

[147] I mean, because when I saw his escape, I was like, this is hilarious.

[148] The fact that this guy goes to the toilet and then he opens a door and boop, he's in a tunnel and on an electric scooter and goes a mile, pops up on the other side.

[149] And they had everything set up for him with electricity.

[150] Like, I mean, you know, the, I think the, the thing that people kind of don't understand about the corruption is it's not just corruption because people are greedy.

[151] It's also fear -based corruption.

[152] So if you don't do what I say, we're going to kill everybody in your family, even your dog, that type of thing, right?

[153] So after Lachapo got escaped that last time, you know, all of the staff at the jail got, you know, put in prison and so they were all part of it there's rumors that they were you know it seems like somebody had to hear all that digging of course you know I mean it's only a mile away they well it was pretty deep yeah some some things that should have been patrolled weren't patrolled it was a pretty good well made tunnel for what it was really well made so a lot of the people that El Chapo actually used for these tunnel operations because the same people that he used for the tunnels in the border region.

[154] All the active tunnels there are somewhere, you know, along the border.

[155] All of those guys were pulled in from, uh, from, uh, silver mining, uh, companies that used to operate all over Mexico.

[156] That kind of went into the toilet.

[157] So they were looking for jobs and, wow, get El Chapo out.

[158] It's good job.

[159] That's the order.

[160] Or drug tunnels, you know.

[161] When you saw all that shit go down with Sean Penn and Sean Penn visiting El Chapo and Sean Penn writing an article for Rolling Stone.

[162] Were you like, what in the fuck is going on here?

[163] Yes.

[164] For some reason that might not be, you know, mainly was why are they giving him a, why are to give him this celebrity status?

[165] Yeah.

[166] You know, there's a lot of glorification and a lot of, you know, people venerating some of these people down there, you know, and they do a lot of harm, you know, so that he's basically giving a voice to somebody it would be the equivalent of somebody up here giving a voice to somebody that was responsible for a lot of damage done to the u .s you know it's why do you think they did that like what what what was the romance it was it was romantic right there's something about it's like here's sean pan one of our biggest movie stars yeah with one of the biggest drug dealers ever i mean he is uh el chapo down because i've been to sinoloa and i've actually done classes there which was pretty surreal um He is a, he's a folk hero.

[167] He's, uh, he's, uh, he's Robin Hood, basically to these people.

[168] And like, uh, when there's a surreal moment that I had down there was driving along this bad, bumpy ride highway and all of a sudden turn into a nice, that kind of highway.

[169] And, uh, the guys that I was with told me, oh, yeah, this is, the cartel made this highway.

[170] And the back part of it, that's the government part of the highway.

[171] This is the good one, you know?

[172] Schools, careers, lawyers, doctors, all their careers paid for.

[173] By the cartel.

[174] Immigration processes of people that want to come over here, sponsorships, all the type of stuff, on both sides.

[175] Right.

[176] So the span of influence, that's, you know, that's how he kind of got to where he was.

[177] He was always helping people and he was investing in people and these people, these investments would pay later on, you know.

[178] In a lot of ways, it sounds like he.

[179] He benefited them.

[180] He benefited some aspects of the community.

[181] Yeah, I mean, the reason why the military couldn't get them, people could take corruption, but because he was basically, he had a human shield around him.

[182] You know, all these towns owed, you know, schools, hospitals.

[183] Every, instead of Christmas down the day, celebrate the Day of the Kings, you know.

[184] So he would get presents.

[185] Mother's Day, they would all get presents, that type of thing.

[186] So why would we want to help the military?

[187] Jerry come in here and get El Chapo, he's doing this type of stuff.

[188] You know, that's, and that is the same all over Mexico with some of the cartels, you know, the hearts and mind, carts and minds type approach is what makes some of these groups, you know, long -lived.

[189] So how much of an effort is there to eradicate the cartels?

[190] Because if you can get a guy like El Chapo, who at least in terms of like popularity is he at the top of the list?

[191] As far as popularity?

[192] But at the top of the, he's at the top of the, he's at the, at the top of, he's at the, the top of the list as far as popularity but when as far as like the actual drug deers is he at the top of the list or are there more clever folks that hide underground yeah there's there's there's rumors of of people above them that are still out there somewhere that's what everybody like that's the great conspiracy is that like el chapo is basically the bank manager but well you know there's uh he has a compadre you know compadre is somebody that if you're the daughter if you're the godfather of my my kid you're my compadre right so he has a compadre out there um and he is still out there right and the uh the extent of of how he works and where he works is unknown so he's more slick exactly he tries to stay more low key well uh there's you know some people get sick with the fame probably and you want to go outside well once that movie that tv show narcos came on yeah then every well people i don't i think there's a lot of people who did not realize how crazy the life of Pablo Escobar was.

[193] And what really went down in Colombia.

[194] Yeah.

[195] I mean, it's crazy.

[196] Paolo Escobar was a single, you know, he was a phenomenon in his time and age, but he was one man. I'll imagine replicating that type of insanity over the span of Mexico, and it's about eight or nine guys, you know.

[197] That was the 90s, early 2000s, because these guys were, you know, Legion of Doom type thing.

[198] where they would be enemies, but they would have reunions and they would meet up and kind of agree on, you know, certain things and stuff.

[199] Just like in the Pablo Escobar show.

[200] So they really do that.

[201] They get together and have meetings and sometimes they kill each other?

[202] That's the, that's the, that's a reality.

[203] You know, they do at times or did at times because things are currently, after La Cappo, you know, things kind of shifted and changed.

[204] What happened?

[205] Well, main thing is a power vacuum.

[206] And with the power vacuum and legalization on this side of certain substances, substances like marijuana, the pot fields are now poppy fields.

[207] And new things like them now dedicating themselves to heroin instead of the weed, which mysteriously, there's still weed fields.

[208] down there for some reason.

[209] You know, you guys are way better at making it than anybody down there, but for some reason, there's still a weed fields.

[210] Well, I think it's a lot of access, especially in the states where it's prohibited.

[211] Yeah.

[212] It's just, they're probably more willing to get it to the people.

[213] It's probably it.

[214] Meth, meth precursors being brought in from China to Mexico or now being made in Mexico, like industrial level stuff.

[215] Right.

[216] And a new, a new upsurging cartel down there that is trying to overtake the Sinaloa cartel, the new generation cartel, is coming out of Wallahara, and their kind of really militarized kind of wing of a cartel activities that are trying to, you know, take control over the whole thing.

[217] What is the plan in terms of the government?

[218] I mean, if they can take out a guy like Al Chapo, what is the plans to eradicate all this?

[219] And is there really a plan to eradicate it?

[220] Or is it one of those things where it's sort of a plan on paper, but realistically they sort of accept the fact they're never going to get rid of these people.

[221] So I have a, like, I have a thing like basically, uh, Katzat Kowatel was a feathered turpin.

[222] And I have a image of a feathered turpin biting its sale.

[223] Mexico has a problem with amnesia, a six year cycle of amnesia.

[224] Every president comes in, has all these plans to eradicate the cartels.

[225] President goes out, nobody likes them anymore.

[226] The new guy comes in and says, well, I have a better plan, you know, And that's the cycle we always go through.

[227] So it's a big issue in Mexico.

[228] Yeah.

[229] And currently we have a leftist president that doesn't want to have anything to do with the past administration.

[230] There are more on the right of the spectrum.

[231] His name is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Amlo, vocally supporting Venezuela, that type of guy.

[232] Apparently he has a good relationship with Trump.

[233] That's what people say.

[234] But his whole thing was amnesty for the cartels.

[235] That's a campaign promise.

[236] Amnesty?

[237] Yes.

[238] What does that mean?

[239] Exactly.

[240] Nobody knows what that means.

[241] But that's what he was saying?

[242] Did you have a plan for this amnesty or is it just like a statement?

[243] It was a statement.

[244] And now if you see counter -narcotics operations throughout the country, the military is not as active as it used to be.

[245] Whoa.

[246] Some of the cartels are growing in influence.

[247] because of amnesty.

[248] Could be, you know.

[249] Basically, I don't see the efforts that were there when I was active down there.

[250] Oh, gee.

[251] Things change, you know.

[252] So I don't know.

[253] I truly think that the absurd, because we're on route to having the most violent year in Mexico as far as cartel -related deaths, right?

[254] When I got out, Tijuana had been on the top most dangerous cities on the planet list.

[255] And I actually worked there when it was on the top.

[256] And through efforts both from the government and through people like Lieutenant Colonel Lizaola, Tijuana was gone off the list of most dangerous cities in the world.

[257] And now it's again at number one, right?

[258] Yeah, you sent me that.

[259] I was pretty shocked because you don't hear about that here.

[260] Yeah, it's six murders at night, you know.

[261] I was down there two days ago, and it was, it's basically cartel on cartel, so they're cleaning each other out and just bodies appear in the morning, you know, on bridges, hung from bridges, tortured, chot, you know, that's, you know, but again, the, there's nobody's doing anything about it that should, you know, but kind of turning a blind eye in a lot of ways.

[262] And so with this leftist president, this guy who has this idea of amnesty, the people that are in charge of handling the cartel, the military and the police officers, they've got to feel like a little abandoned.

[263] Yeah.

[264] Or maybe some of them will have a business plan and they're working at one side.

[265] Oh, so that's a problem too.

[266] Yeah.

[267] So people that aren't aware, you know, we have a separation of powers down there as well.

[268] So the Army constitutionally shouldn't be engaged in combating the cartels.

[269] They shouldn't be engaged in police roles.

[270] But there were some amendments done to the Constitution and, you know, laws passed.

[271] But you have to realize that some of these people that are fighting the cartels in a policing type role from the military, some of them can't read, right?

[272] Or some of them come from rural parts of Mexico that shouldn't, they shouldn't be doing that type of activity.

[273] So you get a lot of, you know, a lot of failures on that side of the fence.

[274] We do have some high -level SF community members in Mexico that are doing the work, but they're few and far between.

[275] And then you have the federal police, which has gone through about four or five name changes in the past, you know, 10 years.

[276] Because every time, oh, well, not going to call them that, change the uniform because they're all corrupt.

[277] Jesus.

[278] But now they're this police, right?

[279] So, um, so they just changed appearances.

[280] It changed the name, you know, but, like, try to refresh the public opinion of it.

[281] There was a famous, you know, modern investigation, federal investigation police called the Afi.

[282] And they were like modern investigative federal police that's going to go after, man, they were corrupt as hell, you know?

[283] And they, all they did was, you know, get a name change and all these guys got shuffled around.

[284] And the living around was like, hey, I know you.

[285] Like, what, no, I'm this now, you know.

[286] But they're still the same person who compromised.

[287] So those are the federal guys, right?

[288] Currently, they want to do like a national police force.

[289] And you're like, wow, they're going to get new people.

[290] They're going to be national police force?

[291] No. It's the same guy.

[292] She changed your uniform.

[293] Change a hat.

[294] So that's on the federal side, you know.

[295] So we're pretty wanting there.

[296] State side, each state has their own police force, investigation police force and a preventative type force.

[297] And these are politicized because each state government.

[298] may be opposed to the federal government.

[299] So there's a, there's some static there now.

[300] And each municipality has its own police force.

[301] And they might be completely different politically than the state and federal.

[302] So it must, for you to have your life on the line over there and see all this chaos and obvious either lack of organization or outright corruption, it must be insanely frustrating.

[303] Yeah.

[304] I mean, well, the, uh, putting people.

[305] in that were clearly guilty of things, you know, and then seeing them come out.

[306] Or the legal system down there that I got, that I had to endure, you know, you would have to go and do a face -to -face with all these people, right?

[307] Go into a federal courthouse, leave your firearms behind, do a face -to -face with these people inside that you just got, that you just got for however many tons of cocaine or pot or whatever, and then go outside and they're outside, you know.

[308] Now, now I know who you are, you know, there's no anonymity in that, in that regard.

[309] So you would have to sign things, you know.

[310] And then seeing some of the people that were with you working on your side and seeing then how some of them would fall into corruption charges and then sue the government and then get your jobs back, but now you have somebody that's compromised within your own unit.

[311] Wow.

[312] All right.

[313] So they did try a few things to try and clean out police forces.

[314] One of them was a plan they called the C3 plan.

[315] It was like a filter for police officers down there.

[316] It's still in action, but, you know, it's questionable if it's effective or not.

[317] I saw a lot of people go through it, and later on they would turn out to be cartel guys.

[318] Basically, they would do a background check, FBI background check, polygraph exam, drug testing, all of these things to see that you were, you know, clean to work on these police forces.

[319] the problem is that the polygraphs turned out to be unconstitutional to fire somebody over them so a lot of these people got hired back after they would fail basic polygraph exam so again it's a lot of attempts to clean it up you know and you would be on the level and all these people wouldn't be on the level but they were still there so what percentage of people are not on the level if you had a guess roughly i mean i'd say it would depend i'd say 30 Probably that's a lot.

[320] I got on on on on my experience of the people that I work that 30 % weren't on the one you must cherish the 70.

[321] Oh, uh, like family.

[322] Yeah.

[323] Like family.

[324] Um, and you, you, you, you would know, you, you would know when some of these people weren't on level because, you know, I have this running joke that I have this.

[325] I, I, I, I, I, I, I went in with the same card that I drove out of the office with, you know, uh, shitty truck that I had, that I bought, uh, that I bought, uh, that I bought when I, I, I, uh, that I bought when I, I, I, uh, I uh you know off my own dime first truck first car and i drove out of the office when i quit when i quit the job that same day you know i drove i drove out of the office in that truck but a lot of these guys would come in with their you know hummers and h -shoes and just weird cars are like wait a minute this doesn't make sense like we are working the same office why do you why do you have a three -story house that's so obvious though prove it you know yeah but but the the obviousness of it Oh, yeah.

[326] The blatant, you're driving a nice car living in a big house, and everybody else is like, what?

[327] Yeah.

[328] There's, you know, there's obviously these unwritten rules of, you know, you wouldn't tell on this guy.

[329] Of course.

[330] But, you know, it's obvious.

[331] And when it came time to share information of a certain kind or we're going to go over here and you would have to turn around and look around see who was listening, you know.

[332] Yeah.

[333] You wouldn't trust a lot of these people.

[334] So how are we going to do our job if we can't trust the people that are working with us?

[335] Who was it that recently called for decriminalization?

[336] Was it your president that called for a decriminalization of all drugs in America to go along with Mexico?

[337] Is that what it was?

[338] Yeah.

[339] Try to do something about the cartels.

[340] Yeah.

[341] We're on the brink of legalizing marijuana in Mexico right now.

[342] There's been a few landmark cases and, you know, it's gold rush type situation right now.

[343] There's a lot of companies down there that have had experience up here that want to go down there.

[344] Right.

[345] So the culture is ready for it, I think.

[346] Do you think that would help?

[347] I don't know.

[348] When it comes to legalizing pot up here, it hasn't helped down there as far as lowering things actually made things kind of worse.

[349] How has it made things worse?

[350] They changed what they were producing.

[351] So the reason why there's a heroin epidemic up here and fentanyl.

[352] epidemic up here, I think has some relationship with how things got legalized up here and how they switched product down there.

[353] So lighter colored heroin is coming down from Mexico.

[354] And I've seen, I work with law enforcement up here in the U .S. doing classes and kind of, you know, they send me things like, what do you think about this?

[355] Ed.

[356] And I've seen that lighter colored heroin pop up in places as far off as Chicago.

[357] That's you, so you know, because of the color?

[358] Yeah, the color, the smell, the consistency, you can kind of tell if it's Asian or Mexican.

[359] Is it a different strain?

[360] It's probably a different strain, and it's also the amount of sun it gets in the region where it's being grown.

[361] It's higher altitude, so it's lighter color, not as stinky.

[362] I don't know.

[363] But I think it's a relation, that kind of relates to the legalization issue down there.

[364] It didn't affect them in the pockets.

[365] They just switched product.

[366] It's got to be, it's such a strange relationship because the reason why, these drug cartels have so much power because they're selling drugs to the United States.

[367] Yeah.

[368] So it's like you have this connection to this country that has this great big wall that it wants to build.

[369] And on one side, everybody's buying up all the illegal drugs.

[370] And the other side, everyone's killing everybody to try to make and sell these illegal drugs.

[371] Yeah.

[372] I mean, and there's a lot of holes underneath that wall.

[373] Drones.

[374] Yeah.

[375] Dron technology.

[376] Is that wall going to help anything?

[377] Well, the wall's already been up for a few.

[378] years part of it and in place like de huana which is like one of the richest drug routes on the planet and it's the drugs are cost the same you know it's the same it's yeah and what about like the ocean can't they just take a boat uh i've i've seen one large submarine in my time working really a large like like military size uh like scientific size where the fuck does somebody buy a submarine online apparently really yeah You can buy a submarine?

[379] You can buy a small submarine for a small amount of money.

[380] I think the main part of the submarine ownership is maintenance.

[381] The reason we found it is that it wasn't properly maintained.

[382] So it sunk?

[383] Yeah.

[384] It actually, no, it actually floated, couldn't sink.

[385] Oh.

[386] And it had a bunch of things hanging off behind it.

[387] Submarines scare the shit out of me. You can't see where you're going.

[388] Well.

[389] So, yeah, I've seen submarines, drones, like.

[390] a squadron of drones with a bunch of loads on it flying.

[391] How heavy can a drone get still fly?

[392] I've seen full like two kilos on it.

[393] Really?

[394] Yeah.

[395] So just fly in the coke over the top.

[396] Yeah.

[397] And the only reason I found out about those is one of those crashed in a roadside next to the border fence.

[398] Were you around when that CIA drug plane crashed in Mexico with tons of cocaine on it?

[399] I wasn't there, but I was aware of.

[400] that situation what the fuck is that about i i mean realistically uh there's there's a lot of americans running around in mexico yeah that's that's that that's that's and there's a lot of cowboys right yeah a lot of people say listen we just make this one run like the government doesn't give a fuck about us my pension sucks it could be you know could be you know every now and then you know and this is this is this is this isn't a secret every now and then you would see a dude out there that's blonde, tall, and has a bunch of tattoos that don't belong down there, working on the military side of things in Mexico, or some dudes doing something in some place in that you would get a call, you know, oh, they're fine, just, you know, just leave them alone, so who knows, you know, who knows?

[401] So if it's three out of ten, we're corrupt where you were, it might be like, one out of ten.

[402] I have no idea.

[403] CIA guys.

[404] I mean, you know, usually we would go.

[405] get to, since I have a pretty good spoken English, I would get, I will get sent places for training or for liaison work with some people that would go down there.

[406] And I would never know what the hell some of these people were from, you know.

[407] So who knows?

[408] It seems like it's very loose.

[409] Like there's a lot of room for fuckery.

[410] Calderon era, Bush administration era, there was a lot of, there was a lot of stuff going on.

[411] Obama's a lot of, administration era after the whole fast and the furious thing things kind of went dark for a while yeah explain the fact a lot of people don't know what the fast and the furious says it was a they had sold guns to the cartel under the guys that this is the way they would track the guns yes it seems so fishy oh i i i learned about it from cnn and i a few of my friends were killed with some of those guns down there, which is, you know, everybody talks about the U .S. agent that was a Mexican was killed by some of these guns, but there was a lot of, you know, Mexican agents and people, civilians killed by these guns as well.

[412] So there were very specific types of guns, you know.

[413] So, like, imagine somebody giving you a shopping list about the types of guns you want, right?

[414] Including in these lists were 50 -Cal Barrett rifles and FN5 -7s, which are a very, it's a pistol with a very high velocity around that goes through soft armor like the type of stuff that was issued to us right so all of a sudden we're seeing these space pistols in the hands of the cartels and very specific parts of the country were like but what a preposter's idea that they're going to sell it to the cartel so they could track them well that sounds like horse shit to me that sounds like someone's trying to make money and they said oh we'll just say we're selling it to them to track it well the the the suspicious part is that all of them went to one specific cartel the scene the law cartel so it sounds like such horseshit the fact that i mean who went to jail for that eric colder didn't go to jail oh he should have he should have he should have i mean there's there's blood you know people died i there was a and i can't say the name uh but somewhere in uh in baha a little girl lost her arm uh an agent that was a friend of mine got killed and the wife got killed with FM 5 -7s that directly related to that whole thing right so you can go to jail for fucking tax evasion but this guy can get away with that just the idea that you would run that by people and they would go yeah good idea yeah give them guns and to be clear I don't know the the realities of that operation on this side people say it was it was happening way before all I know is that when that happened nobody told us and there was definitely some weird resentment on part of the government down there and some people down there as far as you know and and uh there was some weird conspiracy theories going on as well down there how could there not be yeah I mean that seems like it's conspiracy theory right in front of your face just the fact oh yeah we just sold them the drugs or the guns so that we could track them no one's gonna die it's not like a bad idea the main thing you would hear is people settlement and fast of furious executive privilege lawsuit between DOJ N -house.

[415] This is how it wrapped up within the last two weeks, I guess.

[416] Really?

[417] This is just wrapping out?

[418] Yeah, just some settlement on March or May 8th.

[419] Because this is from, what, nine years ago?

[420] Ten years ago?

[421] Yeah, at least.

[422] And the guns are still showing up, so I don't know how many of them.

[423] I've never known what numbers, but last time we found some, and I actually have images of the ones we found.

[424] They were buried in somebody's backyard inside of a water barrel.

[425] And all of them were obviously U .S. origin guns.

[426] And they're like, what do you mean?

[427] All of them had very specific accessories on them that nobody else in the world puts these accessories on their guns is at the U .S. Because they're pretty ridiculous accessories.

[428] Like what kind of accessories?

[429] Things that had letters on them, like C .U. and Hell type things on them.

[430] Punisher skulls.

[431] Punisher sculls.

[432] Punisher skulls are the big one, right?

[433] And that is hilarious that a cartoon skull has, from a Marvel comic book, has become a gigantic part of spec ops.

[434] Yeah, it is, it is pretty ridiculous.

[435] Well, the main rumor down there, like, conspiracy theory wise, and you would hear all sorts of things, you know, because down there, there's no such thing as top secret clearance in Mexico, you know?

[436] There's like, there's like, hey, don't say anything, you know, that's about it, you know?

[437] So you'd hear crazy, crazy things.

[438] main thing was that the U .S. was planning an invasion, you know, they're destabilizing the region so they could put boots on the ground.

[439] Oh, Jesus.

[440] You know, that was the, like, a coin conspiracy the area going on.

[441] The U .S. invading Mexico.

[442] Yeah.

[443] How fucking crazy would that be?

[444] Well, you know, as far as a reaction on the side of Mexico, people, and this is, again, this is purely speculation and weird rumors that I would hear, uh, people were planning to, uh, to poison drug loads on that side to create a health crisis in the U .S. as a reaction.

[445] Whoa.

[446] That was pretty, like when I heard, it's like, really, who's talking about this shit, you know?

[447] So full out war almost.

[448] Could be, you know?

[449] And then you would try to see, well, who's doing that?

[450] You know, the cartels?

[451] So the cartels of the government are the same thing?

[452] Like, what's going on?

[453] Right, right, right.

[454] And again, this is just weird stuff you were here.

[455] This is a crazy perspective, right?

[456] The cartels would poison the drugs to punish the Americans for the military invading the country.

[457] Yeah, yeah.

[458] To create a health crisis in the U .S., so they would have to go back.

[459] Wow.

[460] I mean, the rumors, you know.

[461] Do they know how many guns they brought over?

[462] I've heard all sorts of numbers.

[463] We never got told the same to see.

[464] He's got a number.

[465] Nearly 2 ,000 firearms were illegally purchased for $1 .5 million, according to the DOJ Inspector General Report.

[466] Fuck.

[467] Hundreds of guns were later to recover in the United States and Mexico.

[468] 50 Cals were, and it's always an escalation with the cartels, right?

[469] So they would get AK -47s, and we would get German -main G -3s that were around the same caliber, and we could fight back, right?

[470] And then all of our leadership started rolling around in armored vehicles, so let's get 50 cows to make holes in these armored vehicles.

[471] so so it was all it's always been an escalation now uh Jesus Christ you guys were getting 50 cows so you could shoot holes in the armored vehicles uh yeah so the cartels were getting them first and then then we had to get them because they were rolling around an armored vehicles so mad max type armored vehicles they would make they would first first they would make them like homemade mad max armored vehicles uh they they found a few of they're online somewhere one of them was called la vestia which is like a giant And all that was missing was the guy with the guitar on the back of it, you know, like the Mad Max.

[472] And they would use these to roll into town and, like, how would you fight that, you know?

[473] Right.

[474] And then...

[475] So you had to get a 50 cow.

[476] Or get the military to shoot them from the sky.

[477] Oh, my God.

[478] There's a famous video from somewhere down in Mexico where they shoot a Vulcan rifle down at a cartel member in a car, an armored vehicle.

[479] But then you see, well, you know, well, checkmate government against a cartel.

[480] But then you realize that the cartels, like the New Generation Cartel in Wallahara, have actually downed helicopters in Wallahara, military helicopters, because they have anti -aircraft capabilities.

[481] Jesus Christ.

[482] So then now you're like checkmade cartels, you know, that's how.

[483] Where does this go?

[484] Like, where, I mean, how far does it escalate?

[485] That's the thing that, you know, you have to think about the, so killing and death is not.

[486] At the industrial level that is being done in Mexico, not just killing, but, you know, disappearing bodies, making body disappear.

[487] I was around when they got the stew maker.

[488] The stew maker was a guy that worked for the signal law cartel in Tijuana.

[489] And he would get rid of bodies using caustic soda, right?

[490] So he would get bodies every night, and he had these, basically, these industrial level, just barrels.

[491] of it just going.

[492] What is caustic soda?

[493] It's a chemical mixture.

[494] Yeah, you can get most of the components at a hardware store.

[495] Basically, it dissolves bodies, you know.

[496] He would get some of this mixture.

[497] He said in interviews that he got trained by Israelis, how to do that.

[498] So who knows that's true or not.

[499] But in the night, he said he would get rid of, you know, dozens of bodies.

[500] And just get rid of everything, you know, DNA, bone, everything.

[501] So there's a lot of families on Mexico that are looking for their kids for years and there's just no way of giving them a body um and the amount of youth that goes into cartel work and just gets you know killed there it's just it's a whole generations and whole towns uh of women and old men you know they're out there which is like whole generation's just gone you know all the men in the gone i've gone to gone to a few small towns where they looked at me like youth you know a young man it's like so it's rare at some places it is because the men are all getting killed all getting got got in the uh you know in the cartel operations and killed or just recruited you know forcefully recruited or voluntarily recruited but you know whole generation's just wiped out now the people in your line of work the people that boots on the ground who really understand the problem what is the thought in terms of what could be done to fix this?

[502] I think the main thing is any sort of, any sort of plan, any sort of plan to fight the cartels that involves just a six -year plan won't work because that's what the main problem has been with Mexico.

[503] Each president comes in, your presidential, each term is six years?

[504] Each president comes in with a six -year plan.

[505] He either does very good or does really bad.

[506] and then it gets forgotten and another one comes in and there's also definitely an addiction to money from the U .S. side for counter -cartel operations.

[507] There's a plan medi that it's called.

[508] It's an international plan where the U .S. pays for counter -narcotics type operations in Mexico.

[509] So there's an addiction to that money on the side of the government.

[510] So there's a lot of interest for that to keep going.

[511] So they don't want to resolve the problem as much.

[512] they want to in some ways you know yeah um they they refuse to professionalize the police forces down there uh they don't put enough effort in that in that regard you know good people that are there that i know there's some amazing guys down there doing amazing work uh and they get passed up for promotion because they don't they don't have any they don't know anybody high level uh they don't work for by their side of the game you know so a lot of these people just get cast aside, you know, and, you know, it's kind of hopeless in that regard, you know.

[513] A lot of the good guys, when they get, when they come out of the job, there's only a few options to them, right?

[514] I had, I had options, but a lot of the guys that go out of the job dumped, so they get recruited by the cartels.

[515] Did you, did anybody ever attempt to recruit you?

[516] Yeah, yeah, you get offers, you know, you get offers.

[517] What kind of offers?

[518] Um, there's a, there's a famous, uh, there's a famous Corrido, which is like a Mexican folk song, uh, called, uh, I'm going to talk about my past, right?

[519] And it's a pretty interesting song.

[520] It's about a cartel guy that used to work as a cop and somebody from his past approaches him and says, you want to, you want to, you want to do a job, you know, that's what you would get, you know, people within the police forces are asking you, you want to, you want to work on the side.

[521] That was the entry, you know.

[522] and or you know we'll pay you this much what is it like when you say no uh it's pretty pretty hard it's uh it's not it's not it's not specifically saying no um but just saying i'm not the one to ask for this and and you say you know i'm not the one to ask for this you know what i'm i'm only in this for the money of the for my paycheck and you know i don't want to risk anything so and how do they leave that they don't they're not happy usually you know so you get on a list sometimes and you know something that follows you but it's a much better thing than actually going getting into one of these guys's pockets you know once you take something you're theirs right like the mob like the mob you know a lot of thing it's a lot of these guys actually took uh you know they they have a lot of these cartels down there they kind of venerate the whole gangster era in the u .s it's like a thing oh so it's like a thing they looked up like look up too, you know?

[523] Right.

[524] So, like, you see a lot of a gold -plated Thompson machine guns down there and take picture with him.

[525] So there's a lack of professionalizing the police force.

[526] Yes.

[527] And that you think is a conscious effort?

[528] I think it's, uh, so you keep them fairly incompetent.

[529] I think so, you know, a lot of ways we were, we were, we were, uh, as a group, the group that I used to work with.

[530] There was a lot of efforts to professionalize us to getting a career path to actually being, you know, making it a career.

[531] There's no, right now where I used to work, there's no pension.

[532] You know, there's no retiring.

[533] Wow.

[534] If you want to get any sort of a credit for anything, the credit companies won't even touch you because you're too high risk, you know.

[535] Too high risk because you might get shot?

[536] Yeah.

[537] Wow.

[538] Yeah, well, it is the most dangerous city on the planet, all right?

[539] So, so they wouldn't touch us.

[540] And realistically, culturally, being a cop in Mexico is, you know, male porn actor and cop are probably along the same range as far as shame, you know.

[541] Wow.

[542] Yeah.

[543] We wouldn't eat at any restaurant that we didn't know the people, you know, because it would spit in there.

[544] Really?

[545] There's a lot of, yeah, there's hate.

[546] You know, it's hate.

[547] Or why they hate cops so much?

[548] They, like, as a, as a culture in Mexico, police, police culture in Mexico has earned it.

[549] You know, a lot of guys working both sides.

[550] A lot of guys being, you know, again, the whole, you're going to be a cop because you know somebody in there.

[551] And people that shouldn't be in any sort of public service.

[552] So there's a lot of corruption, again, a lot of corruption, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of, A lot of things done wrongly by the cops, a lot of abuses, you know, a lot of human rights violation type situations.

[553] So it's earned, you know.

[554] So the big shift over there in terms of crime, in terms of cartel crime, occurs first with September 11th, the tightening of the borders.

[555] Then it starts to ramp up after that because of what?

[556] The government first started targeting certain cartel heads.

[557] you cut one head off Hydra you know two heads two heads three heads pop up power vacuum power vacuum people fight to try to gain power you know and the cartels realize you know what yeah we are standing on the richest drug routes on the planet so we should probably you know start fighting over them yeah and also what also what happened is that you know a lot of these people is something that Americans kind of don't have don't get yet this isn't a mexican problem anymore specifically as far as the cartel violence going on a lot of these people had their kids up here in the u .s in the 90s a lot of these cartel guys you know el chapo has kids had kids in the u .s and a lot of these people are now coming of age you know um so cartel influence in the u .s is a thing you're going to start seeing if you're already seeing it but you're going to see more of it because a lot of these people are actually American -born U .S. citizens now working in tandem with any sort of interest down there.

[558] So that's going to be the new shift, you know.

[559] And, you know, people are sometimes kind of horrified by some of the stuff that I post up, some of the cases down there.

[560] People can look up the Los Palillos gang in Southern California.

[561] There were an actual cartel group that would kidnap people in the U .S., dressed as federal agents in the U .S. and drag them back down to Mexico.

[562] Now, this has happened a few, almost, I think, nine years back, but this is happening in the U .S. No, it's not something foreign anymore.

[563] You know, a lot of people want to think that you can build a wall and keep all that down.

[564] Don't get me wrong.

[565] Build that wall.

[566] I have nothing against it, but selling it as a security thing, it's just, I don't think it makes that much sense.

[567] And a lot of, in a lot of the parts where it is up, violence is rampant on both sides.

[568] But if the argument would be that if the wall didn't exist, then it would be too easy to come back and forth at all spots.

[569] Yeah, it could, could, you know, but again, drug tunnels, catapults, drones.

[570] For drugs.

[571] But in terms of like kidnapping people and a lot of other things, you cut off at least some of the vehicle routes.

[572] Yeah, I get it.

[573] I get it.

[574] And I think, again, I'm not against the wall.

[575] You know, build the wall I interviewed a guy I do articles for a few magazines And I interviewed a guy who's a Coyote Coyote He moves people from the border And he said this about the border He's asking them in the interview about the border wall He said, it's good for business You know You make something seem like it's harder When it isn't And it's good for business Wow, so you say, listen I can't get you over 3 ,000 It's got to be 5 now It's tighter Yeah, or fly him to Canada and they walk down, which is, that was one of his, one of his new favorite methods, you know, so.

[576] Northern United States probably got a lot of Mexicans now.

[577] Yeah.

[578] The Canada border is hilarious.

[579] It's a path.

[580] Yeah.

[581] It's a carved out 100 -yard path.

[582] We put pictures of it up the other day.

[583] We're like, look how hilarious this is.

[584] The difference in Mexico and Canada.

[585] Canada, they make it easy to know where the border is.

[586] like just get across here hey you'll be fine snow mexicans yeah it's really strange well i mean it's the the amount of creativity and problem solving that goes on on the on the criminal side you know um if if if your best plan is is a wall of a secure wall these guys have been working against that best plan for the past 20 years so they are they're all way ahead of the curb you know in that regard you know uh there's a interesting time in uh drone and people can look this up uh drone technology had a had an upsurge and innovation in tijuana out of all places in the world for a time you know like why that's funny you know wonder hmm what they were doing with those what could be done to radically curb this uh you know like if you were the king of the world said ed what are we going to do uh first off legalizing some of the substances would probably help that would help a lot that's a pretty good question but even some substances that are legal like fentanyl is essentially legal because you can get a prescription for it but you're never going to have like fentanyl just over the counter it's just too deadly uh you know another thing that you know i think about and that's a very good question i wish i can answer uh i think everybody wishes they can answer it Everyone just sort of like shrugs.

[587] So the cartels aren't just a drug -fueled business.

[588] They also have money that is in property and legitimized businesses.

[589] They work in human trafficking.

[590] Like they used to be you can cross that border and go to the desert and cross it yourself, but now you have to be a toll.

[591] Protection rackets cross on both sides of the border.

[592] sex trafficking piracy like you name it they have hands in it right so they just essentially took that drug money and just diversified a crime business they've been diversified for a long time like there was recently two three cartel members from Sinaloa in Malaysia released out of all places so you just think about that two Sinaloa cartel guys somewhere in Malaysia got caught somewhere and now they've been released and they got it like a hero's welcome in Mexico they got a heroes welcome oh yeah really with senaloa that you know again sinolo is a pretty that's uh i have this nickname for mexico i call it the upside down you know because everything's you know basically upside down right and uh yeah these guys uh got funny thing is that the mexican government was involved in their release and then they you know send them back and you know heroes welcome what were they doing all the way over there in that part of the world, I don't know, you know, diversifying.

[593] Diversifying.

[594] So no one has a real plan.

[595] Here it goes.

[596] Malaysia pardons, three Mexicans on death row.

[597] Oh, they were on death row.

[598] Damn.

[599] You want to talk about a kick -ass corrido and like a folk song about you?

[600] Those guys are probably going to get an amazing folk song, you know.

[601] So there's a lot of romanticism connected to the cartel.

[602] I mean, it's romanticism, it's religion.

[603] There's definitely some occultism involved in a lot of the higher -ups in these cartels.

[604] I can remember when I found out about the narco music.

[605] What are those songs called?

[606] Corridos, the folk songs.

[607] There's a lot of them, you know.

[608] And all of them have a secret language in them sometimes, or they're all a history of something that happened.

[609] And you pay somebody to make one for you or somebody makes it for you.

[610] And then if you do a good Corrido song for somebody, and the rivals will send somebody to kill you.

[611] Really?

[612] So, like, even the musicians are on other side of the cartel kind of groupings as well, which is pretty weird, I know, but it's...

[613] Wow.

[614] So if you're for the wrong cartel, if you make a song, you kind of have to, like, go in the hiding.

[615] Or not play in any places where the rival cartels, you know, are.

[616] Oh, Jesus Christ.

[617] Will they come to your territory to come get you if you right?

[618] Yeah.

[619] Yeah, there's been a few high -level singers, Mexican folk singers that got there, you know, killed for messing with girlfriends of cartel members or for singing the wrong song in the wrong place.

[620] So that's in the culture.

[621] And the religious occultism the cartels have as well.

[622] You know, it's a pretty interesting thing.

[623] Things like Santa Marte, the death cult that is kind of in different parts of Mexico it's like a think of a very dark freemasonry type thing right certain levels you have people that are part of that cult from the cops to the military to the cartels it's kind of two prostitutes to drug dealers it's interesting how how that kind of also has an influence on on on the way some people go into very risky businesses like being cops or cartel guys and how they wear or empower themselves by some of these occult iconographies, you know, like a vehicle or, or there's the, the Trinity is the Jesus Malberde, which is a, it was a folk hero from turn of the century, Sinaloa, basically a bandit that got caught and killed and he turned into a Satan now there's a giant church to him in Sinaloa with a bunch of money stuck to the walls and pictures of guys in the U .S. with like a F -150 truck or a Hummer.

[624] Like, thank you, Alberta.

[625] I'm living the dream now because of you.

[626] Wow.

[627] Two roadside altars with a statue of the Virgin Mary.

[628] And then you look behind her, and there's a reaper behind it because it's a hidden Santa Marta shrine.

[629] And they do that so the military doesn't destroy him because they have standing orders to destroy these things, which shouldn't be.

[630] But, you know, kind of religious persecution, but they actually do that.

[631] It's so different than the United States.

[632] In a lot of ways it is.

[633] I don't think we understand, like, all this stuff.

[634] I think the average person has no idea about the songs, no idea about the culture of it all.

[635] They have no idea the depth and how deeply it's connected to society.

[636] down there.

[637] I mean, the death cult worship is, I think you could probably trace it back to the Aztec days, right?

[638] So there's definitely, when you see all these highly violent, highly violent, bloody cartel executions and things like that, I don't know.

[639] I mean, yeah, I think there's some sort of genetic memory from those times.

[640] It's not abnormal physically for some of these people to do that type of thing, you know, ripping somebody's heart next to a tree is, like, there's videos of that stuff out there.

[641] Remember getting contacted by people that I knew on this side of the border in the U .S. That were very curious of why all these people from the Middle East were looking at all these cartel execution videos.

[642] And then a few years later, you had ISIS doing some high production execution videos that were inspired by the cartels, you know.

[643] Wow.

[644] So isn't it interesting that we don't think about that?

[645] We think about, oh, my God, look at ISIS.

[646] They're cutting people's heads off.

[647] Well, they learned from Mexico, which is connected to us by land.

[648] It's right down there.

[649] You could fucking walk there.

[650] Like, you don't have to fly to Afghanistan.

[651] and you could walk there.

[652] It's not in Libya.

[653] It's near La Jolla.

[654] Yeah.

[655] You go to La Jolla, you see these fucking multi -million dollar estates with this gorgeous view and everyone's driving Ferraris and Porsches, 20 minutes drive here in Tijuana.

[656] Yeah, the most violent city on the planet right now.

[657] That's so crazy.

[658] Yeah.

[659] When I go to San Diego, that's one of the first things I think, is how, what a juxtaposition, how crazy it is.

[660] that this is the border to Mexico, and it's all military.

[661] San Diego is filled with fucking seals and rangers and marines and bases.

[662] It's just all military down there.

[663] It's so military influence, and it's right next to the most violent, dangerous city on planet Earth.

[664] More than Karachi, more than Pakistan.

[665] We were insured by MetLife, and the MetLife agent said something along those lines, like, you're better off going to Afghanistan or Iraq than, you know, working here, basically, numbers -wise.

[666] And I was like, oh, thank you for that, you know.

[667] That felt like a good pat on the back.

[668] But it seems like they're getting cartel on cartel crime confused with regular person crime.

[669] So, but that's how it always starts, you know.

[670] It usually starts off.

[671] And again, this goes back to everything cyclical down there, that snake eating it stale.

[672] So you get cartel on cartel crime And then they finish each other off And then they realize Well now what do we do So they started abducting people Extortion Just for money Just Extortion comes into play You know Protection rackets Cross us guy Now they're very bold Now they're at the party somewhere And somebody looks at something funny So they come back And they shoot up the whole party I like your daughter She's pretty hot I'm going to steal her And if you do something I'll kill you and you're never going to see your daughter again.

[673] That's how it starts, you know.

[674] That's how it starts kind of growing.

[675] Just bold, brazen and cruel.

[676] That's how you get it.

[677] Sociopathic.

[678] That's how you get to that point.

[679] And then again, I experienced it back in 2006 era.

[680] And I saw it get into all the way to when the whole of the municipal police were, they basically the army surrounded the municipal police office of the police at Tijuana.

[681] and they took all their guns.

[682] And a few of them were taking on a plane ride to Mexico City.

[683] And for a few weeks, there was no armed police in Tijuana and the municipal armed police.

[684] Imagine somebody disarming the whole LIPD and just having the army in there instead, you know.

[685] Wow.

[686] So you would see these events and then things calming down.

[687] You know, the only success story as far as a city coming back from the brink, West Tijuana, when all that, like, the raging drug war went down.

[688] Lieutenant Colonel Lizaola, the guy that I used to work with, he took numbers down.

[689] Like, everybody down in Mexico, he got hired then on to go to Juarez to try and replicate his success.

[690] The only successes were there because he basically treated the problem as a counterinsurgency problem, not a policing problem.

[691] And he got nine attempts on his life.

[692] The last one took the use of his legs.

[693] And he's currently running for mayor of Tijuana, believe it or not.

[694] And he's in a wheelchair, but he's still, I wouldn't not want to mess with that guy.

[695] Wow.

[696] Yeah, we're, myself and some members of my family are actually helping out with his campaign.

[697] But he's, you know, he got one of his campaign offices got shut up, shut up recently.

[698] So is there any plans or is there any push to try?

[699] try to treat the entire problem as a counterinsurgency problem to replicate the success that they had in Tijuana?

[700] No, it's, it's, uh, that was a solution brought in by the right side of the political spectrum in the, in Mexico.

[701] So it's, it's, it's a no go right now because everything's still left.

[702] This guy just got in office?

[703] He's, uh, he's, he's, he's has a few months and so yeah, he just got into office.

[704] So, so, so you got five and a half more years of this dude.

[705] We're in for a ride That's what I can say Yeah Kindness doesn't seem to work When you're dealing with cartels It seems like No you give them a hand And it'll take your feet That's that's a Mexican saying Oh Man For you to have been in that business And to sort of be connected to it But outside of it now Did it seem like Does it seem I mean it must be incredibly frustrating But it also must feel futile Like you've wasted time almost because there's no, no progress is ever going to be made.

[706] I have a, you know, I have a weird experience that I had burned about two acres of pot somewhere in Baja, right, towards the end of my career.

[707] And then things happened politically, a bunch of shakes up at the office.

[708] I got called in and the director of the institution that I was in at that time was a shady character.

[709] and I decided to say, you know what?

[710] My mom had just passed away and that kind of affected me a little bit, a lot of a lot of bit, you know?

[711] And starting a family and stuff like that and you know, it said, you know what, this is not worth it.

[712] So I left.

[713] Quit my job, handed everything in.

[714] People were suspicious about why I did it, you know?

[715] Like you probably found a million dollars somewhere and you're running or shit like that, right?

[716] So I had to leave in a hurry, you know, got a few threats.

[717] Wow.

[718] Gladly I had, luckily I had some great people on the side of the border, friendships that I've developed for a long while.

[719] And they helped me out, you know.

[720] I went to Denver about two weeks after I got done with the job, and an old lady handed me a special cookie at one of the dispensaries.

[721] And I saw all the people walking in, you know, and it's like, is this what I've been, you know?

[722] right burning and chasing people in the middle of the night and looking at drug planes and violence and all this this lady with a cookie now it's a store it's a it's a beautiful store in Denver there's a store in front of LA in front of the improv that I have to I have to put a video up because me and Andrew Santino were there last night making fun of it I'll send it to you Jamie right now because it's so ridiculous they have shit under glass like you look you're looking at art piece I mean, again, I don't know why they're still producing pot in Mexico when you guys have it in the stratosphere as far as an art form.

[723] I'm going to send you this right now, Jamie.

[724] Yeah, well, they definitely have it down now.

[725] But it's just, it shouldn't be illegal in the first place.

[726] That's not hurting anybody.

[727] I just send it to you.

[728] There's a bunch of, there's a large shamanism and occultism all over Mexico and mushrooms.

[729] have been used down there for like forever.

[730] And, you know, growing up stuff like you would see it and it wasn't, you know, the demonization comes from the conflict around it, not that.

[731] Right.

[732] You know?

[733] Well, there should be real demonization when it comes to things like fentanyl to just whack.

[734] Look at this.

[735] Turn the volume up so we can see, hear this.

[736] People don't understand the state of marijuana in Southern California.

[737] I'm inspecting the crystals, Joe.

[738] The crystals.

[739] They leave behind a magnifying glass.

[740] It's no bullshit.

[741] These are all in, glass so you can look at the crystals because a lot of these marijuana dorks are like wine dorks or any other thing where people really get into it you take it too far when you look at weed under glass if Joey Diaz would be here right now he'd spit your mouth cocksucker fuck this shit right in your mouth if you try to have weed under glass like it's a fine chardonnay or something nonsense it's just weed man that's all it is just fucking weed Andrew DeSantino speaks the truth it's just weed man That's some Antichrocho type level stuff.

[742] How ridiculous is that?

[743] They give you a magnifying glass, and they had all these displays with that this is a hybrid.

[744] This is an Indica Strong hybrid.

[745] This is a sativa strong.

[746] Cetiva dominant.

[747] Are you supposed to smell it in that glass?

[748] Good question.

[749] Yeah.

[750] The rice stores have a little jar that you can smell through.

[751] It's a very good question.

[752] We would just grab all of it, machetes, and just put it in a big pile.

[753] And just chop it up.

[754] And look, light it up.

[755] Where's the wind coming from over there?

[756] I'm going to sit over here.

[757] Wow.

[758] Yeah, you know, you would get a pass after that, so it was fine.

[759] You got to get a little fucked up, burning all that stuff.

[760] Of course.

[761] Secondhand smoke.

[762] A peanut butter Eminem's, that was my thing.

[763] Was there a sense of frustration when it was legalized in so many states in the United States?

[764] In some regard, yes.

[765] Like, what are we dying for?

[766] What are we fighting for?

[767] Why have I lost brothers?

[768] Exactly.

[769] You know, a lot of people were killed over finding tons of pot somewhere, and, now it's fine yeah now you can just buy it and it's i mean but you know the frustration isn't isn't with the pot itself again it's it's what happens around the politics around it the amount of money invested into fighting it and and and violence and interests around it but the plant itself again my my mom used to grow it and put it in a jar with alcohol and rub it on her muscles you know and now it's a thing you know it's it's it's always it's always been there all of a sudden you have full auto machine guns protecting it and to grow somewhere and full auto machine guns another place people coming in there to burn it because you shouldn't be selling it it's just while I was doing it uh you know my mindset was these are bad people when I when I started you know these are bad people that are drugs and later on I was like just a just a plant stinky plant some people are smoking it and never never in my life did I encounter a hyped up you know pot head that wanted to fight you know so I was like they shouldn't they should make this exclusive everyone would calm down different coke is different methods different of course but you know pot when you were talking about how everyone with a six year plan it's not going to work it's never going to work it seems to me that with the romanticism of the cults and the way that it's ingrained in the culture and that they look at these people like folk heroes that this is a generational problem.

[770] It seems like many generations before it changes and calms down.

[771] And I would struggle to think of what would be the thing that could cause it to calm down.

[772] Like what could be the catalyst for change?

[773] Yeah.

[774] And more so than things kind of, things are getting even more complicated now with migrant caravans going through Mexico now.

[775] And now you have all these displaced people from South America now adding on to the problem of an already existing.

[776] How big is the caravan?

[777] We hear about it on the news, like from Fox News talks about it, like scare tactics.

[778] So I was, I don't know, and people can fact check me on this, but I was probably one of the first ones to publicly say that they were going to go, the first caravan is going to go straight to Tijuana.

[779] Everybody goes, no, they're not going to go straight to Tijuana.

[780] It's too far off.

[781] they should just go to Texas and they went straight to Tijuana and you know there were about 3 ,000 strong when they got there maybe a bit more and you know a bunch of memes came up because of it as they were going through all the Mexico most of the people were pretty welcoming because they weren't going to stay you know they were like you know here's a water like when somebody's doing a jog or running marathon they would hand a bottle water bottle and you good riddens they finally got to TJ and TJ is very conservative, like politically is very conservative place.

[782] And they met with a wall of protesters wearing Make Tijuana Great Again hats.

[783] No. Yes.

[784] Yes.

[785] Yes.

[786] Yes.

[787] And I may or may not have produced a few of those myself in hand in the way.

[788] And all of a sudden, you see the mayor of Tijuana with a Make Tijuana Great Again hat on his head.

[789] Wow.

[790] And the reason why they were so adverse to these guys coming in is that they were a lot of them gang members you know 14 street gang members the reason why they didn't go the other route is because they would have to have crossed loszeta's territory was a cartel that has problems with the 14 gang so they were just curtailing that they were complaining about the food they were getting at the shelters this is a third world country feeding third world migrants and we were feeding them tortillas and beans and there's a famous lady It was like, I'm not going to eat this.

[791] This is a pig.

[792] You know, it's pig mean.

[793] I'll use this.

[794] Make Tequana great again.

[795] So it's trolling on another level.

[796] Wow.

[797] So these guys came in, but people started calling the people from Tijuana racists, the brown people from Tijuana raced against other brown people.

[798] Wow.

[799] And you would see some of the, you know, some of the news agencies from the U .S. come down and volunteer groups, hippies, you know, with sending all their donations.

[800] to these people in some of these married caravan camps, they would grab the donations, turn around and sell it on the backside.

[801] You know, all of these things they would sell on the backside.

[802] So we would, they were, we had just absorbed about 2 ,000 or 3 ,000 Haitian immigrants after the earthquake in Tijuana.

[803] No problems at all.

[804] They're integrated into the culture.

[805] All of a sudden, now we have Haitians in the culture, you know, no problem at all.

[806] But these guys came in, they were really kind of disruptive in that way, right?

[807] So, you know, do you think, it was because all the attention they were getting?

[808] Yeah, that's what they wanted.

[809] You know, they wanted to create some sort of situation on the border.

[810] So they rushed the border a few times.

[811] I was, I was around there when the famous picture of the lady with the kids running towards the border happened.

[812] They were throwing rocks at the border patrols, the border patrol guys, and that's, you know, they got the gas in response.

[813] And that's when she was running away.

[814] Yeah, and they had been throwing rocks.

[815] Yeah, yeah.

[816] They threw rocks.

[817] constantly that was her thing and it's funny how a photo can give you a totally different perspective again anybody that's doubting any of this go down to tijuana and ask the people from tijuana tijuana people did not want those people there they saw them as disruptive crime went up one of the encampments that they have was next to a school the school had to be shut down because of all the needles and stuff that was getting found outside of the playground the school it was a massive nightmare and then we would see it on the news and it was like flowers and you know The narrative, yeah, the narrative was like, I don't know what these guys are talking about.

[818] Well, Trump is such a polarizing figure than anything that would be anti -immigration like that, like an anti -migration.

[819] Like, they just don't even want to hear it.

[820] But, you know, the weird thing is how a lot of people, Mexicans like Trump, you know, which is.

[821] Really?

[822] Well, yeah.

[823] Why is that?

[824] I think the whole, I'm going to defend our people type thing.

[825] They like that.

[826] Yeah, and a lot, and people have to remember, most Mexicans are very conservative, you know, Catholic, conservative guy.

[827] So it kind of resonates with them a little.

[828] But, you know, again, we're divided as well as you guys are politically.

[829] So there's a lot of, a lot of to the left type leaning people down there.

[830] So they, you know, again, narrative, you know, divide and conquer.

[831] But the people on the left, what is their perspective on the migrant caravan?

[832] Oh, support it, you know.

[833] Open the borders, you know, let them through.

[834] But they're not boots on the ground.

[835] No. Well, not that you're not booted it's on the ground.

[836] Their cities are not the ones that are hosting all these people.

[837] Right, right, right.

[838] They're not right there while it's going down.

[839] They don't have a realistic perspective.

[840] So it's just, it's a narrative.

[841] So imagine these caravan came into TJ and affected the businesses, the cross -border and tourism business of all the people that live there.

[842] So a lot of businesses actually closed down because of these people coming in.

[843] Really?

[844] And yeah.

[845] And the only reason they came in, you know, was to disrupt and create an international scene, which is what exactly what they did.

[846] So do they plan on actually trying to get across, or they, they, they were planning on jumping the fence and claiming asylum on the other side.

[847] And the famous lady freehold is that I kind of made famous on my Instagram account, she jumped a fence, claimed asylum, went to Texas, and then her and her sister assaulted somebody somewhere, and then she got arrested, got deported probably.

[848] So, you know, that's kind of the story of these people.

[849] And then you would attract some of these people on social media.

[850] So they would be all poor in the Mabry Caravan videos they would have on the news.

[851] And then you would see them on their social media accounts from back home.

[852] Louis Vuitton bags and stuff like that, you know.

[853] Maybe a fake one, but still, you know, they were fronting.

[854] They're flossing.

[855] You know, it's a weird dynamic on the border.

[856] And as far as I think it's being utilized in a lot of ways as a political type thing is currently because of the president you guys have up here.

[857] And it, correct me if I'm wrong, but they do make an effort to not go into tourist areas, into resort areas.

[858] The cartel?

[859] Well, this is the thing because they own it or they have investments in it.

[860] That's why.

[861] Oh.

[862] So, like, if you go to Putamita or something like that, you think they have investments?

[863] It's in their best interest to have things, you know, quiet.

[864] Yeah.

[865] A lot of people, so I do a lot of training as far, do a lot of classes, stuff like that, travel safety things.

[866] And people are amazed with some of the cases that I bring out forth that they think they're going to get abducted or drugged by the cartels in some discotheque somewhere down there.

[867] Yeah.

[868] And it's usually American Americans traveling down there doing their thing down there against other Americans and then coming back up.

[869] It's a perfect crime.

[870] Oh, really?

[871] Yeah, there's a lot of that.

[872] Oh, didn't that happen with a guy who killed his girlfriend down there?

[873] Yeah, there's a case of something like that.

[874] I think somewhere in the Caribbean.

[875] Yeah, that makes sense.

[876] Like, that would be a good way to get rid of somebody.

[877] A lot of those cases...

[878] Oh, I made a mistake.

[879] The cartel got her.

[880] I miss her so much, man. A lot of the drugings that happen down there during the spring break type era, type of time frame, it's always Americans against Americans kind of doing that stuff.

[881] And people think the cartels are drugging people.

[882] No. Sometimes it's Americans taking advantage of the whole being in the foreign land type thing.

[883] I was staying with my family in Putemita at the Four Seasons.

[884] and we have these golf carts and you can take the golf carts out of the resort and they're like, can we take the golf carts to the town?

[885] They're like, sure, go ahead.

[886] We leave the resort.

[887] The first thing you see is like military vehicle armored with soldiers standing at the border of the fucking four seasons with machine guns on the roof of this thing standing there ready to rock in case anything goes down.

[888] Yeah.

[889] Probably waiting for the rival car.

[890] cartel guys to come through.

[891] So, again, a lot of these people legitimize their business years back.

[892] So a lot of the money in those resorts, you probably trace it back to cartel interests.

[893] Wow.

[894] So it's just deep.

[895] It goes, it permeates the entire culture.

[896] Yes.

[897] It's part of the business model.

[898] And a lot of the money that moves around down there, there's some sort of relationship with it.

[899] Jesus Christ, man. It's kind of feel.

[900] for a guy like you who gave your blood, sweat, and tears and was a part of trying to stop this, it must feel so strange to watch this nightmare sort of play out.

[901] You know, so being up here, and most of my friends, for some reason, I have attracted so many, like, Marines to my life.

[902] I don't know why, you know?

[903] I have a few SEAL friends and mostly just crazy Marine guys.

[904] And I've been learning about what post -conflict is, post -conflict or being a veteran, a combat veteran is through them, through their eyes.

[905] You know, things like post -traumatic stress disorder and stuff like that is TBI are things that I didn't even know were a thing until they came up here.

[906] No one talks about it in Mexico.

[907] It doesn't exist.

[908] It's not, you know.

[909] It's not discussed.

[910] No, if you go into a situation and you, you know, do something somewhere.

[911] where you get a few days off, you know.

[912] That's about it, and you come back to work.

[913] Wow.

[914] And medical -wise, you know, you've, like, I've been discovering all these issues I have from that experience down there, and it's...

[915] Like, what kind of issues?

[916] You know, my nose is pretty, as pretty, has been pretty substantially destroyed, and I have a few, you know, head injuries.

[917] And, you know, I didn't know what they were, you know, I just, it's stress, you know, wear on the body, it's my age.

[918] I'm 36.

[919] I shouldn't be feeling like this.

[920] you know and through them they kind of pointed me into like you probably have this because this is what I had because I was in Iraq it's like I wasn't in Iraq you might as well have been in Iraq well that's that's the thing that the and and also you guys recognize your veterans you know not not enough not enough there's no such thing as a you know a veteran down there you know Somebody, one of my asshole friends, marine friends, gave me a Mexican drug war veteran hat because all those guys had their own hats, you know, so I think he gave me a Mexican drug war veteran hat and had an eagle, you know, being strangled by a snake.

[921] And it was pretty funny, you know, but it made me realize how there's a bunch of guys down in Mexico done amazing things, and they're getting a recognition because it's a war that they deny.

[922] right there's nothing happened there's no war happening this is the cartels and but there's no war you know even the current president said you know this is the end of the drug war because i said so kind of thing oh so there's no war anymore okay because why the war is over did you have any involvement this is barely related but did you have any involvement or know anybody that had any involvement with um those Mormon cults that are down there yes i i do know people that uh In the Juarez region, that some of the Mitt Romney's family members in that region area, yeah, I knew some federal, I know some federal police guys and military guys that were curious about the amount of firearms that these guys had because they had some, they basically fought the cartels off.

[923] How crazy is that?

[924] Well, it's, you know, it's pretty interesting being there and finding a white guy that speaks amazing.

[925] English and it was born in Mexico and he and they're Mormons they're Mormons and they have to get like a visa to travel to us pretty weird people don't know that like mint Romney's dad the reason why Mitt Romney's dad never ran for president is because he was born in Mexico yeah yeah yeah I mean there's a lot there's a lot of white Mexicans which is another weird thing that people don't know sure Canelo Luis CK yeah Louis CK Mexico canello yeah anybody that's of Irish ancestry If you go into a bar in Mexico, some bars in Mexico, you can probably get some free drinks if you tell them you're Irish, because the Irish betrayed the Americans in the last Mexico -American war.

[926] And a lot of them stayed down there and married some of the locals.

[927] I got an Irish last name.

[928] I'm one -quarter Irish.

[929] That's how you got a Connello probably, right?

[930] Yeah.

[931] The Mormon community in that area, basically a few of their members got abducted.

[932] Yeah.

[933] And the cartels were, you know, wanted to do more against them.

[934] And these guys apparently got some high power to long -range rifles.

[935] And they were shooting at these people from afar.

[936] They set up this whole security apparatus around their town.

[937] And the Mexican government basically looked the other way and kind of said, you know, well, it's fine.

[938] Just don't, you know, don't get too crazy with it.

[939] there was some sort of interaction as far as them trying to appease things with them you know because realistically the town that they're that they made out there is a paradise i mean amongst other towns in that area it's a beautiful place really it's a beautiful place it's very organized what is it jamie this is their Mormon little town so what kind of military did they have to protect this town like if they've they've made their own military so i actually got to do a few reconnaissance things there just this is passing by and what I saw that they had were a bunch of basically machine gun nest on some of the hilltops and they limited the amount of access points to that little down so they had the basically their what happened when the people got abducted I think one of them got killed and then you know they wanted to kill other people and there was this whole thing They went to the government for help and they didn't say anything.

[940] So somehow they, you know, procured firearms down there.

[941] So they started defending their own.

[942] What a strange story that is.

[943] Because they left the United States when polygamy was illegal.

[944] Yes.

[945] When they started making polygamy illegal in Utah, they went, well, we'll just go to Mexico.

[946] Because back when they did it, there wasn't even cars.

[947] So it was like no big deal to live in Mexico.

[948] Like, you're riding a fucking horse no matter where you are.

[949] Yeah.

[950] No difference.

[951] So they said, we'll go over here.

[952] But it is a nice, I mean, again, It's a weird American -like town in the middle of Juarez.

[953] How many people?

[954] Gawila.

[955] It's probably in the thousands, tens of thousands, maybe.

[956] Wow.

[957] Yeah.

[958] All Mormons.

[959] All Mormons and a lot of Mexican converts now.

[960] Really?

[961] Yeah.

[962] There's a lot of Mexican converts down there as well.

[963] And are there more than one family, more than one of these towns?

[964] I think so.

[965] Yeah, yeah.

[966] There's a lot of family names in that region.

[967] They're kind of famous.

[968] I think one of the barons are one of those But it's only this one town It's one of, there's a few out there There's a few Mormon communities out there Wow It's all the same sort of deal Armed to the tits Discretely armed You know I don't know if it's as open as it was But it's back then when it was really rowdy They were openly doing Things to keep people from not coming to their town And they're full on Mexican citizens Yes Wow But they speak English and they're white.

[969] So it's...

[970] They don't speak Spanish?

[971] Some of them do.

[972] But they don't need to because they live in this community.

[973] They don't go out of it a lot.

[974] So, you know, it's a weird place.

[975] That's fucking really weird.

[976] Yeah.

[977] Yeah, just like, when you're over here and you look, do you see it any differently from looking at it, looking at the situation over there and how crazy Mexico is from America, like how ignorant Americans are to how bad it really is?

[978] Yeah, I mean, so I've been up here for four years now as a resident, right?

[979] And I came up here at the weirdest time probably in the U .S. history as far as, you know, when I was going through my immigration process, Trump, you know, got elected.

[980] So it was pretty interesting, you know.

[981] And, you know, being pulled to both sides of the political spectrum, you know.

[982] and seeing how people would talk about Mexico in ways that were, like, you're realistic or, you know, just weird things that you would hear.

[983] It's like, that's not how it is.

[984] You know, that's not how it happens.

[985] And what's a big misconception?

[986] That it's a Mexico problem only and that the influence and the cartels are here in the U .S. too.

[987] You know, they're all there everywhere.

[988] You know, it's not the border, the border thing is like, that's the border, but they're on both sides.

[989] You know, there's definitely cartel here in the U .S. so then most Americans thinking of it is a foreign problem it's foreign if you live far from the border maybe you know but you know it's it's everywhere it's everywhere um that's one thing that I always see like you know and also that that it's a problem that Mexico should fix itself you know that's a lot they also hear that know they should fix their own shit yeah but their own you know the problems down there you know stem from firearms and money coming from up here and the big drug market and you know the money going into some corrupt hands down there at times and then basically them burning the manual every six years and just starting a new on their fight and the car does anybody else say this other than you like does anybody say that politically over there I there's a few people there's a few people I was actually in charge of the governor of Baja's security detail towards for two years, almost three years.

[990] I was put there because he was a very good friend of Philippic Hotherin.

[991] He was his compadre.

[992] And he was very high level, and there was a lot of threats in his life.

[993] And again, he was heading up the tip of the spear for the counter -cartel operations in the whole of Mexico.

[994] And he implemented a plan in T .J. that was then replicated throughout the country.

[995] And he would be very vocal in his counter -cartel rhetoric.

[996] how we could do better and how we should all work together.

[997] He developed these groups called Boom Groups.

[998] Basically, Army, Municipal Police, State Police, all of them working together in these operations groups and just going out there and it's the jurisdiction of everybody here to do whatever we need to do.

[999] And he was pretty, you know, instrumental.

[1000] His name was Osuna Miyan.

[1001] And he's out of politics now.

[1002] And he had a lot of threats on his life.

[1003] And it was pretty interesting working with him.

[1004] He's one of those people think that all politicians grew up down there.

[1005] It's not true.

[1006] There's some good ones.

[1007] He was one, definitely worked directly with him.

[1008] And I could tell you that he was one of those good ones.

[1009] And Lieutenant Colonel Lizaola, who's now running for Marip Tijuana, he's one of those vocal guys.

[1010] There's a reason why he's been, they've tried to kill him nine times, you know.

[1011] He's saying something.

[1012] You know, he represents something, right?

[1013] There are good people down there willing to fight.

[1014] It's just that, you know, there's a lot of more bad people.

[1015] willing to kill.

[1016] You must have seen some horrific shit over the course of your career.

[1017] Yeah.

[1018] All the bodies, the brutality, the torture, all that type of stuff down there.

[1019] Again, I tell people, working down there is the closest thing to the Wild West you have currently.

[1020] It's basically, and when the people say third world country, there's a lot of cosmopolitan places just across the border that aren't necessarily alien to American eyes.

[1021] right yeah now imagine all this you know crazy things happening down there like uh there was a famous firefight uh in tijuana uh the cupula which is basically there was a big cartel stronghold inside of this castle type thing you know it had a big giant dome on top of it the cupola shootout and when you when that happened basically a bunch of everybody responded to this thing and it was next to a school and kids were being evacuated from it was pretty horrific a lot of the people on the inside they had a lot of people abducted on the inside and they basically executed all of them and some of the people on the inside with the cartel guys would put zip ties on themselves and you know kneel down the ground so you would think it was them and you saw uniform police officers inside of their shooting outside to a uniform police officer so you would see how the crazy corruption and you know shootout happens, bank robbery, two guys with AK -47s.

[1022] North Hollywood, that one?

[1023] Militarized the whole policing in the United States.

[1024] That type of thing happens in Mexico every day, and nothing happens, nothing changes.

[1025] You know, that's, that's a crazy part.

[1026] You know, how that just is part of the normal now down there.

[1027] Nothing changes.

[1028] No, no adjustments.

[1029] No adjustments.

[1030] No evolution.

[1031] You know, these guys used to roll around dressed as cops with cloned vehicles, and now they roll around in taxi cabs and are more discreet in how they move.

[1032] These guys used to use drug mules and drug tunnels.

[1033] Now they use unmanned drones and other means to cross their drugs.

[1034] So they're always kind of evolving and adjusting, and the government is trying to smash it with a hammer for the past, you know, 10, 15, 20 years.

[1035] Just whack them all.

[1036] whack them all what made you start your Instagram account because your Instagram account is excellent it's Ed Manifesto and it's all you talk so much about the problems that are going on over there and you also do a lot of situational awareness stuff you show like what's wrong with this picture what do you see here?

[1037] main thing was when I started I was still active down there so it was kind of like a reporting you know so I was trying to share things with people to try and raise awareness.

[1038] But after that, it became more of a thing of, I just spent over a decade working in this environment down here, and I have nothing to show for it.

[1039] So I need to take that experience and make it worth it for people, to share some of that experience with other people, and to make it, you know, just to make it, I had to justify it to myself.

[1040] I need to make it worth my while to have, having done that.

[1041] there's not a lot of people doing what you're doing though no no uh i think the the the the strange thing about me is my english and the fact that i worked on the border so i had the opportunity to cross that border and you know share some of those experience up here like i've been to the fbi academy uh surreal you know this kid from tj is now at the fbi academy showing some weird It's some weird people.

[1042] Secret Service Academy.

[1043] Some of your SF guys have, you know, contacted me and I've done work for them.

[1044] And I show them like, wow, Ed, like, that trick to get our handcuffs, that's pretty cool.

[1045] Where did you learn that?

[1046] Like, who showed you that 15 -year -old kid, you know, and TJ showed me how to flip handcuffs and weaponize them?

[1047] That's pretty gnarly.

[1048] Flip them and weaponize them?

[1049] Yeah, so there's ways of releasing your handcuffs and flipping.

[1050] the side of the arm of the handcuffs so it looks like it's still on, but it isn't.

[1051] And somebody approaches you, and you flip it open and use that thing as a meat hook.

[1052] And a 15 -year -old kid showed me that after he tried to apply that on one of our guys.

[1053] And that's the stuff I wrote on in my little manifesto.

[1054] It was basically a manifesto was a notebook.

[1055] I would write all these things down, document most of them.

[1056] And when I would come over here to the U .S. to do training, like I did some training with NCIS and Coronado during my career.

[1057] And some of those guys were team guys, seal guys.

[1058] That's how I met a few of them.

[1059] And they were like, hey, Ed, this is how we do executive protection in the Middle East.

[1060] I was like, wow, that's how we do it right across the border right down here.

[1061] What?

[1062] Yeah?

[1063] Really?

[1064] Yeah.

[1065] Wow.

[1066] That's crazy.

[1067] Yeah.

[1068] And, you know, we'd show them a flash drive with a bunch of pictures from stuff down there, and they would, like, be blown away by it and sharing information.

[1069] and kind of basically making use of that experience.

[1070] A lot of people down there are mute.

[1071] They don't share that experience.

[1072] They don't think it's worth anything.

[1073] I think I realize that that experience in that gnarly place is worth something, at least as far as sharing it.

[1074] Yeah.

[1075] Not a lot of people think that.

[1076] You know, we downplay ourselves.

[1077] We have this problem in Mexico.

[1078] Most Mexicans are very doubtful about themselves.

[1079] You know, there's a, like, we're Mexicans like, what would we have to share with these high -level guys?

[1080] you know and you know being in a place like that low means low equipment low training being creative that's a lot of things that come up from those uh that experience and being you know solution wise as far as you know keeping safe well i think part of the problem with the united states of mexico is our view of mexico and someone like you what you provide is a realistic perspective and real information, real photographs, real stories, go.

[1081] And just enough, and then this conversation, just enough where enough people hear it, it'll shift the idea of what is happening in Mexico a little bit.

[1082] I mean, again, thank you for this invitation.

[1083] And I, thank you.

[1084] I have a, like, I've, I have this weird comparison that I have with you as far as, you know, this podcast.

[1085] I've listened to it way back when, you know.

[1086] And I remember this whole feeling of being around a campfire and hearing, you know, people talk about their things and kind of, you know, passing the pipe.

[1087] That's just pretty interesting.

[1088] That's something I've only kind of seen as far as it changing information of that, like around campfires or shamans or sweat lodging type situations down there.

[1089] A lot of our guys were native, so they would get invited to these sweat lodges and stuff like that.

[1090] You get that and change of information.

[1091] but yeah definitely start talking about it that's the first step and a lot of people don't want to talk about it because of fear you know people are like hey aren't you afraid of talking about this so i was afraid for 12 years yes i am uh but i i i know that uh nobody else is going to going to so i if not anybody else you know well if you stop and think about how many guys have worked on the border how many guys have worked in these counterinsurgency operations and how few are talking about it or and how many Many of them died, nobody knows who they are.

[1092] How many are you still out there?

[1093] Nobody knows who they are.

[1094] Or, you know, Sycario, that movie, Sicario came out.

[1095] Yeah.

[1096] Those people are looking at that movie.

[1097] So a lot of the followers are suspicious of that Venetio El Toro having an MP5.

[1098] I was the only Mexican rock in an MP5 submachine gun down there, right?

[1099] So it's like, is that, you know.

[1100] What did you think of those movies?

[1101] Oh, horrible.

[1102] It's horrible.

[1103] Unrealistic, you know?

[1104] They should, hey, if somebody doesn't hire me, I'll do it for free.

[1105] just, you know, I'll consult for free on that and I'll make it look a little bit more closer to what it is.

[1106] But it's, the main thing is how, how I, everybody saw that movie and that's how they would, you know, that's, that's the reality, you know, how fiction is kind of a basis for reality.

[1107] So, Sicario 2 comes out and it's basically the United States declaring the cartels, a terrorist organization, you know.

[1108] And I saw that and I was like, hmm, usually fiction kind of pre, kind of has.

[1109] a way of influencing reality further on the line that Denzel Washington movie called Siege where a bunch of terrorists attack New York and then militarized New York and that's kind of like a president for 9 -11 so you see Sicario too and then you know we're going to terrorist Trump now says they're going to they're thinking about declaring the cartels as a terrorist organization that's pretty interesting mainly because realistically Mexico has been calling them terrorists forever.

[1110] Yeah, what did you think about that, about Trump doing that?

[1111] Do you think that that actually is something that can happen?

[1112] If you're going to militarize efforts against it, not just consider it a law enforcement type situation, I think people should be afraid down there if you do go that route.

[1113] But just realize that's going to be open warfare, not in a foreign country across the ocean.

[1114] It's going to be right next to your border.

[1115] Yeah, where people can walk across.

[1116] Yes.

[1117] Or make things happen down there that will live.

[1118] affect you up here in a very real way, you know?

[1119] And it'll get ugly before it gets better.

[1120] You know, I hopefully it doesn't, you know, but that's realistically.

[1121] But if that doesn't happen, if they don't treat it as a terrorist organization and try to have some sort of impact on it, what could be done?

[1122] I mean, I think culturally, they're trying to get us ready for that, you know?

[1123] I don't know.

[1124] I mean, I think that's what's happening.

[1125] You see a lot of the cross, you know, borders.

[1126] U .S. military assets training Mexican Marines down there and having a open relationship with them, you see that.

[1127] And the push is to maybe, you know, preparing for something.

[1128] You know, I think they're preparing for something.

[1129] You know, what could that be?

[1130] I don't know.

[1131] So what we get about it publicly is just a small sliver of the actual conversations that are being had.

[1132] Yeah.

[1133] And also there's a lot of, you know, misdirection.

[1134] You know, there's a lot of misdirection.

[1135] that I'm personally that I see.

[1136] So too huge.

[1137] Yeah.

[1138] But listen, Ed, I really appreciate you coming down here and enlightening us and telling us all about this.

[1139] And I really appreciate your Instagram account.

[1140] The Instagram account is Ed Manifesto.

[1141] What else you have?

[1142] It's Manifesto on Facebook as well.

[1143] And it's Manifesto .com.

[1144] All right.

[1145] Beautiful.

[1146] Thank you, brother.

[1147] Appreciate it, man. Thanks for coming in here.

[1148] Thank you.

[1149] Bye, everybody.