Chris Feistl & Dave Mitchell (former DEA agents)

Summary

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard: Episode Summary Episode: Chris Feistl & Dave Mitchell (former DEA agents)
Release Date: August 13, 2025

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, hosts Buck Rogers and Gene Lightyear welcome former DEA agents Chris Faisal and Dave Mitchell. The duo shares their harrowing experiences in Colombia, where they were tasked with dismantling the Cali Cartel, the most formidable drug cartel in history following the downfall of Pablo Escobar.

Background of Guests

Chris Faisal and Dave Mitchell both entered the DEA around 1988, immediately after completing their training and assignments in Miami, Florida—a hotspot during the era of the "cocaine cowboys" and the famed "Miami Vice" culture.

Notable Quotes:

• Monica Padman ([02:23]): "Fade, you guys were living a crazy life."
• Dax Shepard ([05:03]): "You could really think you've given us gold, which is the dream."

Entering the DEA and Assignment to Colombia

Both agents recount their recruitment into the DEA, highlighting their initial roles in Miami and the transition to Colombia. Miami in the late '80s was inundated with cocaine, making it an ideal training ground for high-stakes operations.

Notable Quotes:

• Chris Faisal ([06:28]): "I was in the military. I was an officer because I was in ROTC in college."
• Dave Mitchell ([08:07]): "Angel, you have to pray that you don't get killed, do it right."

Understanding the Cali Cartel

The agents delve into the structure and influence of the Cali Cartel, contrasting it with Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel. Unlike the Medellin Cartel’s overt violence, the Cali Cartel operated with sophistication, bribing officials, and integrating seamlessly into the Colombian economy.

Notable Quotes:

• Dave Mitchell ([21:08]): "They were bringing in money, they were bringing in construction, they were bringing in jobs."
• Chris Faisal ([24:27]): "Cali was considered one of the most sophisticated drug organizations."

Challenges Faced in Colombia

Operating in a highly corrupt environment, Chris and Dave emphasize the pervasive corruption within Colombian institutions, which necessitated extreme caution and reliance on trustworthy informants like Jorge Salcedo.

Notable Quotes:

• Dave Mitchell ([30:07]): "You have to protect your sources and your methods."
• Chris Faisal ([37:33]): "Failure after failure after failure, compromise after compromise, corruption systemic throughout the service."

The Breakthrough: Capturing Miguel Rodriguez

A pivotal moment in their mission occurred when they discovered Miguel Rodriguez, the head of the Cali Cartel’s security. Their detailed account of the raid that led to Rodriguez’s capture showcases the meticulous planning and the constant threat of ambush they navigated.

Notable Quotes:

• Dave Mitchell ([77:59]): "We were able to grab him."
• Chris Faisal ([84:02]): "We compartmentalize it and say, okay, this is our best. This is what we're focusing on."

Ethical and Moral Reflections

Throughout the episode, Chris and Dave reflect on the futility and relentless nature of the drug war. They express a sense of resignation, acknowledging that as long as there is demand for drugs, cartels will thrive, making their mission seemingly Sisyphean.

Notable Quotes:

• Chris Faisal ([82:51]): "Our job is to slow it down, because it floats around."
• Dave Mitchell ([90:13]): "It's a no-win situation, but you have to attack it on all fronts."

Insights on the War on Drugs

The agents discuss the broader implications of the War on Drugs, including its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities and the evolving nature of drug trafficking with the rise of synthetic drugs like fentanyl and carfentanil.

Notable Quotes:

• Dave Mitchell ([94:07]): "Digital weed, you have to be specialized on that."
• Chris Faisal ([87:11]): "How much money does Cartel have? We had your money."

Conclusion

Chris Faisal and Dave Mitchell conclude by reflecting on their legacy and the ongoing battle against drug cartels. Their story not only sheds light on the complexities of dismantling powerful criminal organizations but also underscores the personal toll such missions take.

Notable Quotes:

• Dax Shepard ([83:10]): "But that was our job, though. That's what we signed up to do."
• Monica Padman ([128:53]): "After Escobar taking down the notorious Cali godfathers and the biggest drug cartel in history."

Final Thoughts

This episode offers a rare and authentic glimpse into the lives of DEA agents who faced immense challenges in their pursuit to bring down one of the world's most notorious drug cartels. Through their detailed narrative, listeners gain a deeper understanding of the strategic, ethical, and personal dimensions of law enforcement against organized crime.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Wondry plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. Experts on Expert. I'm Buck Rogers and I'm joined by Gene Lightyear.

[Monica Padman]

And we're in the cartel, but don't tell anyone. Keep it a secret.

[Dax Shepard]

Today we have two incredible DEA agents, Chris Faisal and Dave Mitchell. And they were sent to Colombia to bring down the largest cocaine cartel after Pablo Escobar.

[Monica Padman]

This is such a good episode. If you enjoyed the Scott Payne episode, you're gonna love this. This is very in keeping with that. They've lived a crazy life.

[Dax Shepard]

Some terrifying moments.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Dave and Chris have the most harrowing stories of penetrating and bringing down this cartel.

[Monica Padman]

It's really, really interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

They have a super interesting book out right now called After Escobar Taking down the notorious Cali Godfathers and the biggest drug cartel in history.

[Monica Padman]

And if you liked Narcos.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, one of the seasons of Narcos is based on this.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

And they are play well. One of them is played. Yeah. This is a great episode. Please enjoy. Chris and Dave, buckle up. We are supported by J.C. penney.

[Monica Padman]

Guys, do not sleep on JCPenney. They've got stylish clothes for everyone in your life. Yourself, obviously. Your parents, your kids, your friend's new baby. There's something for every age, everybody and every budget.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, the budget part is huge because scoring a great deal is one of the last socially acceptable forms of bragging.

[Monica Padman]

So true. Why does it feel so good when someone gives you an outfit compliment and then you drop that you paid less than they think? It's just really satisfying.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And then you tell them where you got it. It's from JCPenney. Yes, JCPenney. It's so good. I just got a second pair of Levi's that are just blowing my mind. They had a wash on there I couldn't find anywhere else. And, boy, I look. I just. I'm approaching Beckham status with these slacks.

[Monica Padman]

Nice. So if you've been sleeping on JCPenney, wake up and check it out. They've got fashion worth bragging about.

[Dax Shepard]

And they've got a great reward system, too, that makes every shopping trip even more worth it. Shop do jcpenney.com yes, JCPenney. We are supported by True Classic. We're really excited for this new sponsor. You know, we love brands that provide both quality and affordability, and True Classic does Just that it's a menswear brand that has casual classics like tees, pants, socks, and briefs. And everything is designed to fit perfectly. You'll get that tailored look without sacrificing comfort. True Classic uses quality materials that are made to last, and they stand behind that. They have a made to last guarantee. If your item isn't right, they'll replace it for free within 100 days, no questions asked. Now, I've not needed to return anything from True Classics. Everything I've gotten is fit like a glove. And what truly sets True Classic apart is the mission behind it all. The brand leads with purpose, with a focus on uplifting men in their day to day lives, as well as giving back to to underserved communities. They work with several community organizations supporting the veteran community, homeless shelters, schools, and cities in need after natural disasters. So not only are you investing in quality clothing that's going to make you look good, you can also feel good supporting True Classic. True Classic is built for comfort, built to last, and built to give back. You can find them at Target, Costco, or head to truclassic.com tax to try them for yourself.

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah, I like your studio. This is nice.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Oh, my goodness. You have so much stuff. The irony of me in a dea shirt is. Is rich. It's rich. Yeah, it's good.

[Dave Mitchell]

Challenge.

[Dax Shepard]

This is the most amount of presents we've ever received.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. I'm going to put this here so people can see it.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you know how these work, Monica?

[Monica Padman]

No. How do they work?

[Dax Shepard]

Challenge coins. They're popular in the military. How's it work? You set it on a bar and whoever picks it up last, they have to buy the round. Everyone carries these.

[Chris Faisal]

I'm not a coin collector. But you're right.

[Dax Shepard]

That's how it works, right?

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

They're kind of gorgeous though, right? I like the weight. You could really think you've given us gold, which is the dream.

[Dave Mitchell]

You have a lot of people who collect those things. They have stacks of them all over.

[Monica Padman]

Thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

I wonder if there's one company that's making all of the coins or there's multiple.

[Dave Mitchell]

There's certainly a few.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. What a niche industry to find yourself in Challenge coins. It is gorgeous.

[Monica Padman]

So many ways to live a life.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so, Dave and Chris, welcome. Where are you from, Dave?

[Chris Faisal]

Originally born and raised in Kentucky.

[Dax Shepard]

And what did mom and dad do in Kentucky?

[Chris Faisal]

Well, my dad worked for Louisville Gas and Electric and my mom was stay at home housewife. And I have two older Brothers, were.

[Dax Shepard]

You trying to get their approval all the time and earn your. No, he didn't care. Oh, wow.

[Monica Padman]

Good for you.

[Dax Shepard]

You were free of that.

[Chris Faisal]

My older brother, he's the type when my parents would leave to do something, he would come in this, move the furniture, and says, okay, time to get it on. My little brother's not going to be a wimp. And we get in a fight, but my middle brother watches us. Sure, you're free. So when my parents came home one time, I'm thinking, oh, man, I got to get my oldest brother. So we're watching tv, I just jumped on his back and this st. Hitting him in the head, and he goes, I told you he was nuts.

[Monica Padman]

And they actually framed you?

[Chris Faisal]

They thought I had an issue. I said, no. When you leave, he beats me up.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, boy.

[Dax Shepard]

Listen, when you're the younger brother, you're forced into a situation where you have to be crazy, and then you look insane to your family, they push you to the limit. And how about you? Where are you from, Chris?

[Dave Mitchell]

I was born in Newark, New Jersey, and then grew up in Northeast Pennsylvania.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, great. And what did your parents do?

[Dave Mitchell]

My dad was a school teacher. Very smart man. Had master's degree, doctorate degree, and my mom worked in a library.

[Dax Shepard]

So no law enforcement in either of your backgrounds?

[Dave Mitchell]

Zero.

[Chris Faisal]

My oldest brother became a police officer, but that's not the reason why I came on dea.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so how did you find your way to the dea?

[Chris Faisal]

I was in the military. I was an officer because I was an ROTC in college. So after I graduated in the military, I was in Greece. And after they went to Fort Bride, North Carolina, and it was peace time, I heard about DEA and found out about their mission and how they have offices throughout the world and domestically.

[Dax Shepard]

What year was this?

[Chris Faisal]

That was probably 87. I got hired on in 88. It took a year for me to get hired on.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, obviously the locations are appealing, but did you have any internal distaste for drugs in general? Were you like, these are bad. We got to clean these up?

[Chris Faisal]

Yes and no. Because I grew up in area. It's a rural area. We weren't really exposed to overdose deaths like you would in the big cities. And you knew, hey, okay, this is right and wrong. Maybe on the peripheral, but no one in my immediate family had issues with narcotics of any type.

[Dax Shepard]

How'd you find your way into it, Chris?

[Dave Mitchell]

In the summer of my junior year in college, a bunch of my friends said, hey, let's go down to the beach. Let's go down to the shore to live. And of course, you know, when you go down there, you gotta have a place to live and you gotta have some money to support yourself. While we were hanging out, surfing and doing some stuff, I checked on a summer job and I went to the municipal building and they said, we're hiring summer police officers or lifeguards. So I said, what's this summer police officer thing? So I was in college and I called back to my. One of my professors and I said, hey, can I turn this into an internship or something? And they're like, yeah, absolutely. Get credit for it. So I applied for that summer police officer job. I got it. And then I was in a bar one night and some girl came up and asked me to buy methamphetamine.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh.

[Dave Mitchell]

So we set up this little undercover deal. And, you know, I met her up on the boardwalk. And then that's what got me interested in law enforcement, because I was going to go to law school. I played basketball in high school and college. I wanted to be like a sports agent and stuff. And that put me on the law enforcement track. So I started looking into dea. They have offices all over in foreign countries. So I applied there. CIA, you know, FBI. And, you know, I got hired by.

[Monica Padman]

DEA because Did you get a little, pardon this pun, but high off of that undercover exchange?

[Dave Mitchell]

It was interesting. I thought it was pretty cool to be able to do that. That's when I looked into dea. I really didn't know much about it back then. I saw what they did and the mission, and I thought, hey, that's pretty good. It's better than me sitting in an office.

[Dax Shepard]

So he was 86 or 87. Do you say 88.

[Chris Faisal]

I came out at 88.

[Dax Shepard]

And how about you?

[Dave Mitchell]

Same.

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah, he was in class right behind me.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, he was?

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah.

[Dave Mitchell]

So that's kind of interesting because we got hired in DEA at the same time. We got out of the academy at the same time. We went to Miami at the same time, worked there together, and then we went to Bogota at the same time.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. So you guys were working together in Miami.

[Chris Faisal]

There's different groups that you work in. We never worked together together, but he was in a different group, but we knew each other.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. And obviously, if you join the dea, or at least my assumption would be, if you join the DEA in the 80s, your fingers crossed, you get sent to Florida. I mean, this is where everything is happening.

[Dave Mitchell]

That was my dream spot, was my number one choice.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. This is the era of cocaine cowboys. You have the widow down there. You got a lot of shits popping in 88.

[Dave Mitchell]

Don Johnson.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Miami Vice.

[Dave Mitchell]

They put a huge spotlight on South Florida.

[Chris Faisal]

I tell you one thing about Don Johnson. If he realizes in the late 80s, he's probably one of the number one reasons why so many people joined DEA.

[Dax Shepard]

Even though he was a cop. Right. He somehow worked for. Yeah, you have to scare a boat. The Ferrari.

[Chris Faisal]

I heard first they're going to make it a dea, but DEA said, we don't want nothing to do with that. So they made it a cop show.

[Dave Mitchell]

Big mistake.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they say that too about Top Gun. Like the recruitment for Air Force. They didn't even need to advertise for 10 years. And then you saw it dissipate as that movie's popularity.

[Monica Padman]

Wayne. Timely.

[Dax Shepard]

He brought it back.

[Monica Padman]

I've just been going down a Dakota Johnson rabbit hole. So it was just quite timely.

[Dax Shepard]

Very sim for you.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So what was happening as new agents in South Florida in the 80s? What kind of activities were you guys engaged in?

[Chris Faisal]

That was the place to be. We felt we're so lucky being in Miami because you had so much cocaine coming through. It was coming through, Kelly. Cartel was bringing in through the container ships. They were known for that. They'll have it in concrete post and wooden planks. And then the Medellin guys, you know, they were bringing it by air, dropping off the Everglades or flying it over northern part or central part of Florida. You name it, it would come in.

[Dax Shepard]

People don't understand the context of Florida in the late 80s. At a certain point, there was more money in the Federal Reserve cash. You're absolutely right, I want to say, than every other Federal Reserve combined.

[Chris Faisal]

10 times more.

[Dax Shepard]

10 times.

[Chris Faisal]

The whole room was full of dollars.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, think about that. You have where all the cash is stored for the government and you have one area of the country that has 100x everywhere else. And then also, like exotic cars are being sold. They can't keep them down. That there's a recession, those cars are flying off the shelves. There's cash in abundance. It's so in everyone's face. Clearly we know there's billions of billions of dollars flowing through Florida in cash.

[Chris Faisal]

I think in the reserves there's like $6 billion billion surplus. Because they look at the surplus and know where the money laundering's been. Because later in the years, that 6 billion went down to 4 billion. They notice, oh, we have some action in LA. Their surplus is up. So that tells you now they're getting Dope money in la?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it's like a very transparent metric for how much cash is being put in the economy.

[Chris Faisal]

But you're exactly right about buying cars, restaurants, because you have trickle down economics. Well, I could tell you it works with dope money.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Chris Faisal]

You know, because in some of these countries you have the rich and the poor. With narcotics, you start seeing a middle class.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, you need a lot of lawyers, you need bankers, you need finance people. And they're getting paid well.

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah.

[Dave Mitchell]

And that was the place to be. Like, if you wanted to be a DEA agent in the 80s, you wanted to go to Miami, right? Because cocaine cowboys, Miami Vice, everything was happening. All the action, all the action was happening there.

[Dax Shepard]

So what kind of missions were you on as a DA agent down there?

[Dave Mitchell]

Well, that was a good thing about Miami because you got exposed to every type of investigation that you could think of, from street level deals to marijuana cases to cocaine importation cases. I worked a lot of maritime smuggling investigations, which meant that we had good undercover setup with these coastal freighters and these houses like you would see on Miami Vice down in the Florida Keys that we used as potential stash houses. And we would pose as transporters and bring the cocaine for the cartels into the US and then turn it over and then try to identify those cells.

[Dax Shepard]

All right, so stop there. That's of great interest to me. First of all, there's a great doc on a guy who was a Kentucky boy who came down to Florida and he started importing on big cargo containers, marijuana, and then funded his Indianapolis race team. Do you know this guy? He ended up racing in the Indianapolis 500 as a rookie.

[Chris Faisal]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

He just was doing it to pursue his race dreams. But at any rate, what are the mechanics of providing transportation to the drug cartel?

[Dave Mitchell]

So two of the vulnerabilities that these cocaine trafficking organizations or marijuana trafficking organizations always have is transportation and communications.

[Dax Shepard]

Right?

[Dave Mitchell]

Those are always areas that they're looking for people to get the drugs into the US and we would have these assets that we would use who would be undercover, basically working as informants. And they would say, hey, I have an organization that can transport your cocaine or your marijuana from Colombia into the US and they would say, well, how would you do that? And then we would explain to them, look, we have access to coastal freighters, we have access to speedboats. We'll bring it in, we'll offload it to these houses in the Florida Keys, we'll transport it up into the Miami area and we'll turn it over to you. Yes, and then what we do is we would get paid for our transportation fees, which would be 2, $3,000 a kilo. So that's how we would make money, technically as transporters.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. So that's already an interesting aspect. So now the transporters make a good deal of money.

[Dave Mitchell]

Correct.

[Monica Padman]

But do you ever feel like I'm making more money doing this than my actual job?

[Dave Mitchell]

Oh, yeah. They were making 10 times money for.

[Monica Padman]

DEA agents when they're hiring them. How do they know that your morals are so good that you're not gonna, like, turn?

[Dave Mitchell]

Well, that's a good question. You go through a battery of different tests, especially now. You'll do a written test, you'll do oral interview panels. You do polygraph examinations. They do periodic background checks on you now. And they would also do a whole entire background check before you got hired to make sure that you were never in trouble.

[Chris Faisal]

We both know when we first got into Miami, there was several people who were arrested. They went to the dark side.

[Monica Padman]

I imagine it's fairly temporary.

[Chris Faisal]

So this. Cause they're an agent doesn't mean. Okay, he's not going to take money. Unfortunately, sometimes, you know, that one person may take it. And that one person is going to ruin the reputation of DEA for the other 99% that's working hard.

[Dax Shepard]

A friend of ours, he's in the FBI. Every time he takes money out and gives it away to the informant when he comes back, all the accounting, he is hooked up to a polygraph. Like, every time there's money involved, he's on the polygraph. They're monitoring that pretty closely, at least in the FBI.

[Dave Mitchell]

And there's a lot of safeguards, too. We have to take money out, we have to sign for it. We have to pay assets or informants with two people. We have to have them sign forms saying that they received the money. But again, still happens.

[Dax Shepard]

So back to when you guys. The DEA is transporting the drugs, and it's two, three grand a kilo, you guys are receiving a ton of cash.

[Chris Faisal]

Sometimes you receive some of the beforehand. We call it trafficker funds, okay? So they'll say, you know what? We're going to give you 50, $80,000. And you say, okay. And you can actually use that to fix your undercover boat, to buy the fuel, to buy food for the crew, to prep for the trip.

[Dave Mitchell]

But a lot of times, though, it never gets that far, right? And not to give away too much on the sources and methods part, but many times, if not most of the times, we arrest the people involved and never get paid before we're actually able to get paid. Because we can't give them the cocaine. Right. Or the marijuana and let them take it away and go. Right. We have to arrest them. We're not allowed to let that walk.

[Dax Shepard]

You can't follow that around.

[Dave Mitchell]

We can. But ultimately, the potential of losing if some people die. Yes. Correct.

[Dax Shepard]

Is it fair to say, is my understanding correctly, like, ultimately, the overarching strategy is we're getting our foot in the door. We're hoping to expose ourselves to the people we made contact with, leverage that to get them to go up a rung on the ladder and climb the ladder. Is that part of the process where you're kind of trying to get people involved so that you can get them to turn on someone above them and so on and so on?

[Chris Faisal]

Well, that's exactly right. On your street level type cases. Yeah, but when we went to Bogota, started working at Cali, we were dealing with the top people. You don't get any hired.

[Dax Shepard]

That's exactly why I bring it up is I want to establish, like, the known trajectory of it versus what you guys had to do. It's a whole different strategy.

[Chris Faisal]

Different strategy.

[Dax Shepard]

So when do you guys get sent to Colombia and are you sent now as a pair of.

[Chris Faisal]

Pretty much, we were. I got selected first. It was only like a week, but we both put in and we finally got selected. We had to go to language school and learn Spanish is about three, four months.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, gosh, that is not enough time.

[Chris Faisal]

Well, we both had a background.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you did?

[Chris Faisal]

And you had to like, score a two. You talk to somebody on the phone. So it wasn't you can write or anything. You just had to speak on a two level. So a two level? Well, it goes to five.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, five.

[Chris Faisal]

A five is a native language.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Chris Faisal]

Really? If you get a three. If you're a three, you're a good Spanish speaker.

[Dax Shepard]

You're good.

[Chris Faisal]

You're a really good Spanish speaker.

[Dax Shepard]

And now when they send the two of you, did they say to you, okay, here's our strategy down there. This is what you guys are going to do when you get there? Or were you guys sent and basically, like, figure this out for us?

[Dave Mitchell]

When we were both in Miami, we both worked investigations that targeted the Cali and the Medellin cartel. So we had a pretty good background on who the players were and what they were doing at that time. And since we were in Miami, a lot of our cases, we would follow leads that would go back into Central America, into South America. Right. Because we were dealing with the upper echelon cartel leaders. So we knew some of the agents in Bogota that were there, and they knew some of the work that we had done. And since we had that background on working against those cartels, they assigned us to work in the Cali group that was to go after the Cali cartel, because at the time, most of the resources of the Colombian government and the US Government were dedicated to going after Pablo Escobar. We all know about Pablo Escobar.

[Dax Shepard]

Can we take one second? Because I don't think people really understand the magnitude of Pablo Escobar. And I think it's fun as we talk about what was happening in Miami. So some quick facts about Pablo Escobar I think would blow people's mind. In the 80s, Forbes listed Escobar as the seventh richest person in the world. This is a dude that had a third $30 billion net worth in the 80s, which would be like 70 billion today. He was making $420 million a week. He spent $2,500 a month on rubber bands to wrap the money. He lost 10% of the cash to rats and mold. He lost 2 billion a year to rats eating the money. Had his own private zoo. Offered to pay off Columbia's national debt. Wow. Was in a position to pay off his own country's national debt. He bombed a commercial airliner. He built a ton of neighborhoods. He was loved. 25,000 people attended his funeral. Like, this is the scenario you're walking into. This has become such a business that this is the seventh richest man in the world. And you guys arrive almost immediately after he's been killed.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah, a couple months after. Right.

[Dax Shepard]

So obviously, Medellin was this big power source. And when he dies, what happens?

[Dave Mitchell]

So even before Escobar was killed, and you go back until the 1989, and some of the stuff that you brought out, they were actually assassinating presidential candidates. They had killed the Minister of Justice, Rodrigo Lara, in 1984, I'll add.

[Dax Shepard]

They were going to try him. And in the courthouse, he sent in tanks to drive through the fucking courthouse, grab all of the evidence and files, and then just leave. That's the kind of shit he was in.

[Dave Mitchell]

Right. The palace of justice attack, which was another terrorist activity, as well as blowing up the Avianca flight.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he was a dictator almost.

[Dave Mitchell]

He was a narco terrorist.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[Dave Mitchell]

That's what we say. He was the world's first narco terrorist. And as a result of that, the Cali cartel was, like, in the shadows because all these resources were going after to try to eradicate Pablo, because he was this evil, evil person.

[Dax Shepard]

They had to be so grateful for him on one hand.

[Dave Mitchell]

And that's why they were smart, because they learned about that. They saw what had happened. Right. The Colombian security forces, the national police, hunted Pablo down like a dog and killed him on top of a rooftop, barefoot. And the Cali cartel wanted no part of that. So they learned their weapon of choice was to bribe. Right. They paid everybody. Yeah, they own businesses, banks, soccer teams, a drugstore chain. They owned everything.

[Dax Shepard]

They had 4,000 legit employees.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yes. Just in the drugstores alone.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah, they were massive. But the point is, is that while the Colombian government was at war with Pablo Escobar, Cali started to rise. They took advantage of it, and they were quietly making billions and billions of dollars a year.

[Chris Faisal]

They say narco democracy. So that came from the Cali cartel because they paid everybody off from the foot cop in Cali all the way up to the administration of the president.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, they built police stations. 40% of the economy in Cali was their money. That's like General Motors being in Detroit.

[Dave Mitchell]

40% of the economic development in Cali during that time, they were responsible for. So you see it just like Pablo, they had the will of the people behind them.

[Monica Padman]

Right, exactly.

[Dave Mitchell]

They were bringing in money, they were bringing in construction, they were bringing in jobs. And they were doing it how? Quietly? Right. They weren't killing people like escalators.

[Dax Shepard]

And who were they? There's four folks at the top, four.

[Dave Mitchell]

Leaders of the Cali cartel.

[Dax Shepard]

Tell us about how they knew each other, how they were organized, how they were able to be peaceful like that. I noticed a couple were classmates.

[Dave Mitchell]

So you had. The two brothers were Gilberto Rodriguez, the older brother, and his younger brother, Miguel Rodriguez Orahuela. They were the two principal de facto leaders of the Cali cartel. The number three man in the Cali cartel was Jose Santa Cruz Londono, AKA Chuppi. And the fourth person was Pacho Herrera. The cartel started with the two Rodriguez brothers and Jose Santa Cruz. They formed this criminal gang called Los Chaymas.

[Dax Shepard]

And they had been classmates as kids?

[Dave Mitchell]

No, they knew each other from childhood, the three of them. And they formed this criminal gang, which ultimately evolved into more criminal activity than drug trafficking. And then, lo and behold, Gilberto drives a couple of kilos back in the early 70s up into New York, and boom, Cali cartel was born.

[Monica Padman]

What qualifies it as a cartel? Does it have to be a certain amount of money?

[Chris Faisal]

Oh, what a cartel is, you have independent organizations, smaller organizations below, and they're all working together for the same go for narcotics. Okay. We're moving dope into the United States or to another country. So these use the same resources. They might use the same routes to transport the dope. Because many times we get a large load. There'd be different emblems. Maybe Flintstone.

[Dax Shepard]

So that's one they would brand their products.

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah, they would brand their products so you know where it goes once it go to the States. But they would share their own assets. They would share, like laundering money. So everything is shared.

[Monica Padman]

It's a full business.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you have growers that are loyal to just that. You have the labs that are theirs.

[Chris Faisal]

But what made Cali different? Cali was considered one of the most sophisticated drug organizations. Chris couldn't explain it better. They had four different areas, just like IBM. They have their trafficking organization, their military organization, their financial organization. But up in the States, they will work out of cells. And a cell would have anywhere, say, from 10 to 25, 30 people. But one cell would not know another cell. So if they got arrested, that other cell wasn't there.

[Monica Padman]

They can't rat someone else.

[Dave Mitchell]

Very compartmentalized. Almost like a terrorist organization. So if you take down one person, he only knows who's in that one cell. So if you have 15 or 20 different cells working in one city, he can't jeopardize any of the other cells.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Chris Faisal]

And then the Cali cartel was noted. They really made narcotics, cocaine worldwide.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, because at one point, the Cali was responsible for 85% of the cocaine in the United States, but 90% of the cocaine worldwide.

[Dave Mitchell]

And we always say the Cali cartel dominated the cocaine trade on six continents. And if Antarctica had a drug problem, they were global.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Did you ever find yourself just admiring it?

[Dave Mitchell]

Many times.

[Chris Faisal]

You had to respect them.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Chris Faisal]

If you didn't respect them, I mean, you can't do your job.

[Dax Shepard]

I've had a long obsession with Pablo Escobar. He's a terrible, terrible person. It's tens of thousands of people suffered, maybe more. But if you're not mildly attracted to see someone's will take them somewhere, on a ride. A poor kid becoming the seventh richest man in the world through his own will. It's minimally fascinating. That's quite an accomplishment to come from a barrio and become the seventh richest man in the world.

[Dave Mitchell]

People always ask, what is the fascination with Pablo Escobar or even some of these other drug cartels? And I think that's part of the reason is you See, how does somebody get that big? How does somebody get that violent? What, in their background? Where did they start out as a poor person?

[Dax Shepard]

But there's also a lot of administration and bureaucracy. It's a huge organization. The quintessential ingredient isn't crazy or brave. It's like, no, no, you kind of got to be a good manager. You got to be a good delegator. This is a huge business. It's just really impressive, Even though we don't like it.

[Dave Mitchell]

No, but if you look at the sophistication and everything about these guys, just like you said, you'd have to sit back and go, man, these guys are good. This is just making our job so difficult to try to penetrate that infrastructure and their security network and their intelligence.

[Dax Shepard]

They're a worthy fucking adversary.

[Dave Mitchell]

Extremely worthy adversary.

[Chris Faisal]

They had the will of the people. And you can't really blame the Colombian people. Pablo was putting bombs everywhere, everywhere they go. My kid gonna die today with a bomb. Catalytic cartel didn't do that. Cali cartel was supporting the Pepys to go after the Medellin. So if you're there and you know, okay, there's a demand for cocaine in the United States, so there's going to be somebody serving it. So wouldn't you rather have Cali cartel who's not putting bombs anywhere?

[Dax Shepard]

Of course.

[Chris Faisal]

That's why they kind of had to.

[Monica Padman]

Those were the choices they had.

[Dax Shepard]

This is probably a question for the end, but we're kind of here, which is another fascination I think people innately have. Certainly mine is like, why don't they quit?

[Chris Faisal]

That's a very good point.

[Dax Shepard]

Could he stop being the 8th richest man in the world and let all the problems go away? Or these guys could have just pulled up stakes and been like, okay, great, we did it. We got our billions, we're out, and none of them can do it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's not about the money at that point.

[Dave Mitchell]

It's about money, it's about power, it's about control. But then also, once you're in that far, you can't get out.

[Monica Padman]

How do you get out?

[Dave Mitchell]

Because if you try to get out, what happens is, and you see this a lot in the organized crime and in the Mafia, if you try to get out, they think that you're going to turn informant and you're going to rat people out. And the minute that you try to get out, that's when they kill you, because they're worried about everything that, you.

[Dax Shepard]

Know, they can't risk it. You're a liability, which then Becomes a great tool for you guys.

[Chris Faisal]

That's right.

[Dave Mitchell]

That's exactly right.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a blessing that they won't let these guys retire. If they had just let these guys retire, you guys would probably have a lot less to work with.

[Chris Faisal]

You never see anybody really retire.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah, you retire in the ground. That's how you retire.

[Dax Shepard]

Okie's. So you guys land in Colombia and you go to Cali, the city. And how do you design your approach? Where does one start trying to cut off the head of the serpent?

[Chris Faisal]

We really started from crawling to walking to running. When we were told, hey, you guys are going to be working Cali. We couldn't leave the embassy to go to Cali. They said, no one's allowed to Cali. It's too dangerous. So eventually, we were allowed to go to Cali only for a date. You have to be back.

[Dave Mitchell]

Here's the outline. So we roll into Colombia. At that time, Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world. It's led the world in homicides. It's led the world in kidnappings. Car bombs were going off all over the city until Pablo died. So we walk into that. We try to go to Cali. As Dave said, they won't let us go. It's too dangerous. Two agents who were working there previously had their photos taken. The photo came back to the embassy and was perceived as a threat. You guys can't go.

[Chris Faisal]

They were Hispanic agents that fit in.

[Dax Shepard]

And they still caught him.

[Dave Mitchell]

Cali, zero American presence. Who do they send to Cali?

[Dax Shepard]

The whitest two guys they could find.

[Dave Mitchell]

Me and Dave. The whitest and the biggest, because we're both the good six' two, six' three. Dave looks like he could play tight end for, you know, that was the environment that we were walking into. And we were extremely security conscious. We were always worried about our safety. We all knew the story about Kiki Camarena, what happened to him in Mexico. He was kidnapped and killed. He was a cartel. He was a DEA agent. He's portrayed in season one of Narcos Mexico. Always on the back of your mind, we're operating in this very inhospitable, hot environment, which was Cali.

[Dax Shepard]

And you're not going to be able to do anything covertly. Everyone knows you guys are dea. I think that's important.

[Chris Faisal]

We were embedded with the police and the military, so we actually lived with them on their base. So when we first got there, we started staying with the military. Then the colonel said, hey, you guys are dea. I'm going to bring my friend Down. He's with the Columbia National Police, so we met him. So then we would start staying at the police space, even though we were told they have more Cali snitching infiltrators than Swiss chiefs.

[Dax Shepard]

Right? So, yes, that's exactly what I want you guys to talk about, which is I want to know how the fuck you even evaluate who's helping you there. Because as you say in the book, the place is almost universally corrupt. At that point, they got a president elected.

[Dave Mitchell]

That's right.

[Dax Shepard]

How on earth do you know when you're talking to the friendlies who you can share information with, who you can't, who you can actually trust? How do you sniff that out?

[Chris Faisal]

Well, you don't know who the friendly is. So when we were working at the police space, you can kind of stand off. And what I would do and Chris would do, all right, if I was a bad guy, who would I go after? Who has all the information? And unfortunately, it was one of the liaison captains that was assigned to us. He was their top source.

[Dave Mitchell]

But we had to operate. We get criticized for this, but it was the only way that we could protect ourselves as well as our sources and methods and our assets that we were using is we had to operate under the assumption that everyone was corrupt.

[Monica Padman]

Right?

[Dave Mitchell]

And we knew that that wasn't the case. But in order to do what we had to do, we had to operate because we could not take that chance.

[Monica Padman]

Why do you get criticized for that?

[Dave Mitchell]

That's because they say, well, you can't lump everybody into that category as being corrupt.

[Dax Shepard]

You're gonna assume some very innocent people are guilty.

[Dave Mitchell]

We knew that. And look, Colombia sacrificed more than any other country on earth in terrorism because.

[Dax Shepard]

Of our fucking consumption, by the way.

[Dave Mitchell]

And the narco trafficking. And there were a lot of, just for the record, a lot of hard working and honest Colombian men and women who went out there every day to try to do the right thing, right? A lot of them lost their lives.

[Chris Faisal]

Doing it, even up to today, thousands of officers.

[Dave Mitchell]

To be safe, though, we had to operate under that assumption that everyone was corrupt. So we only shared part of the information that we had. If it came from A, we told them it came from B.

[Dax Shepard]

But how do you even orchestrate any kind of action? Because you're gonna need them and you're gonna be immediately telling them what you're gonna do. How did you navigate that?

[Dave Mitchell]

And that's how we learned to navigate that system. Because raid after raid after raid that we did, we found that it was compromised, right and we knew, like, hey, this was really good information. Something's wrong. Some of the stuff too. It was like you'd see in the movies. We'd come in and there'd be half a cup of coffee there and it'd still be hot, but there'd be nobody in the apartment, right? Or there'd be some toast there, half eaten. And you'd be like, somebody was just here and they just left.

[Dax Shepard]

So it was still filling the bathtub.

[Chris Faisal]

Like Miguel had a problem with his low sugar level. So he had a lot of fruit or something. So we'll see. All kinds of fruit. That type of diet he was eating.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Chris Faisal]

And you know, he always had. We called a switching station, 25 lines. So if somebody picked up the phone, they wouldn't know it's going to that port. You know, they would do a raid over here.

[Dave Mitchell]

So we knew the info was good.

[Dax Shepard]

But everyone you're dealing with, from the military to the police, they are all expressing the goal to bring down the Cali cartel.

[Chris Faisal]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Monica Padman]

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[Monica Padman]

Okay, so you know I love skims so much and it has a ton of different products. It has apparel, it has swim, it has menswear, which I know you like. And I raved about a lot of the different product lines in these ads we get to do. But Skims is best known for their incredible intimates, and that makes total sense. The quality of their bras and underwear is truly unmatched. It's luxe, it's comfortable fabrics, it fits that feel good and look good under clothes, which is hugely important. And it's really everything you could want. Like, it is very, very, very hard to find comfortable underwear that's also cute.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, that's the big challenge. But you're endlessly recommending this to friends.

[Monica Padman]

I am. I have multiple of their bras. They all fit great. They work well under all clothes. And I recently tried the Fits Everybody lace Tanga. It's made with this like really, really, really soft Fits Everybody fabric. I'm obsessed with it. It has this lace trim, so it adds a little bit of sexiness, but it's also comfortable. It's the most comfortable underwear I own and it makes me feel amazing every time I wear it.

[Dax Shepard]

Shop Monica's favorite bras and [e-mail] after you place your order. Be sure to let them know we sent you select podcast in the survey and be sure to select our show in the dropdown menu that follows skims.com.

[Dave Mitchell]

How hard is it to kill a planet?

[Dax Shepard]

Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere. When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

[Monica Padman]

Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our tap.

[Dax Shepard]

And crimes like that, they don't just happen.

[Monica Padman]

We call things accidents. There is no accident. This was 100% preventable.

[Dax Shepard]

They're the result of choices by people.

[Dave Mitchell]

Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime.

[Dax Shepard]

These are the Stories we need to be telling about our changing planet. Stories of scams, murders and cover ups that are about us and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app.

[Dave Mitchell]

Or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dax Shepard]

You can listen to new episodes of.

[Dave Mitchell]

Lawless Planet early and ad free right.

[Dax Shepard]

Now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Okay, so work me up to, I guess, the breakthrough for you guys, and maybe there's one before that, but I'm thinking the breakthrough is getting in touch with Salcedo. Other things occur, get us up to that point.

[Dave Mitchell]

Okay, so. So the real break comes in June of 1995. So by this time, Dave and I are on the ground almost one year.

[Dax Shepard]

Can we add one thing? I forgot one more?

[Dave Mitchell]

Yes, sir.

[Dax Shepard]

The Cali Cartel has an edict. Do not kill the DEA agents.

[Monica Padman]

Correct. Oh, really?

[Chris Faisal]

That's what we thought. That's what we hoped, which obviously was.

[Dax Shepard]

The case because you guys could have been killed on day two.

[Chris Faisal]

Absolutely.

[Dax Shepard]

So you have to reverse engineer that. That is.

[Chris Faisal]

That's why you got to respect them.

[Monica Padman]

What's their reasoning for the.

[Dave Mitchell]

Well, they saw what happened when the agent Kiki Camarena was kidnapped and killed in Mexico. And they saw the response not America's not gonna fuck up the US government from Mexico government. They shut the border down and they did not rest until every one of those guys as best they could, was brought.

[Dax Shepard]

You know what you don't want.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah, they didn't want the heat plus. And they saw what happened in Panama with Noriega, that the US invaded the country to go after Noriega. So they were concerned. The Cali Cartel was always concerned of military action, whether or not that would have ever came about. They were concerned about that. So that was always in the back of their minds. Don't harm the DEA guys because we don't want that added heat.

[Dax Shepard]

Don't wake the tiger up.

[Chris Faisal]

We thought the 82nd Airborne flying into.

[Dave Mitchell]

That'S because of Dave. He could tell you.

[Chris Faisal]

I would tell him that all the time if we get hurt. 82nd Airborne standing by.

[Dave Mitchell]

But there were three keys to us being successful. Going after the cartel leaders. And again, this was after a year on the ground. Failure after failure after failure, Compromise after compromise. Corruption systemic throughout the service.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, how you guys stayed optimistic, I don't know.

[Dave Mitchell]

That was our job. We had to keep pushing forward. But there were three things. One was the use of these special polygraphed and trained units that were in Bogota in Colombia that were trained by the intelligence community. And I think we all know who we're talking about when we talk about the intelligence community. The CIA.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Dave Mitchell]

We started to use these specialized groups.

[Dax Shepard]

And that would be to deal with your counterparts in the military and the corruption. Right.

[Dave Mitchell]

So they would come from Bogota. They weren't stationed in Kaui. They would come over land in Bogota. So nobody knew that they were there. The second one was the recruitment of assets that we had. Salcedo was one of them. But before that we recruited two other assets.

[Dax Shepard]

How do you get in that door?

[Dave Mitchell]

It's complicated. There's a couple different ways. Salcedo is a long story and we can get to that. But we're able to recruit these two assets that provide us with really good intelligence about where Hilberto Rodriguez is. And we're able to surveil one of his executive secretaries back to where Gilberto is.

[Dax Shepard]

Because you need to get one of these four heads involved in some criminal activity when you approach them. Right.

[Dave Mitchell]

Well, they're already wanted, including for drug trafficking, money laundering. So they're already crimes.

[Chris Faisal]

The charges are already there.

[Dax Shepard]

So it's really just finding them.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah, that's right. Manhunt.

[Monica Padman]

This is terrorism. This is 100% the same Osama.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it is. It's a manhunt. And then the third key thing was Dave and I being able to work unilaterally because of the systemic corruption. We started to do everything unilaterally.

[Dax Shepard]

And what does that mean?

[Dave Mitchell]

We were operating on our own, independently from the Colombian units. We were living in safe houses away from the base because it was infiltrated. We were debriefing our own assets throughout the city at nighttime. We are doing our own surveillances. We were doing our own reconnaissance.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you said the daytime was just a fake. Like all day. You were with the government people and your real job happened at night.

[Dave Mitchell]

That's right.

[Chris Faisal]

There's one thing, even though we're working unilateral, doing surveillance, doing interviews at night, debriefing, we don't have arrest powers in United States. We have arrest powers. So what our goal is to come up with intelligence information and have a.

[Dax Shepard]

Package and figure out who the right official is to give it to that you can trust.

[Chris Faisal]

We want to use which were the.

[Dave Mitchell]

Teams that we used from boas.

[Dax Shepard]

This is Kafka.

[Monica Padman]

It's very complicated.

[Dax Shepard]

Kafka esque.

[Dave Mitchell]

So listen to our instructions when we go back to our first trip to Cali. So they say, okay. You and Dave can go to Cali. But there's three rules you have to abide by. And this was the first trip. One is you had to be back by nightfall. You couldn't stay overnight. The second was we could never leave the police or military base without a police or military escort. And the third thing was because you know the reputation that DEA has. No cowboy shit, right? No unilateral activity.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Mitchell]

So what did we do? We violated those rules on a daily basis because that was what we had to do to get the job done.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, I imagine grooming an asset would be so hard because again, everyone in town knows your dea. That's right. Anybody you approach is like, well, the DEA wants to talk to me, you.

[Chris Faisal]

Know, we were followed. And not to cause harm on us per se, but they wanted to see if we were meeting anyone and that might be a source. And then they'll go after that person.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, you were being followed by police officers, you were being followed by taxicab.

[Chris Faisal]

Drivers, couple guys on that motorcycle, you know who they are.

[Dave Mitchell]

And that's what made meeting these assets super difficult. Because we had to do it at night, right? We couldn't do it during the day because we would stand out like a bunch of sore thumbs. Right? And they always told us at the embassy, you guys don't blend in. Because I used to have real long hair before I went to borrow. I had it down to the middle of my back. I looked like an extra at a Point Break next to Swayze and Keanu Reeves. But we would have to do that at night. Not only for our safety, but for the assets safety too. Right. Because we didn't want them to be exposed.

[Monica Padman]

Where are you meeting them at night? Like in the woods?

[Chris Faisal]

Cane fields, construction areas even logistically, getting.

[Monica Padman]

To them, we need to meet here feels hard.

[Dave Mitchell]

Well, we had a whole process of communication. We would communicate by beepers. We would send coded messages. If I put in 555-1212 to call me at that number. We had a pre arranged plan where we would subtract one number from each digit. So it would be like four for, you know, if anybody intercepted the number, they wouldn't know what they were looking at.

[Chris Faisal]

And also keep in mind that our main source, Jorge Salcedo, he was the main security guard for the Cali cartel for Miguel Rodriguez.

[Dax Shepard]

He is high up. How do you meet him?

[Chris Faisal]

He would tell us where to meet him. Cause he would put security forces somewhere else. He would say, hey, meet me and see out the cane field. Because I Don't have anybody there. Or you guys can drive by this location and check it out. I'll pull my forces out and I'll give you a 15 minute window. But only 15 minutes.

[Dax Shepard]

He had control of all the eyes and ears. Luckily, he might have been the only person that could have come and worked.

[Dave Mitchell]

With you in a way.

[Dax Shepard]

Right?

[Dave Mitchell]

So he knew where everybody was at, where the security, where the patrols were. But we came into contact with him because he had a long past in the cartel. So he gets recruited into the cartel because he has contacts with these British mercenaries, because he was a captain in the Army Reserves. And while he was in the army reserves, they did an operation against the farc, which was a left wing Marxist Leninist guerrilla group that was fighting against the government. So the Cali cartel leaders asked him to bring in these mercenaries. It's right out of a movie. These mercenaries into Colombia to launch a helicopter assault operation against Pablo Escobar at his finca, where the zoo was, Hacienda Napolis. So they bring these guys in, they train for a couple months. They launch this operation because they know Pablo's throwing a party for his soccer team. And these two helicopters go over to Hacienda Napolis, but on the way, they hit bad weather. One helicopter crashes.

[Dax Shepard]

It's like Black Hawk Down.

[Dave Mitchell]

A couple of the pilots killed. So Salcedo's recruited for that mission to kill Pablo Escobar because of his contacts. But as time goes on, right, he starts to see what's going on. He sees the murders, he sees the bribery, he sees the corruption.

[Chris Faisal]

Well, he can't leave, he can't get out, right?

[Dave Mitchell]

So that's the point. He can't get out.

[Chris Faisal]

But you don't say, guys, I don't want to do this.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, he'll be killed immediately.

[Dave Mitchell]

When he got into the cartel with Callie, they agreed that after Pablo was dead, he goes, I will help you kill Pablo because he's an enemy of the state. He's a terrorist. The world's a better place without him. Under one condition. That once Pablo is dead, I'm allowed to go back to my civilian life. He was an engineer.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, man.

[Dave Mitchell]

So, of course, what happens? Escobar is killed. Senor Miguel, Pablo is dead. My work here is done.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, right.

[Dave Mitchell]

I'm going back to private life. No, you're not.

[Chris Faisal]

Oh, fuck.

[Monica Padman]

So mean.

[Chris Faisal]

Plus, he went over to El Salvador to pick up four bombs, and they wanted to get a particular plane. This is when Pablo was in prison. They want to fly over, drop these bombs on his Prison.

[Dave Mitchell]

So this is the sequel to the helicopter movie, Ill Fated Helicopter. He realizes that his only way out of the cartel is either he's gonna get arrested or he's gonna get killed.

[Dax Shepard]

But does he find you or do you find him?

[Dave Mitchell]

It's kind of both. One of his associates gets. Not associates, a contact. He was an attorney in the United States. He used to come down to do legal affairs for the Cali cartel. And they struck up a friendship. And Salcedo would act as a translator for these American attorneys that would come down because they didn't speak Spanish. And he struck up a friendship with them. This attorney ends up getting indicted in an Operation Cornerstone case with 59 other people. And Salcedo starts to think, hey, this might be a way for me to maybe get out, because otherwise I'm going to be dead. So he sends him a message, basically saying like, hey, I think we might be able to help each other. I'll help you. Maybe get your sentence reduced. You help me.

[Dax Shepard]

He says that to the lawyer.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah, kind of hooked me up with somebody in the government where maybe telephone call, maybe we can do something.

[Dax Shepard]

How much money does he have, Jorge? Is he loaded?

[Dave Mitchell]

No, we asked him that question when we first met.

[Dax Shepard]

Your bosses have hundreds of fucking millions of dollars a month.

[Dave Mitchell]

So in our first meeting, just to jump ahead, we ask him that, like, hey, how much money do you get paid by. Miguel Rodriguez is the head of security for the Cali cartel. And he didn't even blink an eye. He said, I make $1,000 a month and get a take home car.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, that's so dumb of them. You'd think you'd want.

[Chris Faisal]

But some of these guys are really.

[Dax Shepard]

Frugal while hundreds of millions are rotting in a hole that they've forgotten about. It's like this dichotomy of frugality.

[Monica Padman]

Happy? That's crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

It's like great psychology that emerges when people find themselves in this situation with too much money, too much power. Like all these other things that get predictable.

[Dave Mitchell]

And in the book, we outline our first meeting with Salcedo and everything that happens after that point. It's very well detailed. It's very well documented because Dave kept an incredible journal of when we were there. And I would always tell him, dude, what are you doing writing all this shit down? So every day he would come for you. Dave, we did this, we did that.

[Chris Faisal]

Because people say, you didn't do. Where were you? And we said, on this day, we were here on this date, we did this.

[Dave Mitchell]

So we were able to Fill in with a lot of details about meetings like this.

[Dax Shepard]

He called for a meeting in a sugar cane field, and you guys had to go there a few hours ahead of time and scope it and then act like you've arrived. That first meeting must have been.

[Chris Faisal]

We're in the car, and Chris is talking to him. He has an intercom. He goes, let's meet at Seattle. Seat is an agriculture location, and that's where the cane field is. I looked at Chris, I said, chris can't go. No Seat. First of all, we have no protection.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Chris Faisal]

They could have anybody there to kill us.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you even allowed to carry guns while you're.

[Chris Faisal]

We were carrying.

[Dave Mitchell]

We're allowed to carry guns, but remember, we're not supposed to leave the police base.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Dave Mitchell]

So we're running around doing. So here's the head of security for the Cali cartel. First he tells me, let's meet at seop, but come alone. I'm like, I'm not coming alone. Are you crazy? I have to come with my partner. And then he finally says, you can come with your partner. And then he says, no Colombians. Right. Because he was one of the guys that was paying off a lot of the Colombians. So he knew about the corruption. Because if I see anybody who even looks Colombian, the deal is off.

[Dax Shepard]

Even if they brought you, Monica, you might have said, too brown.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dave Mitchell]

So we're sitting there thinking like, the head of security, the Cali, wants to meet us an hour outside of Cali, telling me to come alone and not to bring any Columbia. And we're thinking like, dude, this could be a trap. This could be an ambush. We weren't sure what to expect. We're not even supposed to leave the base. And then here we are, going to go meet this counterintelligence officer in the middle of a cane field an hour outside of Cali. So it was pretty hairy. I think we outlined that pretty well in the book, how we felt, because, honestly, we were pretty scared.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Chris Faisal]

It's funny. When we're there, everything's funny now. At the time, it was. But I looked at Chris, I said, chris, you ever seen that movie Onion Fields? This could be our onion field.

[Monica Padman]

Why? I haven't.

[Chris Faisal]

Well, that actually happened in California.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah.

[Chris Faisal]

It's where some police officers were killed in the onion field, and they made a movie about it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so you meet with him and do you like him?

[Dave Mitchell]

He's not at all what we thought. Just to backtrack a little bit. He says, meet us at the cane field at 3 o' clock right. We get out there at 12 because we're terrified it's going to be an ambush or they're gonna set us up and try to kill us or kidnap us or whatever. So we're out there in this blistering heat, like sitting around for three hours, waiting. But we had a good vantage point, so at least we can see everything coming for a while. So if anybody came in, we were prepared. And we were pretty heavily armed. They say we looked like Neo and Trinity when they went into the government controlled building to get Morpheus. We were loaded. But as we were there, nobody came. Maybe the sky's for real. Yeah, and I think we all have preconceived notions. We're thinking head of security for the Cali cartel. It's going to be like a really bad guy.

[Dax Shepard]

Something out of the movies.

[Dave Mitchell]

Exactly. He's going to look a certain way, he's going to talk a certain way. And when we saw him, he was the exact opposite of what we thought. Came alone. He wasn't armed. We made sure Dave patted him down. We checked the car. We were still wary for a trap.

[Chris Faisal]

And he said our names first. We went to introduce ourselves. Dave Mitchell. They knew everything about us. They had nicknames for us. Us where we're called Los Monos.

[Dax Shepard]

What is Los?

[Chris Faisal]

Los Monos is a monkey. But what they would use it for is if somebody is.

[Dave Mitchell]

Like the gringos.

[Chris Faisal]

Where the gringos that's born, they will call them Los Monos.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that's interesting. It's almost a universal racial slur.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, for real.

[Dax Shepard]

There's something comforting about that.

[Dave Mitchell]

That was what the cartel called us. They referred to us as the Monos. But he talked real softly, with a very low voice.

[Dax Shepard]

An imposing man. Or was he?

[Dave Mitchell]

No, he was just very normal looking. The clothes that he wore, the way he walked, like not trying to make a sound or an impression. So I look at Dave like, man, this guy is like the exact opposite of everything that we thought. And then of course, the first thing he says to us is like, hey, this is gonna be a one time meeting. And it's gonna be real quick because I gotta get back to Cali. Cause I'm on standby for Miguel, the head of the cartel. But as we started to talk and go over things, we ended up being out there three hours. That first meeting.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God.

[Dax Shepard]

Whoa.

[Dave Mitchell]

Until it got dark.

[Dax Shepard]

Was your mind being blown? Were you learning things?

[Chris Faisal]

Open up the book. We learned more in those three hours.

[Dave Mitchell]

Than the whole year on the ground.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Chris Faisal]

Absolutely.

[Dax Shepard]

Can you remember one of the most shocking things you heard during that.

[Chris Faisal]

There's one thing. I looked at him, I said, hey, I just need to know, is DEA a threat? He looked at me just like a father would and says, you and Chris, you work very hard.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, so patronizing.

[Chris Faisal]

No, he felt bad for you guys are hard workers. But, no, DEA is not a threat. And this is why. You and Chris can go out, talk to anybody you want to gather information, intelligence. But at the end of the day, you don't have arrest powers. You have to deal with the Colombians, and that's where we got you.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that's true.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. It all unravels a second. You got to get official.

[Dave Mitchell]

And by that point, we were very well aware of the systemic corruption that existed within not only the security forces, but in the government. But just. Just talking to him and how plainly and how simply he would just put out there. Oh, yeah, well, you can't deal with this person because he's corrupt. And the cartel's paying that guy, and we paid this guy. It was overwhelming the amount of corruption that we were dealing with.

[Monica Padman]

Ask, why should we trust you?

[Dave Mitchell]

We did. We talked all about that. But then when we started to hear his story, how he got involved into the cartel and that he couldn't get.

[Monica Padman]

Out, I'd have such a hard time believing it, really.

[Chris Faisal]

You don't have a choice. I do.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't have a choice. And then also, I think you'd be reasonable to conclude it's not worth them fucking with us. As he said, they're not a threat. They don't have to be appeased. They could be ignored. So why do this? They already know where you're at. I would trust it. Because there's almost no incentive for them to be keeping an eye on you. They're already doing that.

[Dave Mitchell]

And at that point, we were pretty well versed on the cartel and what they were doing. But talking to him, it just took us to a whole nother level. But we would ask a lot of questions that we knew the answers to. Just trying to vet him. He was basically doing the same thing to us. Like, hey, you guys are kids. You know, we were 30 years old at the time. You know, he's like, you guys are here trying to bring down the head of the Cali cartel. So he was like, how can I trust you? How do I know that you guys are able to handle it?

[Dax Shepard]

Right?

[Chris Faisal]

Then he asked us. He goes, listen, it's not only my life, but my family's life, so it's My family's life is in your hands. Can I trust you?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, what's funny is you already answered a question inadvertently earlier, which is my first thought when I thought of Jorge joining witness protection, which he has now done here in America, I thought, what a demotion in his lifestyle. But now that I know he made a thousand bucks a month. Not a demotion. I'm him and I'm high on the hog. And I got to consider moving to St. Louis and living in a trap.

[Monica Padman]

But you're worried about your life. You're living in fear.

[Dave Mitchell]

Trusting him initially was difficult, but as we started to talk and we got more into details, like I said, and we were asking questions that we knew the answers to and he was being honest and upfront and forthright. Plus, we were there three hours with, we think this guy's above board, but that still doesn't mean that we didn't take precautions every time.

[Chris Faisal]

So we met him numerous, numerous times after that one. One time.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, now what is mind blowing is you guys do find out where Miguel is and you raid his place and you don't find him. Is that correct? The first rate. He's in a wall.

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah. There was actually two raids even before that. Oh, without Jorge? Without the one where he's behind the wall. That was with Jorge.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so the first big solid tip.

[Monica Padman]

With this new ass with Jorge during all of this.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you guys present for that?

[Dave Mitchell]

We're there. Anybody who's seen Narco Season 3, it focuses on the Cali cartel. This scene is very well done by Netflix and it's very well outlined in the show. To make a long story short, we're in this apartment looking for Miguel Rodriguez at the time now the head of the Cali cartel.

[Dax Shepard]

How nice of an apartment.

[Dave Mitchell]

This one was very modest.

[Dax Shepard]

Here's the other thing. When you learn more about these things, like it's such a dream to live this way. And then you find out half the time these people are running through tunnels and they're in shitty apartments. They can't enjoy any of it.

[Dave Mitchell]

At that point, they were on the run and they were hiding. You go back years before, they were living in the big walled houses, the Miami Vice style homes with the pools. But now they were continually moving because we're hot on their trail. We're raiding place after place after place. And while we're in the apartment, we're in contact with Salcedo. And he keeps relaying information to us because he's at another meeting with other cartel members where he's Getting this real time intelligence and he's forwarding it to us. So the first thing he tells us is that he's there. He's in a coleta. It's a secret hiding spot. It's like you see in these old movies. Where you push the wall and it opens. Highly sophisticated. So he tells us, is there a big red desk in the apartment? Because there's these really sensitive documents. So we're looking around for latches, we're pushing, we can't find shit. And then one of our partners who's there, Jerry Salameh, he comes and he picks the desk up. And he just turns it over. And it smashes on the marble floor. And it breaks open. And in the back of the desk is a hidden compartment in a desk. How do you do that with three briefcases? And in these briefcases, check this out. This is staggering. Are all these super sensitive files. Corruption related information. Letters from the president's office about money that they had donated. And there was a list of 2,800 corrupt officials just in those briefcases.

[Dax Shepard]

2,800. Good luck finding the straight one.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dave Mitchell]

So we find that that buys us a little more time. Then he tells us, look, he's in this secret compartment in the bathroom. He's hiding. He's in the bathroom.

[Dax Shepard]

He's there.

[Dave Mitchell]

So he's been there for the last 12 hours.

[Monica Padman]

How was he telling you this on the phone?

[Dave Mitchell]

Well, we were going outside making phone calls. He was at a pay phone. And we were at another phone about 100 yards away. And we didn't even know. We didn't know we were that close.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dave Mitchell]

And then he would go back in and get more information to come out. As the head of security, he was able to get out and to relay. Hey, I gotta go check on my guys who are telling me this. So it didn't cause a lot of attention. So finally there are like four bathrooms in the apartment. And we're knocking on walls. We're thinking, how the hell can there be a hidden compartment in the bathroom? Finally, we take measurements of the apartments below and above. We were in the bathroom. We thought, this bathroom is smaller. This is the only one that doesn't make sense. And we opened the sink cabinet and it hits the toilet.

[Chris Faisal]

We're going days and days with our limited sleep.

[Dave Mitchell]

We're not at our best. We're exhausted.

[Chris Faisal]

Chris and I were in the restroom. We had the sink right here with the door right under it. And it doesn't open all the way. It hits the toilet. And we are so exhausted. We go, look at this. Who would make something like this?

[Dax Shepard]

You're just shitting of the construction.

[Chris Faisal]

And then we saw a little yellow hose over.

[Dax Shepard]

This is it.

[Chris Faisal]

And that's when we started getting the drills.

[Dax Shepard]

So you start drilling into the walls, and you break three drill bits, right? You run out of drill bits.

[Chris Faisal]

Corrupt captain that was supposed to be in. Our liaison, who was the main source for him. He grabbed me by the arm. This guy was literally in a panic. And he goes, who's your source?

[Dax Shepard]

Who's your source?

[Dave Mitchell]

How do you know this?

[Monica Padman]

How do you know this?

[Dax Shepard]

Who's your source? None of your business, bitch.

[Chris Faisal]

I said, no, there's a space accounted for. And then once we started drilling through the walls, he looked at their lawyers for the government and said, the Americans are doing. Yeah, prosecutors are doing unilateral action. So that's when they detained us, some say maybe arrested us.

[Dax Shepard]

They got everyone out of there. They had drilled holes right next to him. Imagine his experience in the wall.

[Monica Padman]

He's just standing listening to you guys.

[Dax Shepard]

About, just wondering, like, are they gonna get it? I mean, I can't imagine what his body was feeling like dodging in there. And now drills are coming through saying.

[Dave Mitchell]

Wow, the prosecutor is getting this information that the Americans are conducting a unilateral operation. He comes in, shuts the entire operation down. We're within a minute. Oh, accessing this compartment. This is no lie. You couldn't have drawn it up any better in a movie script if you tried. We were literally a minute away from grabbing this guy. And the prosecutor came in, he shut it down. He brought us out to the living room, took the keys, locked the keys to the door, put them in his pocket, typed up a formal complaint against us, and then escorted us and made us leave the apartment, which is full corruption.

[Chris Faisal]

And we said, can we leave? No. I said, so we're arrested. No, you're not arrested. You just can't leave.

[Dax Shepard]

What new word are you gonna say exactly?

[Chris Faisal]

So we left and jump. And one of our friends, he worked for the intelligence community. He had a truck ready for us. But when we went to Bogota that night, we were all over the news. I mean, our names and.

[Dax Shepard]

Were they saying you guys had gone rogue?

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah, they were saying that we conduct an operation. I thought, tomorrow I'm leaving Colombia.

[Dave Mitchell]

We got our asses handed to us by the ambassador, you know, he said, like, I thought you guys weren't participating in operations. You weren't supposed to leave the base. You're conducting unilateral action. Remember the three things that we broke.

[Dax Shepard]

Every day we warned you about?

[Dave Mitchell]

Even though we were in a lot of trouble, the only thing we were worried about was Salcedo.

[Dax Shepard]

He potentially blew his cover in that way.

[Dave Mitchell]

At that point, we thought that they're gonna kill him, because even if they don't know that he was responsible for that raid, he was one of the people that technically had access to information.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm sure it's a narrow group that could have provided the info, and they're gonna go through that list and they.

[Dave Mitchell]

Could just kill everybody. And then we didn't hear from them for a couple days. So. So that was more sleep that we didn't get. I mean, we had lost 20 pounds by this point each because of the. The stress and the crazy work hours that we were working in college.

[Dax Shepard]

This is the end of the second act in a movie. Movie, yeah. You guys are ready to quit. So how do you then go from that failed mission where you guys are accused of all these crimes against the state, to building another raid where you get him?

[Chris Faisal]

So we're in Bogota. We're thinking, oh, man, what's going on with our source? So we had a meeting, and we said, listen, we haven't heard from this guy in about three days. Hey, we're gonna have to go down to Cali, pretty much meet with the captain, who's dirty, could really get. But fortunately, he gave us a call and says, hey, I'm still here. I'm going to send you some photos of the new location. So we got those photos, and we're looking at it, and we said, okay, let's meet up. He said, okay, you guys, come on down. And that's when we met him in a cane field. Again, we always mean the cane field. It seems like he had other photos, which Chris had under the seat of the car. And I don't know if you want to get into that now. That's when we had to bribe our way out.

[Dax Shepard]

Can't tell us.

[Chris Faisal]

So we're in the cane field, and at that time, and you see all these taxi cab drivers everywhere. I'm saying, what's going on with these taxi cab drivers? Then you see the Columbia National Police with their lights on when it turned out somebody killed a taxi cab driver. This happened to be right when we.

[Dax Shepard]

Were in the area, just by coincidence.

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah. We said, let's get deeper into the cane field. So we were. And we're talking about, you know, okay, the raid. Where is your security? What's the entry points? How can we get in? We're trying to talk so fast. So we get the information.

[Monica Padman]

Is he mad at you guys? Is. He's like, why didn't you get this done?

[Dave Mitchell]

I mean, he was disappointed, obviously.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

He knew the lay of the land. He knows there's people on the inside of that raid working for the cartel.

[Monica Padman]

His life is the one most in danger.

[Chris Faisal]

So we're talking to him, trying to get this information, and all of a sudden we see a Columbia National Police van pull up with his lights on. So he gets out, first thing he does is separate us. Now they separate Chris from me. They put Chris next to the car. There is a lieutenant and a sergeant. The sergeant is searching the vehicle. Luckily, he didn't look under your seat. So me and Jorge, we are with the lieutenant.

[Dax Shepard]

You guys got put as a pair.

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah. And the lieutenant's looking at us going, what are you guys doing here?

[Dax Shepard]

Does he know Jorge exactly?

[Chris Faisal]

No, he does.

[Dave Mitchell]

That's why we met where we met. Because we were an hour outside of.

[Dax Shepard]

Castle, thank God, cuz he'd be dead if that gets even worse.

[Dave Mitchell]

Immediately.

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah. He goes, I'm going to have to take you guys in to the police station. And we knew our lives could be jeopardized, but really Jorge's life would be jeopardized. And there is no way we're going to let that happen. So I had like $600 of operational fees with me. I gave it to Jorge. I said, go ahead and bribe him. So he gave me the 600 and he goes, oh, I'm not taking that. If you're not doing nothing wrong while you're bribing me, I'm thinking, man, we got the only legit.

[Dave Mitchell]

So.

[Chris Faisal]

So what we did before they came, we had all of our IDs and our guns. We threw it in the cane field.

[Dave Mitchell]

So we couldn't be identified as dea. Right, because if we said we were dea, it would compromise him immediately.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dave Mitchell]

So we had to go into our whole undercover cover stories that we were German scientists, that we were working at this agricultural center, which is where we were meeting and we were researching alternative crop development.

[Chris Faisal]

It didn't go that far. I mean, because he realized, no, no, these guys are Americans. So at that point he goes, why are you trying to bribe me? You're going to go to the police station. I'm thinking, he ain't going to take us to police station. He'll probably take the money. But he kept on saying, going to the police station.

[Monica Padman]

Oh boy.

[Chris Faisal]

So I'm trying To get Chris's attention. I'm thinking, okay, what can we do if he tells us to get in that bag?

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah, we're not going. We're throwing down at that point, trying.

[Chris Faisal]

To come and dream or do something.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Chris Faisal]

So we're that close. We are that close. And he holstered his Beretta. And I'm thinking, okay, I can take him, but I hope Chris can take him.

[Dave Mitchell]

They had Uzis too, with the Uzi.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, God. Oh, my God.

[Chris Faisal]

All of a sudden, I heard Jorge scream out, somos homosexualis.

[Dave Mitchell]

We're gay.

[Chris Faisal]

That means we are homosexuals.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh.

[Chris Faisal]

And I went, holy shit. And I looked around, that lieutenant's eyes got really big. And he goes, we just want to be left alone. The Americans want to be left alone. We've just come here. We want to just have alone time.

[Dax Shepard]

Just some gay sex. Let us have. This is real. Yeah. Probably so uncomfortable.

[Dave Mitchell]

Brilliant. This is something that he doesn't want in the car.

[Monica Padman]

Now that makes total sense. Like. Well, yeah. Now I get why they wanted.

[Chris Faisal]

So my eyes are like this. And Lieutenant Sergeant walked over to me and Jorge, and they look at us up and down. They walk over to Chris. Chris had longer hair, looked him up.

[Dax Shepard]

And down, went, this checks out.

[Dave Mitchell]

And they were worried I wouldn't blend in in Columbia, Right.

[Chris Faisal]

Took the money, said, you guys leave. So when we were walking out, I said, don't worry, man. That's great. How do you come up with that? He goes, look at Chris's hair. I thought it would work out.

[Monica Padman]

That is so wild.

[Dave Mitchell]

It was brilliant. It's obviously something that they weren't expecting, and they hadn't gone over that in their police academy training thing because they didn't know what to do. And as bad as that situation could have been, you know Kiki Camarena, right? We're worried they're going to take us and they're going to kidnap us and kill us. And that was some of the best undercover work that me and Dave did during that meeting. Because when he said, we're gay, none of us batted an eyelash, Right? You would think we would laugh or something or smirk, but we were like.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that's our way out.

[Dave Mitchell]

Oh, my God, that's brilliant. But, yeah, we couldn't be identified as D.A. we had to throw our weapons, our IDs.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

[Dave Mitchell]

It's your man, Nick Cannon, and I'm here to bring you my new podcast, Nick Cannon at Night. I've heard y' all been needing some Advice in the love department. So who better to help than yours truly? Nah, I'm serious. Every week I'm bringing out some of my celebrity friends and the best experts in the business to answer your most intimate relationship questions. Having problems with your man? We got you catching feelings for your sneaky link. Let's make sure it's the real deal first. Ready to bring toys into the bedroom? Let's talk about it. Consider this a non judgment zone to ask your questions when it comes to sex and modern dating in relationships, friendships, situationships and everything in between. It's gonna be sexy, freaky, messy.

[Dax Shepard]

And you know what?

[Dave Mitchell]

You'll just have to watch the show. So don't be shy, join the conversation and head over to YouTube to watch Nick Cannon at night or subscribe on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. Want to watch episodes early and ad free? Join Wondery right now.

[Monica Padman]

The town of Agda in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.

[Chris Faisal]

But lately, life on the coast has.

[Monica Padman]

Taken a strange turn. The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption. His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful clairvoyant. Then there's the mysterious phone calls that.

[Chris Faisal]

Local people have been getting. I am the Archangel Michael.

[Monica Padman]

The whole town has been thrown into.

[Dax Shepard]

Chaos as the mayor.

[Dave Mitchell]

Mayor is unable to carry out his duties. I would like to address you.

[Dax Shepard]

All legal proceedings have been initiated.

[Monica Padman]

Join me, Anna Richardson and journalist Leo Chic for the mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption and magic. Binge all episodes of the mystic and the Mayor exclusively and ad free right now on Wonder Plus. Start your free trial in Apple podcasts, Spotify or the Wondery app. Hi, I'm Monica Lewinsky. Welcome to reclaiming. I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours. Something you possess is lost or stolen and ultimately you triumph in finding it again. Miley Cyrus, welcome to reclaiming. My 2013 is your 1998. I lost everything during that time in my personal life because of the choices I was making professionally. Chelsea Handler, welcome to reclaiming. I did have a teacher who instilled in me that I was gonna do something special. And she was like, you're gonna have an impact. Sophia Bush, welcome to reclaiming. You went all the way you committed and if it wasn't for you, you have the courage to tell the truth and get out. And I had to say that to women in my life and I had to learn how to say it in the mirror to Myself, this last decade for me has really been what I consider my own reclaiming, my own journey. My own reclaiming story is. Is in the bones of this show. Please listen to Reclaiming on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so with that information now, who do you approach that you can trust with it to initiate the next raid?

[Dave Mitchell]

By this point, we had started work with two of these specialized units attached to the intelligence community. By this point, based on the information that we were getting from Salcedo, Dave and I are working 100% unilaterally. No one in the Colombian government has any idea what we're doing at this point. Right.

[Dax Shepard]

It's the three of you.

[Dave Mitchell]

Jorge, once we get back to Cali, he can't be seen with us.

[Dax Shepard]

No, I'm just saying you three are the only humans that know.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yes. So we're watching these suspected buildings where Miguel was at. Cause he sent us two photographs. He goes, I think he's in one of these two buildings. Because where I have security stationed, there's only one way in and one way out, and it has to be these two buildings. Right? So we were focused on those two buildings. And then we started to get a little bit more information. And we knew that Miguel had fired all of his domestic staff after the last raid, right? So he got new maids, he got new executive assistants, and he brought in these two Afro Colombian maids to do his meal prep and stuff because of his hypoglycemia. So one night, about one o' clock in the morning, we're doing our own surveillance. And we look through the binoculars.

[Chris Faisal]

What's in where we did surveillance.

[Dave Mitchell]

We were at a statue.

[Chris Faisal]

It's like a little park.

[Dave Mitchell]

And we would sit there and we would drink beer and hang out. There's a bunch of locals around.

[Chris Faisal]

You could see a cane field from the distance. And they were burning the cane field. So it was actually nice. So people would just lean against the hill, drink their beers, and watch the cane field, burn it stream.

[Dave Mitchell]

It was like a hangout.

[Dax Shepard]

So you're occasionally looking through binoculars.

[Dave Mitchell]

We're looking through binoculars, yeah. But we would pretend like we're looking at the burning sugar cane field, because other people were doing the same thing. And then a light came on in the kitchen at about one o' clock in the morning, and we started to look through the binoculars, and I was able to see these two Afro Colombian maids. So that was a key that we saw the maids working at one o' clock because we knew they're making him meal to control his hypoglycemia. So we called for the raid, and we brought these teams in from Bogota, 210 miles away, and they came over. We didn't tell them what they were doing. We actually lied to them. We told them that we were going to hit a location over here, which had nothing to do with Miguel, but actually we were going after the head of the county.

[Dax Shepard]

You didn't have a lot of people with you, did you?

[Dave Mitchell]

There were four DEA agents, one or two intel community guys.

[Chris Faisal]

If I can back up just for a minute, because we kind of narrowed down where was that. And he goes, there is a concrete channel for water to flow through. You can go through there and go through the back way. So Chris and I, we actually went up there and walked it discreetly. And yeah, it opened right up.

[Dave Mitchell]

But the operation involved coming down the side of a mountain after we transited through that flight control channel. So these people were like, I thought this was. We were raiding a chemical company. Where are we going? Why are we climbing mountains and stuff? So nobody knew anything about what we were doing or where we were going.

[Dax Shepard]

There's rappelling involved.

[Dave Mitchell]

We had to come down the side of the mountain, but we didn't have to rappel. But a lot of people fell and jumped and slid. It was pretty hectic.

[Chris Faisal]

When we did our little recon beforehand, just me and Chris, we weren't able to see the very end, the drop.

[Dave Mitchell]

Off down the side of the mountain.

[Chris Faisal]

And Jorge told us, tell him to take a rope. So we told the Navy commandos, we said, hey, take a rope. So they did take a rope. But I guess it didn't help out.

[Dave Mitchell]

Well, it was pitch black, right? Yeah, the terrain was super rugged and treacherous. It was pitch black at night. We did the raid at 4 o' clock in the morning. People were following. They couldn't see. The prosecutor we were with broke her heel. People had to help her out. Other people couldn't make it down the hill. So it was pretty treacherous descent down the side of the mountain.

[Dax Shepard]

So you get into this apartment and what happens?

[Dave Mitchell]

We spread out. We start going room to room. Now, this is a very nice place, right? This one is about 4,000 square feet, very modern. One apartment per floor, 19 story building. Very nice. So we start running through the apartment, turning on lights, looking in, you know, the rooms. And one of the Navy commandos we were with, we hear him yell from the back of the room, I got him, I got him. And I looked at Jerry, who was with us, Jerry Salomon. And then we ran into the back of the bedroom where he was, he was holding him by the shirt. Miguel Rodriguez, the commando, was holding him, pulling him out of the hidden compartment in the closet. He was just getting ready to get in. There was a concrete door about 6 inches thick. So what he would do is he would slide the door closed and lock it from the inside with horizontal bars. And then he was with one of his ex wives. So he always had to have somebody else there in the apartment to close the coleta and seal it up. Right. Because what this one was is imagine two file cabinets, two dressers side by side. You would have to take the drawers out to access the colletta. So once he got in and locked the doors, his ex wife or the assistant would come and put the drawers back in. So when you walked into that closet, you would just see a dresser. You would never think to take the. And even if you took the drawers out, it was so perfectly constructed. You would just see the back of the wall.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chris Faisal]

But inside there he would have an oxygen tank, water, food, the amount of.

[Dax Shepard]

Preparation, stay on the run. Yeah. So it was a walk in closet and it was basically three feet shorter than it should have been. They built out the back wall of it.

[Dave Mitchell]

And the only reason that we were able to grab him was because we had spoken to the attorney General in advance of Columbia and we got special permission to do like a no knock search warrant to knock the door down, which I heard up there, which they didn't want to do because these are very extravagant apartments and houses, millions of dollars. So we were able to get up there and knock the door down after a couple whacks and get in there very quickly. So he didn't have enough time to get into that coleta, that hidden compartment and put the drawers back. But if we were probably a minute or two, he would have already been sealed up still till this day. We would be in there knocking and looking for stuff. We would have never found him. Because this probably the most highly sophisticated compartment that we had found in Ghana.

[Dax Shepard]

You just think of the logistics of this man's life. Like all of these safe houses need to be being built around the clock because he's got to move non stop. They all have to have the collateral, like the amount of staff required and construction and all this shit to stay ahead of it.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yep. And these were very skilled architects and carpenters that were building these. Now some of them were pretty rudimentary. I mean, they weren't that. The last couple we found were highly sophisticated and we would have never found them. They were very, very skillful.

[Dax Shepard]

Unlimited budget.

[Chris Faisal]

A lot of times they go inside the hidden compartment. You may know he's here. We just have to find him. But after you've been there for an hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, you know, the Colombians might lose interest.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I was going to say, you're against the clock of when does someone high enough up chain of command kick you out before you can find them?

[Dave Mitchell]

Which happened several times.

[Chris Faisal]

The first one, when he got out, the captain, who was our liaison, he actually just went in and took him, put him in the back of his car, and drove out.

[Dave Mitchell]

That's what happened. After we left, they went back in, extracted him out of the compartment, and took him to the new place.

[Dax Shepard]

You're a liaison now?

[Dave Mitchell]

We didn't know that at the time.

[Dax Shepard]

How much were those guys making? So you got the head of securities making a grand a month. What were the payoffs?

[Dave Mitchell]

Great question. For that extraction alone, he got $50,000.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Chris Faisal]

But that's back in those days. Oh, yeah.

[Dave Mitchell]

1994.

[Dax Shepard]

Also, if I'm. I'm furious. The most offensive part of this whole story is what they were. Jorge. I'm more appalled by that than the drug.

[Monica Padman]

I mean, I'm glad. Because otherwise, he would have had more of an incentive to just stay and deal with it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he might have been like, I'm stuck in this life, but damn, it's good. I got hippos like Pablo.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dave Mitchell]

And that's what's good about the book, because we go into excruciating detail about all of our time on the ground operating in Cali, all of the raids that we did, what we did, why we did what we did, why we didn't do this and why we did this. And it's from our point of view. Right. So you're on the ground. You're kind of like, with us through this journey that we're taking, and you're getting a lot of inside information about the. The operations that we did, which is pretty cool, because there hasn't been anything other than narcos, which is 50, 60% true about the Cali cartel. And it's much lesser known than Pablo.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. You know, Chris is one of the leads of Narcos 3. I mean, he's not an actor, but the lead actor is playing.

[Dave Mitchell]

There's an actor who.

[Chris Faisal]

The other guy's playing me. He doesn't have a name, though. I was doing the job.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Were you a little resentful that he was getting all this love, and you're like, hey, he had a partner. I know.

[Dave Mitchell]

Chris.

[Chris Faisal]

Dave, if you can make it work for yourself, go ahead.

[Dax Shepard]

Can you quantify or make the experience relative to other experiences in your life? The moment where you walk in the room and you see he's actually being held and that barring some crazy intervention, you have him. And I'll add, I think more rewarding than for the guys that working on Pablo, which is like, he got killed in front of them. You're not going to get to talk to him. There's not going to be a prosecution. What was the. That sensation when you see he's right there? We have him.

[Dave Mitchell]

Thank God it's over. First thing I said, because at that point, we were on the ground in Cali, 15 months or so, and we were exhausted. We were happy because it was over. Because now Salcedo can get him and his family out into WITSEC in the US when they brought him, the Navy seal, Colombian Navy SEAL dragged him out, and he pretty much plopped him right in front of me and Jack. I was only a couple feet away from him.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, if he said, oh, my God, it's the homosexuals I heard about.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah, I know you. But he had the deadest eyes. Like that thousand yard stare that you can just look into and go like, man, this guy's killed a lot of people or ordered them to be killed. It was pretty chilling to actually sit there and I just told him, secobo, Senor Seacobo. Like, it's over, but relief. Thanks. And that Salcedo was safe because you imagine every day we had to bear that burden of getting this guy killed. Exactly. And after that first failed raid, we thought, oh, man, we got him killed.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. The stakes.

[Chris Faisal]

That wasn't the final, though. I mean, we still had other work to do. We told Salcedo, all right, get your family. We're gonna start pulling you out. He goes, no, we still have more work to do. Oh, and he goes, we have to get Palomari.

[Monica Padman]

He's a hero.

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Dax Shepard]

He did not become a suspect after the gal was caught.

[Monica Padman]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

So how did he help with the other?

[Chris Faisal]

He just told us where Palomari's wife was working.

[Dave Mitchell]

Tell him who Palomari was.

[Chris Faisal]

Oh, Palomari was the accountant. And he was the accountant that knew all the skeletons. It was Palomari who we needed after the arrest because all the books were coded and he can cipher all the codes, tell you where all the money went. Keep in mind, Palomari, he was from Chile so he can be extradited. So that's why the Cali cartel wanted him dead. And pretty much he kind of made some stupid comments before during one of the police raids. I worked for the Rodriguez's, he shouldn't have been sane. They knew that he would talk. We got with the wife, she met us in Bogota and they decided to cooperate.

[Dave Mitchell]

The cartel was actively trying to kill the accountant because he had been indicted in the US So he wasn't a Colombian national, so he was eligible to be extradited back to the US and plus they had raided his office and there were these highly sensitive documents that were seized out of his office related to corruption to cartel. So he was like number one on the cartel hit list.

[Dax Shepard]

Shocking. They didn't kill him.

[Dave Mitchell]

Well, we got to him first and we were able to extract them, exfiltrate them out of Cali and ultimately back.

[Dax Shepard]

Into the U.S. now you were there for 12 years, Columbia?

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah, off and on. Correct.

[Dax Shepard]

And you?

[Chris Faisal]

Three years.

[Dax Shepard]

So what were you doing the remaining 10 and a half years in Columbia?

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah, we all left Columbia about the same time in mid-1997. We either got promoted or we went back to the US on different assignments. I went back to Columbia a couple years later for a three year tour to work against the North Valley Cartel and some of the other organizations that were popping up. And then I went back to the US for a cup of coffee and then I went back to Columbia again for just over six years and we worked on, you know, investigations targeting again, the North Valley Cartel, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, which was a designated terrorist force group at the time, which was a left wing group as well as a paramilitary group which was also the auc, designated as a foreign terrorist organization. And I had been promoted again up.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you have a good life in Colombia those years?

[Dave Mitchell]

Yes.

[Chris Faisal]

You know, you get a nice apartment, you're treated like a diplomat. Yeah, it's affordable there too, right?

[Dax Shepard]

Do you miss it? Because I heard you went back for Narcos 3 and you were like, yeah, cool, that's it. And I want to get out.

[Dave Mitchell]

No, I mean, I went back to Columbia recently. I did a six episode show with the Discovery Channel called Finding Escobar's Millions. We went though all over Columbia, tearing up the grounds up. We didn't find anything.

[Dax Shepard]

I know that would be the next big treasure hunt.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah, but people have been looking for that for 30 years. So I went back to Columbia there and then Narcos too, when I was on set in Cali. But what we're talking about here is that Cali had changed a lot. Places where me and Dave would meet people or we would do our surveillances, it was completely different. Everything was built up. But some of the stuff we saw, we went back to some of the buildings where we actually did raids that still belonged to the cartel that they couldn't sell. So being back was kind of surreal. And then going out, filming on set. Right in the cane field.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dave Mitchell]

Where we had met Salcedo in the same place. That was pretty cool.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dave Mitchell]

But it was a little different, though, going back.

[Monica Padman]

What a story.

[Dax Shepard]

What a story. It's not shocking. They made a hit TV show out of it. It's hair raising. Okay, now, these are my questions. Not specifically about the work itself in Colombia, but just whatever. Whatever overall tensions you were or weren't managing. So just in general, what is it like to do that job knowing whoever you grab means nothing? You kill Pablo, Cali's on top. You get rid of the Cali guys, this group's on top. What is it like to have such a Sisyphusian task where it's like, so long as Americans want to snort cocaine, it is what it is.

[Chris Faisal]

Now, what was told to us at the academy by one of our instructors, he goes, you would never solve this cocaine or narcotics problem. Our job is to slow it down, because there's only, like, it floats around. With 5,000 agents, there's not that many, and that's worldwide. He goes, we put our finger in the dike, but anything behind us is chaos.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So how do you keep your dedication and your enthusiasm and your passion for it? Knowing? I mean, I hate to say it so cruelly, but just the second you get the guy, there'll be another guy right there.

[Chris Faisal]

We always had a saying in DEA that you may lose the war, but we'll win every battle that we choose to fight. Cali cartel is a battle.

[Dave Mitchell]

But that was our job, though, right? That's what we signed up to do, and that's what we were sent there to do. You take pride in what you do. Like my dad used to tell me all the time, whatever you do in life, do it to the best of your ability.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. You're kind of forced into a bit of Buddhism with the whole thing, which is like, I think you have to. I would imagine you'd have to get purposely myopic, like, yeah, I'm not actually going to focus on that bigger strata. It's just like, this is the guy today.

[Dave Mitchell]

This is the mission. This is the job.

[Chris Faisal]

This is what I'm focused on. You're absolutely right.

[Dax Shepard]

But what. When you were burnt out and it was towards the end, and as you're worried about Jorge in those moments, are you like, what the fuck is this all about? Like, I'm about to kill myself. We're going to get Jorge killed and everyone's going to snort the same amount of cocaine.

[Chris Faisal]

Well, you know, it did affect the cocaine trade for two days, sure.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God. It's very admirable. It really is. I think a lot of people would be like, I'm done now.

[Dave Mitchell]

We just had to see it through, right? We had invested, invested so much time and energy. And at one point I told him, like, you know what, dude, I'm tired of this. Let's just pass it on. And he wouldn't let me. He's like, dude, this is what we were sent here to do. This is our job. We have to see it through. And by that point, it had become pretty much an obsession for us because we were finishing that one way or the other. Whether Jorge got killed, whether something happened to us or we got thrown out of the country, one way or the other, we were going to finish.

[Chris Faisal]

You compartmentalize it and say, okay, this is our best. This is what we're focusing on. We're not looking at the whole scope of things, just this.

[Monica Padman]

You guys didn't have families at the time, like kids or.

[Chris Faisal]

I didn't. I was married by the kids.

[Dave Mitchell]

At one point in the book, too, we make a vow. This is before we started to get successful. We'd been on the ground probably, I don't know, six, eight months at this point. And we had just launched these operations at the airport because the cartel was flying in these plane loads full of money, like 50, 60, $70 million at a ship shot. And we went out three separate times and we missed everyone. And we can tell it was obviously compromised because of some stuff. And we outlined it in the book and we sat there and we made a vow and we said, we are not leaving this country until every one of those four are dead or in handcuffs. And that was the vow we made and we stuck to it.

[Dax Shepard]

I was in an off road race and another guy that was also in the race, he was a retired DA just. And I got talking to him and he was talking about marijuana as if he had just seen reefer Madness. Like there was this crazy kind of Pollyanna belief in whatever he was taught about the DEA and marijuana's killing people. And he's very troubled that his Daughter smoked marijuana. And I'm like, well, would you prefer she was drunk? And he's like, absolutely. And I'm like, okay. Even though you know that alcohol is probably worse for her and she'll probably drive and crash or there'll be violence. And I was just kind of shocked with how rigid he was. In the wake of us having loosened up as a country and the results being in.

[Chris Faisal]

They teach you at the academy that marijuana is a gateway drug, that if you smoke marijuana, your odds are going into a higher type drugs, cocaine or heroin. So if you don't smoke marijuana, you won't do that. But you have to really look today at what does marijuana provide? Does it provide any health benefits that needs to be looked into? Because, you know, the THC level today, compared to 30 years ago, it's a lot higher. So, I mean, if there is a way to help, like, cancer patients, let's look into it.

[Dax Shepard]

Or just people are going to recreationally get up, we can evaluate which one's more dangerous. Police don't arrive to domestic disputes after people have been smoking weed. They arrive after a fifth of Jack Daniels has been consumed.

[Chris Faisal]

I mean, that's why everybody says, tell you my back hurts. And they get prescription to get legal weed.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a comedian I'm friends with, and his joke was he went to get his weed cart and the doctor said, are you having trouble sleeping 16 hours a night? He said, yeah, I can only sleep about 12. He said, Perfect.

[Monica Padman]

I think you have to buy into that. If this is your life, this is what you're doing daily, I get it.

[Dax Shepard]

But I am curious what the tension is, because also, you have the war on drugs. You have this insane explosion in incarceration rate rates. We know it's very asymmetrically affecting black folks. The war on drugs itself has got some troubles.

[Dave Mitchell]

Yeah, of course.

[Dax Shepard]

And I just wonder what it's like for you guys who have dedicated your lives to it as we reframe it and start to question some of the things. Are you at all caught in that, like, huh?

[Dave Mitchell]

Well, first of all, it's not a war on drugs. It never was. It's more of a skirmish. Right. Because there's a lot of resources and a lot of stuff that we don't do to go after the problem. But there's a lot of true believers out there in DEA and else that they are firm believers that, you know, know, no, it's illegal, can't use it. And then you have other people at the other end of the spectrum that are like, whatever floats your boat.

[Chris Faisal]

We're not going to arrest ourself out of this issue. We don't have enough people who are arresting anyone. But I don't think legalizing everything per se would be an issue. So let's say if you say, okay, drugs are legalized, instead of McDonald's, you're going to have McDrugs and people just go in.

[Dax Shepard]

I have reversed my position. So growing up, I was very libertarian. I was very much like, you know what, it's victimless in that you've decided to take drugs. And I think if you want to pursue that, great. I did it myself. I had to get sober because of it. But I always had a pretty much, let's legalize this stuff. Why have it on the black market? Why have criminals control it? Let's get the tax revenue. I have now seen the experiment run in Oregon, and I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think meth should be legal or decriminalized. I don't think heroin should be. So I find myself in an interesting reversal of my position. And then I start wondering, is this weirdly the best approach? Is it like we want to keep it hard enough to get that it's not the explosion of availability. We do know availability does impact. Look at the opioid epidemic. Of course it was around. So we all got addicted to it. So that's undeniable. That's really fascinating. And we got to acknowledge that. So it's like, what is the approach to this? Are we doing the right approach? Is it just like, keep it hard, keep it expensive?

[Chris Faisal]

Look at it this way. We came in 1988, and at that time I thought, you can't have any more drugs. And I mean, it fallen out of the sky high in traditional drugs was cocaine, heroin. But if you look at it today, there's more drugs today. Because you have all the synthetic drugs.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Chris Faisal]

And the Mexican cartels make more money off these synthetic drugs than the regular traditional drugs.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Chemistry is cheaper than agriculture.

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Monica Padman]

And more dangerous.

[Dax Shepard]

So what do you think? What is the strategy? It's like, just keep it kind of pinched.

[Dave Mitchell]

It's kind of a no win situation. But I think you have to attack it on all fronts. Enforcement, treatment, education, everything like that. But like we always say, you brought up Portland or Seattle. Imagine that times 50,000 if it's in every city throughout the United States.

[Dax Shepard]

No, we were in San Francisco. The guy had a card table set up, literally a card table with cracking heroin for sale. I was like, well that can't be where we're going.

[Dave Mitchell]

I mean, imagine the health care system would be overrun, overwhelmed with overdoses. Crime would explode because you'd have more people committing crimes to get money, to get more drugs. So I think you just have to try to contain, you have to try to hit it on multifacetets.

[Chris Faisal]

The other thing too is education. Instead of going after high school or middle kids, let's go after the kids in elementary school. Let's get them young.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, the other unavoidable reality is it's also been very disproportionate who gets criminalized, which is the consumer walks scot free. For the most part, the consumer of the drugs doesn't really do any jail time. So you have this consumer base and then you have a group of people that are going to meet the demands of this market. Market that these people create it. Dealers and growers can't create a market. The consumers have to create the market.

[Chris Faisal]

Very true, yes and no. Tell me who can create the market if say the Mexican cartels, because you say, okay, what's the market? Is it cocaine? Well, they will hold back the cocaine and says, no, we're going to send in more methamphetamine or something else. So if you're using cocaine, you don't have access to cocaine, you're going to go to another drug. So that's how the cartels are managing, manipulating the drugs, not a demand.

[Dax Shepard]

Exactly.

[Dave Mitchell]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

So it's like when you really chase it down in a logical experiment, you recognize the problems.

[Monica Padman]

The consumer, consumer and the dealers are the desperate ones. They're the ones that are doing it because they need the money and they.

[Dax Shepard]

Need, they're going for livelihood. Not exactly.

[Chris Faisal]

Well, that's why going back years ago and we were talking to the Colombians, that's why they're saying Cali cartel. They have the will of the people because it's you Americans who have the demand for it.

[Dax Shepard]

If I were them, I would feel guilt free and totally like I have the moral high ground. We're not addicts, y' all the fucking junkies.

[Dave Mitchell]

There was no demand. These cartels wouldn't exist.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

I admire what it takes to fight your hardest for it. Given the overall context.

[Chris Faisal]

Don't you think our society is where big Pharma can kind of advertise directly to the client? I think it started legal in 1985. When they can do that, when you.

[Dax Shepard]

Can put ads on tv, you turn.

[Chris Faisal]

The tv, if your back hurts, take this pill. It Hurts this pill. In the late 70s, New York had a really bad heroin problem. But if you wanted heroin, you actually had to go in to that area is bad stigma.

[Dax Shepard]

There was a barrier of entry that kept a lot of people out, and.

[Chris Faisal]

You had to inject it in your veins.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Faisal]

But nowadays you can go on social media and get these pills with fentanyl and take it mouth.

[Monica Padman]

You can go to your doctor. I mean, the opioid crisis started because of doctors, not because of the street.

[Chris Faisal]

So we have to change the mindset. Hey, take a pill. I'll be okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Faisal]

But there is no good answer.

[Dax Shepard]

There isn't. Some of these problems, you have to have a certain tolerance for the mess of them.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Now, I had a grand conspiracy theory cooking. It's like the only one I've ever been able to buy into. I was like, well, the drug cartels are not incentivized to put fentanyl in coke. It's not good for the people buying the coke to think they might overdose on fentanyl when they didn't know they were getting it. I don't understand the incentive of putting fentanyl in coke.

[Chris Faisal]

I never understood that either. To explain to me how much money that they can make. And just the people that's overdosing, they'll say, in the United States, we have an endless supply of clients.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I just. I'm confused. As an ex drug addict, if I go buy cocaine, I'm not trying to buy an opiate. So if I buy cocaine and you give me an opiate and then I almost die, I don't want to buy from you.

[Chris Faisal]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So then I was like, you know, the ultimate Machiavellian move for the DEA would be to just be putting fentanyl in coke. Because then make it so scary. Everyone's afraid to do coke. That would be so highly illegal. But I'm like, if anyone has an incentive here for fentanyl, it would have to be the dude. I just don't know how it benefits the consumer or the supplier.

[Chris Faisal]

Fentanyl is one of our biggest issue right now.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris Faisal]

Because when you go eat at a restaurant, you know you have that gram of sugar.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Chris Faisal]

That would be enough to kill 500 people.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. It's insane. There was a 60 minutes segment on fentanyl, and they showed this little tiny pile of grain, and they said, this would be enough to kill an elephant. And then the bag it said would be enough to kill a city of 50,000 people.

[Chris Faisal]

Well, now you have CORF, fentanyl this car fentanyl.

[Dave Mitchell]

It's even worse. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

What is it?

[Chris Faisal]

Car Fentanyl. It's stronger than fentanyl. Car Fentanyl is used to put down elephants.

[Monica Padman]

I agree with you. I don't understand why anyone. It's like, why would we kill our clients?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It really doesn't make sense.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a big mystery.

[Chris Faisal]

So many clients.

[Dave Mitchell]

But a lot of it goes to, though, is that they have to put in the precise amount. Exactly.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dave Mitchell]

And you're talking about granules of salt. So you're having these people who are not chemists.

[Monica Padman]

Is fentanyl extra addictive? Because then that makes sense to me. Then if you want to put the exact amount in so that people are extra addicted, so they keep coming, but.

[Dax Shepard]

They'Re just opposite highs. It's really weird. Like, if you went to order a glass of wine and I said, well, I gave you marijuana. People love marijuana. You'd be like, I would have got marijuana. That's the part that I, as a drug addict, I don't really understand. Now, if you were selling it as a speedball in a bag, that's a great product.

[Chris Faisal]

I was going to say, I thought that was called speedball.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, but I think you'd want to know. You're taking a speedball. You want. You got to plan your night accordingly.

[Monica Padman]

Wild.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, well, guys, this is fascinating. I can't believe you really live these lives. It's absolutely worthy of a TV show. And it was. But your book is incredible. After Escobar taking down the notorious Cali godfathers and the biggest drug cartel in history.

[Monica Padman]

So cool.

[Dax Shepard]

What a feather in Yalls cat. Brought down the biggest cartel in history.

[Monica Padman]

Congratulations.

[Dave Mitchell]

Thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

Pretty gangster. Couple of white bozos coming out. Exactly, exactly. You guys are great. Thanks so much for coming in this episode.

[Dave Mitchell]

Thanks for.

[Dax Shepard]

Really fascinating. Yeah. I hope everyone checks out the book. It's out now. Take care. Hi there. This is Hermion Permium. If you like that, you're gonna love the fact check. Ms. Monica. Hello.

[Monica Padman]

Hi.

[Dax Shepard]

I have an update.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, let's hear it.

[Dax Shepard]

So this. I'm kind of famous for this, right? I've done this once before. You may recall. I was in Italy and a man offered me his leather jacket. So I invited him to our home and he stayed with us for a week. And he didn't speak English. And Kristen was like, that was a pretty wild invite. She was lovely to him and it was fine. But, you know, wild invite, stranger for.

[Monica Padman]

A week, normally something she would do, not you. So it is weird.

[Dax Shepard]

I know I get these weird moments of, like, great optimism in humanity. And I think. I don't know what I think, but all to say, about three months ago, Freddie, who I've told you about a million times, Delta's buddy, who I adore, Freddie, I think he's the greatest little boy. So popular and confident and so he's over all the time. And then I see his mom quite often. Well, almost every morning at drop off. And she's lovely. We chat every time we've talked. You know, we see each other. And then the dad, Blake, I've seen just a few times at like, you know, the big run at the back of the school or whatever the big school events are. And I say, three months ago, you guys should come to Nashville this summer with Freddie and bring all the kids. And it felt so good when I said it. And I just was like, this is gonna be great. And then, you know, for the next couple months, I was like, well, that was a pretty big swing. We've never ever hung out with anyone other than Fred. And so we had like a dinner before we left a couple months ago. We were like, you know, minimally, we should all go out to dinner. And so we went out to dinner. But, you know, this whole summer we've had visitors the whole time, but they've been family or old friends. And then this was just looming that this family I've invited to live with us for a week, who we don't really know is coming. And so I had anxiety about that, that. And Delta and I picked him up from the airport on Friday. Kristen and Lincoln had flown back to LA to see the Hollywood bull Cynthia Rivo thing.

[Monica Padman]

Jesus Christ. It's just D money.

[Dax Shepard]

And I, the big man upstairs superstar. And so they arrived again. I don't have Kristen there as a buffer or helper. And it's just Delta and I. And it started off immediately really well, great. And then it just got better and better and better. And Blake and I were broing out so hard. He's a drummer, it turns out. He was super into the punk scene like I was. We had all this in common. He's a rascal. The kids, the other two kids who are tinier, I completely fell in love with. One of them is a raccoon animal. The little girl, she's a vampire and a raccoon. And she said, we were watching Tom Cruise. Oh, we were watching Days of Thunder continuing the Tom Cruise's Cruise's party. And someone in the movie said, fuck. And then you Hear her go. He said fuck. I love swear words. I like to say fuck. Oh, he is little. I laugh off for 20 minutes straight this tiny, cute, little raccoon set. I like to say, oh, my God.

[Monica Padman]

What makes her raccoon?

[Dax Shepard]

Like, oh, my God. Well, she's a couple things. She's definitely Arya Stark too. She's always got, like, a knife in her hand and a weapon.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my.

[Dax Shepard]

And she wants to. Oh, yeah, yeah. She's like feral and. And impossibly cute. She looks a lot like Vinnie. She's like the girl version of Vinnie. Way too big of eyes. You can. Got to see her. She's incredible. And then the little boy Sal is just so sweet. Oh, my God. So, my God, it was such a fun visit. And I said to them the night before they left, can we all acknowledge how high risk this was for everyone involved? And they both came clean. And they're like, oh, yeah. We were like, what did we say yes to? We don't even know these people yet. All of them, all of us were like, what is this Hail Mary pass We all committed to. But with high risk came great, great reward. And it was so fun. And Delta was. She was driving Freddie around on the golf cart the whole time like she was a little boss and she had the run of the. Yeah, run. You know, run of the roost. Is that an expression? She was just on fire. And now here's where it's going to get controversial.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And I'm just gonna. I'm gonna ask you to give it a shot. Oh, what am I saying? You already went. Never mind. We're not gonna have a dust up. We took them to Bricktops.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah. Great, Great restaurant.

[Dax Shepard]

So I think I have this right. People could correct me. I believe the. The founder of Houston's and this person were partnering and they split up. And the man who didn't stay with Houston's in Hillstone started Bricktops. I'm pretty sure that's the history.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Maybe Rob will check it while we're on the.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, Rob, check it. I did ask, and I got confluent. I got different information, but okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But as everyone knows, Houston's is our favorite restaurant. But I have to say, and this is crazy to say, I. Bricktops is bad.

[Dave Mitchell]

Better.

[Monica Padman]

I disagree.

[Dax Shepard]

You disagree?

[Monica Padman]

I. I love.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you order at Kristen's birthday party?

[Monica Padman]

I got a burger. It was incredible. It was so good.

[Dax Shepard]

And I have the deviled eggs and bacon.

[Monica Padman]

Yep. So good. I thought it was an incredible meal. I would love to Go back there. And I think Houston's is better, personally. Just.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so a little split? Yeah, we're split. Well, I'm not finding any connection between Houston's own by Hillstone Restaurant Group and Bricktop is owned by a separate guy named Joe. Well, I guess could you ask if those two are ever partners? That was my search. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

My guess is. And this happened. Has happened with Houston's a lot that people work for Houston's or like their managers or whatever and then they start their own restaurants and a lot of them are. Are very based off of Houston's. There's one here in la. I don't know if I'm allowed to say what that's. That's like definitely that I found something.

[Dax Shepard]

Bricktop's owner Joe was one of the original co founders of Houston's. There we go. Yeah, that's what I thought.

[Monica Padman]

And have been told With George.

[Dax Shepard]

Reputable people. Yes. George Beale.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, George Beale. Yeah. Is the founder.

[Dax Shepard]

George Beale and Joe Ledbetter and Vic Bramstetter.

[Monica Padman]

The first Houstons ever was in Nashville. It closed, but it was there 1977.

[Dax Shepard]

The first Houstons in Nashville. 77, yeah. Wow. They've been at it.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, anyway, so then I was right. So yeah, it's got some shared DNA vibe.

[Monica Padman]

Definitely.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. So great. Okay, so that was that. What a win. So sad. Sad to see him leave yesterday. Now last night we had a very unique experience. I have heard of the Grand Ole Diapery through many a Waylon Jennings songs. Many a Hank Jr. Hank senior. Don't you know they fired him from the Opry and that caused his greatest shame. I've never been to the Grand Ole Opry. I've only heard of. And we went last night and. What a place have you been?

[Monica Padman]

I don't think so.

[Dax Shepard]

There were multiple acts. Everyone did like three songs. You know, these are all like several of the people that played had written a bunch of Miley Cyrus songs or had written all these hit songs. So it's mostly like the songwriters who are also performers. And so, you know, it's just like premium musicians, not the stars, but the songwriter. That was really fun. And then, yeah, Leanne Morgan, who I'm new to, but she's so radical. She's 59. She had been doing comedy for like 25 years and was going to quit basically. And in the last few years has just exploded. She had a Netflix one hour special. She's got a show with Chuck Lorre now on Netflix and she's like 59 and it's just so rad and life affirming. And then, then who came out? Monica after her Jelly Roll.

[Monica Padman]

Ah, yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Jelly Roll, who we were so close to interviewing here in Nashville. And then he was just on tour. I got to meet him backstage. He's so lovely. What a sweet dude. And what a performer. Oh, my God. I recommend everyone see Jelly Roll. What a monster. And then. Okay, beyond that, you know, what I was noticing was my continual kind of like just observing the culture and how it's like different down here and it's really genuinely different. Especially at a place like the Grand Ole Opry, right. Where it's just like. It's tradition. It's Hank Senior. It's all these famous. It's a hollowed venue.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And you've got a host of the night and she is like bringing out the different acts. And then she'll interview people for five, ten minutes after. And then she'll like read some stories of people in the audience, whatever. All to say, there was this. I was like having a hard time pinpointing what was going on. It all just felt so nostalgic. It felt like we were seeing this in the 70s or 80s and there was like she had a delivery that. That just made you feel good. Like it was outdated, I guess, in some sense, but it just felt so good and positive. And what I was really detecting is I was like, you know what it is? There's just a real absence of cynicism that's kind of like one of the. It's one of the ingredients I've kind of isolated is like, there's really just a much lower rate of general cynicism, which is interesting to observe and quite pleasant. And you know, everyone's talking about Jesus, right? And obviously that's not my bag, but even Jelly Roll is talking a lot about Jesus and how Jesus helped him get his life together and everyone's on board. Word. And I was a little bit like, yeah, I mean, you come to atheism through cynicism. I do. That's how I got there. I'm like, kind of cynical of this story. I'm skeptical. It doesn't hold water to me.

[Monica Padman]

That's not. Yeah, I disagree. I don't think being. I think cynicism isn't the same thing as critical thinking. Cynicism is, is. Is never negative. It has a negative streak through it.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's. I'm going to get the real definition just so we can. We can. We can read it and see what we think. I think you're Right. But what's the definition of cynicism? A cynical person tends to believe that people are primarily motivated by self interest and distrust others, sincerity or integrity. Philosophical origin. Cynicism was originally a school of philosophy founded in ancient Greek Greece. The cynics rejected wealth, power, and social conventions, believing virtue was the only good and that it came from living in accordance with nature. Huh. Well, let's just say that we would agree probably the line between skepticism and cynicism is pretty thin. Or no for you? Sure.

[Monica Padman]

I, I, I think that's. Yeah, I think that's right. I also think it's a little dangerous because cynicism is to me a pejorative. And I don't, to me, skepticism is not. To me, skepticism is.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

A smart way to go through life. Like, it is required actually to, I don't know, like, come to your own real beliefs about everything. Any.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So it's interesting. So Kristen had a long follow up on the ride home because it was like, very palpable and it was interesting and it was much different than anything you would see in Los Angeles. And that was fascinating and worth talking about. And what's interesting is like, it's a two sided coin. So one thing is like, Kristin's like, well, I don't like that. The notion of, like, you're an addict because the devil's a liar and evil tempted you and sin found you because the devil's at work and evil's at work. Like, that really takes away your own personal responsibility from your addiction or your cheating or whatever. The thing is, you're saying, oh, the devil found. So that that's true. But on the flip side, that wasn't rubbing me the wrong way. What was rubbing me the wrong way is, dude, you can't give this guy in the sky credit for your sobriety. Like, you did that. God isn't. God did not come down and take a bottle out of your hand. And I want you to own that you did that. So it's interesting because so on one side, there's a lack of humility, which is like, I'm not even responsible for this. But then on the success side, there is great humility because he's not even taking credit for it. It's like he's saying God intervened and did something for me I couldn't do. So that's an interesting mix. Right? It's like, which side of this equation are you going to be really humble on the fact that you own your responsibility in causing it and then by which you get to own your success in conquering it? Or are you going to say, I'm not fully responsible for it, nor am I responsible for the solution? So I think it's like, it's kind of a net. It's net the same, which is interesting.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. But it's similar to me. Not similar. It's exactly the same as the sim conversation we had with Riz and your priority problems with it. Right. Where you're like, if we just say we were assigned a character in a video game, that's so problematic. Because what about all these other characters that are suffering? Like, so God gave you this thing, but isn't giving another person the same, like, breaks down so quickly? Because even if they're like, well, God made me sober, it. There is still a. A. I agree that there's a humility because you're not taking any credit, but it's also like, God chose me to be sober.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So it's just interesting. You already know how I feel, which is like, I don't believe in God, but I am seeing. I'm just recognizing what. What is the outcome of it. And that's interesting. And it's interesting that there's not humility on one side, but then there's a lot of humility on the other side. And then flipped for someone like me who's an atheist. That's interesting. But I think the bigger. So then it led to Chris and I saying, oh, what's interesting is she's like, no, I would come to that realization I needed to get sober, and here's the technique I needed to use, and I would credit that for it. And I said, yeah, but you know, what we're really just arguing between is like, what mechanism do you want to choose to get there? So it's like, you could choose my version, but the result. Result's not drinking and taking pills. His can be God, and the result is not taking and drinking pills. Like, we're really kind of just debating what mechanism you want to use to get there. And if both are valid, that's interesting. But deeper than that, and this runs the risk of offending some people. I had this moment where I was like, you know, I'm on the outside thinking, oh, oh, they just lock, stock, believe that God invented all animals in seven days and that Jesus is the son of God and they're the same person and there's no women involved, and somehow they think all that is accurate. But I got a different sense sitting there last night where I was a little bit like, no, I Think it might more be just a choice of a holistic worldview view. And you're not necessarily the. Whether I believe in every aspect of it isn't what's important. The importance is I have this declaration of humility to this thing, and that's this really bonding thing between all of us. And I guess I think. I thought it was a little more literal than maybe it might be, if that makes any sense.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that makes sense. Sense. I think that's true for a lot of people. I don't think everyone believes every single word to the letter. I. I think some people do and they say it right. They're like, the Bible says this, so you can't do this. Like. And it's. And it is often used to tell other people what they're doing wrong or right, which.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, it's. It's weaponized. Yeah, For. For sure.

[Monica Padman]

But it's definitely. Religion is a community. It's an in group. It's. Yeah, yeah, it is that. I mean.

[Dax Shepard]

And the result for them, which again, is like, you're kind of arguing over mechanisms to get to a result, and the result for them is like, this real sense of shared community. And in my, like, you know, it's just kind of unfolding a lot of things sitting here, which is really fun to have as an experience, which is like, I also. The other thing I've been aware of since I've been here is like, I'm so used to being in LA, where there's 12 million of us and we're really packed in on top of each other, and resources feel very scarce and water is sometimes an issue. And, you know, we have fires. We have a lot of this stuff that is the world we live in. And we're very worried about being sustainable because there's so many of us in this little area. And I was thinking, yeah, if you're sitting here where I'm at, it's just endless trees and lush and it rains nonstop and everything's growing and there's a kabillion insects and. And it's like here everything feels quite healthy. Like this place is thriving, you know, like nature's on fire here. I understand if you're sitting here and you're like, I don't know what they're all so freaked out about. Like, everything's fucking great. I mean, because what are you surrounded by? You know, what you're surrounded by is gonna definitely impact how you think the world is or is. Isn't really vulnerable or on the brink or teetering, you know, but it is.

[Monica Padman]

It'S not the same. It's not fires, but there's other disasters that are happening over on that side of the country as, as well. And like, you know, there's hurricanes, there's tornadoes, there's the Asheville situation. Like it's still happening. It's just not. It doesn't look the way it looks here.

[Dax Shepard]

I guess what I'm trying to say is if you're in Michigan and you're surrounded by the Great Lakes and you're hearing the rest of the country freak out about fre, intellectually, you understand that that's their experience. But your day to day experience is like, no, water actually isn't a problem at all. I see it everywhere. And I'm just, I'm not, I have no emotional connection to that because that's not at all what I'm experiencing. I would just have to be like intellectually traveling to where you're at and thinking about all that. But just my day to day, if you're in Michigan surrounded by the Great Lakes, I understand why you're not thinking about water.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I mean, yes, I agree. And I think it's not. We're not obligated to be like constantly thinking about other people's plights, but we are obligated when those come up, to have empathy and sympathy for them and do force yourself to put yourself in those people's positions across the board for everyone. Us too. Like, everyone needs to be doing that. I mean, we're just talking about this country, let alone like the world.

[Chris Faisal]

Oh yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I just, I've, I, I'm experiencing the, the massive different mindset you have if you're in a rural area versus an urban area, you know, and I grew up in a rural area and then I went to an urban area for 30 years and now I'm back in this rural area and I'm just realizing like, oh yeah, you feel a lot differently. You think about different things. There's not people over, there's no traffic. You're not, not like, you know, a lot of these concerns you just have to know exists, but you're not having any experience or even like when I look at the rural response to Covid, like, yes, that makes sense to me. Sitting here when we were in LA and you're just like packed on people. You're like, oh, this thing's gonna fucking explode like an atom bomb. And it's true. Cause you're, and just. Yeah, you're gonna have different mindsets if you're living in Tons of ample land or you're really packed in on a year each other and it's kind of predictable, you know?

[Monica Padman]

Right? Yeah, definitely.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

[Monica Padman]

Speaking of being packed in, did you hear that in Harlem there's big breakout of Legionnaires disease?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh no. That's the one you get from AC.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. It's in the air.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Like 58 people have it and a couple have died.

[Dax Shepard]

I have a friend who got it two years ago from a hotel. Oh. With a stanky air conditioner. And he was telling me that. And Aaron and I were in Gulf Shores, Alabama. We're in a restaurant. I'm looking at this AC vent on the ceiling and it's just the like black mold mud just all caked all around the register from whatever the difference in moisture level between the AC and I was like, oh my God, that thing is just spewing Legionnaires disease. I'm overly worried about Legionnaires disease.

[Monica Padman]

Well, I'm glad to hear that because yesterday I was like, oh, I definitely got it in New York. Like I definitely got Legionnaires because I have like a little bit of a cold cold or like a little under the weather. So I was looking it up and, and then, you know, it's like harness headache things I have.

[Dax Shepard]

So we can't double Hs and headache.

[Monica Padman]

We can't rule it out. H squared 2H.

[Dax Shepard]

It is a scary one because it's a silent killer just pouring out of an AC unit.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I know. So that's bad. I hope.

[Dax Shepard]

I will say though, as we've talked about, some diseases are terribly named. Like my penis disease I had for a year. Peyronie's. That's a. Don't do that. On top of having a penis issue.

[Monica Padman]

Carbuncles.

[Dax Shepard]

Pepperoni's disease. Carbuncles. At least Legionnaires feels like it has some pride and glory. Like you got it maybe in battle.

[Monica Padman]

It sounds like it was in war. Yeah, for sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. So you're not like as embarrassed ago, like I had a bad case of.

[Monica Padman]

Legionnaires, but I also like, I like that it's Legionnaires because it also has the transmission element included in the name Legion Airs. So it, it is transported by air and it's easy for me to remember that way. It's kind of a built in mnemonic device.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, great. I hadn't even considered that part of it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I, I. Speaking of luck, it's lucky that I probably don't have legionnaires. So that's my transition. Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

I had a moral dilemma.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, fun.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. So I was staying at the Bowery Hotel. At the Bowery, they give you. The key is a. Is on this tassel. It's this, like, old school, huge red tassel with, like, gold top. And it has the number of your room engraved in there. You. It's. It's like it's a thing at the Bowery and you can't take it. Right. Like, it's. It's not like a regular key.

[Dax Shepard]

Now, I can already feel where this is going, but go ahead.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. I was in room 1111.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah. Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

That's huge for so many reasons. One, it just is like, 11:11 is such a cool room to be in. Two, 11:11 is my thing. Like, I'm always seeing 11:11. I'm always wishing on 11:11. It's like, it's part of me. It's very lucky. So I go through this whole trip and it's like, wow, this is so, so, so cool. And then the day on the. Before I left, I was like, looking at the tassel and it has engraved in it 1111. And I was like, oh, my. I need this. Like, I have to have it. But I also knew, well, if I take it, is it going to have the opposite effect? It's there for luck. But if I steal it, like, am I going to be cursed?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I mean, yes is the answer to that.

[Monica Padman]

But also, I knew they would say no if I asked. Like, I was like, they're gonna say no. I know people who've asked, and it's like, you can't. You can't have it.

[Dax Shepard]

And they won't tell you who makes them.

[Monica Padman]

I don't, because.

[Dax Shepard]

Why don't you just have one made?

[Monica Padman]

No, that's not lucky to have it made. It's like, you got this and, like, that's the luck, you know, you can't manufacture luck. So I was in a huge moral dilemma. I asked a bunch of people their thoughts on this.

[Dax Shepard]

This is recurring. You recognize this as recurring? You wanted to steal the mugs?

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

You want to steal everything from places.

[Monica Padman]

No, I don't. No, I don't. I want to have.

[Dax Shepard]

You want to steal plates? You wanted to steal a candle holder once, and I tried to find it for you. Wait, what candle you want to steal? You wanted to steal this candle holder, and I found one for you. You don't remember? It was like a pewter candle kind of.

[Monica Padman]

I don't remember that.

[Dax Shepard]

You wanted to steal it from, like, an English restaurant, maybe?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah. That sounds so cute. Yeah, I. It's not that I want to steal things. Hence the dilemma. I want the thing and I don't want to steal it. I want them to give it to me. I want permission like I want.

[Dax Shepard]

Think of. That was your defense when you got in trouble for stealing a car and you said in car. Well, what I wanted was then for to give it to. To me. I didn't want to steal it.

[Monica Padman]

Listen, normally I. I ask. I'm like, how can I have this? Tell me how I can have it. And then when they say you can't, that's when the stealing starts to come into play. Right.

[Dax Shepard]

But I'm actually best option.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I really haven't. I didn't steal those mugs, Remember? I wanted to, but I didn't do it. I wanted to steal the candle from the restaurant. Restaurant. And I didn't do it. Like, I normally have the instinct. And then I don't see it through. This was. This was the height, though, because I was like, I have to have this. Like, there's no.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

So what for me not to do. So what did you do?

[Monica Padman]

What do you think I did? I want you to guess.

[Dax Shepard]

I think you turned it in, Rob. I think you returned it, too.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. I. I took it. Oh.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow.

[Monica Padman]

Hold on, hold on. I did it properly. I went to the front and I said, I know you're gonna say no, but I'm in a very lucky room and I really want the tassel. Is there a way for me to have it?

[Dax Shepard]

They said what they said.

[Monica Padman]

They laughed and they said, the tassel. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So if it is, we charge you $60.

[Monica Padman]

She said, if it is taken, there's a blank charge. I'm not going to say the amount. So they said. So there is a way to take it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

And then another person next to her laughed. So that was permission. To me, that was permission. Great.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. That was somewhere in between begging for forgiveness and asking permission. That's like, in the middle somehow.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Because I knew you threaded the needle.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Because technically, I know what they're supposed to say is like, no, you can't take it. Right. And I knew that, so I had to.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. No one's got time to be replacing all these. Like, if all the guests want their keys, they need a whole new department now. That's just replacing the keys every day.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

But also, I'm a little bummed you took it. Cause as you're telling the story I'm like, okay, great. I'm ask AI who makes these keys. Hopefully they can find out. Your birthday's around the corner. Finally, I have something to get you for your birthday, and now I don't.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So I'm, like, happy for you, and I resent you.

[Monica Padman]

I understand. I think that's how a lot of people feel about me. It's definitely good luck, and I feel good. I feel like it was definitely permission granted and I paid for it. I assume. I assume I got charged and. Great.

[Dax Shepard]

And you love it. Have you looked at it and held it since you got home, or did you move on to the next?

[Monica Padman]

No, I love it.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you ever, like, rub it on your neck? Like, tickle your neck with the tassels? Like, are you ever laying in bed just kind of tickling yourself with the tassels?

[Monica Padman]

No, it's probably a little dirty for that. I don't think I'd put it on my face.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Or maybe your heels, like, your tickle your feet.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, speaking of, tomorrow, I'm going to get a medical pedicure.

[Dax Shepard]

What on earth does that mean?

[Monica Padman]

It's like, at a podiatrist, they're going to give me, like, a real pedicure. They're going to make my feet look good again for Eric.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay. Like, dig out, like, ingrown nails and stuff.

[Monica Padman]

Everything. They're gonna make them babyish again.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I hope they don't make it. Literally, a baby toe. Like, I have. I just had to go through that whole thing with our guests because my feet were exposed a lot, and I had this hunch that they were dying to know why I had a baby toe on one foot.

[Monica Padman]

Right. And to be. For people who forget you, like, your middle toe is a baby toe, and it sticks up a little bit. And it's tiny.

[Dax Shepard]

It's super tiny. And then the second toe is a comb over. It's completely curved to the side. It's confusing for them when they see it at this stage. Cause they're like, wait, he shortened that one in half and then turned your other toe to the right. I'm like, no, no, that happened on its own.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And it's probably getting worse. And then Blake said, oh, he's trying to protect that little toe. That's what I was thinking. No, I think it's more of a stability issue. But he saw it as him, like, wow, that little guy's tiny. Let's protect him.

[Monica Padman]

The little piggy. The runt piggy needs protection.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, Yes.

[Monica Padman]

I think that's also. What?

[Dax Shepard]

It's a mess. What a mess. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

All right. Should we do some facts?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, ma'. Am.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. All right, let's. Okay, yeah, let's do some facties. Chris and David are cartel guys. What an episode.

[Dax Shepard]

What a couple fun loving guys.

[Monica Padman]

They were so fun. Fun. And what a story. I love when we have people on who have all these really crazy stories.

[Dax Shepard]

That have been in movies. Basically.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Like.

[Dax Shepard]

Like our FBI.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Scott Payne.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. In the outlaw basement.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. So good. All right, couple facts. How many companies make challenge coins?

[Dax Shepard]

Wait, really, really quick. I know it was probably stated in the episode, but the notion of sending those two guys to blend in in Columbia is really fucking funny. They couldn't have picked two more standouty guys.

[Monica Padman]

I agree.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. There are many companies that do this now and can custom make them for the general customer too. So it's not just one company. Lots of companies do these.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, great.

[Monica Padman]

Air Force recruiting stats after Top Gun movies.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, good. I was just going on about this the other night. Again, without the numbers.

[Monica Padman]

A statistic often repeated without attribution is that the 1986 Top Gun films led to a 500% increase in naval recruiting. But that figure has been debunked numerous times. Following the original Top Gun, there was a bump in recruiting, but it was much more modest. 8% according to a recent fact check from the Australian Associated Press. But.

[Dax Shepard]

But the Australian. What are they. How would they have our info?

[Monica Padman]

They're really good at it. But the sea service also began advertising two years prior to the original Top Gun. 13.3 million in 1984 and 19.9 million in 1985. So it's unreliable. How much the movie was responsible for the uptick in recruiting versus advertising.

[Dax Shepard]

I gotta stop saying that then. Did Maverick have any impact?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I don't know.

[Dax Shepard]

Because Maverick was huge.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, this says. Yeah, Well, a. Will Top Gun Maverick boost Navy recruiting? History says probably not.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I've been repeating that. I've been overseas and had generals tell me that.

[Monica Padman]

You should have told.

[Dax Shepard]

At least.

[Monica Padman]

We're all wrong. Who is the Indy 500 racer who funded his career by smuggling marijuana?

[Dax Shepard]

I love this guy.

[Monica Padman]

Richard Lanier.

[Dax Shepard]

Guys, watch this. It's called Called. It's part of the bad sports series on Netflix, which is a great Sports Doc Series.

[Monica Padman]

1986 Indy 500 Rookie of the Year was secretly funded by marijuana smuggling operations. He started running small loads of weed via speedboats and barges from the Bahamas, but later started shipments weighing over 100,000 pounds hidden under legit cargo, it's expected around 600,000 pounds were transported in total. Total? He was indicted in 1988 for distributing over a thousand pounds of marijuana under the Continuing Criminal Enterprise Act. He received a life sentence without parole, which was later commuted. Yeah, it says commuted.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, it does? I thought it was communed.

[Chris Faisal]

It's commuted.

[Monica Padman]

I don't know any of these words.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, maybe it is.

[Monica Padman]

Commuted to 27 years behind bars. They found $2 million in cash buried in his father's lawn inside PVC pipes, which his dad was also sentence for.

[Dax Shepard]

He's such a good time Charlie, that guy. He's the most likable criminal I've ever seen. Yeah, and he was hell of a driver.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it sucks. Why didn't he just do that?

[Dax Shepard]

Because you can't make any money doing that. Like.0001% of people in racing make money.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that sucks.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. I get why he did it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he had to.

[Monica Padman]

How many Colombians lost their lives fighting cartels or were victims of cartel cartels? It is estimated that the Medellin cartel was responsible for over 4,000 Colombian deaths, including authority figures like police officers, judges, and the presidential candidate, Louis Carlos Galan. Okay, okay, okay. What is the Onion Field cop killing movie mentioned? The onion field. 1979 movie directed by Harold Becker, star John Savage, James Wood, Franklin Seals and Ted Danson in his feature film debut, oh, Papa Ted. This movie centered around friend. This movie centered around two LAPD officers who were kidnapped by ex convicts who feared returning to prison. One was murdered. Ted Danson. Spoiler.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, no.

[Monica Padman]

In an onion field while the other escaped.

[Dax Shepard]

An onion field to me is a seahorse to you. I can't picture what that is at all. I just picturing you when you let an UN onion live too long in your cupboard and it sprouts an enormous green thing. Yeah, that's what I'm picturing. But I have no basis for that other than my cupboard.

[Monica Padman]

That's probably right. Okay, what is the average THC level in weed today versus back then? Reports list modern day cannabis to have significantly higher THC levels than in prior decades. According to the Cannabis Museum of Amsterdam, average THC levels were 1.1 to 3% in the 70s, 3 to 5% in 80s, 5 to 10 in 90s, 10 to 15 in 2000s, and 15 to 20% since 2020. This is validated by a University of Mississippi study, the National Library of Medicine and other studies.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, on one hand you could look at that as a negative, but on another hand, you could go, well, people were always going to get high, so should they have to smoke a ton of carcinogens to get the THC or is it better if they're smoking less? Yeah, I don't know. I'll tell you this though. The recruitment went through the roof after the first top gun. That I do know.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, okay. How long does it take to manufacture a plant based drug versus a synthetic? And what are the profit margins?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, this is a really in depth question you've asked.

[Monica Padman]

So said about. This is such a good, this is such a good fact check. I didn't do this.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you didn't?

[Monica Padman]

No, because I, I would have to be getting so far ahead to get this. But I knew this was the opportunity for us. So I had Sophia, our incredible intern.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow.

[Monica Padman]

Listen for facts on double speed. And she did this. Oh, wow. And it is so much better than anything I do. And it is very. It's humbling. My backs are more like playful. Yeah. Okay. How long?

[Dax Shepard]

That is really fun. That's really funny that it just was revealed.

[Monica Padman]

Like, I mean, I've been thinking it this whole time. She sent me like such a pen. Oh my God, Sophia, really, really good, really good job. But is she checking, like, is my dad had the sim lore like. No.

[Dax Shepard]

Is she exploring whether or not she has acne or not?

[Monica Padman]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

She doesn't.

[Monica Padman]

Pros and cons. She does.

[Dax Shepard]

She does not.

[Monica Padman]

The indoor cannabis life cycle from germination to flowering can take anywhere from 6 to 20 weeks. Difference versus say different things. Then the drying, curing, testing, packaging and distribution processes can take anywhere from a week to four to five weeks. Outdoor growth can take up to six months. Months? Synthetic drugs, chemical synthesis takes a few days. Purification testing, packaging and distribution can take anywhere from a few days to two weeks, depending on level of quality assurance and testing. This is an extremely high potency program for many synthetic drugs, making it very scalable.

[Dax Shepard]

Cocaine's kind of a hybrid of that. You've got to grow the coca, but then you have to process it chemically and you know, they, that's what's wild. Have you ever seen that? They put in some kind of petroleum, like a turpentine or something all over all the leaves. And they have people. So when you're snorting cocaine, you're getting some of their feet in your nose, they stomp on it like the graves. Yes. And they're walking around all day long and they get sores on their feet, but they're absorbing cocaine so they don't love it. They love it at all.

[Monica Padman]

Did you think about putting some cocaine on your farm, Uncle?

[Dax Shepard]

I didn't because I know I couldn't be trusted to apply it to my carbuncle. I've always said this like I don't even. I don't think about drinking, Ted. All. I'll be at a bar, I don't even know. You know, it's just, I don't.

[Monica Padman]

You don't care.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't care. I've not seen a couple grams of cocaine laid on a table in 21 years and I'm very glad I have it. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Well, I'm glad that you're aware of that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. The legal cannabis market has a gross profit margin of around 45 to 55%. Dispensaries typically earning net profit margins of around 15 to 21% in modern day. What year do they legalize big pharma marketing directly to the consumer? 1985 was said in the interview. In the early 80s, pharma companies started exploring TV ads aimed at consumers. In 83, the FDA imposed a moratorium on DTC direct to consumer ad ads to study the implications. In 1985, the FDA lifted the moratorium given they comply with advertising rules which were in line with rules put on physicians at that time. Okay, so 85 is right. But then in 97 saw another policy change that loosened the guidelines.

[Dax Shepard]

This is a tricky one.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Because if you are poor and you have no insurance and you don't go to the doctor and you have a condition.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

How are you to learn? There is an immune suppressant that could fix it. How are you to learn? So in that way if you at least go like, oh, there's a solution. Now it's worth me going to pay the doctor to get the solution. That's great. But also advertising works and we are so over medicated it's insane.

[Monica Padman]

Yep, I agree. It is complicated.

[Dax Shepard]

Trade offs. Trade offs.

[Monica Padman]

Trade.

[Dax Shepard]

This is what I think about. Nonstop trade offs. What's my new obsession? Trade offs.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

There's no such thing as wins, there's just trade offs. We've had guests say that, but I really, really of taking it on. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. What is the difference between Car fentanil carbuncles, car fentanyl and normal fentanyl?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. It drives 70% of opioid overdoses deaths in the U.S. as of 2023. Carfentanil is 10, 10,000 times stronger than morphine. No making it a hundred times more potent than fentanyl.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my go. You have a micron of it in your car.

[Monica Padman]

Fentanyl is not approved for human use. It is a veterinary tranquilizer for animals like elephants. A lethal dose of fentanyl is around 2 milligrams, while carfentanil can be as low as.02 milligrams.

[Chris Faisal]

Ew.

[Monica Padman]

Ew. It can cause an overdose through skin or airborne exposure. Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, sure. Those patches. Fentanyl patches.

[Monica Padman]

Biggest organ in the of the body. The skin.

[Dax Shepard]

The human skin.

[Monica Padman]

I did that. Fact. That was me, not Sophia. She would never do that.

[Dax Shepard]

She would know about skin.

[Monica Padman]

She wouldn't know. She doesn't have acne. So how.

[Dax Shepard]

Acne.

[Monica Padman]

That's it.

[Dax Shepard]

That was great.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Good job, Sophia.

[Dax Shepard]

Good job, Sophia. That's great. All right.

[Monica Padman]

Love you.

[Chris Faisal]

Love you.

[Dax Shepard]

Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey.