Ex-Cop REVEALS Intense Combat With Cartel Members

Summary

Camp Gagnon Podcast Summary

Episode Title: Ex-Cop REVEALS Intense Combat With Cartel Members
Host: Mark Gagnon
Guest: Dave Frank (Ex-cop, former bodyguard to a Mexican general)
Release Date: September 23, 2025

---

Overview

This episode of Camp Gagnon dives deep into the rarely-told frontline experiences of Dave Frank, an American who became a bodyguard for a high-ranking Mexican general. Driven by a personal mission to combat drug cartels after his own childhood exposure, Dave shares the realities of cartel warfare, police corruption, and the intensive operations he was part of in Mexico’s contested territories. His unique perspective bridges American and Mexican experiences, adding context to current debates on drug policy and border security.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dave Frank’s Unlikely Path to Mexico

• Background: Dave was an aerospace manager in LA who, after company outsourcing, took a contract in Mexico to train factory workers (03:04). He also pursued work with Mexican law enforcement due to a personal vendetta against cartels that had negatively impacted his youth (07:44).
• Personal Motivation: “I was looking to confront people that were giving drugs to kids, which is something that happened to me when I was a child. So I decided to go down there and do something about it.” – Dave Frank (08:12)

2. Transition from Factory Manager to Cartel Combat

• After finishing the factory contract, Dave audaciously lobbied Mexico’s Attorney General and other officials for a law enforcement position. He leveraged training in martial arts (notably judo, jiu-jitsu, and Dog Brothers stick-fighting) as his entrance test for becoming a bodyguard (12:06).
• Notable Story: To secure the protection job, Dave had to physically fight and subdue three of the general’s men as a demonstration (13:47, 14:51).
  • “Tapping one out with the chokehold real quick while I'm getting kicked by the other two... put another one in an arm bar... and then I got up and fought the other one and won.” – Dave Frank (14:51)

3. Combat Training & Blank Slate Asset

• Mexico’s state-level units are highly trained—contrary to perceptions of corruption or incompetence—especially special units interacting daily with cartel activity (18:03).
• Why Dave was valuable: As a foreigner, he had “no connections to Mexico whatsoever” (17:58), reducing risk of family blackmail or cartel compromise (24:03).
  • “Everyone there is ex military and we work. If we have VIP guests, we're going to take care of them. …We're very trustworthy.” (27:50)
• He endured intense basic training involving language barriers, physical challenges, and intentional hazing to weed out weak recruits (20:42).

4. Frontline Operations: The Day-to-Day Reality

• Vehicles and Patrols: Dave described the patrol strategy—riding in the back of armored trucks, with roles like sniper or perimeter guard, operating exactly as depicted in films like Sicario (26:01).
• Combat Encounters and Casualties: Cartel ambushes were a constant risk, often happening at everyday places—gas stations, during basic refueling, or on convoy runs (19:59).
• Intensity: “I can't count how many headless people I've seen. Like, they just leave heads in the coolers.” (15:00)
• Notable Quote: “When you put on a uniform in Mexico, it's like getting married. Because at any point in time going forward, any cartel that could be out there watching this, they can just take issue with you and decide that… we're just gonna go get that guy and that's it…" (52:21)

5. Notable Incidents and Firefights

• Dalai Lama Security Detail (28:44–30:54):
  • While providing security for the Dalai Lama’s visit, cartel bodies were hung publicly as a threat to the government. “...my wife is inside interviewing the Dalai Lama, and I'm outside with a belt-fed machine gun, a Negev NG7, guarding the most peaceful man on the earth… surreal.” (29:32)
• Intense Cartel Gunfights:
  • Recalls a two-hour firefight after cartel assassins murdered municipal police. “We're looking for these cartel assassins in the middle of the night, man.” (51:33)
  • Describes being struck by a bullet on his body armor, and the adrenaline-fueled confusion and reactions during firefights (59:48, 60:06).
    • “It spun me around to the side and happened so fast that I didn't even have time to really notice what had happened.” (59:50)

6. Cartels, Corruption & Complexity

• Cartel Dynamics: Zacatecas, where he was stationed, was fought over by the Gulf Cartel, Zetas (ex-Mexican special forces), and Sinaloa. Removal of cartel leaders like El Chapo creates brutal power vacuums (36:33 - 38:47).
• Corruption: Municipal police, due to their local allegiances and inability to rotate out, are often the most compromised and dangerous, sometimes even acting as cartel proxies (46:06).
• Special Forces Influence: The Zetas’ brutality is credited to their military discipline, and external forces (e.g., Guatemalan Kaibiles) were hired for their lack of national allegiances and ruthlessness (39:31–41:10).

7. Mass Graves, Kidnappings, and Migrant Tragedies

• Mass Graves Explained: Used to dispose of rival cartel victims, migrants who witnessed the wrong thing, or those killed for various debts and disputes, the cartels often handled their own dead clandestinely rather than leaving evidence (71:53).
• Migrant Exploitation: Migrants face kidnapping, forced labor, or outright murder by cartels; women often endure sexual violence during the journey (43:03).

8. The Drug War: Futility and Alternatives

• Cartel Revenue Streams: Principal revenue from cocaine and heroin with billions in earnings, advanced technology like submarines, and even infiltration of U.S. agencies (75:23–77:13).
• U.S. Involvement and Policy Critique: Dave questions the effectiveness of proposed U.S. military action in Mexico, highlighting historic corruption, long-term consequences of intervention, and the deep entanglement of both nations in perpetuating the drug trade (77:01–79:04).
• Legalization as Solution: Dave strongly advocates drug legalization, arguing it would cripple cartel finances, reduce violence, and redirect resources to societal good. “You could legalize drugs right now… If you wanted to legalize legalized drugs, you could end the drug war tomorrow, but they won't do it.” (82:22, 85:28)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Cost of Law Enforcement:

  • “...it's your sons and your daughters and yourself that's going to have to confront this level of violence. Because don't think that it's just going to be troops sent to some other border. It's going to be a war that's fought here, too. And that worries me.” – Dave Frank (79:04)

• On Fighting for the Job:

  • “In order to get the job, you had to fight three of his guys.” – Mark Gagnon (13:47)
  • “It looks like tapping one out with a chokehold real quick while I'm getting kicked by the other two…” – Dave Frank (14:51)

• On Training & Motivation:

  • “On a scale of 1 to 10 of motivation, it was at 12 because I told capitan that you can take me into the desert, you can shoot me, you can bury me. I'm not going to quit.” – Dave Frank (24:07)

• On Legalization:

  • “If you legalized drugs and made it a legal product the same way they've done with alcohol, you would have to get rid of your addiction to the defense industry.” – Dave Frank (82:22)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |-----------------------------|----------------------| | Dave’s life mission & intro | 00:00–03:00 | | Corporate job → Mexico | 03:04–07:44 | | Martial arts & getting hired| 12:06–15:00 | | Combat training & blank slate| 17:58–24:07 | | Daily life as security | 26:01–28:44 | | The Dalai Lama incident | 28:44–30:54 | | On police corruption | 45:12–48:09 | | Firefight story | 48:16–53:39 | | Being shot at/ambushed | 59:48–64:38 | | Mass graves explained | 71:43–74:00 | | Drug war futility/legalization | 77:01–86:11 |

---

Conclusion & Look Ahead

The episode ends with Dave cautioning about the unintended consequences of U.S. intervention in Mexico and advocating a paradigm shift in drug policy—legalization. He also signals a future episode diving into the occult (Santa Muerte) elements influencing cartel behavior.

---

Recommended For:
Anyone curious about the raw realities of Mexican cartel warfare, the internal logic of criminal organizations, and nuanced takes on drug policy and US-Mexico relations.

---

For further content, upcoming topics on Santa Muerte and cartel occult practices are teased for future episodes.

Transcript

[Dave Frank]

You want my last name, you got my last name. I'm not hiding anything. And when you put on a uniform in Mexico, they can just take issue with you and decide that we're just gonna go get that guy and that's it. That's a deal that we make.

[Mark Gagnon]

This is Dave Frank. And he made it his life mission to take on the cartels who sold him drugs as a kid. That mission took him to Mexico where he became a bodyguard for a high ranking Mexican general. So in order to get the job, you had to fight three of his guys.

[Dave Frank]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

What does that look like?

[Dave Frank]

Tapping one out with the chokehold real quick while I'm getting kicked by the other two. And then put another one in an arm bar and gonna snap it. He quit. And then I got up and fought the other one and one.

[Mark Gagnon]

And that win earned him a uniform and a front row seat to the best and the worst that humanity has to offer. And he's actually lived to tell the tale. I mean, everything you need to know from what it's actually like to battle the cartels, the operations that they went on. If you are interested in how the cartel actually works and what it actually looks like to be on the front lines battling with Mexico's most dangerous men, this episode is for you. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and welcome to camp.

[Dave Frank]

Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should. One, it's $15 a month. Two, seriously, it's $15 a month. Three, no big contracts. Four, I use it. Five, my mom used to say, are you. Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right? Okay, give it a try. @mintmobile.com Switch upfront.

[Mark Gagnon]

Came in a 45 do for 3 month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.

[Dave Frank]

C mint mobile.com this podcast is supported by FX's English teacher. Last year's critically acclaimed series returns to follow Evan, Gwen and Markie as they vie for their students divided attention. See why Cosmopolitan called its premiere season a masterclass of comedy? While glamor raved it's the year's funniest and most heartwarming new comedy series. FX's English Teacher returns September 25th on FX. All episodes streaming on Hulu.

[Mark Gagnon]

Dave. Frank. How are you, sir?

[Dave Frank]

Good. Mark. Hey. It's an honor to have you in that. In my house. Thank you for coming by.

[Mark Gagnon]

Of course. Thank you so much for having me, man.

[Dave Frank]

No, for real. And you guys killed it last night on your show. It was. I'm just going to tell anyone that might be watching this. If you haven't seen this guy live, you need to, because it's just, he just kills it. Thank you. You'll see what's up.

[Mark Gagnon]

I appreciate it, man, I appreciate it. So far we've had a wonderful time here in Portland, Oregon and you are definitely one of the highlights of our trip. You know we came out here for shows, of course, but we, man, I'm.

[Dave Frank]

Honored to have you guys here.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, we got to loop this in and you have a fascinating story. There's many different parts of your life, but the part that we're gonna focus on today is specifically your time as a bodyguard for a Mexican general in Mexico, basically fighting cartels. It is a wild tale. So I'm curious, can you just expl me how just, you know, a white dude from LA ends up becoming a bodyguard for a Mexican general?

[Dave Frank]

Yeah, it's, I mean, I'm not going to go into my early life or anything like that, but basically I was a manager for a third tier supplier for Boeing in an aerospace factory. And they had sent, during the Obama administration, they had sent a bunch of work south to Mexico. We were working on what was called a low cost company, which was basically supplanting American workers with foreign workers to pay less than wages. And I don't want to name the company that I was working for to avoid any type of legal problems, but it was a 60 million dollar factory. And the first team went down there and they failed. And I had told them originally that I'm not gonna sell my guys jobs out. And when the first team went down there and failed, I'd shot myself in the foot at that company because they don't like to be told no.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, of course.

[Dave Frank]

And so I knew I wasn't going anywhere and I didn't want to hang out at that company. So when they came back to me, they told me that they would pay me a $5,000 a month bonus to go down there and get that factory online. Because it was a major deal. It was a supplier to Boeing and Airbus. And basically the challenge was coming up with a way that you could get Spanish speaking workers to produce parts with English work instructions and French work instructions, whether it's Boeing or airline. And I have a lot of expertise in that area, drafting technical documents and whatever. So I went down there and I started training people at a factory in Zacatecas Mexico.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, wow. So you go from managing this plant.

[Dave Frank]

Right?

[Mark Gagnon]

But even managing a plant, you know, I know a lot of people that work in, you know, like, corporate management. That's a far cry from defending a Mexican general. So when does the Mexican general come into play? And why do you start doing that?

[Dave Frank]

Well, long story short, I was in Russia and I was living there for a little while, and I don't really want to know if we should get off on that tangent, but I have a daughter and she was born at the Soda hospital in Sturlitamek, Russia. Her name is Yekaterina. Her middle name is David Dovna. She's 100% my daughter. She's beautiful and I love her. But my ex wife came back and I was practicing jiu jitsu and judo at Gokor Chavichi and team Highest on in North Hollywood. I had wanted to become a professional UFC fighter earlier, so I was training all the time. And when my ex wife got back to the States, I had agreed to let them go take my daughter to Russia for a visit. She came back to the United States without my daughter.

[Mark Gagnon]

Whoa.

[Dave Frank]

Yeah. And to this day, my daughter, all these many years later, and we're talking 18 years later, my daughter still lives in Russia. My ex still lives in the States, has the entire time. So when she came back without my daughter, I offered her $10,000 cash to give my daughter back. And she didn't want to do it. So I agreed to take the job in Mexico managing the factory. And it was just weird the way everything coalesced. I had also previously written the pequere, which is the Procadoria Canara de la Republica.

[Mark Gagnon]

And what is that?

[Dave Frank]

That is the Attorney General. The American equivalent would be the Department of Justice, the FBI, Homeland Security, this type of thing. And they hadn't written me back. I had wanted to go down there because I knew that I wasn't going to hang out at that factory for a long time after I told them no. And six months later, they had written me back and my ex had already come back without my daughter. And I'm like sitting there hanging out, trying to get my daughter back, and my ex is thinking she's just going to ring me for money. And ultimately she did. And I don't want to really turn this into that, but I agreed to go to Mexico because the pe had written me that back. And they told me, senior Frank and este momento. That's literally word for word what they said in that email. And it meant at this moment. You can't work for us. The answer is no. And I thought, that's fantastic news. Because they didn't say no. They said, not right now. And so I thought, if I go down there and work for this factory, I can go down there and do what I want. I'm not liking being married. It was a very frigid marriage. And I wish my ex all the success in the world. She came from a very hard life. I have no animosity towards her, my daughter, if she sees this, and someday she might. I love her dearly. I always have. Katya Blue. But I agreed to go to Mexico and hang out and do the management position there. And they were paying me handsomely for it. And it was.

[Mark Gagnon]

Which area of Mexico is this?

[Dave Frank]

This is in Zacatecas, Mexico. Zacatecas, it's central northern Mexico. If you say northern Mexico is a very long country, it's longer than people know. It's about 1200 miles long, I think. And Zacatecas, because of the funky angle, border with Texas, when you say it's like 700 miles south of the border, people really don't get where it's at. Because a lot of times people will describe Zacatecas as northern Mexico. It is northern Mexico, but it's just above the center. So if you threw a dart at the dartboard, it'd be just outside of the bullseye ring. So that's where Zacatecas is. And it's in a very hotly contested zone. So I wound up in Mexico managing this factory. And every day at 7 o', clock, they would pick us up at the hotel and they would drive us out to the airport, which is where our factory was, and I would work there. And every night at 5 o' clock, I'd get off. And as soon as I'm off, I'm knocking on the pec head or the Attorney General's door, which is right down the street from the airport. And they're like, wondering, what's this guy doing? I'm like, you sent me an email. You said I could work here. I want to work here. One of the things I'd asked him for was just enough money to pay for some razors, an apartment, and enough to eat. So I wasn't looking to make a lot of money. I was looking to confront people that were giving drugs to kid, which is something that happened to me when I was a child. So I decided to go down there and do something about it.

[Mark Gagnon]

So you're seeing crime while you're doing this management job? You're kind of seeing what's going on.

[Dave Frank]

It was wild because when you first go to Mexico, you. You go there as a tourist. And I did, too. I mean, I've gone to Mexico on and off since I was 16 years old, but on the Baja California Peninsula. And Mexico's got all. Mexico's probably got like five distinct regions in it. It's got the peninsula region, which is separate from the rest of Mexico. It's got the border region, which has a huge influx of American and Mexican influence and different people, they come or exchange rate than the rest of the country does, given its proximity to the border. You've got the southern Yucatan Peninsula, which is also tourism and whatnot. You have the Sinaloa Golden Triangle region, which we'll get into, which is where the Chinese started growing opium going way back. And why the cartels are located along the border. And it's not because of the proximity of the United States. It's because the Chinese that went there to work were growing opium for their own personal use. And then after the. And that was right at the turn of the 1800s, 1900s, early 1900s, the local Mexicans started seeing that the Americans were coming over to buy this stuff for cheap, and so they started taking. Taking over the market. And when Vietnam happened, the opium and heroin use just exploded.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, wow.

[Dave Frank]

And also there's more to it. The Nazis get in there, too, because the Nazis wanted Mexico's help to infiltrate the United States, Right? Yeah. So they're developing these drug routes in these tunnels and stuff like that to go in the United States. And so there's just so much stuff that when we say, hey, we're going to go down and start a drug war with Mexico, you really got to dig into it to understand the history and how things evolved and what's going on.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, There's a famous telegram that. That came in, like the 1940 parties from the Third Reich into Mexico, basically saying, like, hey, do you want to start an offensive into the United States? And they were really working on it. It never came to fruition.

[Dave Frank]

No. They've definitely wanted to go in there and start like developing tunnels and whatnot to bring agents and whatnot into Mexico. They didn't want anything to do with drugs, but ultimately that wound up being taken over by the cartel. And they ran with the idea obviously, to where you get. I think the last one that was big was tunnel going right into a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow.

[Dave Frank]

Yeah. There's a tunnel that went Kentucky Fried Chicken. There's a Texas sheriff or an Arizona sheriff, one of them, that found a tunnel, a drug tunnel, delivering drugs and humans into a KFC on the American side of the border.

[Mark Gagnon]

That is wild.

[Dave Frank]

Yeah, you can check it. You can check it out.

[Mark Gagnon]

That is crazy. So you're knocking on the Attorney General's door. Yeah, they're thinking I'm crazy, and they think you're crazy, but eventually they give you a job.

[Dave Frank]

No, I go knocking on all these other doors. And so I knock on this general's door, and I'm in my suit, and as I told you, I was training judo and jiu jitsu, which I continue to do this day. There's a pair of Kali escrima sticks right there. I love martial arts. Everyone, if you're watching this, get your children involved in martial arts. Do something positive. But I go in there, and this general, and I'm in a suit and tie, and this general wants a demonstration of fighting three of his guys, man. And I didn't have to do it right then, but the preceding day or the upcoming days, I had to fight three of his guys and win.

[Mark Gagnon]

And you just told him, like, hey, I'm trained in. In judo.

[Dave Frank]

I will totally do this. Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

And you just offered to me, like, I'll be protection for you. I'll be private security.

[Dave Frank]

Right. Well, no, I went to him, I told him I wanted a job because what had happened is I knew that I was on the way out with that company, right. And I finished my contract down there. I got everything up and running, and the company's like, okay, you need to come back to the United States now. I'm like, no, I don't want to. I'm going to stay here in Mexico. Right.

[Mark Gagnon]

Your family gets a little bit upended. Like, things are a little shaky.

[Dave Frank]

Yeah. I'm like, I'm not coming back. And I told them that previously when they sent me down there. I'm like, I'm not coming back to this place. So in March, I'd come back to the United States. I flew back to la, I turned in my letter of resignation, and they're like, whoa. And I didn't even have the job working for my general yet. I just knew I was going to stay in Mexico and I was going to make it work. And I went back in March, May 1st of 2012. I was in uniform. Actually, not even in uniform at that point in time. They had me in a white shirt and blue jeans going through basic training in Mexico. Dude.

[Mark Gagnon]

But so in order to get the job, you had to fight three of his guys.

[Dave Frank]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

What does that look like?

[Dave Frank]

Okay, that looks like tapping one out with the chokehold real quick while I'm getting kicked by the other two and then putting another one in an arm bar and gonna snap it. He quit. And then I got up and fought the other one and won. And the reason why. And I'm gonna say this, Dog Brothers, and I'm gonna say it because I was a member of the tribe for a long time. There's some stuff between me and the owner of it. Dog Brothers is a great organization.

[Mark Gagnon]

And what is that?

[Dave Frank]

That is full contact collie screamer, where we fight each other with those sticks and then we break each other's bones like that. Like, you go at it with weapons and whatnot, and you light each other up and it's full contact martial arts with Filipino martial arts. It's pretty dope.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow. So when you take these three guys on, is it in like an octagon or is it just out?

[Dave Frank]

No, it's out on the. They call it Campo de Terro. It was out on the shooting range and they filled it all in with dirt because they're used we to have a CQB section down there where we would go through and you would learn how to do CQB combat. Ultimately, later on, they filled it in, but it's right exactly adjacent to our shooting range there.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow. So you take on these three guys.

[Dave Frank]

And I win because I have nothing left, man. I can't lose. And what I was going to say is, like, in the Dog Brothers, I've had my butt kicked plenty. I've had my clock cleaned. That bone's broken from it. I've been litting up. I've gotten hit in the head, whatever. I don't have anything to run to, so I have to make this work. And they're like. And I didn't know when you're at work in Mexico, you don't know. There's a lot of really brave and valiant Mexican police and agents, and they really get sold short because people just view them as all corrupt and they're not. There are a lot of. Oh, man, I want to cry, dude. There's a lot of people that really put everything on the line to try to make the world a better place. And they do it at the risk of themselves and their families and their children, because you're just gonna get. You're gonna. They're gonna hack you up and stuff like that. It's like, for real, man. There's like, there was some lady that was Driving in a taxi with her kids, and she was an accountant or whatever, and they just took all three of them out of the car and just one o' clock in the afternoon just shot him right, right in the middle of the street, you know. Yeah. And, you know, there's like all this stuff with going on politically in this, in this country right now. I'm not going to get into it because there's valid points on every side of that spectrum. And it's not just two sides. There's a lot of sides to it. And everyone's got a legitimate gripe, you know, people that want a better life, people like, hey, I got a right to my own country, my own government, et cetera. But when you watch this happen in Mexico, part of it just dehumanizes you because you're so used to, like, I can't count how many headless people I've seen. Like, they just leave heads in the coolers. So I don't want to really get off topic, but I go there and I've got nothing. I've got nothing to lose. And so, yeah, I'm not gonna lose this fight and I win it. And so my generals I compressed. And the thing that I had more than anything wasn't even my capabilities. I'm great at shooting. I grew up, I knew how to shoot before I even knew how to read. I've got two dads. I'm just going to get into it. One of my fathers, my biological father is a post op transsexual that was a tunnel rat in Vietnam. So very hardcore, very crazy. Came back to the United States, became very rich, very wealthy, had his own company, but decided he was going to live life as a woman. And I really don't like saying that, but I grew up fighting my whole life because of this. I was known as. I'm not gonna put my last name out there, but it sounds like a word having to do with being homosexual. And so.

[Mark Gagnon]

So you got bullied a little bit.

[Dave Frank]

I got bullied all the time. And I'm not gonna say bully because we're gonna go toe to toe.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Dave Frank]

So we're definitely fighting, but yeah, I did not get a moment.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, I wouldn't want to bully you, I'll be honest. No.

[Dave Frank]

Hey, you're bigger. Hey, if you can't see, this guy's like tall man. He's huge.

[Mark Gagnon]

No, no, no, no.

[Dave Frank]

Yeah, he is.

[Mark Gagnon]

But I haven't broken my knuckles four times.

[Dave Frank]

So I got bullied a lot growing up. And so we, we used to Fight. And then the. And they gave me away the day I was born. So I got, I grew up. I didn't have a name for two years. My biological dad was a Marine. And so when I got back to my mom, my mom smoked pot with Charles Madison. We'll get into all of that. My mom finally gets me back from this illegal adoption and his father raises me, and he raises me on a corn and pig farm in Iowa. I was born in LA before they got divorced and we learned how to shoot. So I grew up my whole life shooting. So when I go there, I know how to fight, I know how to shoot. But the thing that I had more than anything that my general was interested in was I had no connections to Mexico whatsoever. I had, I was a blank sheet. And in Mexico, like I was saying, there's a lot of really, really valiant, brave people that are agents that are trying to make the world a better place and they get sold out on the American side of the border because they look, they're looked at as like unqualified, untrained. I'm going to tell you right now, we've had Mexican special forces Garfield train us. I've got pictures that I'll give you to where we're upside down Australian repelling with no hands with our weapons from several stories up. I mean just very, very, very good training. And not everyone, it depends on what level you are in Mexico, your level of training. But the training is very good. But what is the dynamic? That's crazy off the chart crazy with Mexico is everyone's going to be trained to that level with that in your corporation that you're working for, whether it's municipal, they're not trained that well. But state leveling up, you're getting like for real training because unlike FBI, HRT or unlike SWAT or anything like that that are specifically sent out to go deal with cartel type operations. That's your everyday work, right? That's what you're doing every day.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, that's just Tuesday.

[Dave Frank]

It's. Yeah, it's lunch and tacos, literally. And then someone's getting shot out. Sometimes it'll happen. You go to fuel up and you have a semicircle and you're creating a perimeter to make sure that you're not coming by and a victim of an ambulance guy or an ambush, because that happens. It's just, it's for real. You're, you're. I went for an interview with. I wanted to become an agent for the ministry, Judicial police. And the guy got out of prison. The Director, the guy interviewed with got out of prison and they killed him. And it's just like, this is where you work, dude.

[Mark Gagnon]

So I mean, how difficult is, is basic. Are they, are they hazing you a little bit? Because.

[Dave Frank]

Yeah, no, they're trying to run you off. Like, I don't know, I'm not, I'm not gonna cuss. But they would cuss at you in Spanish. At the time I still smoked. So I'd be like sitting there running several kilometers and like. No, Frank, you like to smoke light up. So you're sitting there running 10 miles or 10 kilometers through the desert, smoking cigarettes with no water, and they're trying to get you quit. To quit. And like I told you, I just quit a hundred thousand dollar a year job. My daughter's in Russia. I had nothing. And people don't know what it's like. People know what it's like for immigrants to come to this country, start over. Some expatriates know what it's like to go to another country and start over with a bunch of money. But not a lot of people know what it's like to go from making a hundred thousand dollars a year job to I've got my check subs over there, 5277 pesos every two weeks, which is like 300 bucks.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow.

[Dave Frank]

Every two weeks.

[Mark Gagnon]

And just getting absolutely brutalized.

[Dave Frank]

You're getting lit up and you don't know if they're gonna kill you. Like one of my captains, Capitan, I'm gonna leave the names out of it. But we're at. We used to have all of our trainings in Spanish. So you would have, for example, fn, fall, fusil, atomato, lijero, which is a light battle rifle. You're saying all this in Spanish then Fabricacion belka, which means Belgian fabrication. You go through all the kilograms, what its effective distance is, and you're writing all this down in notepads. I'm getting lit up by this captain, like, why are you even here? You can, you can barely write Spanish. And I ultimately wound up going to law school in Mexico. My wife worked three jobs that put me through law school, but. So I can write Spanish and speak it very well. But at the beginning I couldn't. So I'm getting hazed, yelled at. They're trying to get me to quit. I think more than anything they've got me there because I've got a blank slate and my general's checking me out.

[Mark Gagnon]

What is the benefit of a blank slate?

[Dave Frank]

You don't have Any context in Mexico when Calderon started the drug war, and we've got disagreements people will disagree on when the drug war actually started. Calderon definitely started it, but his presidency, like between 2006 and 2008, some people say it started 2006, I like 2008, and I don't want to get too far off. But when they started this drug war, the benefit of a blank slate was to not have anything that would could be used against me. And what they call control y confiance examiners, they control confianza because everyone that was military, everyone that was police or an agent had to go to these background check exams. And a lot of people are failing them just because their own friends from school would be found to be cartel affiliated or not even cartel affiliated, like straight up cartel.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right. Because when you're 14, 15, growing up in Sinaloa, like you might work for the cartel for a little bit.

[Dave Frank]

It's going to happen. Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Well, it doesn't mean that you're necessarily ahead of the cartel, but you're a part of it. You might have some familiarity. And now you got to go bust like this guy you've known since you were 10 from your hometown.

[Dave Frank]

And here's Johnny Ringo coming in. And I don't have anything to do with anything. I mean, I barely can order tacos in Spanish.

[Mark Gagnon]

You don't have family there, so they can't blackmail you with that.

[Dave Frank]

So nothing. I've got zero ties.

[Mark Gagnon]

So you're a valuable asset in that regard.

[Dave Frank]

Exactly. Because they know, well, if he does pan out in training, and like I said, I was very motivated. On a scale of 1 to 10 of motivation, it was at 12 because I told capitan that you can take me into the desert, you can shoot me, you can bury me. I'm not going to quit. I refuse to quit and I'm gonna make it.

[Mark Gagnon]

And so what is day one on the job? You finally get through basic, you get hazed, but you stand the test of time. You survive.

[Dave Frank]

Day one on the job is a thing called Ordon Serrado to where they're immediately, you're living at base. You live at base and they give you, they don't even give you your uniform yet. You're initially, you're in a pair of blue jeans and you're in shirt. They give you a hat that I have hanging up back here on this wall and you're wearing that and it's a white T shirt and you're running, you're chopping grass with machetes. You are just Basically working out, cleaning base, doing everything just like they would do in the military here. And you're running through the desert and just constant classes on human rights. They have. They have a thing called Commission Nacional Derecho Sumanos, which is a big deal, believe it or not. If you murder someone in Mexico, I'm gonna. I'm getting into what day one on training's like. Murdering someone in Mexico will get you about 20 years in prison. If you commit a human rights violation, you're getting like 40 to 50 years in prison. So murdering someone's not even the big ticket item.

[Mark Gagnon]

And human rights violation would be like sexual abuse.

[Dave Frank]

Like, human rights violation can only be. This is what you're learning in. In basic training, you are learning that the government is the only one that can commit human rights abuses. The cartel can't even commit human rights abuses. And the reason why is because the cartel doesn't have any governmental authority. So in order to commit a human rights abuse in Mexico, you have to have government authority.

[Mark Gagnon]

I see.

[Dave Frank]

And so it would be in the United States. The closest thing to it would be abuse of authority under color of law or violating civil rights under color of law would be the closest thing. So you're going to classes and you're learning all these things because you're going to confront people that aren't going to pull over. They're not going to submit to being arrested. It's not that type of thing. And at the other times, you are going to be confronting normal people that might not be escalated to that level of confrontation. So you need to be able to treat them correctly, too. So you're learning all these things in classes. So your instructors are a mix of either golf, special forces officer, normal agents, government lawyers that are teaching all this. So you're going through this, and it's about six months, and you're going through. And you're learning everything that you need to know. Because the way that they patrol in Mexico is different, too. When you patrol, you're in the back of a truck. And I mean, people have seen the movie Sicario where they're escorting the guys across the Mexican border. That's exactly how we work. So, and we're in the back of the trucks. And I was a sniper for my platoon, so I would be up in the truck in the first position while they got in the box. The first position would be your commandante, Then you would have your driver. And then up in the box, usually we have four people. You got your platoon sniper, and then you have your retroguardia. And then you would have. They're supposed to be two and two. But usually the way that they do it is you would have your right and your left guard. And there's different configurations, but that's the one that we would always use. And the way that you would see them going out in a convoy, that's exactly the way that we go after cartels. That's virtually exactly the way it's done.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow. So are you going out trying to break up cartel activity or are you just focused on protecting your general?

[Dave Frank]

No, no, no, no. My general is very. That depends on who you're working for. And it does depend on what time. My general, there's only two platoons that work directly for him and he's in charge of like all the state agents that work for the state. But because of the fact that he has so much know how about the way everything operates, there's only two platoons that work directly for him. And I'm in one of these platoons and I'm one of the platoons that works immediately for him. The other platoon is you're helping or your unada de apoyo is what they would call it. So we work directly for him and we're very trustworthy. Everyone there is ex military and we work. If we have VIP guests, we're going to take care of them. Like the Dalai Lama.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, tell me about that story when the Dalai Lama comes. Like what?

[Dave Frank]

Dalai Lama has his own security details just the way. The same way that the Secret Service would accompany President Trump or President Obama. I've run into State Department employees coming to Mexico before when there's going to be a VIP detail. Every one of these people has their own security detail attached to them. So there's needs to be weapon clearances and stuff like that. Because obviously you're not just allowed to fly in and out of countries with your own weapons unless you're on some type of diplomatic passport, which clearly the Dalai Lama would have. But even then, it's who's doing what, when and where and how we're going to coordinate that with where we're going. Different perimeters that we need to set up and clear ahead of time. And it's funny because the day that the Dalai Lama showed up, one of the cartels there had hung two bodies in front of the. They call it ciudad administrative in front of the Capitol. Right in front of the steps to the building is like kind of a just a signal to the government, like, hey, we're still running things here. This is what we have to say about the Dalai Lama and people coming. And we want you to capitulate on whatever their demands are. And this is not just a Dalai Lama, but it's very surreal. My wife is a high level reporter or was for a Mexican major news channel nationally and she was interviewing the Dalai Lama. And the feeling of her being in there interviewing the Dalai Lama and I'm sitting outside with a belt fed machine gun, a Negev NG7 machine gun outside, guarding the most peaceful man on the earth was just so surreal that you can hardly even understand it. But the necessity of that, because just at 4:45 that morning we were cutting down two bodies and now they're doing a meet and greet. And I mean, just think about that. If the president of this country was going to Atlanta, Georgia or whatever to go do some type of, I don't know, event with the governor and they had just got done hanging two bodies right in front of the, the state.

[Mark Gagnon]

Capitol, it would be a national news story.

[Dave Frank]

It would be national news and they would probably call off the event because of security. And that's just, that's Mexico daily life. I mean, so.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow. What's up people? Let's take a break really quick because I want to talk to the fellas. Let me ask you something. Are you stuck? Do you feel like you're struggling with work or relationships or maybe your marriage or just feeling like you're not like the dude you want to be? You ever just thinking to yourself, like, man, I should be farther along right now. I just get caught in these cycles where I just kind of lose self control. Well, here's the thing that nobody likes to admit. It is possible that porn might be part of the problem. Yes, I know I said the P word. Now look, I don't want to be overly moralistic here, okay? But if you're someone that struggles with pornography and you know, research has shown that regular porn users actually leaves men feeling more anxious and less connected and ironically less satisfied. And then it creates a cycle that then you gotta be a little secretive about and you tell yourself like, I'll quit. And then you come back to the same cycle and now you're in a trap. Well, that's where Relay comes in. Relay is a therapist backed app with actual clinicians designed to help men quit pornography and actually feel better and get control of their lives. And the difference with Relay is that you're not doing it alone. With Relay, you basically join a small group of guys that are kind of on the same road. They're sharing accountability and encouragement and actual tools to help when triggers hit and you're feeling, you know, anxious or alone, Relay helps you feel a little more connected and you can stay totally anonymous. But for the first time, you're not going to be in this battle alone. I mean, think of it like a gym membership, but with your brain and for your habits and for the future of your relationship maybe, right? Thousands of men and their families are already seeing some change because the men, their lives are a little bit less stuck. So if you're feeling stuck, check out Relay. Don't wait another month to be the man that you want to be today. And you can break the cycle with Relay. So go ahead and use the code Gagnon. Gagnon for a seven day free trial. If you feel like this thing has just got a grip on you that you're not able to let go, that is. Join Relay. J O I N Relay R E l a y.app app camp and use the code GAGNON for a seven day free trial. Don't put it off. Be the man you're supposed to be today. Today. Now let's get back to the show. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. With school out, summer is the perfect.

[Dave Frank]

Time to teach our kids real world.

[Mark Gagnon]

Money skills they'll use forever. Greenlight is a debit card in the number one family finance and safety app used by millions of families, helping kids learn how to save, invest and spend wisely.

[Dave Frank]

Parents can send their kids money and.

[Mark Gagnon]

Track their spending and saving while kids build money, confidence and skills in fun ways. Start your risk free Greenlight trial [e-mail].

[Dave Frank]

Spotify that's greenlight.com Spotify.

[Mark Gagnon]

Well, I was down on my last dollar.

[Dave Frank]

Then I started saving because the bank said fiscal restraint is what you're craving.

[Mark Gagnon]

So I put my earnings in a high yield account, let the savings compound and the interest mount. I'm optimizing cash flow, putting debt in check. Now time is my praying and not a pain in the neck. And we've got a little cash to rebuild.

[Dave Frank]

The old boring money moves make kind of lame songs but they sound pretty sweet to your wallet. BNC bank, brilliantly boring since 1865.

[Mark Gagnon]

Now in the area that you were in, what were the major cartels that were operating business?

[Dave Frank]

I'm glad that you asked that because like you, I've also do your. Does your audience know where you live?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, I mean, I'm in New York.

[Dave Frank]

Okay. So when I came back to the States, I lived in Brooklyn, 24 Havemeyer Street, I don't live there anymore. So anyone that wants to go there, but I live there and in Brooklyn, it's a great place. But the. Just the irony of the fact that Joaquin Chapo Guzman being over in the detention center in South Manhattan, and we've been looking for this guy all over the. All over the place. And I'm standing right outside, and I don't know if your audience is. If you've never been to South Manhattan. They've got the Federal Detention center there. It's a fortress like you can't even believe. You can't drive in, you can't drive out. They've got it all blocked off. And the irony that this guy's there is just crazy. And so the cartels that were operating there before, they got Joaquin in New York and not in Brooklyn and Manhattan, he was still there when I was working there.

[Mark Gagnon]

And that's El Mayo's son?

[Dave Frank]

Yeah, well, yeah, he's got his sons there. The. The Joaquin's children that. Well, it's all fractioned off now. So when you're talking about what cartels were working there, they had the Golfos, they had the Zetas, they had the Cartel de Santa Loa, and those were basically the main three. And where I worked in Zacatecas, I took my wife on vacation to Tamaulipas, for example. There's no state police there. It's only federal police, and it's only military. Because the state police were corrupt, they disbanded them. The entire area is run by Golfos and Zetas fighting each other. So depending on where you're at in the country, there's usually going to be a cartel that's in charge of the area or the state that you're in. Sinaloa, it's obviously going to be the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquin Guzman, now it's children. When I was there, it was primarily the Gulf Cartel and the Zeta Cartel, and sometimes the Cartel de Sinaloa would come in, and obviously, once they got Joaquin Guzman, it created a power vacuum. And it was kind of like throwing an M80 in a. In a goldfish bowl. And it just. All the gravel or the substrate just went up. And now it's a free for all with all these power grabs.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, it creates an interesting issue, right? Like, you have these different cartels in different regions, and if you get rid of one of them or you take out the head of one of them, all of a sudden the other ones can then take over the region. And then as a result, they get more powerful.

[Dave Frank]

It can And I mean, I've seen some of the stuff that, that you been into with the occult and narco. Santiasmo, Santa Muerte, when you take out the old cartel. And this is one of the things that I don't think that they really thought through when they did that. Joaquin Guzman, whether you love them or hate him, and obviously most people are probably going to have a pretty strong feeling about that. Mexico more than anything. If I had to come up with one way, one word to describe or two words to describe Mexico, it would be hard working and respectful, the Mexican and honorable. And even though the guy's running a cartel, he did have some of those traits and characteristics. Leaving certain people alone, giving back to your community, whatever. When you. Because he grew up with the Catholic religion, obviously Mexico's Catholic country. When you remove someone like that, not only are you creating a power vacuum, but you're also opening up the dynamic that younger generations. For example, I'm a Gen Xer, 55 years old. A lot of the people that grow up don't have the same values that I grew up with, maybe. And so now you've got these people with different values, a power vacuum, and they're really creating a state where it's ultra competitive. The brutality's off the charts. You don't have the Catholic religion or the Bible constraining what you do on this earth with the threat of an eternal punishment. Because your Santa Muerte is just going to be like, you know what? I'm okay with whatever you do. I'm going to help you and just be loyal to me. And that's it. So that was going on. And so the cartels changed. The Cartel de Sinaloa came over to deal with the Zetas, which were all Gafex special forces, which were previously, as most people know, the strong arm or laid down the law for the Gulf Cartel. And the cartel of Sinaloa got tired of it.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, that's an important note that I don't know if a lot of people know that the Zetas were former military, that they were all trained in special operations.

[Dave Frank]

What was a great way to go.

[Mark Gagnon]

Became their own cartel. I mean, it's pretty. I've heard that they're pretty brutal.

[Dave Frank]

Well, they're extremely brutal. But it's not just like. It's the mentality that you get in the military is just. It's a lot different than civilian mentality. What do I mean? We'd go to sleep and you would take your boots and your socks off, so you get refreshed but you would have your pants on. You always got to make sure. And you make sure that your dress uniforms always clean because the way that you look, you shave every day, you're on time, you're never late. We would work 43 hours straight with five hours off, 365 days a year. And you're never late, never drunk, ultra disciplined. And that's what it is in the military. Because if you screw that up even once, your job is gone.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, yeah, your life is online.

[Dave Frank]

Well, it's. Your life's on the line if you're. If you're an agent, too. But the military takes it to another level. For example, when you put your cover on your cap, it's two fingers above your ears. Everything is regimented on how you do it. So when you have the Zeta Cartel conducting hits for you. And I want to bring in the Kaibilis too, because it's not just the Garface, which are special forces, and they're extremely competent at what they do, but they're also contracting with Kaibilis and they think about everything. Like, here's something that a lot of people don't know. The Kybilis are Guatemalan special forces that the Zetas would bring in. And people think Latino schmatino or whatever. A Guatemalan is an El Salvadoran is a Mexican or whatever. Totally not the case. Americans are mostly ignorant to the way that that goes on. And there's a lot of animosity between all three countries. First of all, because Mexico or Spain had taken over all three of them. Guatemala and El Salvador both won their independence from Mexico. Guatemalans and El Salvadorians are often mistreated when they're going through Mexico. So they. Zeta Cartel would hire Kabili special forces to come work for them because when they're sending them out to kill people, they don't care about killing them because they're not me, because they're not Mexican, they're Guatemalan.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, wow.

[Dave Frank]

So there's like, a little twist. There's so many, like, little details on it that it's just. It's.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, that's. That's. Yeah, it's interesting that there's, you know, even different sort of like, forces that create different cartels from different countries that then get treated differently.

[Dave Frank]

Well, they bring in. They bring in exterior help, for example. There's a lot of people like, are the American military training any of the Mexican cartels in official capacity or extra official capacity? Both. Official capacity. What do you mean? Okay, so we sent and armed the Mujah Kadeen to combat the Russians. And then we wind up several years later, now we're back fighting the same guys that we help armed, right? So they just got done with a military exercise in Yucatan with the Americans training the Mexican Marine, or Semar, which is a secretary of De la Marina, under the supervision of the Secretary of the Defense of Nacional, which is the army. And they're training these guys. But who's to say that later on they get out and they need to make some money? And now they're going to go and use what they learned to train the same cartels that the American military wants. And then who's to say, and this has happened that American military members have gone to Mexico to go earn a huge payday to train people, that a lot of times the cartel will kidnap people. They're trying to go north. And you'll find these people in mass graves in Mexico and Zacatecas. There's several mass graves. But they'll train these. They'll take these people and they'll put them in these camps to train them, to work for them. And as long as they're making enough money and they're in dread, fear, they can't escape. If they try to escape, they'll be killed. So, hey, stay here and work for us. Kill people, run drugs, whatever it is.

[Mark Gagnon]

These are Americans that will get kidnapped.

[Dave Frank]

No, well, no, not Americans. They leave their hands off the Americans.

[Mark Gagnon]

These are trained Mexican nationals.

[Dave Frank]

These are trained. Well, the Americans go down there and train people, but the cartels will kidnap people that are trying to come to the United States from other countries, and they'll kidnap them and force them to go to work for their cartel.

[Mark Gagnon]

I see.

[Dave Frank]

And if they don't do it, they'll be kidnapped. They'll be sold into human trafficking. I mean, I want to say this in the most respectful way possible, but almost every single woman that is from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, that has been forced to cross the Mexican country, and I'm saying it completely from a humanitarian point of view, with absolute sympathy or empathy for their position, has probably been. I mean, it's just brutal. And a lot of the men that come across probably have either been, well, all of them have faced the danger of being kidnapped by the cartel or subjected to being returned by the Mexican authorities. Just a brutal thing. So there's a lot of dynamics. Do the Americans train the cartel? Yeah, there's people that are down there training them. Have I seen it personally? No. But there's other instances of where they've been found by intelligence to do it. When you find a cartel camp, they just had that camp that was in Jalisco. And you'll drive through several states because borders are not like got along. I hope I'm making this interesting. I don't want to bore you guys, but.

[Mark Gagnon]

No, not at all.

[Dave Frank]

The borders in Mexico aren't like drawn along parallels or latitudes the way that they are in the United States. They'll follow creeks and stuff like that or rivers. So you have borders that are following mountain ranges and you'll drive across several different states. They had a camp where they just found the personal effects of several thousand people.

[Mark Gagnon]

Thousands.

[Dave Frank]

Yeah. That were at a place to where these people were executed and found in a mass grave. And someone had asked me about that regionally and there's a military base in southern Zacatecas where we would drive through Jalisco to go get to this. And we, when we're driving through Jalisco we would have municipal police with their weapons following us. And you don't know if you're going to get in a gunfight with them. So even the authorities from one state to another are compromised sometimes depending upon regional allegiances to different cartels that are operating there.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, I've heard people say like sometimes the municipal police can become its own cartel in a way. They can be sort of co opted.

[Dave Frank]

They can be probably the most dangerous police in the entire country, are the least trained. And the reason why is because of their local allegiance to the criminal elements that are working there. And this isn't something that's just coming from me. This other people have talked about this. When you're a general, they're going to move you around the country a lot because they don't want you developing regional allegiances with it. And your general will move at every few years to avoid the elements that are directly under his control. For example, me being loyal to my general as opposed to being loyal to the Republic of Mexico or someone that's working at a state level becoming loyal to their governor. In Mexico it's a six year term. But the municipal police never move.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right. They stay there and they build that allegiance.

[Dave Frank]

That's right. And they've been there for a long time. They've been there for 10, 20 years.

[Mark Gagnon]

Their family lives there and they are.

[Dave Frank]

They'Re, they're anchored in like a tick on a dog. I mean they're not going anywhere and it's a big thing. And so in order to combat this, Mexico has come up with a thing and other people talk about it. They Call it basa de operaciones. Mixed is they're mixed operational bases where the army, the marine corps, the state police, the federal and the municipal police will all go out together on control in an effort to try to combat it, but also to federalize the entire country. They have this thing called mondo unico, which is central command that just runs the entire thing from a federalized level down, all the way down top to bottom, which is kind of you. We're seeing that play out in the United States today. But this isn't a discussion on the United States. Obviously in Mexico that's how they do it. And so they've got mixed operation bases where you'll go out and they'll go to a military base. Typically they'll have the head of the government ministerial police for the state ministerial police from the federal level. And they are different. The military base for the sedan or the army, the military base for the marines. And they'll all go together and they'll have their meetings and then they're going to decide what they're going to do based on the intelligence they got and then they'll go out. But the municipal police typically play a very minor part in that. And there's some different reasons why. One of the main reasons is because of what I just said stated is a lot of them are directly involved, sometimes willfully, but a lot of times out of a direct threat against their own family. Even members of my platoon that have since moved on, that became chiefs of police in neighboring cities have even had threats against their lives. That. It's just. I don't know. So I don't want to get too far off track.

[Mark Gagnon]

No, that's fair. I'm curious, what are some specific stories of times while you were there on duty that your life was threatened?

[Dave Frank]

That my life was threatened. They shot and killed that my life was directly threatened. We had a two hour. Well. Ah, man, how do I say it? I don't know if I should go into the 2 hour and 45 minute shootout that was at the cartel.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, I mean, I mean just take me through the story. So what happens? Where are you when you get the call and how does it unfold?

[Dave Frank]

Okay. My wife thought I was cheating on her one night because of the threat based. There are members that work for the cartel that even are dressed in the same uniform you are. So every night when I would leave base, well, not every light night, but every two nights when I'd leave base, I would call my wife and I would tell her, hey, I'M on my way home, and it's seven minutes from base to my house to our apartment. And so I would call her and be like, hey, I'm on my way home. I'm getting a taxi. And a lot of times the taxis are working for the cartel, so you don't know. And because it's late at night and because it's base, a lot of people don't like being around base because we're bad news, too. So when you're trying to get a taxi, they don't want to come over. So we'll get a taxi. I'll call my wife. I'm on my way home. And right when I was going to get the taxi, I called her and told I was on my way home. And we get this call that they're killing municipal police and Martinez Dominguez. So we're like, boom. And I'm already, like, just putting my shirt on. We're getting our weapons, we're back in the truck, and we're going to confront a convoy, a cartel that had just taken out some municipal police, and we're gonna go catch him. And so we get there and there's this arroyo, which is like a creek, and we're in, like, complete darkness. And they just shot a municipal cop in the head. And so he's dead. And so we're going through, and there's these people running through the creek at night. And we get one of the guys, he takes around through the. Through the face right here, the.223, and it blows out the back of his head, and it dropped him so hard so fast that he. He was carrying an AR15 in his right hand. He had a black backpack in his left hand. And the shot hit him so hard so fast that he fell over and it bent his right knee back. And he didn't even to let go of his weapon or the backpack, and it just stopped him. But we're looking for his friend in the middle of the night. And I turned on my phone, which you wouldn't usually do. And so we're like in. I don't know if you can imagine it, but we're along a creek at the end. We're along a creek in the middle of the night. It's like 12:30 or 1 o'. Clock. Because we're looking for these guys, and they just killed some cops. And we got one of them, like I was just telling you, the guy that. That we got with the backpack, and we're looking for the other ones. And so his buddies are out there and we're looking for him. And usually when we're on operation, we wouldn't have our cell phones turned on because obviously it's going to give away your position. My wife thought I was supposed to be home in seven minutes. I'm looking for these cartel guys and Mexican chicks. A lot of times they're like. They're like mother hens. They're like, on you, like, where are you at?

[Mark Gagnon]

You're fighting a battle on two fronts now. Now. Yeah, you got the cartel here.

[Dave Frank]

My cell phone. And we're looking for these cartel assassins in the middle of the night, man.

[Mark Gagnon]

Who are you more afraid of? Be honest.

[Dave Frank]

Yeah, of course I'm. I'm afraid of my wife, man. She's gonna be like, dude, where the hell you at? I know you're with some chick, you're supposed to be home. And she thinks like. And I don't drink at all. I don't. I don't drink. I don't smoke anything. So my wife's blowing up my phone. I'm like, trying to turn it off, trying to turn it off. And I'm looking for these guys. I gotta rip the battery out of it because she keeps blowing up my phone. Phone. And my wife's a reporter that works for the government too. So she's. This plays into the story. Long story short, I have to rip out the battery out of my phone because she keeps calling it, wondering where the hell I'm at. And we don't finish up until like 3, 3:30 in the morning. Because we're looking for these guys. They just smoked a bunch of cops, dude.

[Mark Gagnon]

So how long does it take to get the rest of them? Like, what do you have to do?

[Dave Frank]

We didn't get the rest of them. The two of the other two got away.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, wow.

[Dave Frank]

So we got one of them gonna leave out which one. Respect's a big deal. And so if you ever. And I have family in Mexico to this day, so if it seems like if you want my last name, you got my last name. You know, I'm in here in Portland, Oregon. I'm not hiding anything. And when you put on a uniform in Mexico, it's like getting married. Because at any point in time going forward, any cartel that could be out there watching this, they can just take issue with you and decide that, hey, you know what? We're just gonna go get that guy and that's it. That's the way it is. That's the deal that we make. When you put on a uniform and in the United States, I don't know what it's like to put on an American uniform, but when you put on a uniform in Mexico, every Mexican that's ever worn el trio la bandera, the Mexican flag on their. On their uniform, that's the deal that they make. That, you know what, you can come and get me and take me at any point in time. And that's just the way it is. So their buddies get away. But you don't ever want to be disrespectful to somebody because that's just like begging for it.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, of course. No, I'm not asking it.

[Dave Frank]

Yeah, no, I'm not going to disrespect them, but I will be like, hey, they shot a couple police, and one of theirs was shot.

[Mark Gagnon]

Were they. Were they firing at you?

[Dave Frank]

Yeah, they were firing. Yeah, it was a firefight. They're. They're fighting, and then they get away. And there's this big, big. There's kind of like a water reservoir where this is taking. Where this is going on it. There's a creek that flows into a arroyo's creek. And so Martinez Dominguez, you can look it up on a map, leads into a reservoir. And so obviously, they're getting away. And it's complete pitch black. I mean, there's. And so after a while, we're tactically going back. And when you're going back, you have, like, retro guardia, where you're taking turns leapfrogging back and forth, tapping each other on the shoulder when it's safe because you're taking up cover because they'll kill you. It's not a joke. And I mean, anyone that wants to look up. There's firefights on top of. All of this is on YouTube. You can look up any of that. They call them bala set, as in Spanish. There's plenty to choose from. You can pick one. And there's plenty to choose from. Exactly. From where I was working, work, working when I was working there. And so you can just do the math.

[Mark Gagnon]

Did you get struck at all?

[Dave Frank]

No, no, not that night.

[Mark Gagnon]

What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because you need to rebrand your crotch. That's right. You need a full rebrand on your dong. And you're gonna do it with Bluechew, because Bluechew, their tablets aren't just for better sex. No, they are. Like if Tony Robbins give a motivational speech, rates your race, your wiener, you know, I mean, you're gonna feel amazing. Look, I just took one of Bluechew's tablets today. And suddenly, I mean, look at me, I'm glowing this table, absolutely getting crushed underneath it, right? My penis is given a press conference. Okay, feeling great. Never been better. So whether you're trying to make, you know, a memorable moment with your, your sweet love or you're just trying to give, you know, a friend of yours or a girl, you know, like a, you know, some crazy group chat fodder, something for the girls to gossip about. Bluechew is absolutely the chewable tablet delivery service that you need to bring the thunder. And the best part is that we got a special deal for the listeners of this lovely program. Get your first month for [e-mail] just use the promo code Gagnon at checkout. All you gotta do is pay five bucks for shipping. That's like a cup of coffee, all right, five bucks for shipping. You're gonna get free bluechew straight to your door. So upgrade your legacy. Let your name ring out for eons. And let's get back to the this episode is brought to you by FXX and Hulu. An all new season of Futurama is back. Blending heartfelt moments with razor sharp, sharp humor while accidentally saving the day. The Planet Express crew is back.

[Dave Frank]

Defying gravity and common sense.

[Mark Gagnon]

From the creator of The Simpsons comes.

[Dave Frank]

10 new episodes where the romance is.

[Mark Gagnon]

Hotter, the threats are bigger, and the action hits harder. Don't miss the all new season of Futurama. Watch it Mondays on FXX or streaming on Hulu. What's up guys? I'm on the road. I would love to see you guys there. Obviously, if you don't know, I'm a stand up comedian and stand up comedy is my passion. It's the thing I love to do and seeing you guys all come out to the shows truly makes my life. I hang out after the show and say what's up to everybody. So if you want to come through, check out the show, say what's up to me. It would mean the world. You can see me at all these dates and more on my website, markagnon live.com and I'll see you guys on the road.

[Dave Frank]

There's another one in trunk Oso where there is also people that have been dead. That was another gunfight. They'll shoot at you when you're going back to base and ambush you. One night there was a round into the. You'll have like a level 3 body armor, but then you'll have your ceramic plates on it and they'll shoot at You. There's another night. And, man, I want to give you guys details. So one night we're in Trancoso. There was another by Villa de Cos. So Via De coast is another hot, hot place where there's a lot of gunfights that go on. And sometimes you'll use different units. And a lot of the units, my main unit that I would use was a Ford F250 that was completely armored. And I've got lots of pictures of it. I'll give you guys some pictures. So you can interject them into the thing if you want, but they will. They'll be up there and sometimes they're like, just going to try to, like, get into it with you and they'll shoot at you. And one night there was a round that hit my. My plate. Another round that's hit six inches below him, but we have a steel shield. And so it's just crazy because in the United States, you. They will have times where you're ambushed or something like that. It happens once every blue moon. But there, it's just like the way things go.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's the way warfare kind of functions.

[Dave Frank]

Right. It's not just me. There's another guy that has popular videos, and in fact, you've even had them on there. And the dynamics between where we work in the country are a little different. One, given the proximity to the Pacific Ocean and what their traffic is and the geography and the cities and the layout of it there, it lends itself more to one cartel controlling the whole thing. Where I'm at, there's different cartels that are going to get. Get irritated with the government at different points in times for different things or have different agreements or lack of agreements that will provoke them to lash out at you or whatever.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right? So it's a real war zone. There's multiple different fronts.

[Dave Frank]

There are multiple, multiple fronts. And actually, it's kind of detrimental to the society as a whole and to any of the government and even cartel factions that are operating the area because there's no peace, right? And so because of this, and it does lend itself to different stories, like the evolution of Montezetus and Cartel de Nueva Canaracion de Jalisco or Cartel de Jalisco de Nueva Canaracion, and even regional cartels, Los Templarios and other people, they're all vying for power because Joaquin Guzman's no longer there controlling everything. And so how many times have you.

[Mark Gagnon]

Been struck in a. In a.

[Dave Frank]

Just once. Only. Only once.

[Mark Gagnon]

What is that? What does that feel like?

[Dave Frank]

Like it spun me around to the side and happened so fast that I didn't even have time to really notice what had happened.

[Mark Gagnon]

So you were in the back of your unit?

[Dave Frank]

I was up in the front of my unit. I'm always in the top of the unit.

[Mark Gagnon]

And so just take me through that feeling. So, like, you get struck, do you know immediately what happened?

[Dave Frank]

Yeah, we were driving into Via De coast and there was already some things that were going on. And we were responding to a Balancera that was already in progress. And so we're pulling up and as soon as you pull up, you just get hit right off the top. You're like, right. And I didn't even tell my wife about. I've got a picture of my plate. Carrier and the plate. But you don't tell her because your wife's just gonna flip out.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Dave Frank]

Getting back to the store. And I'm gonna get into that. So the story going back to the Mark or Martinez Dominguez gunfight, my wife's blowing up my phone. I take out and I'll go back to the Va de Coast gunfight. And there's gunfights you're going to get into. I take out the battery out of my phone because she's blowing up my phone. And I got to make sure that our adversaries can't locate me or any of my team members that I'm around. I take out the thing, she's blowing up my phone. Now she can't blow up my phone. And we're looking for the other two guys, and they get away. I get back to base, like 3:30 in the morning, and my wife is pissed because I'm not home. I go home, I'm only going to be there. I'm going to keep this concise. I get home, she thinks I'm cheating on her, and I'm like, dude, we were just into a gunfight all night, and I got to go back to base in an hour. The next day at work, she's at a function with the government and the ministry agents. Ask her, you know, is Frank okay? Because. And she's like, what do you mean? She's like, yeah. They were in like this huge gunfight last night. So at the Via De coast gunfight, I've got another picture where they tried to take out the driver of the truck I was in. So I got struck. They. They hit a barrage on our unit. And I'm always in the front unit. So we're the unit that took fire. And the driver's door glass and that's all. It's about an inch and a quarter thick of bulletproof glass. They would have killed the driver if it wasn't armored. Another round struck right below me on the shield that I was in. Another round struck my. My. My plate. And it happens so fast. It says you can't even. So we all get off our vehicle and we're getting ready to go engage them and does it.

[Mark Gagnon]

Does it hurt you like it must feel?

[Dave Frank]

No, it didn't hurt because it hit me laterally.

[Mark Gagnon]

Okay, so it kind of glances off you?

[Dave Frank]

It glanced on me, spun me around. If it had been a direct hit, then, yeah, it would have.

[Mark Gagnon]

Probably breaks ribs and things like that.

[Dave Frank]

Yeah. I have not had that happen. It hit laterally and I spun around and we were jumping down because, I mean, you're so adrenaline ridden by the time that happens. And you look and you're like, man, am I okay? You feel okay? Nothing. Okay, good. Let's go. And when we're training, we don't really. We don't really get a chance to. I've heard Sean. Sean Ryan, yeah, of course. Talk about some of his training with Blackwater, and their training's very good. We've never trained that way to where they'll do bag training. They'll put you in a chair. And our CQB training was kind of like that. It was similar where you would get into a room, you would breach a door, you'd go into a room, and you have to clear a house or whatever their training, they would put a bag over your head and take it off and you have to engage, whatever. Our training wasn't like that. So we didn't have people, like shouting at us, having to react to it. We would have to just go through and clear different rooms. So there's not really a way to prepare you for what it's like when you finally do get into a firefight with the cartel, which is going to happen. And in Socatecas, you can look it up. There's several firefights, there's several mass graves. There's people operating in that area frequently. And you never know when it's going to happen. And because there's bosses, the opera is mixed, and there's pictures. I can give you where I'm standing right next to a member of the Mexican army. You're going to react to this stuff collectively to go out and get whoever it is. And you don't know what cartel allegiance there are. You don't know. It's just constantly. So when I got Hit that night, we got off the truck, we're deployed, we're clearing buildings. Because in Mexico, no matter where you're at, they've got a lot of things called fincas, which are semi constructed properties or houses that you have to go through. And these people will start building out these colonies by. They call them ejidos, like farming communities. They'll start building out all these farming communities. So you have to go from one to the other to the other.

[Mark Gagnon]

It's very much urban warfare, like going into homes, clearing out.

[Dave Frank]

It's 100% urban warfare because you're going in and these homes don't even have lights or doors. They're all partially. It's like a labyrinth of bricks. And people have seen enough footage on Afghanistan or other things where they've seen combat footage that they're, they're the, they're going door to door, kicking in steel doors. Here it's like, it's more like Jesse's brick structures that aren't even completely built. Or maybe it is a whole house. So you don't know. And you have to go through these things and people can be hiding anywhere. And one of the most famous balaseras or gunfights in all of Mexico happened right immediately before I got there, called Balaser de Florencia to where even state police had to dress in women's clothing to escape because there were so many cartels and the two cartels weren't even directing the conflict against each other, or I mean against the government. They were fighting each other and it lasted hours. In fact, my general was wounded in the helicopter because they didn't, they were trying to respond and didn't have time to let the helicopter warm up. And when they were getting there, the helicopter dropped out of the sky.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, wow.

[Dave Frank]

Injuring my general. And this is the general that I worked for. The general that I worked for was a very honorable, noble man that came from humble beginnings, went to school at Coleco Heroico Militar and became a two in Mexico. They've only got three eagle generals as high as you can get. So it's not like a five star general. So he was like almost three star general or three eagle general when, before he retired, fired.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow.

[Dave Frank]

But that's Mexico. And so you have like a scale of violence to where even Mexican police that their main job is responding to cartel aggression, have to dress in women's clothes to escape because there's so many members of the cartel running around killing each other.

[Mark Gagnon]

Well, and they would let the women escape.

[Dave Frank]

They would Let your chances of escaping with them much higher. Much higher.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow. And so that was right before you had gotten there.

[Dave Frank]

That was in 2011.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow. So by the time you get there and you're in this, this gun and.

[Dave Frank]

I was there, I was in country in 2011. I was working, I was working at the aerospace factory while this is going on. Yeah. And what I wanted to say is when you go to Mexico and you start out as a, you start in Mexico as a tourist because you don't know what's going on. The first thing that was when it really hit home is when I was still manager of the factory there. And they tell us at like 12 o' clock noon that hey, we have to stop operations at this factory. This is a $60 million, 65,000 square foot factory. It's a big factory and there's three different buildings in there. And so there's fabrications, there's composites and there's machining. And I was in charge of machining and engineering. So they tell us, hey, at 12 o' clock noon we have to stop. You have to get back on the bus and you're going back to town and you management's getting in the van and you're going back to town. Town. We're going back to town because the cartel is given the directive that every business in the capital city of this state has to shut down by 2 o'. Clock. Because if you don't, we're going to come in and kill everybody because they're pissed off because certain businesses weren't paying them.

[Mark Gagnon]

So they can force entire business.

[Dave Frank]

They shut down the entire city. And when we got back and I got back to my hotel and it was Cartel de Argento on Avenida Hildalgo in the capital city of this state. They shut down every business. All the businesses were shut with just the strict threat of cartel violence. Because if you don't capitulate to the cartel demands, they're going to come in and they're going to clean house.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow.

[Dave Frank]

And that was when I first started working there and I was like, whoa, what did I get into?

[Mark Gagnon]

So how does this firefight end? The one where you got glanced with the, with the bullet glass?

[Dave Frank]

We wound up getting several of them and we arrest them. As soon as we arrest somebody, we have to turn them into the picare because is military or state police or federal police, if you're policia preventiva, the Mexico law enforcement is structured differently. It's not like it is here. Here a city cop, state cop, state trooper Whatever can go down to their station, they can write up a criminal demand against whoever. In Mexico, it's not that way. In Mexico, you have policia preventiva, whether it's state or federal, and then you have policia ministerial, whether it's state or federal. So policia ministerial is going to be the people that you will turn the people over to that you arrest or apprehend, and they will be the ones that are in charge of processing and booking, processing any criminal demands, policia preventive, or like my general or whatever, we're in charge of going out and confronting the aggressions as they happen, because we're the ones that are kitted up to do that. That. But we don't have the ability, even though we have lawyers that work directly for us, we don't have the ability to go down. We do have the ability. They're lawyers, but it's not our legal responsibility for the Mexican constitution to levy charges against anyone.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right.

[Dave Frank]

It's our responsibility that as soon as we catch them, to turn them in good condition to the ministerial police, whether it's at a state or federal level, depending on the crime and what they were doing. And that's how that goes. So that night of the gunfight at Via de Coast, we got these people, and we had to turn in the people that we had gotten. We had to turn in their vehicles that we had captured, and we had to turn them. That night. We wound up at the Pequere de Procare Canada, which is a federal deal, and turn those people in. That's how it all ends. And so we're standing there in front of the federal base with the subjects turned over to them and with their vehicles, and they're going to decommission their vehicles, or sometimes the Marines might even use their vehicles. But we stand there all night and turn the people in, away from the process. This is their legal paperwork.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow.

[Dave Frank]

Or if there are dead people, semapho will come in and collected dead, but only after an investigation. There's an investigative team that comes out and looks at all that.

[Mark Gagnon]

Well. And that. That firefight, who. Which cartel was that with?

[Dave Frank]

That firefight was. I believe it was with the Gulf Cartel.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow. Now, was there ever an operation or some type of mission by a cartel to kidnap the general that you were working with?

[Dave Frank]

No, our general lived at base.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, wow. So he was pretty protected in four to five.

[Dave Frank]

So, yeah, our generals absolutely lived at base. There's a section of base. In fact, there's a base. There's state police there. But There's a section of it that's apart to where nobody's allowed to go if they're armed, and we're the only ones there that are armed.

[Mark Gagnon]

Did you have to deal with any kidnappings and try to retrieve people?

[Dave Frank]

No, that I did never do. That was a function of the state police ministerial agency that has a squad that's directly dedicated to that. They're also a federal police district right next to the Coca Cola plant that's also dedicated to that. Depending on, like it is in the United States, whether they're being moved throughout different states, or if it's something that's being conducted just within the state.

[Mark Gagnon]

That makes sense. Now, you had mentioned before, these mass graves. What is the purpose of these? Like, why. Why do these exist? And why do the cartels utilize mass graves so often?

[Dave Frank]

There's. It really depends. Okay. For example, and I want to be concise because you're asking about mass graves and why they're being utilized. It depends on being who's killed and for. And why. A lot of times, when there's a gunfight between two people or two different cartels, feuding factions, even within the same cartel, they won't necessarily want the dead people. They'll police their own dead. They'll. They'll go around and they'll get their own dead. And obviously they're not going to turn them into the coroner. So they will clandestinely get rid of their dead people. And sometimes they'll burn their own with diesel fuel. Sometimes it just makes sense to. To dig a big hole and bury them. Other times there will be people, migrants that are passing through or traversing Mexican territory that they'll see something they shouldn't have, have knowledge of something that they shouldn't have come upon, have knowledge of people that they don't. That people don't want their identities recognized. There'll be. There's a whole litany of motives on why they might be killed. And so a whole group, a whole train of people could be murdered that way. And we've gone out to help mothers try to, like, police their own or recuperate their own dead with mass graves that are found and go out and escort them to try to identify the remains of people. And Zach could take us. There are several mass graves. So really, a mass grave could be anything from two warring cartels to. For immigrants that just happen to come along and see the wrong thing and be murdered for that reason, or even politicians or other people that are local to that, that aren't migrants that had Something to do with the cartel. Bad, bad drug debt, for example, that they were dealing drugs like somewhat Plaza bus. It falls out of favor and they just go and they deposit their. Their deceased victims there.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow. And now all the cartels in the region that you were working with, Right. What was their main source of revenue? Were they all drug cartels or did.

[Dave Frank]

They primarily drug cartels?

[Mark Gagnon]

And what was the main drug that they were operating with?

[Dave Frank]

There was a lot of cocaine and heroin where I worked. Well, there's a golden. They have a thing called the Golden Triangle in Mexico, and that goes back to the Chinese migrants when they started working there at the turn of the century. And not to turn to the 21st century, but the 1800s. Leading into the 1900s, the Chinese were cultivating opium for their own use. And as we were talking about, that ultimately wound up into the Golden Triangle. Sinaloa, Sonora, and even parts of Durongo. And Durongo is the neighboring state to Zacatecas. So there will be cartels that operate within a region. And obviously these cartels are operating in different states, but they would be primarily making weapons or making money, trafficking cocaine and Mexican. Mexican brown tar heroin throughout the state. In the state that I worked in, there's two main highways. There's Highway 45 and Highway 54. And even though they got the same numbers, there's two different highways, and they're both used for traversing weapons throughout the country. And also cocaine and other things that are coming up through the Central America throughout the entire country.

[Mark Gagnon]

Some of these cartels are making billions of dollars.

[Dave Frank]

They're making billions of dollars. They have. They have their own submarines. In fact, there's even a Coast Guard video. Yeah, I've seen where even the Coast Guard video is getting on.

[Mark Gagnon]

They jump on top.

[Dave Frank]

I mean, yeah, they jump on top of it. And that's just a level of sophistication.

[Mark Gagnon]

And tech and money that goes into.

[Dave Frank]

Everything that goes into it. They're tags. Heck, when you leave government service or if you find out that you could make a lot more working for a cartel doing the same thing that you're being paid for and have been trained for by the government to do or have been educated to do, and then you go and you find out that you can make five times that working for the cartel. Some people, them do that in their level of cyber security, their level of working for the governments, and even buying politicians. There was a vice president of Mexico that was getting 400,000 pesos a month. So just their level and their range, they have complete sections of the Mexican government. And your other guest has talked about every six years because that's a political cycle in Mexico. They will reinvent something to try to eradicate cartels. That's the level of capability and reach that they have.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wow. Now, President Trump recently, especially when he was campaigning, has talked about doing some type of tactical war in Mexico. And I think right now there's even sort of like spy drones and surveillance going over Mexico. There are.

[Dave Frank]

There are CIA, CIA drones going over there. But I want to talk about. What I want to bring up is we were talking about corruption. They have Border patrol agents that are bought and paid for in this country already.

[Mark Gagnon]

On the American side.

[Dave Frank]

On the American side. This isn't even something I'm saying. This is documented news has come out. Other major news stories or news companies have come out. LA Times and New York Times. I've seen this, covered this. So if they want to conduct some type of tech war against Mexico with the CIA flying drones over, the CIA has been found to have been selling cocaine to fund their war in Grenada and other things in la of which, where I'm from, Right. I was privy to all that when that was going on.

[Mark Gagnon]

So Operation Fast and Furious.

[Dave Frank]

Right. Operation Elder Eric Holder and demanding executive privilege. Privilege with weapons that we're fighting in Mexico.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right.

[Dave Frank]

So when we talk about conducting a war, are they really serious about conducting it? Because if they were, they'd have to look on both sides of the fence about people that, yeah, they're conducting surveillance and stuff. But how effective is that war really going to be?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. What should the American public be aware of before they support or don't support some type of military action?

[Dave Frank]

You asked that question because in Mexico, what we have to be aware of is when you support a war like that, you're talking about supporting a war that you're comfortable living with. You're talking about supporting a war that you're comfortable sending your husband out there in uniform, but knowing that you, as a mother of your own children, you're going to have to confront the violence of that directly because those same sicarios or hitmen are going to be there looking for you. That's the type of every. It's a war that everybody has to fight. And when we talk about a war with Mexico, you have to bear in mind that the cartels are running grow operations in Northern California, even here in Oregon and other places. This isn't my intel. This is other people's intel and that they already have operatives here in the United States. And to be honest, I had to think twice before I wanted to do this video with you. You.

[Mark Gagnon]

And why is that?

[Dave Frank]

Because I've been completely in a Mexican uniform, operating in a Mexican country for a Mexican government. Now I'm here in the United States having carried weapons for the government of Mexico, knowing that I'm talking directly to my Mexico, my American government, because I'm an American, at the end of the day, knowing that I've operated over there and the American government doesn't know what time, what team I'm playing for. And I'm doing this because I made an agreement to try to do the right thing, to make sure that drugs don't wind up in the hands of children. And I want to make sure that I do the right thing to my own fellow Americans. And I am deeply patriotic to this country. I'm also deeply patriotic to the Mexican country because I've born under this flag and I also wore the Mexican flag, trying to do the right thing to make sure that children don't suffer the way I had to suffer the way that my brothers and sisters suffered with drugs. So if I'm talking to the American public and even the Mexican El pueblo de Mexico, I want you guys to know that before we get into some drug war like we just got in, the war with Afghanistan that lasted 20 years, cost several trillion dollars, and in the end, we wound up giving the same opponents $7 billion in weapons that were left with them, with the way that the American military withdrew from Afghanistan. And now these same people are in the same problem that they had initially or worse, because now there's a lot of people that have cooperated with the government that lost, that we know and that we think thoroughly about the same war that we're going to start right here on our. On. On our border. And that's kind of what I want people to be cognizant of, that it's your sons and your daughters and yourself that's going to have to confront this level of violence. Because don't think that it's just going to be troops sent to some other border. It's going to be a war that's fought here, too. And that worries me. What does that look like? As far as martial law goes, Is this something that we really want to get into? In Mexico, they have a thing called zonas de tolerancia, or tolerance zones, to where they are allowed to have their basically topless bars. And prostitution goes on there, and there's probably drug use that goes on there. And we basically steer clear of these zones. This market exists because Americans want it. They consume all of these products, all of those dollars that are generated to buy these subs and buy all the weapons, buy all the technical and tactical know how. It's all funded by people that are purchasing these products. Which means that they want it, Mark. I mean, yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, Americans are buying the cocaine, right?

[Dave Frank]

Canadians are buying it. They have, have. I take issue with grifters. There's a lot of Mexican reporters that have reported on this for a long time that speak Spanish. They're in Mexico, they live amongst it every day. I just want us all to be educated in talking about what really goes on there. I mean.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah. So I'm curious what can be done with the cartel power vacuum that exists in Mexico? If. If a. I mean, I agree with you. Some type of tactical war where we're actually sending American troops in Mexico.

[Dave Frank]

Seems like it's the drug war right now, but they won't do it.

[Mark Gagnon]

What is it?

[Dave Frank]

Legalized drugs. Legalized drugs, flat out. But you guys won't ever do it. And I hate to say it because I've got a whole envelope full of paychecks where I was paid 600amonth. The Mexican government paid 600,000 pesos to train me in basic training. And right now, how many millions and millions or billions of dollars are we spending? In fact, I read in law school the Affordable Care act by Obama and there was several, several thousands of shotguns and other things that were going to the irs. How many billions of dollars and trillions of dollars even the Department of Defense can't even account for in its own audits Every year they've failed like eight audits in a row. There's that amount of money going into Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and all these other big defense companies. You could legalize drugs right now. You could, yes. People are going to die. It's sad. And I am very sympathetic to the people that are dying from fentanyl. But if you legalize drugs and made it a legal product the same way they've done with alcohol, you would have to get rid of your addiction to the defense industry. All the millions that are going to the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, ice, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, all of this goes away. And if they directed that money and put it into the economy. I'm going to tell you something. One night we were at that Via De coast gunfight and I used to carry 10, 20 round magazines plus one of my weapons. So it's 220 rounds of 7.62 by 51 millimeter, 308ammo. And I thought, wow, that's a lot of power. And the next day I got back to base, and I felt like, this big because I thought, you're an idiot, because you could dispatch 220 of your enemies, but the very next day, there would be 300 people waiting to take their spot, which is the reality of the drug war in Mexico. And not even all of those people would be like some poor immigrant. They'd be people that go years looking for a job in Mexico. And I found that out when my general retired. I went everywhere looking for a job. Like, hey, how'd you wind up in law school in Mexico? It took forever to try to find a job. And I got a job working for a law office making $35 a week. And you have people that don't have the benefit of an education or had a government job that lost it because a new regime comes in, they lose their job. And where are they going to go? They don't have any other place to go but the illegal drug market. So if you took all the money that you guys are spending on paying for all these agents, paying for people to be killed, because in the end of the day, that's the product. The product that it produces is dead bodies, mass graves, drug addiction. And it's something that we're just stuffing the money into government agents and soldiers and all of this. And they're okay spending that, but they won't spend it to help better somebody's life through education or business opportunities. So if you wanted to legalize legalized drugs, you could end the drug war tomorrow, but they won't do it.

[Mark Gagnon]

And that would completely incapacitate the. The economy of the cartels.

[Dave Frank]

Yeah, well, I mean, they don't how much you have Big Tobacco, for example, in this country. Nicotine's a drug. Everybody consumes it. You have coffee. It wouldn't incapacitate the money of the cartel or the. The economy of the cartels, the bankroll. But it would force him to become something that is overt and in the open to where, at least at that point, at a societal level, it's something that they could begin to regulate with the input of the American public and even the Mexican public or Canadian public, they could come together and have a basic consensus on what they're okay with and what they're not.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, that's fascinating. Well, Dave, I have a couple other questions I want to talk about, like Santa Muerta like the occult nature of a lot of these cartels, but we're going to save that for another episode.

[Dave Frank]

Okay.

[Mark Gagnon]

Thank you so much for sharing your story on this and. And your expertise. You're the man. I really appreciate it.

[Dave Frank]

Thank you.

[Mark Gagnon]

Thank you. What's up, people? Quick announcement. If you are a fan of Camp Gagnon or Religion Camp, I have great news because we are dropping History Camp. That's right. This is the channel. We're going to be exploring the most interesting, fascinating, controversial topics from all time throughout all history. Right. You probably know about Benjamin Franklin. I don't know, Thomas Jefferson, Nikola Tesla. Interesting figures from history and you probably learned about in school. And they were pretty boring. But not here. No. As you know, I was raised by a conspiracy theorist. So I'm going to be diving deep into all of the interesting, strange, occult and secretive societal relationships that all of these famous, influential men from our shared past have. So if you're interested, please go ahead and subscribe to the YouTube channel. It will be pinned in the description as well as the comments. And if you're on Spotify, this doesn't really apply to you, but these episodes will be dropping as well. Just go ahead and give us a high rating because it really helps the show.