Episode 373 -Stefano Ritondale

Summary

Cleared Hot - Episode 373: Stefano Ritondale

Release Date: February 10, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 373 of Cleared Hot, host Andy Stumpf delves deep into the complex world of Mexican cartels, exploring their designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and the broader implications of this move. The episode features Stefano Ritondale, Chief Intelligence Officer at Artorias, a civilian intelligence firm specializing in cartel operations and open-source intelligence (OSINT).

Guest Background

Stefano Ritondale brings a wealth of experience to the conversation. A former Army Armor Officer and graduate of the Merchant Marine Academy, Stefano served six years on active duty, including deployments in Operation Inherent Resolve. His transition from active duty to intelligence work with Artorias positions him uniquely to discuss the intricacies of cartel operations and their evolution.

"You have to empower the Mexican government to have full territorial control of their country and maybe reform as best as possible their judiciary and their political process to really clamp down on corruption."
— Stefano Ritondale [05:13]

Military Experience and Transition to Intelligence

Stefano recounts his journey from the Merchant Marine Academy to active duty in the Army, where he served as an aide de camp during Operation Inherent Resolve. This role provided him with firsthand exposure to high-level strategic discussions and the complexities of military operations against non-state actors like cartels.

"I became an aide de camp, deployed as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. Did that for a year."
— Stefano Ritondale [08:39]

After his military service, Stefano joined the reserves and later transitioned to a civilian intelligence role, focusing on Mexican cartels. His hands-on experience in both combat and intelligence has shaped his comprehensive understanding of cartel dynamics.

Designation of Cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs)

The core of the discussion revolves around the recent designation of Mexican cartels as FTOs under the Trump administration. Stefano elucidates what this designation entails and its potential impact beyond the commonly discussed kinetic military responses.

"The only thing I can really pinpoint directly that an FTO designation would make a difference is the penalties to support a cartel."
— Stefano Ritondale [30:42]

Stefano explains that while the designation imposes stricter penalties for aiding and abetting these organizations, it also opens avenues for the Treasury Department to enforce sanctions more aggressively. However, he cautions that this move alone doesn't address the root causes of cartel power.

Cartel Operations and Territorial Control

A significant portion of the conversation explores how cartels operate, emphasizing their shift from purely transactional models to territorial control. Stefano highlights the brutal infighting within cartels, such as the civil war within the Sinaloa Cartel between the Chapitos and Mayito Flacos factions.

"They are now territorial-centric organizations and they fight each other. And the weaker, sometimes a cartel gets, you know, that's when the split happens and the violence increases, because that's the focus."
— Stefano Ritondale [34:39]

Additionally, Stefano discusses the diversified operations of cartels, including involvement in legitimate businesses like avocado farming and lime production in Michoacán, which has led to violent extortion tactics against local farmers.

"They try to smuggle oil, they'll try to, you know, sell them on their own. They'll try to tap into the oil pipelines or steal that."
— Stefano Ritondale [47:05]

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and Social Media Tactics

Stefano introduces Artorias' innovative approach to OSINT, leveraging AI and large language models (LLMs) to aggregate and analyze vast amounts of publicly available data. This enables individuals to access real-time intelligence on global conflicts and organizations directly through a user-friendly app.

"Imagine an OSINT platform that gathers information from left, right, brings in bias and declares bias, but allows an individual through an app to actually look at every piece of OSINT information available and make their own decisions from there."
— Andy Stumpf [04:30]

He further explains how cartels utilize social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram to communicate, intimidate rivals, and carry out terror campaigns. Stefano details the use of specific emojis and symbols as calling cards for different cartel factions, making it easier to track their activities online.

"They leave the cowboy hat, and that's how, you know, oh, okay. Or they'll leave a decapitated head inside of a pizza box."
— Stefano Ritondale [41:05]

US and Mexico Strategic Responses

The discussion shifts to the possible strategic responses the United States could undertake in collaboration with Mexico to combat cartel influence. Stefano emphasizes that merely militarizing the border isn't a sustainable solution and underscores the importance of addressing internal issues within the United States, such as demand for drugs.

"We have a national security interest, but that doesn't sometimes overlap with the Mexicans. The Mexican government's probably number one interest is security and stability for its citizens."
— Stefano Ritondale [75:22]

He argues for a balanced approach that empowers Mexican authorities while simultaneously addressing drug addiction and demand within the U.S., suggesting that a multifaceted strategy is essential for long-term stability.

Advancements in Warfare and AI Integration

Stefano touches upon the evolving nature of warfare, particularly with the integration of AI and drone technology. He speculates on the future of military tactics and the role of AI in intelligence gathering and decision-making processes.

"Our AI does. You would read it. It looks like an intelligence report because how we use the AI and the, and the assessment and all that. [We] provide intelligence in the open source."
— Stefano Ritondale [85:14]

He envisions AI as a force multiplier that can process and analyze information rapidly, providing actionable intelligence without the biases often present in traditional media sources.

Conclusion and Listener Advice

As the episode wraps up, Stefano offers advice to listeners grappling with the complexities of cartel violence and national security. He emphasizes education and awareness as critical tools in understanding and combating the multifaceted issue of cartel influence.

"Demand that we have a serious conversation and find ways that maybe you can help the consumption demand side in this country. That's what I would recommend."
— Stefano Ritondale [107:43]

He encourages citizens to educate themselves, advocate for policy changes that address both supply and demand of illicit drugs, and support initiatives that empower Mexican authorities to regain full territorial control.

Key Takeaways

• Complexity of Cartels: Mexican cartels are not monolithic; they consist of various factions with distinct operational focuses, primarily shifting towards territorial control.

• FTO Designation Impact: Designating cartels as FTOs enhances legal penalties and sanctions but is insufficient alone to dismantle cartel power structures.

• OSINT and Cartel Tracking: Advanced OSINT platforms like Artorias utilize AI to aggregate and analyze data, providing valuable intelligence to both professionals and the general public.

• Strategic Responses: Combating cartels requires a combination of empowering Mexican authorities, addressing drug demand in the U.S., and leveraging technological advancements in intelligence.

• Evolving Warfare: The integration of AI and drone technology is reshaping modern warfare, offering new tools for intelligence and tactical operations.

Notable Quotes

• "They have a heart and mind strategy and a terror campaign."
  — Stefano Ritondale [74:28]

• "The cartels already are militarizing. They don't really care what you think."
  — Stefano Ritondale [84:49]

• "We have a national security interest, but that doesn't sometimes overlap with the Mexicans."
  — Stefano Ritondale [75:22]

• "Knowledge is power, obviously."
  — Stefano Ritondale [107:31]

Final Thoughts

Episode 373 of Cleared Hot offers a comprehensive examination of the evolving landscape of Mexican cartels, their strategic operations, and the multifaceted approaches required to address their influence both in Mexico and the United States. Stefano Ritondale's insights underscore the necessity of a collaborative, informed, and technologically adept response to one of the most pressing security challenges of our time.

Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I hope you're ready for a deep dive. This Monday morning. We're going to talk about the cartels, which if you paid any attention to the 2024 election, it was a part of the discussion for sure. And for a couple of years people have asked the question, what happens if we designate the cartels as an FTO or foreign terrorist organization? Well, that recently happened under President Trump. But what does that actually mean? Most of the conversations are around kinetic options. Are we gonna send drones and reapers and preds to Mexican airspace? Are we gonna drop bombs on people? Are we gonna send our JSOC forces over there? It's a largely kinetic conversation. Well, my guest today is Stefano Rittendale and he specializes in cartels. He is the chief intelligence officer for a civilian company called Artorias. He does a good job of describing what they do. But imagine this. Imagine an OSINT or open source intelligence platform that gathers information from left, right, brings in bias and declares bias, but allows an individual through an app to actually look at every piece of OSINT information available and make their own decisions from there. That's what Artorias is working on from a commercial perspective, that an app that can be released. And again, Stefano does a really good job of describing that, but he specifically, he's got a Twitter account that focuses on the cartels. He's a former army armor officer with extensive military intelligence experience that has lateraled that in discussing, studying, observing the cartels. It's a fascinating conversation because even myself, I focused very deeply on the kinetic options that I thought it might put to the table. There is so much more and a lot of this has to do with things that we can do to clean up our own house north of the Mexican border with the United States due to the authorities and things that will change due to these organizations being declared as an fto. And it's more than just the cartels. It's trend, which we have 16 states in the United States to include Montana, the home state that I'm at right now. Fascinating conversation. He does a way better job. He actually specializes in this. So I'm going to shut up and let him Talk episode 373 with Stefano Rittendale. But before we get into that, give me 90 seconds, let me pay the bills. Let me keep bringing this podcast to everybody for free. So let's talk about today's sponsor. Today's episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. And today's ad read is all about what you're gonna be able to find on their website, the things that they offer, D to C, direct to consumer. Let's head over there right now. First thing you're gonna see, let's just go across the top Coffee, apparel, gear and energy. Now the energy is a new one. Let's look at what they have in coffee subscriptions. You can get all of the bags of coffee that they offer, from the darkest roast to the lightest roast. You can get them on a subscription interval that you want at a volume that you want delivered where you want. Then there's the premium coffee subscription, which is the ECS or the exclusive coffee subscription or what I say is Evans Coffee Club. Essentially that's a bag a month of a unique roast that changes every month. And man, they are very different in both appearance, flavor, smell, taste, all of that. It's pretty interesting apparel. I mean if you're a subscriber or you can subscribe to a shirt subscription. If you click on the apparel, you're gonna have shirts, women's hats, hoodies, Black Rifle Friday deals, all sorts of stuff, gear. This is everything that you could make coffee in, drink coffee out of and then energy. This is their new one. I'm going to click on this one. Black Rifle coffee energy drink. 200 milligrams of caffeine, 16 ounce can, pack of 12 is what you can get. Four flavors that I've seen. One of them is Frost. I've talked about this before. I don't know how they taste tested Frost, but it is what it is. Go to blackrifflecoffee.com they just updated their website. They have a ton of D2C offerings, subscriptions, gear, merch stickers, hats, stuff you can drink it out of if you like coffee. If you want to support a brand founded by veterans that continues to give back to veterans, head over to black riflecoffee.com let's get into the episode for today.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Okay, I got the red smoke sun runs north and south. West of the smoke. West of the smoke.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, copy.

[Stefano Rittendale]

West of the smoke.

[Podcast Host]

I'm looking at danger close now. Oh, wait a minute.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Give it to me. I did it.

[Podcast Host]

Before we talk about the cartels, of which I don't know if I have a SIM card large enough to cover the amount of questions that I have. Talk to me about your experience in the military and how you came to do what it is that you do now.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Keep that sucker close. Yeah, so I was a. So I did active duty six years.

[Podcast Host]

How'd you pick your path? Which path?

[Stefano Rittendale]

So I graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy, one of the surface academy is like the least known of them for sure. And so it's, it's based out of Kings Point, New York. We're there in Long Island. Merchant Marine Academy. There's a lot of the mariners, the guys who kind of sail. And it's a military academy, but you have like two choices when you, when you graduate. You can either sail as a merchant marine, you know, mariner, you know, third.

[Podcast Host]

You'Re talking shipping vessels.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, like containers, roro, whatever you want.

[Podcast Host]

Interesting.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So you, you do that. So I had to, like part of my college degree, I had to go like almost a year out at sea. So I went to, like, on civilian and MSC Military Sea Lift Command.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So I sailed, you know, in the fifth Fleet area, Europe, Asia, you name it. Did that for, you know, a year. And then obviously the actual degree is four years. So when you graduate, you graduate with your degree plus Coast Guard license. Okay. So you have a choice. You can either sail with the merchant marine, the US Flag vessels, and be kind of like in the Navy Reserve program, the most part, or you can go active duty. And so, you know, after sailing, I was like, this is not the life I want. Don't get me wrong. You know, And I said, you know what? I'm going to go Army. And I picked like the most land thing possible, Armor. Like I was.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, sometimes they got to transport those things. Sometimes though.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

How did you find the merchant Marines? Because I will agree with you, I think I had heard before that it was part of the military service academy. But I'll be honest, until you had mentioned it again, I probably would have bet against it actually being that.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So how I found out is because, you know, like, I think all the academies but the Coast Guard, if I'm not mistaken, you need a congressional or senator's, you know, recommendation. Right. So the merchant marine is one of them. So I did the Interview back then with my congressman, you know, did the whole thing. And then, you know, they recommended that I go to the Merchant Marine Academy. I didn't even know about it. No idea, no clue. When I looked into it, I was like, oh, my God. This is actually a really good deal because you can either sail or when you commission, pick any branch you want. You want to go. Air Force, Navy, Marine, Army, Coast Guard.

[Podcast Host]

What an interesting commissioning pathway.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Exactly. And so generally, I think on average, you have about a third of the graduating class commission active duty.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I picked Army. We were about. I think we were 13. Obviously, the number one is generally they're the Navy or the Coast Guard. The career path, a lot of people go flight. It's a. You know, you have a very good chance of picking flight and aviation from our academy. And, you know, I chose Army. Did that was an armor officer. And what does that even mean?

[Podcast Host]

Well, I imagine you with leather aviator helmet on, not a helmet like a hat, and a flowing scarf on top of a tank, pointing.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I would love that. But no, that was not, you know. You know, my first duty. I mean, my first duty station was El Paso CAV squadron. Did the platoon leader. And then I have spurs. No, I don't. Funny enough. Funny enough. The requirement to get a spur was there was a certain exercise I had to do. And so by the time I did it and I was eligible to do my spur ride, I got picked to be at an aide de camp.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And so I became an aide de camp, deployed as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. Did that for a year.

[Podcast Host]

Does that mean you have one of those weird things going underneath your arm and.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yep, yep, yep. Actually, my wedding photos, I have that because I got my. I said I had the. The little gold stripe. And then you have, like, a weird insignia because you don't wear your branch anymore. You wear the aide de camp kind of one that indicates, like, I think you think you wear it. And then it's like a. It's like an eagle, and it almost looks like the AG one, but it's a little bit different.

[Podcast Host]

And are you just at that point, literally an aide to a flag officer?

[Stefano Rittendale]

I did that for actually two generals. I did one general deployed. Then when we came back, I had a separate general that kind of like a little bit in the transition. And then I decided, just had my daughter kind of missed the whole of my deployment. I missed it. So I said, you know what? I can't do active duty long term. And joined the reserves and then a contract and did that.

[Podcast Host]

How Was that being on a fly on the wall in some of those meetings in the flag officer air, I've always been curious and I've said this many times because people will ask me my opinion on either strategic or operational planning and I'll raise my hand and be like, let me tell you who has never consulted on that. Me. Because I don't know shit about that stuff. I understand the bottom rung of the tactical ladder maybe, but I've always been fascinated about those rooms. I'm so curious about the questions. If there is dissenting opinion, if there's room for dissenting opinion. Is there back and forth. Because I bet they're used to just seeing a DE camp because they probably go, coffee, two creams.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So actually, the first time I ever served my general coffee, I did that. Yeah. Because I got. I'm going to be the a like, hey, sir, you know, made some coffee. If you. He grabbed it and he looked at me and he said, if you ever serve me coffee again, I'm firing you. Got it. I already like this guy very well. He was Ranger. Yeah, he did. His career path was, you know, active duty, infantry, and then he bounced infantry, you know, Ranger platoon leader, Ranger company commander, Ranger battalion commander. I think he was the BRIGADE Commander for 82nd, was wounded, you know, and so he was a very down to earth, very like. No, nothing difficult, straightforward, very easily approachable, which was great. And to your point. Yes. I mean, when we were deployed for Operation Inherent Resolve, it was. I was a fly in the wall. And there's moments when you kind of stop. You're like, I'm a lieutenant, but you're grasping and listening to all these conversations that kind of like open your mind a lot of things and then you're.

[Podcast Host]

Talking strategic level stuff. Whereas a lieutenant in the army, which you were. Yeah, but let's say a lieutenant out in the field, you are not involved in those conversations. You're getting guidance probably written and then disseminated through battlespace commander. But again, you got to tell me.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I mean, it's insane because you do bring up a point, you know, I've had, you know, where it's. And it's interesting when they're in a conference room when there's a bunch of general officers and they have like the four star, let's say, you know, the COCOM commander, the CENTCOM commander. Right. For Operation Ham Resolve. And then you have the OIR commander, the sojitif OIR commander, and then all the kind of the subordinate commanding general, and they're going Back and forth. I mean, I've seen times where, yeah, there's generally an agreement. And I've seen time where it's like, no, like they are going. And. And then the commander, like the overall general might get to a point like, all right, all right, let's continue playing. But there is a lot of back and forth. And to your point is.

[Podcast Host]

I like that. I like that there's room for dissenting opinion. I'm terrified of the opposite of that.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Correct, Correct. For my experience, it was a lot. I've even, you know, had to, you know, because, you know, general's call. They're calling another general about operations and they're screaming each other phones like, all right, let's close the door. You know, just, you know, but it was great. But to your point, it really provided me a perspective. And then also, you know, you have general officers, and then they're kind of the staff level, the staff principals, the OICs that are generally colonels or lieutenant colonels, you know, same. And it was a very. A lot of teaching and mentoring because they see a lieutenant and, you know, I'm lost. Let's be real. I mean, you know, you. You have no idea what's going on.

[Podcast Host]

Lieutenants are made to be lost.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Exactly. And. But they. They coach and mentor you. I mean, I was a lieutenant, and I was learning the difference between Title 10, Title 32, and Title 50.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

As a lieutenant. Because the general. Because they would say, oh, you know, that's Title 50. And I was like, I learned about.

[Podcast Host]

That after military service. When I researched it on my own.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And my general would pull me aside. He's like, you don't know. Here you go. This is title fit. I was like, oh, my God.

[Podcast Host]

All I would say was, I'm sorry, what are we doing? Where are we going? We have permission to do this. Let's go. Title. What?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, title.

[Podcast Host]

Let's go.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Another thing was like, going to embassies, right. We would have to go a lot to the embassies. And that was a. That's a whole different world. Like the state, but even like the military component within the embassies, within the state departments and how they operate and how they were. It was a breadth of knowledge that was. You know what I would recommend any lieutenant, right. They generally, the army has, like, a career path for you, you know, platoon leader, xo, staff captain, career course, and then you move on. I say, look, if you got an opportunity to do something different, like you're going to make captain, like, unless you're major Screw up you're gonna make. If an opportunity come. Even if you don't deploy, even if you're an aide de camp Garrison, which I did. It's great because you also learn a lot of the roles and responsibilities of how they deploy forces. But at the G staff level, at the division level, and things that you would think about as a platoon leader, when you would look up and you'd be like, oh, my God, battalion or brigade or division is screwing us over. When you serve at that, then you understand the nuances, kind of the approach and all that. And it was a fascinating experience, and I really loved it and enjoyed it.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. What. So you did six years active duty.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, so I did.

[Podcast Host]

So you almost put captain on. And for people. People listening. In the beauty of the military infrastructure, services are not allowed to use the same rank structure. Name. Same rank structure, not the same names.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

It's funny, you say lieutenant and the Navy, that's an 03. Captain in the Navy is an 06. Captain in the army is an 03.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

On a phone call, that can get confusing real fast when you're going interservice.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. When you're working in a joint command, I. What branch? Sorry, sir? What branch? Oh, Navy. Oh, oh, okay. That's definitely to the general. Oh, you're an O3. I can push you onto co ops. Like, okay, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Not a mistake you want to make. One that I have made. Learned my lesson on that one quickly. Always differentiated between services.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Absolutely and no. So how after my aid, kind of funny, weird career path, I ended up being an S2 in an MP battalion.

[Podcast Host]

So intel for people listening. In the Navy, that's N2. In the joint world, it's J2. But TAC, whatever, 2 is going to be your intel space.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So I did that for two years. I was a battalionist too, with an MP battalion.

[Podcast Host]

How did they switch you over from somebody who came from an armor background, aid to camp background? What kind of education, training, teaching is involved to go into the.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I had a. Before I was supposed to go to captain career course before I decided to leave active duty. Because after active duty, I went reserves. What happened was my plan was I wanted to do a functional area called strategic intelligence. Okay. And there's generally a rule of thumb that if you're an aide de camp, you kind of get to pick your. Your next position.

[Podcast Host]

I've heard this.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yes. And.

[Podcast Host]

And so because it's not the most glorious position. So there's Benny's.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Correct. And so I became kind of like they Put me under the G2, the 1ad G2 because I was in Fort Bliss, El Paso. I did, I was in the collection cell with the G2. And so I did, I believe it's been such a long time ago. I believe is one of the CPXs, the, you know, the, the command post exercises prior to a war fighter. And so they put me in, into the G2 because my long term objective was to do strategic intelligence. And since I was an A to camp a lot of the people that kind of decide the people are like, oh yeah, I know exactly where to put you. I know who you need to be under to get the best training and opportunity for your long term goal. So I did, I did that. And when I decided to get out because you know, I just like, I miss a year of my, my, my daughter's life who was just born. I was like, I can't, you know, I just started my military career. It was a lot. And, and I said, you know, I can't do this long term. They decided what happened was one AD deployed, but since I just came back from deployment, obviously I wasn't going to go. And they said, hey, There's a Battalion S2 positioning. Open up. Why don't you take it so that you're getting out. You've been in the G2, you kind of, it's crazy. And even sometimes to the previous point of aid to camp, especially in deployed environment, you, you SEAL because you're following the general everywhere you just by exposure. You learn a lot of staff processes. Oh, I bet you learn like a lot of how everything kind of works. And so they said, hey, why don't we just send you to the, to the MP Battalion, the 93rd MP Battalion there in Fort Bliss and you'll be the S2. And what was funny is I wasn't branch details. So branch details like you have an MOS when you're a lieutenant, but then when you're a captain, your captain career course is a separate interesting branch, right? It's like mi. And a lot of times because the MI world, how it works is you have a little lieutenants like that, not many lieutenants and then captain. Yeah, it grows. The amount of captains are in the mi. So a lot of them are branch details similar to signal, right. So they sent me to the MP battalion and I was talking to my exo there who was there and I was kind of like interviewing for him and I, you know, he said okay, so your branch detail, your armor branch detail is like, no sir, I'm not branch. I'm like, pure armor. I'm a 19 Alpha. And for him, he was like, I'm an MP. I want to incorporate myself in combat, like with the. With the combat arms. You're telling me that in my mto, in my list of people I'm going to have in my bill list, that I've never authorized a 19 Alpha. I'm like, so technically you would. And he's like, I'm keeping you. I want an armor officer in my staff. I think it's cool. It's great. And I did that for two years. And in the position, while I was doing that for two years, I did kind of a lot of overseas training missions. Like, you know, one month here, one month here. And so one of the ones, if you will. Yeah, yeah, we. And so what I did was went to Mexico under our North Army North. It was a training mission about. I think it was four weeks. One of the best army experience I've ever had. I mean, you want to talk about, you know, I think a lot of people went to the Middle East. One of the things you kind of hear is kind of the lack of professionalism in the military, and you're kind of like pulling your hair and you're like, they just don't get it.

[Podcast Host]

Talking about dealing with the local nationals.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Or the local forces. Yeah, correct. Not with the Mexicans. I mean, these guys were amazing. And even so, when I went, what we realized was, which was a brush of fresh air because I did other missions with other countries where you realize they send always their officers to train with the Americans in, like, a classroom environment, you know, because they want that certificate. US Military gives them kind of that prestige. The Mexicans, when we did it, they had one officer, and I think it was like 30 NCOs.

[Podcast Host]

They sent you the E5 mafia.

[Stefano Rittendale]

They E5 E6E was. And so we were two officers and two NCOs in this. For the army side, they had one captain, like 30 NCOs, and I think, like, four soldiers being ready to get promoted. We had to completely change everything because we're like, wow, these guys get it. They understand the importance of the nco. They still have a ways to go. There's some for it, but there's like, okay, wow, they understand the NCO's matter. And so we really wanted to push more to the NCOs to kind of give a lot of the classes to show, hey, we you're on the right path and training them. These guys were very professional. I Mean, they've been fighting the Mexican cartels for at that point, when I was there over 10 years. This was, you know, 2018, so 12 years since 2006. They understood, they kind of got it and they were, they were interested actually in a lot of the things that we learned from Iraq, Afghanistan specifically, like IEDs react to con, like to an ambush in an urban environment. Those were the things they were wanting and other, the things that we had originally planned to train them on, like riot control and all that. I mean, these guys were experts, like they could teach us. And we're like, all right, we're going to remove that from the curriculum. Let's focus on what you guys want. And so I had that. And then in 2018, when President Trump and during his first administration ordered the deployment to the border, I went to the border. So I was in San Diego under actually an SP magtaf. We fell under a Marine SP mactaf. We were like the. I think it's the ground component on the threat. I think there's like a ground logistics and engineers. I think that's. Or air component. I think that's kind of the basic constructs in SP magtaf. Sorry to my Marines, if I get it wrong, but we were kind of the ground, the MPs and we were there to provide protection to the Marines who were the engine years who are reinforcing the border.

[Podcast Host]

So you were right up against the Mexican border in San Diego.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Down by like the Brownfield Airport or farther east into like the.

[Stefano Rittendale]

No, literally like Imperial Beach.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Straight down. I mean, that, that was our area. So that those ports of entries in that area was our responsibility for. And this was during the first caravan. So we tracked them because, you know, they send the military kind of across the border because there was this one specific caravan that they were monitoring. And then the caravan took the western route and went to San Diego. So it was, you know, we were the ones that, that were there when that happened. So between my deployment to Mexico, my time at the border and having an understanding of like OSINT and open source intelligence and doing it, how the military leveraged it, how we did it, and kind of became a professional passion of mine. That's kind of how I ended up then doing what I do now, which is kind of the, the Mexican cartels. Because since then, you know, I've, you know, I did DoD contracting and now I'm part of a company called Artorias. I'm the chief intelligence officer. And we are, we are an intelligence company that Does AI and LLM analysis and like large data aggregation and we provide summaries and you know, about a month from now we're going to launch an app for the regular consumer, you know, $10 a month. And our plan is to give you all the open source intelligence on, you know, any country in the world, any conflict in the world, any data stream you want. It could be economic, it can be health, et cetera, will build all the streams and basically your ability through your phone, you know, you've probably seen it like the open source intelligence reporting when you're deployed and it's like, oh, this is everything that posted open source, we want to do the same. But now on an app and you control it, you can see it and you're able to see that. So that's something we're hoping to launch fairly soon for everybody. And that's kind of where I don't.

[Podcast Host]

Think traditional media sources are going to enjoy your app. Well, we are a little bit cutting out the middleman here on the delivery mechanism which is in turn stealing their opportunity to sell soap on their advertising breaks.

[Stefano Rittendale]

We want to make sure that people understand we provide intelligence in the open source. And honestly I think, I mean you've seen it. Let's look at Russia, Ukraine, right, as example, the moment the Russian tanks crossed the border, we all went to, to Twitter, to social media, right? We, because it's quicker than traditional. Even in the government, even the government does this, right. You have your, your, your capabilities to collect and to classify some. But the moment the tanks cross, everybody's looking. What's social media saying?

[Podcast Host]

Some dude with a cell phone is going to be your front leading edge reporter at that point? Yeah, at least a short period of time.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And then that's the goal is to now feed that to the user to give that open source intelligence information so that you're able to see it how you want to see it. You don't have to go through, wait on you know, X News organization or something. It's straight to you direct and that's something we want to do. And you know, it's a bunch of friends of mine, we created this company and we're all very in tune to the open source intelligence community on X formerly known as Twitter. And that's kind of, I got brought on board because of just my experience in doing a lot of the intel and then my, where I focus in Mexican cartels, that's kind of where I was brought in. And I even use our data stream for Mexico from our company that we have right now on our website because it's a lot for one person. It's, it's. Yeah, the, the complexity of the nature, the amount of events that happens. I need that type of information as well.

[Podcast Host]

So let me ask you this before we get into the cartels, okay. And there are some people who are, they're a little bit freaked out that the active duty military was mobilized. Again as you mentioned, it has happened before. It actually happened under Biden as well. There is pass Accommodatus which prevents military from acting in a law enforcement capacity. When you guys were down there though, there was one main difference. Under the previous Trump administration, there hadn't been a declaration of the Mexican cartels as a terrorist organization. And my question is around essentially how clear was your guys guidance around ROEs? Because something that has happened recently and I mean actually I'm going to ask you whether or not this reporting was true. I read an article that some cartel members in air quotes because who fucking knows, right. Took some potshots back across the border.

[Stefano Rittendale]

The border patrol.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Now here's interesting. If the US military was deployed there, I'm curious, let's say that you had been in San Diego and somebody had taken a potshot across the board. I'm curious what your guidance was in that situation and I'm curious what you think the change would be now that they're designated a terrorist organization and the US military is on the border.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So when I was in 2018, it was Crystal clear, no question about it. Posse Comitatis. Here's a funny story. We had a couple guys in the border. They were there providing protection. I think they were doing some engineering work. And so they were in one area and they noticed a couple migrants jumped the fence, the wall. And the migrants kind of stopped and they're like, oh God, they got us. The military got us. And then the military, because of positive commentators, we cannot touch migrants. Cannot even touch them. Can't title 10 if you're title 32. National Guard like Texas under Operation Losar. Different ball game.

[Podcast Host]

You have an active duty guy. You cannot act in that law enforcement capacity. Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And so the military guys just kind of stood there and they picked up the radio and they told border patrol, hey, we got, you know, two migrants just jumped the wall. And the migrants bolted and ran away. And they said, yep, they're going east, heading down this road.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Policy comitatus. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Limited.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So what I would say, you know, and, and, and one of my roles.

[Podcast Host]

What about if they were shot at during that Time period.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So one of the role had. Was the, the interesting aspect when we were doing kind of the threat briefs was there was never really a clear indication that there was necessarily a threat against us from the cartels. But like Amber Perez, I mean, you have the right to defend yourself. You know, service members, especially the. That's why the military police was there because their job was to guard the Marines. Hey, you have the right to defend yourself. So standard roe still standard roes. If you're getting shot at, standard right to self defense. You have an inherent right to self defense. You know, I would probably assume, you know, maybe that's a decision on the ground. Hey, do we shoot back? Do we take cover? Do we call for a backup portional response as well?

[Podcast Host]

You know, maybe don't send a tow missile at a guy with a six shooter.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, you know, but exactly.

[Podcast Host]

Or maybe do.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So this latest incident that happened, I mean it was a border patrol agent, I would say. I think border patrol, the. They do get probably shot at more than it's actually picked up in the press. I would not be surprised. Yeah. Talking to, you know, kind of my coverage and all that. And one of the areas where I focus focus on they do get shot at more regular. That specific incident, it was near Fronton, Texas. You know, I had conversations with kind of a lot of the cartel community that monitors them on. On Twitter. And one of the things that we were trying to debate was, okay, there was probably like, there's three possibilities of who did this and. And there's like one more likely who was responsible and two is less likely. The more likely one based on the location where it happened and across the border. It's a cartel called CDN Cartel del Noreste, the Northeast Cartel. The Northeast Cartel is a successor of the Zetas cartels, the very infamous and famous Zetas cartels, because they're based out of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Laredo, Texas, the border city. And they operate all the way up. Actually that's almost kind of the border of the areas that they control. If you kind of look at Texas, Tamaulipas and Texan, you kind of go southeast from Laredo, Texas, and you go down where that shooting occurred in that specific island. That's kind of like the front line, but that's generally considered CDN territory. The second group is their rivals. A rival cartel is called the Metros. The Metros, they're a faction of the Gulf Cartel. So the Gulf Cartel is in a civil war. There's two different. One, they're one of the main ones, they're based out of Reynosa DPAs, which borders Macallan. That's the second possibility, but more distinct. And then the third possibility is, you know, human smuggling networks that are just not affiliated with any cartels. Because a lot of times I think people think, you know, migrants crossing the border inherently cartels. That's not generally the case, actually. There's. There's dozens, if not hundreds of unaffiliated human smuggling networks that either pay a fee to operate in those plazas, but they run their own operations. Like the tunnel that was discovered in El Paso recently, that. That wasn't necessarily tied to a specific cartel that we know of, at least publicly. But more than likely it was also just human smuggling networks. And a lot of times those human smuggling networks fight each other kind of outside of the scope of the cartels. But in the specific example with border patrol, I'm leaning towards CDN because they, they're one of them that are more probably aggressive in how they operate. And I think that if there was going to be kind of that, that threat, you know, the US Military personnel are getting shot at by them. My. My understanding is like, well, at that point, standard always, you get shot at, you shoot back, you have the right to defend yourself. Border patrol responded, they shot back. They luckily, you know, no u. S. Border patrol agents had suffered any casualties. I'm not tracking any reporting that even the cartel members, if they were cartel members, suffered any casualties. But standard rules of engagements would definitely apply in those situations.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, what, in your opinion, and this is something that I had heard talked about for many years before Trump came into office and actually made this declaration. But people were talking about, hey, one of the keys to this fighting the cartels is we have to designate them as a terrorist organization. So that just happened. What does that change like, in reality? What does that. If there was something that was off the table, what is now on the table or different than before that designation?

[Stefano Rittendale]

You know, it's really hard to specifically say. The only thing I can really pinpoint directly that an FTO designation would make a difference is the penalties to support a cartel. Right. I think it would enable the Treasury Department specific. I mean, the Treasury Department, I mean, especially if you look at the previous administration, the Biden administration, I mean, they have been very aggressive, the Treasury Department of announcing sanctions against businesses involved in drug trafficking, specifically fentanyl, extremely aggressive at targeting these Mexican businesses. One of the interesting aspects though now is that let's say you're an American citizen And you're money. You're doing money laundering for an FTO designated cartel. Well, now you can get charged with not only a cartel, now there's a more hefty penalty for it. Prison time. Because now you're doing it for foreign terrorist organizations.

[Podcast Host]

You're aiding and abetting a terrorist organization. That's a little spicy.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Exactly. Weapon smuggling. Right. Around 70% of the guns that Mexican military personnel seize from cartels are traced back to the United States. You know, gun stores. Yeah, you know all that. Well, now you get caught. Now you're aiding in a, you know, arming not only financing, but now arming a foreign terrorist organization. Right. Besides that, I mean there's not an aumf. Right. I don't think anybody would make an.

[Podcast Host]

Argument that authorized used military force.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, sorry. Yes, thank you. I got to get there. But yeah.

[Podcast Host]

So what you hear online.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And again is online reflective of the real world. That is a multi day conversation in of itself. Delta Force is going in. We're going to get him. And we were chatting about this as we were walking over here. I'm not so sure that's what it looks like. I'm not even so sure that's necessarily a viable solution to the, the battlefield or battle space. However you'd want to describe it, I.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Will say, I mean I think ever since this FTO designation, you know, I've been flooded now with like flooded. There's probably people with a few questions, you know, myself. Yeah. So you know, here I had it, you know, with the Rolling Stones and I don't even think I'm so. I'm, I didn't even say this in the beginning. I'm all source news on Twitter. And so you know, I did an interview for the Rolling Stones to kind of help them kind of that and that was some of the specific areas we're talking about. What I would say is, I mean this is such a convoluted. I mean I can go on and on.

[Podcast Host]

Paint with a broom.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, I know.

[Podcast Host]

Canvas is yours. Paint the picture of what people. I mean I think most people in the US understand that there are cartels in Mexico. I think a lot of people would understand that there is cartel influence in Mexican politics. And an argument can be made at how closely tied in also in what area. And I think a lot of people may understand that they're also tied into very legitimate businesses as well. There's local government, state government, federal government involvement in all of those things. Break it down.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. So let me start big to then Small. And actually this is what I probably mentioned when we were walking in before we recorded was. So I think when most people talk about Mexican cartels, there's two specific ones that I think get the name recognition that probably most people know about. It's the Sinaloa Cartel and cjng, the Jalisco New Generation cartel. Right now, under the United States, there's two. The Treasury Department recognizes two specific Mexican cartels as transnational criminal organizations. That is the Sinaloa Cartel and cjng. Every other of the cartels are drug trafficking organizations. Right. So there's kind of, you know, anything can change, we'll have to wait. When the executive order was signed, the State Department now under, you know, Marco Rubio has, you know, 14 day from it was signing to list specifically which Mexican cartels would fall under the FTO designation. The other two were Trend, which is a Venezuelan prison gang who has been very aggressiveness, expansion. Specifically. I know we talk a lot about in the United States, but in South America, you know, of the 16 states.

[Podcast Host]

That I heard last reported, Montana is actually one of them with TDA influence.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, specifically so tda. You know, the first time I saw them was back in 2023. I actually sent a tweet because people were still talking about MS.13, which is the other group that's going to get the FTO designation, which is ironic because Ms. 13 has been severely weakened. And TDA, it was the one. I mean, this was the one that was like, you know, even for a country like Chile, let's say, to have an increased level in violence and for security for the people in Chile, the population of Chile, to say we are concerned about security, that that's a big deal because Chile is generally a very safe country. That was tda. And so, you know, those two were kind of getting it going back to the Mexican cartels because of that TCO designation, Transnational Criminal Organization, this being just the Sinaloa Cartel and cgng, My initial thought process, and this is kind of talking also to sources, is those two will probably get the FTO designation, the foreign terrorist organization, meaning not only the cartel, but there's their affiliates and subgroups, because cartels, how they operate, it's. It is a pyramid, but it's the leader and then more importantly, the factions underneath the cartels. Right. And so when you're looking, let's look at Sinaloa. The problem right now for the Sinaloa cartels are an active civil war. There's an active civil war within the Sinaloa Cartel between the two main factions, it's Los Chapitos who are the Sons of El Chapo, who was, you know, is in US prison. The Sons of El Chapo. And then it used to be called the Mayo Zambada faction. Now they're called the Mayito Flacos, which is the son of Mayo Zambada. Why Mayo Zambada last year was detained, was captured and extradited to the United States. For those who don't know, I mean, this is like literally a Hollywood movie scene, right? I mean, this is the picture we're.

[Podcast Host]

Talking like gunfights in the streets.

[Stefano Rittendale]

No, even, no, no, no, even, even crazier. Not even gunfight. Just the idea of how they did it. So just to paint the picture, Miles Ambada has been doing drug trafficking for 40 years. He's been El Chapo's right hand man. And you can even talk to cartel observers and experts. A lot of them would say Miles Ambada was, was more powerful than El Chapo. Mayo Zambada was never even close to getting captured. Never, never had there been any report that he was disclosed that the Mexican military was after him. All that like this guy was the most powerful drug lord. I would argue probably in many ways, if equally, if not more powerful than El Chapo. Definitely. After all Chapo's captured, he was the most influential one and the more powerful one. And he was untouchable. I mean, he was basically untouchable. What happened was the FBI, from what I'm told, and for my sources, but specifically, I mean, the operations doing. But I'm being told that this was led by the FBI, managed to churn one of El Chapo's son. Solos Chapitos is kind of their, their, their. The brothers are Ivan Archivaldo, he's probably the main one. Ovidio Guzman, who was captured in 2024, the beginning of 2024, 2023, Ovidio Guzman was captured. Jesus Alfredo and then Joaquin Guzman. Right, Those are the Chapitoza brothers. Joaquin Guzman is probably, was probably like the less influential, but he was still part of the leadership of Los Chapitos. Apparently what happened, and this is they managed to turn Joaquin Guzman into an informant to the FBI or to the dea. Right.

[Podcast Host]

That sounds like a very complicated and long process. Impressive. They were able to do that actually.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And so what they did was they managed to convince because Ovidio Guzman, the one that was captured, he's in the U.S. he's in prison in the United States. Joaquin Guzman convinced Mayo Zambada to board a Private jet with him because he said, he said, I'm going to fly you to see a property somewhere, you know, somewhere in Mexico, close, you know, somewhat close. I think it was in Chihuahua. They were going to try to send him or somewhere around there, somewhere close to the border so he can show some property or an airship or something along those lines to show him that. But the plane, instead of going to Mexico flew into basically right outside of El Paso where when the ramps lowered, there was. U. S. Federal law enforcement captured Myers and about that and took him.

[Podcast Host]

No way.

[Stefano Rittendale]

That's how they did not a shot was fired. It. When I saw.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, there's gonna be repercussions for that.

[Stefano Rittendale]

When I saw, I remember when the news broke, somebody sent me a tip and said, hey, they got it. Miles on both. I was like, there's no way. How. And they said, no, he's in an airport in El Paso. Nah, get out of here. There's no way. And then like, oh my God. They, they how and, and somehow, you know, I gotta give kudos to Merrick Garland. I mean that's the, you know, the Department of Justice under him, under, you know, they got him that way. This guy who was the most powerful drug lurk, untouchable for 40 years, put him on a plane, flew him, not a shot fired.

[Podcast Host]

Ramp comes down. Oh, we have some questions on your customs immigration form.

[Stefano Rittendale]

You know, there was probably, you know, I know during like some areas, like there was some, you know, I think there was some. An agent was killed at like the Chapo back then a little bit. There were some shots. And it's all very convoluted, but for the most part it wasn't like this. Ovidio Guzman, the other son who was captured in Culiacan, in Sinaloa, the capital of Silo. I mean, that's like the famous. When the city just went terrible violence, smokes the Mexican military, cartels, remember battling out. That didn't happen with Miles about. Yeah, they just captured him, flew him in a plane and now he's in the United States. The last reporting we got, he's in negotiations with the US to you know, to get into a plea deal. And the US Is going to want to your point earlier. Hey, what do you know about corruption in Mexico and how it's tied in? So.

[Podcast Host]

So is that the origin of the civil war in this. Okay, I was gonna say there's probably gonna be a few repercussions to said activities.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Okay, so what happened was after my Zambada was captured, you had My eato flaco the son took over and quickly, because I track a lot of the cartel social media and they're in their messaging groups and all that. And that's how I got.

[Podcast Host]

Do they use social media?

[Stefano Rittendale]

They love it.

[Podcast Host]

Cartel using social media.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I think people misunderstand cartels. They think there's a secret. They're not. They go on. If you know where to look, you can find them, actually.

[Podcast Host]

Really? Michael, prepare yourself. Shall we fire up Twitter or X?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Well, you can maybe do Instagram.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, yes.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I mean, I can try to see because I have a burner one I can see. So one of the ways you can identify them.

[Podcast Host]

Michael, please log into your account and not mine. NSA and anybody listening. This is Michael Shelton's search history, not my own.

[Stefano Rittendale]

There is an actual. One of the ways you can track them, I'm not kidding. Is emojis.

[Podcast Host]

Are you serious?

[Stefano Rittendale]

That's how. So there's this account on Twitter who did a great thread with two other accounts. I was actually. I did a short interview. I was interviewed for a major Mexican radio show about it because they. I did a. I did a post about it, like, I think all the way back in 2022. They did an upward event. And one of the ways you can track them and see who's posting when and who they're affiliate to is emojis. So Mayo zambada. Mayo zambada is very famous because of the cowboy hat. If you see a cowboy hat, that's how you know he's the Mayo Zambada. Los chapitos. They go also by Chapiza pizza. So the pizza emoji.

[Podcast Host]

Come on.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Swear to God. Actually, that's their calling cards. So what they'll do is when they do an execution and they leave the bodies, they'll like. They'll leave the cowboy hat, and that's how, you know, oh, okay. Or they'll leave a decapitated head inside of a pizza box.

[Podcast Host]

Is it like a deep dish pizza box? Because it'd be tough to close the lid on.

[Stefano Rittendale]

No, they can't close it.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, I'm just leaving open.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And then they put it there with. And then with the sliced pizza.

[Podcast Host]

I was going to say. Hold on. I'm running through the mechanics of that. That's a tough fit. All right.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Another one is like one of the flower emojis. That, for example, is. The guy's name is Hardino. He's one of the lieutenants of El Mencho, One of the key leaders of el Mencho, of CG&G. So El Mencho is the overall leader. His nickname is Gardinero. In English, that's the gardener. So he has a very specific type of flower emoji that they use to identify themselves with.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, this is almost a, it's almost a soft form of intimidation as well, right? You're putting it out there on a consumer facing app. People can see that you're out there, they can see that you're active and you just leave this little calling card that if you know what it is, you know what it is. If you're a pizza fan, you're like, where do I get this deep dish? But it's just, it reminds people in a very passive way that you're kind of out there and that you're active and interesting.

[Stefano Rittendale]

But.

[Podcast Host]

And obviously the other side of that coin is people you may not want watching. You can definitely watch what the hell you're up to.

[Stefano Rittendale]

They don't care. I think that, and that's the point. The cartels don't care. These guys are in Mexico. I mean, I've tracked American cartel members, like easily geolocated. Like, dude, that's like, I think one of them was in Columbus, Ohio. Like I can clearly see that's Columbus, Ohio. Openly post that. He's there in Phoenix, Arizona. I've seen some of these guys now, again, there's not many and I think I don't want people to freak out, but they don't care. It's just this idea of almost like this, this bravado, like what are you going to do about it?

[Podcast Host]

Well, if you're in Mexico, probably nothing. I mean, if you're in Columbus, Ohio, I would like to think we got somebody who's, there's like a red bat phone somewhere that somebody could call.

[Stefano Rittendale]

You would hope so to, so to that earlier conversation, you know, what about the Sinalo cartel Civil war? The capture of the father hit the son was like, you're one of your brothers. You know, Los Chapitos betrayed us. This is war. It took a little bit. It didn't happen immediately, but there was build up and build up and build up. And then one day, boom. And so now most of the violence in the Sinaloa cartel, within the Sinaloa Cartel Savor is in Sinaloa in the western part. It's not a border state. Southwest Sonora, Durango. That's most of the areas kind of in the western part where the heartland of the Sinaloa cartel. And so that's kind of how the civil war happened. And even though, you know, the Justice Department. Right. And the Treasury Department, they still. They. They say Sinaloa Cartel, but they're. They know how to differentiate between those Chapitos and, like, the Maito Flaco and Mayo Zambada. Right. That faction they differentiated, but they still kind of put that banner. And those are probably going to be the two that have that FTO designation because of the reach they have now. The Sono Cartel, the civil war has been very. Has weakened them a lot. And so clearly, I think right now, because of that situation, you can maybe make the argument that now CJNG is kind of gaining strength. But what I would say, myo Flaco, the son of Mayo Zambada, who's really pushing a lot. I mean, he's very. He's been very aggressive inside Mexico. Like, he's. He has gone on the war path not only against Los Chapitos, he's gone on the warpath against CG&G and Zacatecas and Chiapas, all these other states. I mean, he. Nayarit, which is also like a very, you know, cardinero. He's based at an. I start fighting everybody and. But they all fight each other. There's. So there's rumors, probably more than rumors. There's some alliances that happen at a convenience. So there's rumors that Chapitos have allied themselves with CGNG because now they're fighting a Cardamom enemy, which is my flaco.

[Podcast Host]

Friend of my enemy. How does that work? Enemy is my friend.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. So my eato Flaco, for example, his call sign emoji is the horse, like the horse head. That's what he used. He uses the horse head. So that's how you can kind of. That. And it's kind of like a magician hat as well. Those are the two that we see him. I have no idea. The magician. I am not gonna lie.

[Podcast Host]

I'll be honest with you. I feel like I've missed the boat by not having an emoji. Do you have an emoji, Michael, that I don't know about?

[Stefano Rittendale]

I mean, you have. The mountain.

[Podcast Host]

Is yours. An eggplant. Like, what do we.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I would use the mountain right there.

[T Mobile Representative]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

But I don't use it for anything. I'm behind the curve. I need to leave my mark. My nom de plume or whatever it is. Whatever it is that I touch.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's literally how you track them. It's just. And they'll put it out there. That's how they know.

[Podcast Host]

That's like how brash and brazen and one of the.

[Stefano Rittendale]

What my suspicion is, the reason why they do that is because they understand that if you put like Sinaloa cartel, the algorithm will take it down. But if you put an emoji, people.

[Podcast Host]

Get around all the spelling of words and stuff like that as well, too.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Unpack for me, in your best estimation, the cartel situation with involvement in legitimate business in Mexico and government.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. So I think a lot of people, and I think that's an excellent point, misunderstand that cartels are involved just with drug trafficking, which of course they are. They are, yeah, absolutely.

[Podcast Host]

It's not their whole business model. And from what I can tell, they are evolving like any other businesses. Like, you know, maybe, you know, clean money, to use air quotes, is better than muling fentanyl across the border.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So one of the things that we know they traffic is lime and avocados. So Michoacan specifically. Excuse me, Michoacan specifically. They will. There's a huge fighting going on between two cartels, but mainly two cartels. There's more, but I'm just going to focus on here. There's one group called Cartels Unidos, the United Cartels, and then cjng. And historically, a lot of the fighting that occurs is actually in very remote areas of Michoacan. And the New York Times did a very great reporting on this years ago that highlighted that one of the reasons why they're fighting is because of the avocado farmers in that region, the lime farmers and all that. Right. In that specific region to the point where it got so bad that the US had to temporarily suspend all avocado shipments to the United States because USDA inspectors were getting threatened, and so they halted that. So because they fight for that, because they want that oil. Absolutely. They try to smuggle oil, they'll try to, you know, sell them on their own. They'll try to tap into the. To the oil pipelines or steal that. Etc. That was actually a huge program of the previous Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Amlo. He was very much. He, and I would say probably more effectively, he did manage to try to at least clamp down a lot harder on kind of people stealing Mexican oil, the pipelines, even if they're not stealing.

[Podcast Host]

It, are they also taxing, for lack of a better term, to allow people. Right. So they're taking a scrape in every place that the.

[Stefano Rittendale]

The vehicle specifically going to the border, crossing the border. They'll, They'll. They're equivalent of a tax. The cartels, you're call whatever you want to.

[Podcast Host]

It's a payment so you don't get your head lopped off.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, absolutely. It's an extortion.

[Podcast Host]

I would pay that tax.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. And everybody does. And that kind of, that's, that's how they do it. But they do that used cars. That's another example. Yeah. So there. And I tell that to people who would argue like, oh well, if we legalize drugs, that would weaken the cartels and, or that would mean, you know, cartels would go away because now you've legalized drugs. And my kind of, my counter to that would be one. Well, they're, they're in much more businesses that are legal. They just find a way to get in there. But the second piece would be also, I mean they'll find a way, even if it's legalized, to still try to make a profit. Right.

[Podcast Host]

If you look at marijuana is a.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Good example actually with the California marijuana farms and even in Oklahoma, et cetera, there's a lot of, of organized crime groups that tap into the marijuana business that is legal in many states in the United States to make a profit. They just, it, it almost as if the marijuana, what the legalization did is the illegal marijuana instead of coming from Mexico to the United States, shipped north and now it's all done in the United States. Yeah, that's what happened. And so, you know, I'm not trying to make an argument one way or another, you know, you know, drugs should be treated more as mental health or harsh crime. Like that is not my argument. I don't want people to misconstrue it. But you know, I think that's a, I think we have a tendency in the United States to analyze the Mexican cartels from a US Domestic politics point of view. And I think that's the wrong way of doing it.

[Podcast Host]

People want a binary light switch solution.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Correct.

[Podcast Host]

If we just legalize, click, all problems gone. I don't know of anything in the world that works in that binary, you know, and going to talk about the diversification of the cartels. I host a podcast called Change Agents with Ironclad and I've talked with quite a few people about cartel involvement. And they're bringing up stuff like call centers where they're scamming people out of, you know, timeshares or retirement. And it's, I mean we're talking relatively sophisticated operations that not necessarily, that are not legal, but you may not necessarily associate them with what you think of a cartel with most people are thinking people hanging headless From a bridge or something like that. And same organization, different, different outreach arm if you will.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So the Treasury Department actually I think sanctioned specifically one of the Mexican call centers because of that. Because they were tied to CG and G. They sanctioned them specifically for that.

[Podcast Host]

And if you look at that like, okay, this is not a binary solution. These people are trying to figure out ways not only to have illegitimate revenue sources in which the numbers I was seeing was hundreds of millions of dollars. My first question to that is why would anybody. Because they broke down a little bit. Someone had the scheme the way it would work and there's a particular tax that we need you to pay on this. So you're going to have to pay via check. My like there was no. You didn't notice the ticker tape parade of red flags that were going on here for you? Like what's going on? Stop sending money to people you don't know.

[Stefano Rittendale]

But that Americans have been scammed in a lot of these, a lot of.

[Podcast Host]

It is an elderly population.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Exactly. Timeshares is another perfect as you said that that has been also I believe even the Treasury Department sanctioned the time scares. But one of the, one of the cartels I'd mention is called the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel. They're based out of Guanajuato, which is kind of like in central Mexico. I would say, you know, if you're looking at drug trafficking organization, obviously they're one, but they're not one of the largest one. They're not one of the biggest one. But I will tell you this, those guys are very extremely violent. So when you see for example in the news, you know there's a mass shooting in a bar in Mexico which unfortunately doesn't make international news like it would in the United States. Your safest bet if, especially if it happens in Guanajuato, nine times out of 10 that was the Santa Rosa de Lima Cardo. Like I've seen the videos where they'll burst in a bar open and they record the whole thing and they'll just spray.

[Podcast Host]

So they're actually targeting indiscriminately.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Well, they target special like nightclubs, bars, businesses that either don't pay them the extortion fee or are serving as either paying the extortion for either rivals or serving as a front for money laundering to the rival. Because the Santa Rosa Lima cartel is a very territorial centric organization that leverages specifically extortion for money laundering. And their symbol, here's their emoji, it's the hammer. Like the two hammers that are kind of crossed and then a red triangle, because that's their symbol. So it was a triangle with two hammers in the back. So their emoji is that like the hammer and the, the red triangle. That's what they use. Very territorial. I mean, and these guys are another one that are very violent. Last year there was a couple of car bombings in Guanajuato that more than likely it was them. They have no problem actively targeting Mexican police. Like Guanajuato is one of the most violent states. I think it's the most violent state right now in Mexico. And where the highest number of Mexican police officers are assassinated. The vast majority of that can be directly tied to this cartel that almost became defunct a while ago. A couple when I, you know, in 2021, 2020, they almost became defunct and they revert backed. And they're very, very aggressive, but to the point of legitimate businesses. I mean, yeah, of course they probably do drug trafficking, but they are very territorial. And I want to leverage this to make a point about Mexican cartels. There's a famous, the great author. I've talked to him a lot. His name is Nathan Jones. He's on Twitter. I think it's Nathan P. Jones. And he wrote a book. This was, I think in 2016. He wrote it. And it kind of really helped me frame my understanding of Mexican cartels. And so even it's like almost 10 years old, I highly recommend people to buy it and read it. Because what he realized during his studies of the Mexican cartels is that there was basically two types of cartels. There was a territorial cartels and the transactional cartels. Right. So territorial focused on territorial control. Transactional. Let's just ship product. Historically, in Mexico, all the cartels were basically transactional. There was some territorial. And what he realized in the study is that the territorial cartels were a lot more violent because they needed to hold the territory either against their rivals or against the Mexican government. If they couldn't achieve territorial control through corruption, they're going to do it through violence. The Zetas cartels is a perfect example of a very territorial cartel. What I've noticed, and I've had conversations with a lot of people and specifically with him, is that basically all the cartels are now territorial. They've all transitioned. Yes, they send products, but they require the territorial control first and foremost over everything else. And that's the problem that we're running into, that they become a territorial centric organization and they fight each other. And the weaker. Sometimes a cartel gets you know, that's when the split happens and the violence increases, because that's the focus. So like the Sinaloa cartel, I spoke of one split, which was the Chapitos and the Myito Flaco, right, the Mayo Zambada. Well, before that, there was another split within Los Chapitos. There was a split that affected Sonora, which, as I mentioned in the beginning of the podcast, kind of you have the cartels and then their factions. There was a couple of factions that were used to be very close to the Chapitos. And they were. I'm going to name two, just for argument's sakes, those fantasmas, kind of like the Ghost and Los Salazars, those were kind of two main ones. And there's more. They were very active in Sonora. And this is one of the few areas that you can directly point into Mexico where the violence happened. It probably was triggered because of the human smuggling routes. And they wanted to control that. In 2023, 2024, no, 2023, the. The Salazars and Los Cazadores. Well, fantasma, they're called Phantasma Casadores. They broke off from Los Chapitos and form their own thing. They're kind of lumped under this umbrella term called the independent cartel of Sonora. And they've been battling it out in Sonora, right, Which is borders Arizona. And the reason why is they want that territorial control because of the human smuggling. That's what they. That's one of the main reasons they really want that control. And this has been been a. Prior to this other civil war, this has been a civil war within Osapitos that has been extremely violent in Sonora. And you can directly tie that to not only, you know, the drugs and all other, but also to the human smuggling because they want that control and the areas of violence, you can kind of tie it to the human smuggling networks and the routes, not leverage it. And that's why they're fighting, because they're all going to territorial. And that's something that when we look at, let's say, narcos Mexico, we see the businessman and that still exists. But they're like, oh, well, you pay me this and we'll do money. And maybe we don't get an agreement, I'll kill you. But you know, hey, oh no, let's just move product and make money. That's changed. It's territory, territory, territory, territory. That's what they care about.

[Podcast Host]

Today's episode is brought to you by Fabric by Gerber Life. We're going to be talking about term life insurance. Before I get even get into that, let's have a serious talk here for a second. Please have difficult conversations with your loved ones before something catastrophic happens. I understand that those conversations can kind of throw your mortality in your face. They can be difficult and you may not want to talk through the what ifs when it comes to catastrophe or the end of life. But I have been around enough these situations and I've seen two versions. One where people involved had these difficult conversations up front and they knew exactly the wishes and the desires and they had an infrastructure in place from when something happened. And another one where none of these things were discussed. And what ended up happening is people in a super emotionally compromised position are making really difficult decisions in an environment that they haven't been exposed to about things that they haven't really thought through. They're very different. It doesn't make it any easier, but one is, I would say, far more emotionally burdensome from a decision making perspective and a logistical perspective than the other one. Have the conversations early, please. How does that tie into today's sponsor, Fabric by Gerber Life Term life insurance. The older you get, you're going to have things that you care about, specifically family. I have three kids. I have a wife. I suffer from age, which is known as age. And at some point in time, my lap around the track is going to come to an end. And I can't think of anything that puts me more at ease than knowing that there is an infrastructure in place to take care of my wife and my kids. Now, I want to make this lap of mine as long as humanly possible. But I only have control over so much. But I can control everything that I put in place to protect them. And that to me is the value of life insurance. I have some bullet points in front of me that makes Fabric by Gerber Life a little bit unique. So I'm going to hit these just to make sure that the listener understands exactly what I'm talking about. All right, this is term life insurance. You can get done right from your couch. You can do it all online and on your schedule. You could be covered in under 10 minutes with no health exam required. Fabric has flexible, high quality policies that fit your family and your budget. As an example, a million dollars in coverage for less than a dollar a day. There's no risk. There's a 30 day money back guarantee and you can cancel at any time. And they have over 19005 star reviews on Trustpilot with a rating of excellent. If this sounds like something that could be important to you and your life. You can join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family and apply today in just [e-mail] ClearedHot that's meatfabric.com Cleared Hot M E E T mike echo echo tango fabric.com ClearedHot or you could just go down to the link in the show notes. Policies are gonna be issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company, not available in certain states. Prices are subject to underwriting and health questions. Let's get back to the show. How before we get into what the US could potentially do realistically, what do you think that Mexico could do? Say that they wanted to, and I'm not saying that they don't, but what are their actual viable options?

[Stefano Rittendale]

So I think people think, I have an issue with this. When people say, oh, the cartels are like, there's this Cato study that argued that somehow the cartels are like, have very similar capabilities to us sof I'm like, all right, no, I haven't seen.

[Podcast Host]

Any indication of that. And I'm going to follow that up by saying I don't look at this stuff very deeply. No, I mean, well, here's the thing. Like, US Special Operations, and I'll speak largely generally, is going to have a pretty robust selection program, a training pipeline in a very specific orientation towards a mission set that they spend years of their life training towards. I've seen no indications of that from the cartel south of the border.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So very select units within the cartels. Very few have that.

[Podcast Host]

And which doesn't surprise me because on a small scale you could do that.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Right. So for example, the, the one of the, before he was captured under Los Chapitos, the head of security, he was called El Nini, he had a very select group of people specifically that were, okay, these guys are very well trained, very well armed, and one specific they can cause pain. And don't get me wrong, the Mexican government, there are instances where they suffer casualties. Obviously even their tier one, the Mexican special Forces, Tier one, have been in battles where they suffer high levels of casualties. And you might get some reports here and there of Mexican police and getting ambushed and suffering high levels of casualties. But overall as a whole, when you're analyzing this, the Mexican government and the Mexican military is a superior fighting organization than the cartels. The cartels might outgun the Mexican military. That I think is undisputable from like a volume perspective. You mean from an armament perspective.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, they have them outmatched, perhaps.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Correct. Okay, so they Might outgun them. But the Mexican military makes up that with that from training. Yeah. And generally when you. Most of the times when the Mexican military and police are engaged in combat or clashes with Mexican cartels, regardless of who they are, generally the Mexican government and military come out on top. And the police, they're just better trained.

[Podcast Host]

It didn't surprise me. An organized, trained and well equipped force should be able to maneuver and overwhelm. And even. Even if there was an overmatch in armament, if you have tactical knowledge and prowess, you should be able to do your job. That makes sense.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. And what I would say is there's also kind of a deliberate position within the Mexican government of not utilizing the tools they have to protect the soldier. And here's why. And so the Mexican government has APCs, obviously.

[Podcast Host]

Armor personnel.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Armor personnel carriers. I gotta get.

[Podcast Host]

I'll hop in when needed. I got you.

[Stefano Rittendale]

But the, the problem that they. But it's an image perspective from the Mexican government. Like do they want their citizens to see Mexican tanks and armor personnel carriers in the cities that are high levels of violence so they generally will travel in pickup trucks. You know the famous scene of Sicario, like the bridge scene where you've seen the federales and. Yes, that's what. That's. That's their number one. 99.9% of the times when you see the Mexican military, police, national guard on patrol, that's what they have. They don't use their armored personnel carries.

[Podcast Host]

On a side note, I love the movie Sicario. That scene that you're talking about, I've watched it enough times now that I'll start watching other people than the main actors. Somebody people listening. Go back and watch Sicario. Whatever stuntmen that they had dressed up, they were hitting speed bumps at a high rate of speed. And those stuntmen were getting their asses absolutely handed to them in the back of those trucks. Those poor bastards, they're just bouncing around inside of those cages.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I mean, you got to give it. It's a phenomenal movie. Movie. I loved it.

[Podcast Host]

One huge tactical issue though. And God, this one drives me nuts. In that same border scene, you can pull this up. Michael Sakario, border scene, do Sario. Border scene, bolt lock to the rear.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Okay, I know exactly what you're talking about.

[Podcast Host]

Glasses. He's up on his M4 and you're looking at it. You need to see the other side of the rifle.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I love though. What was that? Who are they honoring in this?

[Podcast Host]

Oh, I don't know.

[Stefano Rittendale]

It was the Delta oh, my God. What's that guy's name? The guy with the glasses? The Delta Force operator.

[Podcast Host]

I don't know who they were necessarily.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yes, it was. It was. Oh, my God. I can't remember. The comments are gonna kill me.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, you already missed it, Michael. Go backwards. Classic tactical move. And this could have been caught in post and they could easily CGI'd it. Go. It's the guy in front who we're going to be looking for.

[T Mobile Representative]

With the glasses.

[Podcast Host]

Yes.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Is this right before he kills them?

[Podcast Host]

No, it's. He. So his M4. There's a picture of it. Go to images, if you will, Michael. Yeah, that same guy, he's up on his gun, but his bolt is locked to the rear. It is. God, it drives me nuts. The movie is so good. And all they needed was one person to get. And I know how the editing goes. Like somebody looking at. They don't know. They could easily CGI that bolt. It's gonna be in. Yep. The top right. Top right.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Oh, there it is.

[Podcast Host]

Yep. Enhance. Oh, yeah. Visit.

[Stefano Rittendale]

That isn't. That's a guy. Yeah. Is it? Is it. Is it. I think that's the guy.

[Podcast Host]

We were back on Twitter. You can barely see it. Yes. Bolt lock to the rear. Damn it. It's not how you party, Michael. You see what I'm talking about? Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So to that point, though, about the kind of. The tactics.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

If you. If. If you make. Can. I mean, go. I mean, if you want to go to mime. Because I have a video. I want to show this to. To point to your issues about doctrine and tactics and what the problem is. So if you want to go, you know, all source news.

[Podcast Host]

Unless I'm all source news.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. There it is. The guy with the tape, the tank. Okay. If you scroll down. Scroll down. Scroll down a little bit more. A little bit more. Okay. Okay, click on the. That top one. The 52nd. That video. I don't know if I can stand up.

[Podcast Host]

You can walk up there. Because Michael. What Michael can do is show the viewer what you're seeing on the tv. So is that a tracer that just went out?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

This is an UP armored vehicle.

[Podcast Host]

Yep.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And you've seen that the tracers flying through. You see that?

[Podcast Host]

Yep.

[Stefano Rittendale]

What they're doing. Because those up armor vehicles are just civilian vehicles that they put metal.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

The tracers is basically an M82 that they put on top. And it's a 50 cal. And they fire it and they use that instead of like, let's say, you know, they do have machine guns like your M19 19s or something like that. But for the most part, that's all they do. So they use these. These M82s or anti material rifles. They put them on top of the vehicle and they use it almost as a direct action weapon to fire directly at close ra range to defeat enemy vehicles. If you. I mean, I don't know if you can scroll up. There's a. This is night.

[Podcast Host]

If you scroll up, Michael can scroll.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Up and you go and you search on my tweets. I don't know if maybe. Is that if you. Is that if you scroll all the way up?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, go.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, yeah, right there. The. The hourglass. And you put. Try to put drone. Just do drone and go to latest. Let me see. Scroll down, scroll down, scroll down, scroll down. Let me see if I have it. I don't remember when I posted it. Wait. Grow up a little bit. I'm sorry. A little bit. Nope. Keep on going. I don't know. I have.

[Podcast Host]

That was a DJI drone.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Oh yeah, they have that all the time. Keep on going. No, that's. Nah, man. Where is it? So what you'll see is.

[Podcast Host]

That's a crazy video right there.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, that's. That's the cdn. So those. That's a cartel de Nor Esteban drone footage. Maybe instead of drone, put up armor.

[Podcast Host]

Look at that. What? They have it in standard mode. They need to put that in the manual mode so they can get more speed. I mean, come on, guys.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Up armor armored. Sorry, Ed. Yeah, and just search. I'm trying to see if I can find. Scroll down, please.

[Podcast Host]

Please tell me they don't have a Blackhawk.

[Stefano Rittendale]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[Podcast Host]

God.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I guess.

[Podcast Host]

Is that one of those homemade up armored vehicles?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, that's exactly it. Not. You know. Oh, you know what? Do the. It's upline armored because there's this really good video and I just. I. I ripped because that's night and you can really see. No, no, no, sorry.

[Podcast Host]

Like a dash.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Like a dash. And all together. Yeah, there you go. There's this one.

[Podcast Host]

I appreciate, Michael, that you actually just wrote out line when he said upline armor. That you put art line. I appreciate that. Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Go down. I mean, I mean I. I really think it would be.

[Podcast Host]

Well, regardless, I really recommend. Again, it's all underscore. Underscore source. Underscore news. The videos that we're looking for for people are looking through. The people that are audio only are going to shock you at.

[Stefano Rittendale]

That's it Go up.

[Podcast Host]

They're going to shock you. What they're showing. Holy shit.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So you can put it. You can even if you want to put. See right there, you see how they're shooting directly at it?

[Podcast Host]

That's at a distance. I'm going to call that 7 yards.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So that's what they do. So there's a previous video actually.

[Podcast Host]

Pause that. My man has no respect for back blast and splash black. Let me just tell you that man is hucking rounds at an armored vehicle. I'm gonna hope he has Eye Pro on.

[Stefano Rittendale]

No. Okay, well, you know, no Ear Pro, that doesn't exist.

[Podcast Host]

Ear Pro and Eye Pro, I'm tell you right now, there's some safety violations happening on this two way range. My man is hucking large caliber rounds at an armored vehicle at a distance where they might just be coming back to bite him.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So you see that, that if I'm not mistaken, this was the first part and then there's a second part. But you see how in the front it has like a battering ram. Yeah, they ram that vehicle turned around and just start and then that. So you can see that single. That's the M82. They used it almost as an anti tank capability because they don't necessarily have RPGs as. As in large quantities. So that's, that's literally, that's what they do.

[Podcast Host]

If they're not wearing Ear Pro, they will never hear anything again. Now let me ask you this. Who's flying that drone? Is it their own guys kind of making some combat footage?

[Stefano Rittendale]

If you go back, if you just exit out and I can probably read you. I'm trying to think if you zoom up maybe. I mean I obviously put it in the text. Scroll right there. So video showing CDN clashing with metros and Frontera chica area and Tamalipas. You can observe how the CDN up armor vehicle uses an AMR to destroy the metro vehicle. So this is a cartel de noreste fighting against the metros. So if you look at McAllen, Texas, Reynosa, and then if you go all the way to Laredo, that's the CDN metro fight that area of. Of Mexico. And that's what they do.

[Podcast Host]

Are we talking banging it out on the daily.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So another. So for example, almost date. Yes. And so there's another one. For example. So the Sinalo cartel civil war is daily. That's a daily thing in Sinaloa group. So the Gulf cartel is split. Just as I said, there was a civil war. The Gulf cartel is a Split between Grouper Scorpion and the metros they used. They kind of split. Metros are basically allied with CG&G. Grouper Scorpion is their own thing. They're out of Matamoros, which borders Brownsville, Texas. Metros and Group or Scorpion is like every day, specifically in an area in Tamaulipas called Rio Bravo. It's between Reynosa and Matamoros. Real, like every night, every day, non stop. And it's a. It's right at the border, like non stop. That's where if you see like sometimes the Texas DPS has like drone footage.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

That showed these guys battling.

[Podcast Host]

That actually goes back to Sicario, the first one as well. They invite the woman up to the rooftop after the border scene, actually. And they're looking back out into Mexico and you start seeing the tracer fire and you hear explosions.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So this specific area, that's one another. So other areas I see almost daily fighting. Zacatecas, another state. There's kind of. And they fight. And these guys also find like in remote areas. But you know, you have my Eato Flaco against CG and G. That's almost daily in Zacatecas. Chiapas, which borders Guatemala, down in southern Mexico. That is Maito Flaco versus cgng. Specifically a front of CGNG called the Cartel de Chiapas and Guatemala. So the Chiapas and Guatemala cartels are front of cgng. They fight in Chiapas. I mean, I can go on Michoacan, you have Cartel Sunidos and CG and G. Actually CG and I swear to God, these guys exist. The Viagra Cartel.

[Podcast Host]

You stop it right now.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I swear to. Is there emoji at Blue Pill and you know, I'd have to look into that. Maybe. That would be an interesting thing.

[Podcast Host]

It's a really wasted opportunity if it's not.

[Stefano Rittendale]

But they. They're actually. CG and G and Viagra Cartel launched a massive offensive Imitrican this week. Huge effect.

[Podcast Host]

Is there a reason they chose Viagra? Is there a topographical or geographical something in Mexico? Or did they just have the worst branding marketer ever?

[Stefano Rittendale]

They don't care. I haven't seen these guys in a while. I think they're defunct. But there used to be a Taliban cartel.

[Podcast Host]

Any associations? Okay, I was gonna say.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And there's another. A faction of the Maito Flaco is called the Russians. No affiliation with Putin. No, that's because the guy's nickname, their leader's nickname is El Russo, the Russian. So how do you track them? They use the Russian emoji flag and, and they love communist emojis, as you know, ussr, Russian propaganda, Emo. Like they, they have, they don't care about Russia. They don't. But they heavily use it just because it, it's unman. Sometimes it's a joke. There's other guys called Los Alamanez, the Germans. The head of El Chapito, his name is Perez, that's his nickname, Paris, which is a. Kind of like. Sounds very similar to Paris, Paris. So he uses the fl. The French flag because of that. So that's. That. That I'm telling you.

[Podcast Host]

That's insane.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yep. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

So what can the Mexican government do? Could they solve it if they wanted to?

[Stefano Rittendale]

So I think what they're running into is a lack of resources, both in the military and a lack of resources and desires in the judiciary. Now here's the problem that when we're talking about the Mexican cartels from a Mexico, and this is where I was talking about the US perspective, the Mexican cartels. I mean the, the Mexican government's probably number one interest is security and stability for its citizens.

[Podcast Host]

That's fair.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Sometimes that means you got to go to after specific cartel like the Zetas. Historically, okay, these guys have gotten out of control. We got to go after them. Enough is enough. Okay. And sometimes it's, well, if we go after them and we weaken them, violence goes up. Because I can tell you right now the Mexican government is not happy that the US extradited Mayo Zambada because they knew exactly the violence in Sinaloa was going to skyrocket as a result.

[Podcast Host]

Do you think if they, this is obviously a hypothesis. Do you think the Mexican government, if they had wanted to, could have grabbed him but they didn't because they understood the lack of stability that would have come from.

[Stefano Rittendale]

That depends when you, it depends who you ask. And I know that's a cop out. I'm sorry.

[Podcast Host]

No, it's just, I mean, we're down kind of like a rabbit hole thought process here.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I love it. No, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, it's the same conversation that some people have around Afghanistan. Do you go and do you roll up the tribal warlord who is a heavy fisted and pull him out of there and punish him for the things that he's done and then have to deal with the consequences of people fighting in that vacuum because now somebody's trying to establish themselves or do you let the guy. You know what I mean? And I don't know how to balance those scales because yeah, you're putting your Finger on one of those. Either way. And at the end of the day, it kind of terminates in violence. Yeah, it's a Faustian choice for sure.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So that's. That's the interest. So obviously, the US Government is the weakening of the cartel. That's our national security interest. We made that abundantly clear. But that doesn't sometimes overlap with the Mexicans. Now, I can make an easy argument from a US Perspective. A national security perspective of the Sonoa cartel is the weakest it's ever been in the last since its inception.

[Podcast Host]

Now, is that due to, though, their.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Infighting and the loss of their leadership and because of the infighting. Okay, yes, absolutely. But from a U. S. National security point of view, we've. I mean, they've, you know, even. Even those chapitos, right? They've lost Joaquin Guzman. They've lost one of the brothers. They lost Ovidio Guzman, one of the bread. Oh, funny story. You know, Pixie and Dixie the mouse, the cartoon.

[Podcast Host]

I do not watch cartoon, sir.

[Stefano Rittendale]

You don't.

[Podcast Host]

How old is your daughter?

[Stefano Rittendale]

I mean, this was a long time ago. Yeah, actually, Google, I think it's called Pixie and Dixie the mouse.

[Podcast Host]

Make sure you do this under your browser again, Michael. I don't know what the hell we're getting ourselves into here.

[Stefano Rittendale]

No, it's a cartoon. Okay. They're those. That. Those mouses right there. You see them in the. In the right. You've never seen that show when you were a kid?

[Podcast Host]

I did. Wait a minute. Isn't that. I feel like I've watched a mouse show with a cat, but I didn't realize it had the name Pixie.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Well, you're thinking, I think Tom and Jerry.

[Podcast Host]

Yes, I've watched.

[Stefano Rittendale]

This is another one. This is a different one.

[Podcast Host]

Is this the Tom and Jerry knockoff?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Probably. Okay, so the reason why I say that Ovidio Guzman, his call sign was one of those mouses because they called him a rattle, the rat, but not like, because he was a rat, like the mouse. Yeah, he. I. I swear to you, there's an image of, like, a police badge. And on. On top of the police badge, is that. That. That mouse? Because that's his call sign. And so his emoji is sometimes like a mouse emoji. So that was Ovidio Guzman. So he was detained. El Nini, the head of security, Los chapitos was detained. So the. And then. Okay, now you had, prior to the civ. This civil war, the other civil war I was talking about in Sonora. So they were definitely getting Weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker. So from a U S point, why were they targeting those chapitos up? Because they were key in the Fentanyl trademark. And it was funny. The Sinaloa cartel did this whole like, oh, we're banning fentanyl trafficking and we're going to kill people who do it. We're no longer trafficking. They did target independent fentanyl traffickers, but they still pushed. Anybody who took that as fate value was lying.

[Podcast Host]

Like I was gonna say, I feel like what they said was, we'll just kill anybody that's not us.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So they used it as a property. Exactly. And that's what they. Because while he was doing that, I was talking to a good friend of mine who's a journalist this. And he's like. And because we were like, dude, this is absolute B.S. nobody's going to believe this. And he's like, no, he's pushing a huge load of fentanyl to the US Right now because he needs the money because he had this pet. The Ivan Archivaldo, the head of Los Chapitos, you can argue, had this pet project of his key insecurity aspect that he wanted and he needed the money now. So he's pushing fentanyl while they were killing independent fentanyl traffickers, saying, oh, we're not going to traffic fentanyl. That was a lie.

[Podcast Host]

Let me ask you this. The cartels, another thing that I have when it comes to fentanyl specifically, quite a few episodes. And you know, you can go upstream with this all the way to China and the source chemicals, and there's a conversation around, well, do they know that this combination of chemicals that isn't being necessarily sold together, that happens to be ending up at a Mexican port that may be offloaded by somebody that looks like a military age male Chinese soldier that is then handed over to the cartels at some point. What's the relationship there at a geopolitical level between. My understanding is. Well, let me ask it through the lens of a question. It's an open secret that the precursor chemicals are coming from China. Are the Chinese mixing it or are they handing it to the cartels? And they are mixing it. So they are creating through precursor and then distributing. Where does that handoff occur?

[Stefano Rittendale]

So I think it's both. But for the most part what I've seen is they get the precursors from China and then they do. The drug laboratories are in Mexico. Mexico. And these are not. I mean, I think people think about drag laboratories like this, you know, like Breaking Bad.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, no, from my understanding, we're talking like level five gear. Pristine, really.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Vast majority of drug labs that are seized by the Mexican government. Oh, they upload that. Also on Instagram, I have a ton of videos of drug. Drug labs and narco and they are the most rudimentary, basic things you can ever think of. I mean, I don't know if you can find it in mine. Like if you go to all source and you put like a drug laboratory, maybe you see a. These are basic.

[Podcast Host]

So we're talking bathtub meth here.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Breaking Bad. Okay.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, yeah. This is, this is not sophisticated. High class level. And they again, they upload this on their social medias, like, ah, look, we're making drugs. That's what you see them doing. All right, if you know where to look, you can. It's not that hard to either buy guns or drugs just using an Instagram account. It is not hard. If you know where to look, you can.

[Podcast Host]

What does it say about me that I feel like Instagram is just a place to put up weird pictures of your dog?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Well, I wish it was just that. I mean, I don't know.

[Podcast Host]

I'm behind the times.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Right there. Clandestine drug lab right there.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, we're gonna play that video. I mean, that looks pretty OSHA approved. I feel like that's good ventilation. That's outside. That's strong. Wooden spoon, perhaps? Yeah, there's probably no crossover of chemical there. It doesn't absorb anything, just being stored in the steam.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So that's a region in Sinaloa.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that's an OSHA level 5 lab right there. I don't know what you guys are talking about.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Holy shit, there's a work. I mean, he has gloves, I'll give him that. I think he. Maybe he has a Fisk breathing mask, but yeah, that's how they do it. That's. That's it. Like a little fan right there. And look, no mask. No mask. He did not have a mask.

[Podcast Host]

No eye pro either, but there's probably no spill or splash hazard or damage at all. I.

[Stefano Rittendale]

That's it.

[Podcast Host]

I don't see how anybody in this day and age, I've never. I've never struggled with addiction. So what I'm about to say is without judgment, because I've never been somebody who's been in the. The grasp of addiction, but even anybody using prescription drugs that they're buying off the street recreationally, I don't see how anyone feels comfortable buying anything. Given that the people that I talk to say basically 100% of street drugs that are bought, they're all, they're knockoffs and the large majority of them contain fentanyl, which will fucking kill you dead.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I mean, don't disagree.

[Podcast Host]

Risk, man.

[Stefano Rittendale]

It's a risk. Yeah, but you know, either addiction or just you want to party and have fun. But yeah, I mean, that's, that's.

[Podcast Host]

I like to party and have fun. I don't like to wake up dead.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I will say 2024, there's been a lot of countries announcing at least cocaine wise, record seizures of cocaine as well. I mean, that we've seen a mass increase of cocaine. Yeah. But you know what? I think, you know, kind of we, you know, we're kind of going here and here. But to your point earlier about the Mexican government and what they can do, you know, you have the resources, availability, you have the, the judiciary. But again, it goes back to the priorities that sometimes weakening a cartel might not be in their national interest. Because right now, Mexico. Right, because they have a huge problem with Sinaloa right now. The violence, violence there. And so you can make an argument, I can make an easy argument that if Trump demands Mexico, you will secure the border. And so Mexico, let's say, complies. So they deploy military forces to the border. Well, now you don't have military forces to secure Chiapas, Guanajuato, all these other regions. And guess who fills the vacuum? The cartels. And so that's, that goes to the lack of resources. Now if you're analyzing this from the U.S. i mean, you can make an argument, you know, again, cartels are not near peer the Mexican military. Sometimes they outgun them. We have tactics. You know, the Mexican military has taxi now. Yes. Again, if the US military goes in. Yeah. Are we going to suffer casualties? Probably, yeah. I think it would be absurd to say not to. But this idea that the US military can't handle them I think is laughable.

[Podcast Host]

There have been some people saying the Internet's a weird place, man. Anybody can make any content they want to. And I'm actually here for it. Like go to town, make whatever content you want. There's some people out there saying, yeah, if we send, you know, our tier one units out there, they're going to get their asses kicked.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And how many videos do you want to see before I convince you otherwise? Of cartel members fighting? I will. We can. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

What you said is correct, though, because two way ranges, they just don't really care. And even a blind pig finds mud every once in a while.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Exactly.

[Podcast Host]

So even a Guy firing up in the air with an ak, there's going to be casualties of some. Does that mean that they are capable or like you said, a near peer? I don't think so, no. I think there's a lot of romanticizing about the violence and capability and I don't know. I mean, there's nothing that can be done about that. I would hope they don't make foreign policy based off of that.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So what I would say one of the things we're noticing that the cartels are doing is, I mean, they are training, but you see the trading videos and they're like, okay, like, come on, man, that's not. And you know, again, are there certain units, like I said earlier? Yes, that can be okay if you're a tier one operator. Again, they're not near peer to you. But are you like, okay, guys like, this is. I mean, any engagement.

[Podcast Host]

I have a better solution for that though. And it's called a Reaper drone with a 500 pounder.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Now the question is, are you in a civilian, highly densely civilized area?

[Podcast Host]

Well, because I'm a gentleman, I would of course wait until they're isolated on a motorcycle or in a vehicle by themselves.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And that could be a tactic, right? That could be a legitimate tactic. And if I, and if I were, and I said this in other podcasts and episodes and conversations where it's like, If I'm a DoD planner, right, and I'm advised the SEC dev and an old plan, or maybe Northcom, right? Okay. Because Mexico's under the US Northern Command. Northcom, let's say I'm advising, I'm a planner. You know, my priority targeting would be these, not only the leadership, but kind of the, the faction leadership. These key guys that I mentioned earlier. That's who I would.

[Podcast Host]

Heads of the snake, if you will.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Or even a little bit below neck up. Yeah. So. So because that's like the head of the snake is El Mencho, right? I'd be looking. Yeah, let's get a mention all that. But I was like Jardinero, right. In Nayari, you know, I think he's in Guanajuato, right? Those are some, some of those guys. You know, there's another guy called Commander 88 in Tabasco in a region like, those are the guys like, okay, because those are the guys that really in a lot of ways control the, the men now. Those guys can be replaced, but okay, now we're losing capability, degradation, leadership, etc, you know, that's kind of what I would be looking at. I think the best solution And I think the US government can handle it. The question then becomes mission creep. You know, now we're kind of chewing off more than we, you know, biting more than we can chew. Are we going to declare all cartels foreign terrorist organizations? Okay, now that's a. Okay. I mean if the Mexican government has been doing this almost for 20 years and I don't think anybody's going to make an argument that's getting better. If anything violence is getting worse and it's spreading. A third of Mexico, the last U. S. Intelligence assessment was that the third of Mexico was directly under cartel control. A third of their country. Now a lot of them is in remote areas.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. But a third large number you gotta add to that too. Even you know, so say that there is NORTHCOM planners. They agree that, you know, maybe we don't want to send us boots on the ground so we will target these things. I mean there still is the aspect as well as. Even though we have designated the cartels as a foreign terrorist organization, you're still striking in a sovereign nation attached to our southern border. That on paper is our ally. That's a complicated issue as well.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Right, Exactly. I mean I haven't even touched that. And that's your bring up point. And Mexicans are very proud of their country as they should be and they're very national and they have a lot of respect to the military.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And I again I, I train them. These guys know what they're doing. Yeah. There's instances where something happened or maybe. But you know, for the most part compared to what I've seen in, in, in the Middle East, I was like dude, I'll take a Mexican soldier any day, you know. And these guys can teach, are very good at, at urban warfare and, and guerrilla tactics etc and all that and trying to find out because they deal with it in an every day, you know, the, the issue that they're running into is that cartels are exp. For example, the State Department I think this weekend or a couple days ago put a level 4 do not travel notice for.

[Podcast Host]

I just saw that. Yes.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And one of the things they said is because of increased use of IEDs which we've seen, they use the increasing IDs and we're also seeing an increased use of kind of like Russia, Ukraine, drones dropping explosives. And one of the interesting aspects is not across the board. I mean this is, it's not complicated. Right. I mean any cartel can get it like the Familia Michoacana, that's another cartel out of Guerrero they're in a conflict in Guerrero against those Tilakos. They're called another gang. You know, the familiar kind of is notorious for, like, just drones after dro. And the problem you're running into is a lot of it doesn't get reported because it happens in remote areas. You don't know until way after the fact. But they are. You know, it's still very rudimentary. Right. It's not like what we see in Iraq or Israel, right, where they have, like, an FPGV drone or like a group, two, three UAs going straight. Now. It's just. Here's a drone dropping a grenade. But one of the interesting aspects, because people will say, well, these guys are trained by special forces. The cartels will say, oh, you know, and there's all these reports. Yeah, got it. But it's not nowhere close, because one thing we see is Colombian. For example, Colombians are highly recruited by Mexican cartels for Colombian veterans in the military, highly recruited. We actually see them a lot of Michoacan. Some of these guys I've tracked probably, there's some accounts that we've tracked that maybe I can think of specifically maybe three instances of a Colombian soldier who fought for the Ukrainians against Russians that then be went to Mexico and just was bought off by the Mexican cartels to fight for them or to train them.

[Podcast Host]

Really?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. So you. You track their soldier for hire.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I get it.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Then that's what they do, right?

[Podcast Host]

Honestly, that's a. That's a profession as old as time.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And so you see that. And, you know, you. You are. I think one of the aspects when people criticize the war on drugs and like, oh, we're militarizing. We're militarizing. My counter to that and why I say all this, this is the cartels are militarizing. Like, you can say, we shouldn't militarize the war on drugs. Well, the cartels already are, and they don't really care what you think. They're seizing territory. You know, they. They have a heart and mind strategy and a terror campaign. I mean, we haven't even talked about some of the decapitation videos in the terror campaign and the hearts and messaging. Like, every, you know, in Mexico, they celebrate the day of the kid. The other ninos. Every year, you see the cartels releasing videos across social media saying, look at the gifts we're giving. Mother's Day. Look at the gifts we're giving. They have. And all the kids come and all the mothers run, and they give Them gifts and money and cash. CGNG in Michoacan was very effective of trying to. As we mentioned about the avocado farmers and the lime farmers that were targeted, they were like, look, look at this. For this violent cartel. Cartel, they're targeting you. And oh, CGNG wasn't wrong in this. CJNG said, oh, cartele sunidos are extorting you and your farms and your limes. And the Mexican government, the Mexican military is supporting cartel Sunidos fighting cgng because the Mexican. I have videos of cartelos unidos and the Mexican soldiers or policemen fighting side by side against CG&G. So CG would then go to the farmers. They see, look, even the Mexican government is against you. And they're helping these extortionists, taking your crops, taking your money. Help us this and we'll protect you. Very effective campaign.

[Podcast Host]

Full IO campaign, just running it and terror campaign. I was gonna say that. Let's get into the beheadings. Michael's favorite. He's over there. Like, what? So his Google search history is probably felonious in nature.

[Stefano Rittendale]

That I don't, you know, I'll. I don't post that. Those get edited out. I will, I will. I don't post that because it's.

[Podcast Host]

Some things are probably best to let people use their imagination. If you've seen one of those, you. I've probably seen enough.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So it's interesting, the execution videos. One of the interesting aspects, like I'm going to kind of guesstimate, but 90 of execution videos that I've seen, generally they're actually very hyper local focused, the messaging. So they'll get a guy, they'll, you know, detain him, his hands up and say. And then the guy's record is like, say your name. I don't know, Cassus, blah, blah, blah. Who do you work for? I work for this guy in this cartel who supports you. Well, this local says the name police commander and his deputy and the deputy mayor that unless you're from that region, you have no idea who those people are. Like, nobody's like, oh, who are these people? But very hyper focus. And they kind of frame it in a way where it's almost like a lot of times they even say like, oh, like one cartel will tell another cartel, like, oh, you're the extortionist. You're the one who's robbing the people. We're killing you to, you know, as a form of justice. Because Mexico like 90 plus percent of homicide cases don't even get investigated. Right. Or crimes don't even get reported. There's a huge problem in that. And so the cartels very, most of the times are very hyper focused and local in their messaging for the local population. Most of the times the decapitation videos are very crude. They're very just basic brunt. Right. Ax, chop off the legs, chop off the head, chop off, you know, the body, whatever. Burning somebody alive or just shooting them, very basic. But there are some one specific group that reminds me and I mean because you can almost look at all these execution videos. I mean they're just violent and bro, like you can. I mean I think it's a fair comparison. Like isis.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, right. Heading videos. Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And they'll hang the bodies and they'll either dismember bodies or an ice cooler. So you open it with a message and they're all again local. But there's one specific I haven't seen in a while. But these guys were different. These guys, they're so CDN who I talked about, they actually called themselves, if I'm not mistaken, Operativo Texas. So Texas Operative of cdn. I had the video, I'm not going to explain it. I will, I will spare your listeners even a audio description or a visual description of that. If you want to see it, feel free. But the way they did it was horribly like the most gruesome execution video I've ever seen. But it was almost like this medical precision how they did it, it really drew it out and the like you, you just don't do that. Like if I were to tell you to do the things they did, you wouldn't know how to do it, huh? They. I'll give a broad overview. Basically they removed the skin from the person's face so you can see the skull.

[Podcast Host]

This person's alive by the way.

[Stefano Rittendale]

He was alive. Hold on, I'm not done. They opened the chest, took out the heart and you can see the heart beating in the video. And it was a CDN execution video. Explain to me how do you do that without some, some medical training? Like perfectly removing everything. The scalp, the face.

[Podcast Host]

Where do you even get that idea from?

[Stefano Rittendale]

You know, because it's a terror campaign, right. That serves two purpose, either to instill terror or more importantly normalize it so that when these events happen people don't care. They're not going to demand a change. That's what they do. It's become part of society that now nobody's going to be held accountable for it. But that specific execution video, I think it was. They wanted to send a message of their power and their strength and their brutality. And trust me, the message was received. That was the. One of the few times where I was like, okay, I need a break. Yeah, I. I need to step out. I need to take a break. Because it's just. It was a level of precision and it wasn't brute force that caught my attention. And I haven't seen them recently, so I don't know if they were targeted. They were captured. Maybe they were rounded up by coincidence. And they never tied them up. They've been dormant. They've been quiet for a while, but that was one. But the. The. The execution and decapitation videos, it just is so normalized now in Mexico that for like I literally unless my. The. The app, you know, the. The data stream with Artorias I was mentioning picks it up, I. I would have to look for it. Well, because we have our app squirring a lot of sources everywhere. Sometimes it's like a fourth page back in the newspaper or the. The website. Oh yeah, there was a. Three bodies were left hanging in this bridge somewhere.

[Podcast Host]

It's tough to describe how much violence would have to occur on the daily for that to be something that is white noise.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Not only the violence, but the missing. I think the. I mean, there's like over a way over a hundred thousand people missing declared missing in Mexico.

[Podcast Host]

Are we talking annually?

[Stefano Rittendale]

No. Total, Total, total, total, total, total.

[Podcast Host]

Holy. That's a big number.

[Stefano Rittendale]

No, no, no. Total. So like when they track. Just people missing in Mexico that they have no idea and mass graves. I think last week, I think a masquerade. They found 50 bodies in Mexico.

[Podcast Host]

So let me ask you this. I mean, what you're describing in Mexico again is a level of violence that I have heard and shouldn't be romanticized in my opinion, at least at all. Let's talk north of the border and the influence. What is your estimation? TDA is one thing, like you said a Venezuelan gang. They've been pretty aggressive in their expansion. But these other organizations that you're talking about that have their roots in Mexico, they're geographically oriented now as opposed to being more transactional. What level of infiltration do you think they have of individuals in the US and how tightly are they monitoring the behavior that occurs north of the border? Because that shit would draw. I don't know. And I'm thankful for this. I don't think that Americans would ever get to a place where beheadings would be white noise.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Correct.

[Podcast Host]

So that type of behavior Right. Is like, okay, we've now crossed this border. You do that stuff, you are going to get the Eye of Sauron.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

On your ass, and you're gonna get annihilated. So I'm curious, who do they allow to come north and what kind of marching orders do those people have with them?

[Stefano Rittendale]

So, you know, funny enough, a lot of. Oh, my God, I gotta. I don't know. If it was Mention's son, I'd have to look it up. He was. I think they faked his death when he went north to the border to be with his girlfriend. And that's how they caught him, because he wanted to be with his girlfriend.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, I can understand the desire.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. Oh, trust me, you want to capture a cartel leader, don't look for the cartel leader to look for his girlfriend or his wife or his mistress. Mistresses on Instagram. These, they do.

[Podcast Host]

Stop it. What's. What's the emoticon for Mistress A rose?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Dude, they are everywhere. Like, I don't need to track the guy, just if you find out the girlfriend, you're 99 there to catching this guy. So north of the border. Yeah. Now, again, cartels generally do business and how they do it is with local gangs and because then they get the drugs and. Yeah, there's people in. There's cartels. I don't think a large. Large. Very large numbers, because a lot of them is now. Okay. They sell to a specific gang.

[Podcast Host]

Well, you wouldn't want a large footprint if you're thinking about this operationally. You would want the smallest footprint profit, smallest footprint possible. And like you said, you have key influencers or people that you work with, like, like, we'll get this to you, but at this point, you give me some cash or Bitcoin or whatever they're using, and it's on you.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

You don't want to get rolled up with the product.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So what I would say is one of the funny things is I think when I talked about this in space, because the conversation was, if the US Attacks Mexico cartels. Right. What is kind of the repercussions in the United States? And I would say, you know, yes. Do we might see some level attacks in the US do we might see border patrol agents now being more targeted? Do we see maybe some border communities or targets and stuff like that? Okay, you know what? I think that's within the realm of possibility. But this idea of like, this mass insurgency, massive terrorist attacks, like, no, come. That's not how they operate north of the border, like, south of the border. I said territorial north of the border. Transactional. Transactional.

[Podcast Host]

And I think they would have to be to survive.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. And, and, and, and, and the typical cartel person north of the border is not like this macho military age male. It's a businessman. It's, it's a car dealership that does money laundering for the, for the cartels. It's a lawyer.

[Podcast Host]

Legitimate up front, but dirty back end.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. And you know. Yeah. Are there maybe there's certain aspects of certain guys who might be hitmans or. Yeah, of course. But like it's not the large number, it's the infrastructure and pace to handle a multi billion dollar industry Both in the U.S. and Mexico. Right. The financial aspects in the U.S. a lot of it, yeah. Again, are there specific members that are of course and sometimes can violence crossover? Of course. But that's not the, that's not really the image north. It's other. A lot of businesses that are necessary for them to launder money or to even traffic and do human smuggling or drug trafficking or whatever it may be. And that's really what is north of the border. Because I, for the, for, for the US I wouldn't analyze the threat necessarily north of the border that will increase. I think that it would be unwise of me to say there's no increase. Yeah, it will. But if I'm an American, again Northcom planner, my concern isn't as necessarily inside the U.S. no. No. My concerns are the American citizens living in Mexico. Because now do the cartel says that's fair game. You're targeting our leadership. You're conducting airstrikes inside Mexico. We're going to target, we're going to target your American citizens. Because now you've done two things. There's like 1.6 million American citizens living in Mexico. So they start targeting them as a retaliation. And then two, which I think more conversations should be have about this. We did a podcast, we have our own podcast called Bluff Artorias and one of the hosts, Matthew, you know we were talking about the Mexican cartels and he, and he made a distinction between grievance and greed in kind of like an insurgency aspect for motivation. Are they driven by grievance, like a political motivation? Are they driven by greed which is a money obviously most people would say for Mexican cartels fall under the greed. If US military start conducting operations into Mexico, let's say unilateral. Do you now give them that grievance aspect that changes them into a. At least to have on paper up front, which hasn't existed really? But a political motivation now. And do they then the terror tactics we've seen directed against Mexican citizens inside Mexico, do they then leverage that against American citizens inside of Mexico? Because one thing is like, you're driving down the highway and you get accidentally targeted or people think, oh, the cartel kills Americans. Most of the times it's just a guy who just wants some money, is just a simple robber or something, right? It's not this guy. You know, most of the times, even cartels have a general understanding, hey, don't mess with Americans. Do not mess with Americans. I think if you remember in a couple years ago, the two Americans that were killed and two were kidnapped when they crossed the border.

[Podcast Host]

Yes, I do. I don't remember the specific details, but I remember hearing quite a bit about this.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So when the cartel, it was Grupo Scorpion, they went for plastic surgery. The Americans, they thought they were Haitian smugglers. I believe they thought they were Haitian smugglers, so they attacked them. So they killed two and they kidnapped it. When they realized they were Americans, they were like, oh, we messed. What they did is not only did they tell the Mexican government, go here, you will find the Americans here. Go get them. But then they, they, everybody who was involved in the operation that killed those Americans, they lined them up, handcuffed them, and then they put a note basically saying, hey, America, our bad. We had no idea they were Americans. These guys were responsible for them. They're yours.

[Podcast Host]

That is a pretty strong signal as to how much they want to stay off the radar. So perhaps not off the radar, off the wrong side of the field.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So can Americans get targeted? Of course. And we saw it in the case with the Mormons where they were like, again, but from a general rule of, of thumb, they even understand, okay, be careful. If you're going to target an American, you better have a valid reason or be careful. Be very, very, very careful. If the US Starts conducting operations inside Mexico, that deterrence is gone. Because that's the thought process, right? Like, oh, we don't want to target Americans because the Americans would come after us. Well, if you're already targeting us, the deterrence is gone. So is that a threat? And that's what I would be more concerned about. I'm not saying it's a given, it's a fact. But do they start targeting Americans in Mexico and then tying it with even a political nationalistic message? That's. I'm not saying it's a given. It's going to happen for sure. But that's something I would seriously analyze and Consider.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that's a fair talking point, for sure. That is something that has to go into the geometry of making those decisions for military action in Mexico. Mexico. Do you think there's a world, I mean, we can talk about possible versus probable, but a world where is it even possible to eradicate the cartels in Mexico? Or is that something that people should probably put out of their vernacular and focus on something more plausible?

[Stefano Rittendale]

I mean. Yeah, I would. I would. You know, it's probably. I mean, I think you can. I think that. I think it's possible where you at least empower the Mexican government to have full territorial control of their country and maybe reform as best as possible their judiciary and their political process to really clamp down on corruption. Because, again, a lot of this is also because of the Mexican state. I think that's a possible scenario, but you would have to. You would have to put a lot of effort for that. In the short term. No, but, you know, there would have to be a lot of focus. And I think the military aspect of it really misses out on everything else. And I don't think there's a political will in this country, in the United States, to really address this at the root, which is not only empowering the Mexican government, and maybe we get into agreement with Mexico and bilateral aspects. Right. We. Maybe an sfab, a Security Forces Assistant Brigade, I think is the acronym. Right. The army guys who goes and do advises and assist. That's within the realm of possibility. There's a lot of things that we can do. But, you know, you know, there's. There's. There's a lot more than just the military dynamic of this that I don't think we're going to have a really serious conversation to really address it in the United States?

[Podcast Host]

Well, what would you say to your average citizen in the United States who has probably heard of the word cartel, maybe even heard of things like tda, because there's. I mean, I think we can agree. And just in what you were describing, this is not a simple issue that you could encapsulate on a single piece of paper. There are spiderwebs going in so many different directions, whether it's history inside of these regions, history between the organizations inside of these regions, why they're infighting, why they're exterior fighting, what's their motivation? Like you said, is it for holding terrain or transactional? So there's a government response that is going to have to be figured out from a policy perspective. What would your advice be to just your average citizen who is Left completely out of a policy perspective, what do you think is important that they understand and know about the cartel and as there are cartels, subject writ large, somebody in Montana who was worried about tda. What do you do?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

You have no policy. You have no impact on policy. Personally, I guess you could call your senator or congressman. I'm not so sure how much that does. They're worried about it. What the hell do you do?

[Stefano Rittendale]

I mean, I think, you know, I mean, that's a very good question. That's a really good question. I've never really thought about that. What I would say is, I think first knowledge is power, obviously. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Educate yourself as to what is real and what isn't because there is some bullshit out there too.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Like I would say, you know, the first thing I'd say, you know, I, I mean we said at cartels, but that's not like it's not a singular organization. It's a very complex. There's multiple and they all fight. But if, if you're really, at least from an American, you know, American citizen point of view and you're like, well, how can I impact or maybe have a change to something that this concerning and, and maybe areas that you can. Is something we kind of talked about a little bit briefly. You were talking about addiction. Right. I mean, look, look, we talked about how drugs is not the only thing they traffic. Right. It's not a, you know, this, you know, legalizing drug or whatever is the salt is going to solve the Mexican cartel problem set, but it'll help address it. Right. I think, I think if we have a serious conversation and I think that has to be pushed by the American people of acknowledging, number one, that we have a drug addiction problem, we have a drug consumption problem, and that's fueling the violence. It's not the only thing, but it's definitely a huge part of it.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. You can't just focus on the supply.

[Stefano Rittendale]

You have to focus on the demand.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And the demand is not going to solve it, but it will address and I think it's a net positive regardless. We don't want American citizens dying because of fentanyl overdose or cocaine overdose or heroin overdose. And the thing is like, it impacts everybody. Doesn't matter. Red, blue state, Republican, Democrat, independent, doesn't matter. Right. You know, heroin addictions really impacted the Rust Belt, you know, rural America, you know, a lot of the industrial heartland. Right. Areas. And then just like crack cocaine impacted, you know, urban America during the 80s and 90s. And so I think as an American Citizen that maybe areas that you can have an impact is, is how can we address the drug addiction? Both, you know, because of pharmaceutical pushing, you know, drugs that are highly addictive, that got people hooked to those, to heroin and stuff like that. Right. But also just that aspect and really demand that when we're talking about military operations against the cartels, saying wait, wait a minute, there's something we can do here in America for our citizens that for whatever reasons are suffering a drug addiction and is it the best policy to throw them in jail or is there something else we can do? Whatever the solution is, demand that. Right. Because in the end of the day for you, the Mexican cartels TDA MS.13 like the United States is a pretty strong country. We have a very strong law enforcement, strong capabilities. You know, I'm not like I said earlier, I'm not concerned about a TDA drive by shooting, killing people. I'm not, not saying it's impossible, but we have very robust capabilities to really address that. Right. And, and when we see them kind of half up maybe it's crazy. And hey, go after them, shut them down, do whatever you need. But really for an American citizen, that's what I would say. Like don't necessarily focus on the Mexican cartels per se. Yeah, I'm all here to educate you and help you, but demand change and find ways that maybe you can help the consumption demand side in this country. That's what I would recommend.

[Podcast Host]

Let's say we're able to do that. We put on our magic hats and wands and we wave our wand and we are able to drastically impact demand. What do you think that the cartel would lateral to? How do they replace that cash?

[Stefano Rittendale]

They would find a way. They would maybe legitimate. They would find something. They are a very adept organization. You don't become. I mean if these guys were. These guys would easily be Fortune, you know, wait, and then probably the Fortune 100, not even 500.

[Podcast Host]

I mean they are running complex, multi level disaggregate international business. Granted, layering all the other that they're doing that falls underneath that definition. It's not that it's simple. That's. That's for sure.

[Stefano Rittendale]

No, no, it's not.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I wonder if that they would lateral even more into the.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I think they would become more like.

[Podcast Host]

White collar versus blue collar crime.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Both of that. But my concern would be because I had this conversation about. It was kind of. Remember a while back I was having this conversation about this idea of legalization of drugs and I made the argument that that what they would probably try to do is if they were already territorial now they would focus more on the territorial aspect. And so that's what has to be kind of this two pronged approach in a lot of aspects, even the demand. But that's why I also believe the, you know, the Mexican cartels are becoming more territorial because they realize and understand that if they're transactional in and of itself, if their logistics is disrupted and the, the pushing of drugs, they're screwed. They have a problem. There is, I mean I don't know if you saw there was in Colombia, in the border region of Colombia, there is the Liberty national, that ELN terrorist organization and a FARC dissonant group in a border area of Colombia. Venezuela was in a huge fight. Right now they're, they're fighting very heavily along the Colombian Venezuelan border.

[Podcast Host]

I did not see that.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, so that's a huge problem right now for Colombia. The President Petro, which I think got drowned out because of this, just the migrant deportation which is just again is frustrating that people focus more on that. Like no, there's actually like an actual conflict. And the reason why I say that it's not 100% confirmed, but there's this belief and there's some reporting to back it up. But the reason why the fighting skyrocketed is I believe specifically the French Navy seized nine tons of cocaine in the Caribbean Sea. Nine tons. It's a massive seizure.

[Podcast Host]

That's a hell of a party.

[Stefano Rittendale]

There's a belief that that loss of the drugs caused the violence to happen between the FARC dissidents and eln because they're who. Now there's that territorial aspect because the transactional dropped. Now we need to focus on the territorial. I think that would happen in, in Mexico. So then, so again it's this two pronged approach in the United States actually it should be a multiple prong approach, but empowering the Mexican government, the resources and everything to ensure that they can prevent that territorial aspect of the Mexican cartels.

[Podcast Host]

Any way we slice it, this is a multi year, complex, slow moving needle towards progress.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Have you seen, have you have tracked anything on Haiti, the Dylan's in Haiti?

[Podcast Host]

Broadly, I would say. Are you talking about a specific issue here?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Just the gangs, the gang violence and how they cut you up. What I tell people is like hey, if you don't. I think one of the interesting aspects of, of the western hemisphere is we're seeing gangs, organized crimes, cartels, mafia. It's international by the way. Like it's not just Mexican. The Mexican cartels spread their violence to Ecuador. Like Ecuador gang violence in a lot of ways. You can tie it directly to Mexican cartels exporting their violence into Ecuador and that you saw that a lot in 2023 and 2020 24, specifically a lot of that violence because of Mexican cartels expanding their operations south and exporting the violence everywhere. But you also see like the Albanian mafia, the Russian mafia, etc, right. So you see that. But in the Western hemisphere as a whole, you're seeing gangs and all these groups really challenging state authority without a political motivation. Which is kind of interesting when you're analyzing this from a foreign policy and kind of like national security aspect. It's not a political, it's, it's a greed aspect, like grievance greed. This is greedy. Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, I mean the favela violence there is insane. I would keep an eye out for the Brazilian gangs just as the Mexican cartels replaced the Colombians. If the Mexican cartels drop in power, the one place I would be looking at Brazil, really Brazilian gangs. But why did I bring up Haiti is. I think Haiti is like the, like the worst case scenario that if you don't take this problem seriously, what can happen? Because Haiti basically is. There's no functioning government and you have gangs in many aspects being the power players of the country. And Kenya deployed, you know, UN backed peacekeeping force, they have police and all that and they're fighting but you know, they can't even achieve stability and security within their country. And you, how can you have a political conversation, a political solution to a country who don't even control their own capital?

[Podcast Host]

I'm not so sure you can.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And so that's why I said the Haiti aspect is, you know, that's the worst case scenario. But if the Mexican cartels get weekends, seriously look at, I'm 10 years from now, we might be having a similar conversation, but about Brazilian gangs.

[Podcast Host]

Interesting. You know, you oftentimes hear people talking about the cartels from I guess a more rudimentary perspective. It's, you know, it's, it's street violence, it's intimidation. And I think that's a dangerous way to look at it. I'm just curious, in all of your time looking at that, what are some of the most sophisticated things you've ever seen them where you look and you're like, you know what, that's pretty damn good, that's pretty smart.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So they are, I think you, that's where I said the militarization. Because you're right, people think oh, it's street violence or maybe just homicides or we just hang a body. You saw the video.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

That is not street violence. That's in a rudimentary way. That's force on force. These guys are battling it out for territorial control using military tactics that ISIS used in Syria. And that's what I said, like that's a lot of the violence we see is tied to that. You know there was this very famous, I mean, I mean I'm not going to say that's smart but they, they, we have sophisticated, perhaps. Sophisticated. I mean they tried to develop an indigenous like it was like a artillery.

[Podcast Host]

System and like launch it across the border.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Well, not across the border, no, no. Like actual artillery. Like rounds against an enemy. Okay, yeah. So you see them do that, you're seeing the drones. I think it's pretty smart. And I think the reason why the cartels use, I've criticized it heavily but I think the reason why they use like the M82s is because they don't. It's very hard for them to have access to RPGs and anti tank weapon capability. They have them, but not in large quantities. And I've talked to other open source intelligence accounts. One of the things they find interesting is like the M82, you see it very much so in the western hemisphere, but you don't see it in the Sahel, you don't see it in Iraq, Syria. And they say that as well. That's because it's coming from the US and they just, it's very hard for them to ship it over internationally. That's why you see them here. I think that's a smart way saying look, we don't have that many RPG capabilities. Yeah, maybe we have an M1919 or you know, maybe a 50 cal. But it's very easy for me to get this M82, just put it on top. 50 cal. Maybe I try to get the, you know, an anti tank round capability, put it in there, shoot and then, and, and that weapon system, the M82 also almost every. It's almost like, I'm not going to say standard, but it's very universally accessible. Like almost every kind of cartel platoon for the most part. At least one of them has that. You just see them walking around with that easily. Almost like in an infantry platoon you have like an M249. That's what they have. So that's what I would say. But they are becoming, I think more and more and more sophisticated and we're seeing that with the drones and, and the dropping of explosives.

[Podcast Host]

That's the stuff out of Ukraine. I was just having this conversation with a buddy the other day. I was aware of commercial, you know, what do they call it, OTS or. Yeah, on the shelf, whatever it is, drone technology. I own a couple of them. They're fun, you can around with them. I never once even considered or thought about when I was serving having somebody chase me around with an FPV drone and to detonate it and then upload that footage to a social media platform, that type of warfare. And again, we're talking single drones. You hear people talking about swarm drones, where you're sending a thousand, ten thousand. And I have to think with the developments of AI, you know, because people, okay, it's a, you know, you can use a jammer to interrupt the signal from the controller and the drone. Maybe if they're using that type. What if it's a GPS navigation? Oh, we'll take the satellites out. Okay. I feel like AI can teach these things how to optically navigate. So the next thing you know, it doesn't even require anything it's thinking on. Well, not thinking on its own, but it's navigating on its own. Jesus. What did you find? This is why. Mike, let's hit pit play. This is against a tank.

[Stefano Rittendale]

More appropriate for YouTube. Wow.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I'm gonna call that effective.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

I don't know what a 500 pound dumb bomb cost to be fired from a Reaper or Predator, let alone the Predator platform that, you know, all those things associated with. I'm going to say, I'm going to guess that that is from an economic perspective, much more feasible than having those platforms. I mean, that is changing the face of warfare, man. I don't know what it, what does it look like in five years?

[Stefano Rittendale]

I mean, I think that's the question that everybody's autonomous swarm. I think drones are kind of like a, an evolutionary prospect of warfare. And that's something that we're all going to have to have a conversation and really have to delve deep. And I could tell you a lot of the conversations that are happening within the US military and the US army, when even I was in. I mean, that was an interesting aspect of the development of warfare. But I think how we should analyze it is it enables. Now you don't need a multi million dollar Javelin system.

[Podcast Host]

You just hit on my favorite weapon system ever.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I love the Javelin. I think it's a phenomenal weapon system, but now it kind of.

[Podcast Host]

I love the Javelin more than you.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Do, I do not doubt it, but it, it kind of provides those lower equipped trained forces to have at least a capability that maybe not going to mirror our match. But okay, now you can provide a counter punch.

[Podcast Host]

But it's almost, it's like a nation state level tool.

[Stefano Rittendale]

The Javelin or the drone.

[Podcast Host]

The Javelin is the drone. That's what I'm saying. The drone is. No, it's like that's more like a UPS level tool or FedEx or whatever the fuck they use in Ukraine. I don't know how they're getting them but. And it changes. You know, you came from an armor background. Traditional warfare is, you know, if we go back to the Civil War, fighting like absolute idiots, but maybe was advanced at the time. Let's just line up in front of the person. What we need is more people and better rifles, armor, tanks. Okay, we need to have better tanks than our enemy. Well now you have something that comes in a box that can be delivered to your house. Obviously it needs to be weaponized and it's no longer this, my tank versus your tank.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I think.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, it resets this like fire. You know, the emphasis on firepower and infrastructure. It, it's an interesting conversation.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, it's like the atgm. I think that what I would kind of tie back is the, from, from the tank would kind of change a lot of the tank warfare that we had to adapt was, you know, back in the 70s, 6070s specifically was the introduction of anti tank guided missiles. Yeah, that, that and I think the drones is the similar concept. But now it's cheaper.

[Podcast Host]

Oh yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So that's the, that's what I'm saying.

[Podcast Host]

No longer requiring a nation state. Yeah, like do we need to build as a nation state though? You think yourself, should we invest the money in a nuclear powered aircraft carrier? Do we build a million of these drones that cost a fraction of a penny? I mean that is an interesting, that's an interesting comment.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Again, it goes back to even when everything we're talking about, even if we're dying like the Mexico, what's your end state, what's your goal and what are the capabilities you're looking for and what's kind of the political objective you want to achieve. And then that frames kind of military development and I think, you know, all the way back from Sun Tzu, like strategy to tactics strategy, operational warfare, tactical level warfare. You know, when my time is an aide, you know, I got to see that. And it all, that's how it all ties together. But you know, the technology is rapidly changing. You know, our company leverages AI. We mentioned that earlier. And that's the future aspect of it. And I think it's the same with warfare because we haven't even talked about a development where the ability, you know, our. We see it right with our system, the RAI able to gather information and rapidly speed and then more importantly synthesize it. Do an analysis for you. Like I can give you a threat assessment that you were to read it about Russia, Ukraine, that our AI does. You would read it. It looks like an intelligence report because how we use the AI and the, and the assessment and all that. And it literally will write it like high confidence, medium confidence, low confidence, percentage likely, very likely, unlikely. These are the reasons are going to be targeted neck. What's the next course? Here's the courses of action. All that done by AI and imagine you're an intelligent professional. Instead of you having just. You have an AI boop. Just pops it for you and you just have to review it. Do you concur or not? If you concur, go ahead.

[Podcast Host]

What's. What's for you and the AI software that you're developing, the information and people's access to it. What is your hope or your company's hope that what do you hope people do with it?

[Stefano Rittendale]

We would like. So again, this really for the, for the average person. Right. Because we have obviously for more private clients, corporate and all that. But really for what we, what we think is you don't have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to have access to intelligence and information. It literally should just be $10. Here's all the sources from around the, you know, from, you know, because again, like social media, Social media is really driving either Twitter, Facebook. Like here's an interesting aspect, right. Like if you're really analyzing a lot of countries outside of the U.S. you know, what's their primary news source? Facebook still. Yeah, Facebook, Telegram.

[Podcast Host]

Facebook made some really good deals with developing countries to be one of the only communication apps on their phone.

[Stefano Rittendale]

WhatsApp strategery. WhatsApp, that is a like South America. You want to talk. If you're, if you live or you're Hispanic, you need WhatsApp, period. Nothing else matters. WhatsApp is the way to go.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

That's how everybody talks in, in South America. What we think as a company is that you should be able to gather information and intelligence that you're interested in on the regions. No different than let's say nation state or a government or even these corporations that pay tens of Thousands of dollars. You should be able to access it at the palm of your hand for $10 a month.

[Podcast Host]

How do you ensure.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Cheaper than the New York Times subscription, for example.

[Podcast Host]

New York Times is a good example. Or you could use the Post, whatever it is. How do you ensure that the AI doesn't pick up a bias in some way or another? Because a lot of people will say, New York Times Post we.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, I know, you know, pick like.

[Podcast Host]

Some are left wing, some are right.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And they're not. We're not trying to say they're like our competitors or anything like that because it's just different.

[Podcast Host]

No, it highlights people.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So our AI, how addresses it. It will say, for example, we have a Russia Ukraine feed, right? It'll say Russian Ministry of Defense states A, B, C, D. E. Ukrainian ministry defense states 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Right? But that's because that's how intelligence works. When you're doing open source intelligence and you're trying to gather information as it happens as accurately as possible, you're picking up all these different types of information stream intelligence, reporting all that. And it will highlight we had it for Israel, Gaza, the situation in Israel, Gaza, it would report, Israeli media reports, it would do like a summary. Israel claims this, Hamas claims this, Western media claims this, Russian media claims this, Chinese. Like anybody who's reporting on that, it will give you a summary. And then that's the key aspect, right? So you get the information just as an intelligence. Because I would say like I think people need to understand if you're really interested in conflict and wars and even just. Or political crisis or development, et cetera. I think it's important to understand because again, this is the intelligence aspect. What is Hamas claiming, for example, that matters because if it's misinformation alike, there's an interesting aspect of that when you're doing intelligence work, why are they stating these things? Or this is important for them? Because look at how Hamas has kind of transitioned and changed post ceasefire from. And now what they're trying to portray to the international community is this image of strength, victory, how they do the hostages, right? That is a key tenant of their messaging campaign that requires analysis to understand and how it is. You might agree or disagree with it, but if you're analyzing from an intelligence point of view, you want to understand that. And that's what we're trying to provide. And our AI will identify the actors who are saying it. It clears up, it picks, it knows when whoever's claiming what, what bias they have and it will report it from again from. From the absolute totality of the reporting. And so our goal is to really provide that from. From a global aspect from. In each individual country and how you can access that information.

[Podcast Host]

You know, I have conversations with my dad, who is the oldest human being to ever walk the earth at the age of 78. Now he talks about news when he was younger. I feel like a name that he has used is Walter Cronkite. But the man said something on tv. He told you what was going on and he left it at that. And people would turn their TV off and they'd say, you know what? I'm not going to question that. We live in a world now where every source is questioned through that lens of the bias. Which is why I asked you. And I think being able to look at raw data absent editorialization is critical.

[Stefano Rittendale]

That's what we're providing.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, it's the editorialization. Because somewhere along the way, and I'm not an expert enough or sociology expert or social media expert enough to understand where people. There was a point in our history where when you heard it on the news, on tv and maybe we were wrong even back then, and this is probably predates me when they would talk on the news, if you were able to find a legitimate news organization, they would tell you what's happening and maybe what to think about, not what to think. And it's shifted to now I think most people to include myself. I wonder often as much about the person delivering the information as I worry about the information itself.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And that's where we really want to say, like for example, like I said, I use the Mexico feed, right. That our company provides and I analyze. It will say chapitos state that I want to know that it could be a lie. It could be an absolute lie. I don't care. I want to know what they're claiming because it's that it. It matters to specifically how you understand the overall situation. And that's the thing. It's the raw data, the information. And it also will maybe, maybe you know, that it gets, you know, actual reporting and all that. And we'll say it out loud. And I think you know, for people who. Because look, I like I mentioned, for example, when we were talking earlier, the New York Times did a phenomenal report about Michoacan about a specific. Like I. That was 100% the New York time. And I think, you know, you can. People can and agree or disagree about how news is and all that is done. And I think that's a legitimate fair in A First Amendment country in democracy, you might love it, hate it and criticize or do it. They provide absolute news. But it's. To your point, what, what we're trying to focus in is that intelligence, raw data, straight to you. And so when, you know, one of the things we're building, for example, that I think nobody is talking about, which kind of blows my mind, is what's going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo with the region of Goma and their war with the M23 rebels that are Rwanda backed. That's a huge crisis that's going on that nobody is talking about. And an interesting fact is the most violent war since World War II was the Ikongo wars, the first and second Congo wars that happened between 1996-2004. I think over 8 million people died. It was the most violent war since World War II. I did not know that in the Congo. And right now there's a concern is, are we entering the third Congo War right now because of the situation of the M23 rebels in Goma and the Democratic Republic of Congo? And we're building that feed. And so it's not. It's again, because. It's because the US we focus on America, right? And maybe our interest.

[Podcast Host]

I think a lot of countries are exactly the same. We're not unique in that capacity.

[Stefano Rittendale]

And so that's not a problem. I'm not going to criticize that. But maybe you're somebody's like, huh, wait a minute. You know Arturo's app saying, think, huh, There's a crisis going on in this. What? Let me check that. And then that's what we want to give you that information because you might miss it. But that is a conflict and a crisis that I think just as we're talking about Mexican cartels and the complexity of it, I mean, I'm in group chats in the ocean community. They're like, are we about to enter in the Third Congo War? And if you understand the history of that region, you're like, and the Congo war happened because of the Rwanda genocide. It's Rwanda genocide, First Congo War, Second Congo War. You know, there's always these crisis in the congress center. And now we're in a moment, it's like, is this a repeat? And what does that look like, you know, with the advancement of warfare and everything? And I think that's a concern and that's what we're trying to fill a vacuum in a lot of people who might not know and might understand.

[Podcast Host]

Do you think as a species, we're evolved enough to be able to handle this volume of information. I want, you know, I wonder, I think social media, our connectivity is such an amazing tool. I have been able to connect with people.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I mean, we connect through 100% through a guy on Twitter.

[Podcast Host]

Yes, 100%. So there's some great upsides. And you also see people and I'm not saying this is a massive issue, but I think it is an issue. They are so focused on the things that they are seeing on their device that they forget to live their life because there's no fucking way that our brains can uptake, process and deliver all of this.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I think that's where AI is going to come in.

[Podcast Host]

I think you work for robots and get a water ration every day real soon. What are your thoughts on the advancement of AI?

[Stefano Rittendale]

I think how we look at it and how we are analyzing. It's a force multiplier. It's a force multiplier for dissemination and collection of information.

[Podcast Host]

How do we keep the development of it in check? Or is it even possible?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, no, I don't think it's like this sentient being that can come out.

[Podcast Host]

At yet under the table. What I have for you is a tinfoil hat. I didn't know what size, so it's an adjustable ball cap. I mean, these are legit conversations again. I mean, I would never have guessed in growing up that I would walk around with a device that can connect me to almost anybody on earth. Michael and I were watching some videos. It was an AI video. We'll leave the exact subject matter out of it.

[Stefano Rittendale]

But it was Trump.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, it was Trump talking about a new policy where it's okay to call people certain things. And he just signed an executive order. And we were both saying, you know, you can tell it's fake. The language is pretty good. The video is a little bit off, but this might be gen 2 of this goddamn thing.

[Stefano Rittendale]

But that's where I think, what does.

[Podcast Host]

Gen 10 look like?

[Stefano Rittendale]

But I think that's where the. Then that's where the traditional media would kind of come in. Because we're seeing that where. And you can disagree or even just maybe not traditional media, but the human behind the screen is like, hey, this video that. Now again, it's the tale of all this time. You know, a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth puts.

[Podcast Host]

Get out of bed.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, yeah. You know it's like, yeah, but that's just. Has always existed in human history. Right. So just the AI is a different component, but that's that's the human element.

[Podcast Host]

But I just worry if humans have. I just don't know if we evolve fast enough to keep up with how this other stuff is evolving.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I, I mean, I mean look, it's like, it's so for example, you know, it's like anything, right? And it's all about how you analyze it, the parameters you do for AI. But, but, but this, it's all, you know, it's, it's. And this is something we realize and we think is very important to highlight. You know, trash in, trash out. That's how AI works.

[Podcast Host]

So if you give it input, informs output.

[Stefano Rittendale]

So that's where we really focus on the AI. And that's kind of my role is ensuring that the input for the information it collects on. On is valid. It could be a Russian state media. Yeah, but I want that information to be collected because if I don't now I'm running into an issue as well. Am I actually getting a clear picture.

[Podcast Host]

Of the situation bias and not including it as well.

[Stefano Rittendale]

You need, exactly, you need to have. Because again it's this intelligent raw data and intelligence. That's what we're doing. Because when I was doing S2 work, right I, you know, we would get OSIN roll ups and, and God, you want to talk about authorities. An OSINT collector to have that level of authority to actually do.

[Podcast Host]

OSINT COLLECT stands for Open Source Intelligence.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Open Source Intelligence. I gotta get, I gotta get this. Open Source Intelligence collect is higher than sigint, like signal intelligence. It is ridiculous the, because of intelligence oversight and all this people. Like if you're, if you have an O, you know, open source intelligence collection authorities. Dude, you're one of the few because they are extremely strict on who can do that. They just don't want anybody to go on even on your Twitter. Like if you're an intelligence person, I can't go and say oh look what I saw on Twitter. Nope, you're not allowed to do that. If you're an MI personnel. If you're filling in an S2 billet and as a intelligence section billet or G2 billet, you cannot go on Twitter and say oh look what I saw on Twitter. Nope, not allowed because of intelligence oversight. And we want that. I'm not trying to, I'm not arguing to get rid of it. Yeah, but that's where, you know where. So we had to get all that open source intelligence information and reporting from higher or maybe a different section and all that. But it really helped inform us. It's like Yeah, I want to see what are the Hamas, what are the Houthis, what is Iran, what is Russia, what is North Korea, what are they talking about? Because that helps frame. Because that's a form of intelligence that would. Then we would cooperate with others and cross and compare. But if I'm not tracking what the Russians are claiming, I'm giving you a disservice as an intelligence officer because if they might be saying the truth or a lie, and if they know if they lie all the time, that's an interesting aspect of. Well, does that show desperation? Does that show that maybe the situation is worse where they are? If they're claiming every time we win and we saw that during, especially in the beginning, everything is going great, we're winning. And then we saw the videos. Like why are they lying? Like what's going on? Because of the nation of the nation state of Russia and how they operate. That type of information matters. And I think a lot of the people who would benefit from that is. That's what they want. They want that and they want that access to information, intelligence that, you know, we all probably been exposed in one way or another in our military careers.

[Podcast Host]

What do you like doing other than digging in. In the N2 world? What other kind of hobbies you got other than tracking horrendous all over the globe?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Man, I mean this has been a huge project.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, pickleball player. I mean, what do you got, like shooting hoops on the weekends?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. So what I would say, say I'm an avid reader. I love reading. It's something I got to pick up. Favorite genre, non fiction. I'm.

[Podcast Host]

You throw a vampire book in there.

[Stefano Rittendale]

From time to time. I will say I'm. I'm kind of a sucker for Tom Clancy, you know, one of the times or some of those types of kind of like fictional books about, you know, you know, the especially modern day. But one of the, one of the ones that I would say, even though it's non fiction, the one that I like, I think the book is called. Oh my God, it's been a while now. I think it's called Nine Lives. So there's a couple books that I've read like in a day where like 200 pages and it. There's like two specific books of, you know, people that been Al Qaeda operatives that were like turned over by either the CIA or MI6. So they tell their story of how they did that. Oh my God, like that type of book, like if I can get something like that, especially if it's not fiction. These are the guys telling it from their person. I'll give it to me. I'll. I'll read it because I think it's a very fascinating aspect of tradecraft and all that that, you know, I started also, you know, I got, I got medically separated from the army, so I have like a lot of medical issues. But one of the things I really like enjoying it at my own pace, obviously, is boxing. I think it's a very good way. I. I like it. I have a personal trainer.

[Podcast Host]

You got a big wingspan too. You'd be a nightmare.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, well, I, I thank you, but, you know, I'm. I have. I wish my body would agree with you, but. Yeah, I like boxing a lot. That's something that I do and travel. I mean, I'm, you know, me and my family, we just traveling.

[Podcast Host]

Best place you ever been. It's tough because you could go for beauty, culture, history, anything that sticks out. What's the top of the pyramid for you? And maybe it's the pyramids, I don't know.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Well, I have been to the pyramids.

[Podcast Host]

I have too. And they're pretty weird.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

You know, the Marriott just off screen that they don't take the picture from that angular like going on here.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Man, you got me. I mean, it's. I would say one of the trips that I think was from a kind of a holistic approach from beauty, tourists, food. We. We did copy in the Amalfi coast in Italy. I mean, just, just the nature, you know, just the touristic, the beauty, the beaches, everything but the food. And people think Italian is like, oh, pizza. No, I mean for me, like when I.

[Podcast Host]

It's a portion of Italian.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. But for me it's like the tomatoes and the cheese. I was just like, oh my God. So I would probably say, you know, Capri in the Malfi coast was one of my. My tops and one place that I was very surprised, but I think the country that, that surprised me the most, that I enjoyed the most as I was in Singapore Blue. Like I.

[Podcast Host]

You've been there many times.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, it just one thing. You see it on the team, but then when you're actually there, it's like, oh my. Like it just never stops and it's just this, this rich. Oh, there's always something to do. There's so many places to go. There's so many to have fun or to just. Just take pictures or whatever you want. I would say Singapore, but I mean every, every country. Sorry, one, one special mention besides Mexico, because I Obviously love Mexico. Anywhere in Mexico, even. And I tell this to the people here. Like, don't. I know. We talked to a lot of scares, like, Mexico is safe to travel. Always listen to the embassy. If you want to go to Mexico, just follow the embassy. That's. The embassy will tell you anywhere you go around the world, the first place you go, you know, State Department tribal advisory.

[Podcast Host]

It's almost like it's their job.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, that's their job. And they take that thing serious. They are. They are very serious. And if there's a terrorist threat, they don't care at what classification level it is. They will find a way to make sure Americans are warned at an unclassified setting. And if they say something, listen to them. Absolutely. Listen. Just follow the State Department's travel guidance on travel to Mexico, because I love it. I love going to Mexico. The food, the culture, the music. Tequila. I'm a huge tequila mezcal now. I'm going more mezcal than tequila, funny enough. Off controversial. I know I might get canceled, but one country that I to me also that I just for me is magical, is Colombia. Have you ever been to Colombia?

[Podcast Host]

I have been to the jungles of.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Colombia, the jungles of Columbia.

[Podcast Host]

Training.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. I would.

[Podcast Host]

I did not get to experience the culture. I got to experience the jungle that is either trying to bite, stab, sting, drown, trip, steal your. It's wild.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Oh, no. I've been to Cartagena and Medellin. Love both of them. Like, just magical, magical experience. I loved it. So that I would also say, though, that Colombia as well has a very special place because I just truly enjoyed it.

[Podcast Host]

What about a bucket list? What is. Do you have any locations that you want to go? You haven't?

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yes. I would say I would thoroughly like to go to somewhere either like the Maldives. I think that's something always that caught my attention. French Polynesia or that area in the Pacific. That's something. But I think those are more very classical examples. And what I see one I do. Would love to do. It would be kind of a safari in Tanzania. I think that's something that it would. That would also be my. That would suck. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

That wouldn't suck.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I think that would be awesome.

[Podcast Host]

Man, I'm running out of bucket list stuff. I've checked them. I had Ireland for a long time. Mine are a little bit less exotic. 10 years. Like the Maldives and the Amalfi Coast. I'm like, I'd like to go to a pub in Ireland, get shifts.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I know. I agree with you. I Said so the issue is I lived in Spain.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

A long time. When I was a teenager, I lived in Spain. So a lot of that aspect in Europe was very. Never been to Ireland, which is you're true. But it was really cool. Yeah, I would love to do that. It's just because I had that exposure to a lot of. And I traveled a lot around Europe. It's, it's. And I live there. It's kind of like. Oh. I mean, it's like. It's like if you're an American and you lived in California, it's like in my bucket list. Not, not, not to sound arrogant or anything, but it's kind of like how I would. When you live in the European Union, it's really like the kind of like living in America, like California to New York.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

It's like Spain, you know, Madrid to Berlin. It's the same, it's that same concept. And so it's so easy to travel around that traveling in Europe, you know, living in Europe is almost like living in America. And a lot of Europeans, the reason why they travel around Europe is like the Americans traveling inside the United States. So much so. And there's so much. But that just becomes like second nature to you that for you. Like I've been to South Korea and I would love to go to Japan. I've never been there.

[Podcast Host]

Fantastic.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Interesting. Yeah. So I did. I was able to hit Ireland, Iceland. I've been a few times. Fucking amazing.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I would love to go there.

[Podcast Host]

Greenland is popping up on my bucket list. Now that I've knocked him off. I'll be honest with you. It might be because it's not. I'm not advocating for seceding or ceding Greenland, but it's like some of the pictures that show up. My God. Damn, that's beautiful. So it did hit my radar. Because of the common or the current commentary. I'm not advocating for that necessary approach. But okay. Pretty beautiful. And other than that, man, it's like I've been to all seven continents and.

[Stefano Rittendale]

This is my first time. For example, Montana.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Thoroughly enjoying it. I was a short trip, but thoroughly enjoying it. I just, you know, it's just you know, especially kind of seeing the mountains and all that and the green. I mean, I remember just like landing on like just, just, just absolute white snow forest mountains. Like oh my God, this is so.

[Podcast Host]

And today is really foggy. It's actually. It's a lot more picturesque when the fog isn't 200ft above ground. But yeah. What else you want to close out with. Then we've been at it for a couple hours.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I mean, closing thoughts, you know, I think, first of all, thank you very much.

[Podcast Host]

My pleasure.

[Stefano Rittendale]

This was a great conversation. Loved having it. I think, you know, it's kind of crazy for the last. I've been doing this for the cartel aspect for three years, and I'd be like, like, banging my hand against the table saying, focus more on Latin America. Focus more on cartels. And now kind of like, my wish came true. And I'm like, dang it. Because now it's the, the misinformation. Just like in any conflict, you guys like wild takes on Twitter, and I'm just. Or X. And I'm just like, like, no, okay. Like, let's. No, let's. Let's. Let's stop. And so it's kind of. That sometimes I did kind of find it a little bit frustrated. I feel like I'm fighting more misinformation on Twitter or.

[Podcast Host]

This morning is actually a good example of this. I woke up to the absolute catastrophe between the helicopter and the airplane in D.C. i have never encountered so many aviation experts that have about 12 hours on the job who are more vocal about how it could happen and have absolutely no idea about our airspace, how aircraft are controlled. It's wild.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah, that's a problem I think of, and that's the kind of where I've run into it because people. So I'm the same. And, you know, and I think we all saw it, unfortunately, and our heart goes out hearts and thoughts and prayers to the victims of that tragic accident. But it's like, hey, we have a tragedy. Like, yes, there's. There should be experts commenting. We want to make sure that this doesn't happen again, but you're not one of them. So how about you, you know, take a backseat? Like, I'm not going to talk about that on my.

[Podcast Host]

Just take a breath, take a knee, and even the experts also take a breath and maybe let's figure out what happened and then you can weigh in with expert commentary on how that was possible and what could be done to fix it in the future.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. So that's where for me, the, the. I'm kind of battling a little bit that. About the kind of. From the cartel piece.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Stefano Rittendale]

But, you know, I think. I think it's. It's also given me an opportunity to now, you know, like I said, because of the focus now. I've been with the Rolling Stones. I've been. I've helped. I, I, you know, some of Them I can't name because I helped them in the background. I'm hoping, you know, know maybe I can go. But also major news organizations as well that I love. You know, hey, you know, if you're. If you're a small YouTube, big YouTube journalist, citizen journalist, investigators. I don't care. It could be anybody. DM me. I'm more than happy to have a conversation, give you my opinion, try to back it up with evidence. Love it. I think it's great. I love that people are thinking about it and conversation about it. And so you know that that's something that I find it very interesting and I'm glad the opportunity here and I'm glad the opportunity of talking also our company in AI and we had a great good segment of that because that's something we really want to push forward. And that would just be my closing comment. So again, thank you very much and I appreciate our common friend who introduced us virtually.

[Podcast Host]

That's the beauty of this. So yeah. So all source news on. I'm just gonna call it Twitter. I don't even care on Twitter. And then when this app comes out people be finding in the app store.

[Stefano Rittendale]

Yeah. So if you go. I'll show it. We're, you know, we just created a Instagram and if maybe when this comes up we could, you know, tag it. So we just have a YouTube. We just created an Instagram. But if you go to Artorious Michelle A R T. So Artorious. A R T O R I I S like and then you could put tag because there's. I mean, I mean you can even go to I.O.U.

[Podcast Host]

S Michael not double I. That's crazy writing of you.

[Stefano Rittendale]

I can't even see no dark souls Artoria. So the, the bottom one. But, but remove.

[Podcast Host]

So if you go on solutions.

[Stefano Rittendale]

There you go, there you go. That bam. Well that's a little bit too big. I don't know what happened there. But that's our page. We're on Twitter. Artorious Tech is our Twitter handle on Instagram or Artoria's YouTube. And, and, and so if you go to our Instagram and our YouTube we, we are uploading a lot of our. Our bluff podcast. We call it the bluff bottom line up front people. Yeah. So we, we, we have a lot of people from. Because we have a lot of experience in the open source intelligence world. We bring a lot of those people because it's just like me like you would be surprised and I would tell people like don't ever underestimate a college kid or a high school kid their ability and their knowledge about world topics and what they can cover for Sure. A lot of the guys who got really famous on open source intelligence started out in high school. For example me, myself, we did a lot of cartels over. They call, they work for, they volunteer work for Borderland beat. They do awesome reporting on cartels. A lot of them are in college and they are phenomenal.

[Podcast Host]

I know how to use these tools and you can get the, you, you can craft these tools and make them do what you want to do. The information that you can come back with is unbelievable.

[Stefano Rittendale]

These guys are rock stars. There's so many like, like geo pernicious propaganda. There's so many out there and they are just dedicated. They don't do it for the money. They don't do it for the fame. They just found a passion and that's what they do. And I mean they're great. But yeah, that's, that's us. We'll make sure to share all our socials with this. But yeah, that would be great.

[Podcast Host]

Email me all the links and stuff and we'll do it. Cool man. Well I appreciate the time and thanks for making Hell yeah.

[T Mobile Representative]

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