#403 - “They’re GHOSTS!” - Cartel Sheriff on Sinaloa’s Tunnels, Secret Scouts & El ChapO

Summary

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Julian Dorey Podcast #403

“They’re GHOSTS!” — Cartel Sheriff on Sinaloa’s Tunnels, Secret Scouts & El Chapo
Guest: Matt Thomas (Former #2 in Arizona Sheriff’s Office)
Release: March 31, 2026

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Overview

In this gripping episode, Julian Dorey sits down with Matt Thomas, an experienced law enforcement leader and author, who spent years as the second-in-command at a major Arizona sheriff's office on the frontline of the US–Mexico border. They dive deep into the inner workings of the Sinaloa cartel, explore the rapid technological evolution of cartel operations, recount harrowing undercover missions, and discuss the impacts of US immigration policy changes. Thomas’s firsthand accounts pull back the curtain on cartel tactics, cross-border corruption, the fentanyl crisis, and the ongoing, high-stakes battle between law enforcement and organized crime along America’s southern border.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background & Entry Point into Cartel Investigations

• Matt Thomas describes his law enforcement journey, rising from a lieutenant to second-in-command under Sheriff Mark Lamb (00:45).
• Thomas’s undercover work began in the early 2000s, where he was first introduced to the Sinaloa cartel’s sophisticated networks (09:06).
  • Quote: “It was kind of like the matrix ... taking the red pill and seeing the world.” — Matt Thomas (09:11)

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2. Cartel Communication: The Secret Scout Network

• Cartels, especially Sinaloa, developed their own encrypted radio networks to monitor border activity and evade law enforcement. Scouts were deployed on mountaintops to oversee drug and human trafficking routes (11:13–19:54).
  • Quote: “They have their own radio system on frequencies in the US ... communicating up. These scouts are on mountaintops throughout our county, communicating to coordinate the load movement from Mexico up.” — Thomas (10:55)
• Technological arms race: As law enforcement adapted, so did the cartels, upgrading from basic walkie-talkies to encrypted, GPS-tracked radios.
  • Remote “zapping” of radios if they’re compromised is now commonplace (18:21).

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3. Cartel Presence and Family Ties

• Thomas discusses complicated family dynamics at Mexican-American gatherings, where both law enforcement and cartel associates would abide by “imaginary lines” — strict unspoken boundaries keeping family and “business” separate (05:10–08:21).
  • “There’d be this unspoken rule of, this is family, no business ... We’re not gonna hang out and be friends, but we’re not gonna kill each other either.” — Thomas (06:36)

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4. Border Realities: Walls, Gaps & Smuggling

• Arizona’s border is geographically diverse, with sections ranging from formidable walls to mere strands of barbed wire — creating prime corridors for smuggling (26:17–30:44).
• Sinaloa exploits these terrain-driven “gaps,” funneling stolen vehicles and drug loads through under-patrolled desert.
• Cartel ingenuity: From tunnels reminiscent of El Chapo’s prison escape to primitive yet effective “rock cairns” as early-warning tripwires for smuggling routes (32:45–33:28).

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5. Corruption & Compromise: When Law Collides with Cartel Influence

• Both Mexican and US law enforcement have been compromised at various levels (20:23–24:39).
  • Story of a local detective caught skimming money from a cartel operation; although direct cartel ties couldn’t be proven, his repeated trips to Mexico aroused suspicion.
  • Mexican city cop recounts being forced to collaborate with cartels under threat to his family:
    • Quote: “They throw pictures down of his family ... 'We're gonna give you 30 seconds to decide if you want to lose your family, like we're gonna kill them, or you want to work for us.'” — Thomas (21:52)
• The reality for many: “You don’t know till you’re there ... Any of us could make a bad decision.” — Thomas (24:50)

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6. Cartels as Narco-Militaries: Evolution of Mexican Organized Crime

• Discussion of Sinaloa’s shifting power after El Chapo’s extradition and El Mayo’s downfall in 2024, giving rise to warring factions (107:38).
  • Quote: “When a long-standing leader is removed, there’s a power void ... [the] Chapitos are seen as spoiled brats ... Mayo’s people are more of the ground pounders.” — Thomas (108:00)
• Expansion of CJNG (Jalisco New Generation Cartel), likened to the violent, heavily militarized Zetas (110:08–113:06).
  • C.J.N.G. displays “militaristic” tactics and technological sophistication, fielding armored vehicles, .50 cals, and military-grade comms.

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7. Informants, Intel & The Limits of Law Enforcement

• Most US local agencies work with lower-level informants; higher-level cartel sources are handed off to the feds (18:48–38:55).
  • Thomas reflects on the “needle in a haystack” odds of interdicting sophisticated operations.
  • Notable moment: “Are we even making a dent?” — Thomas (39:08)
  • Cartel informant’s response: “No ... It’s all a big game.” (40:04)

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8. Policy Shifts, Border Politics & The Human Wave

• Massive effects of US political changes: under Biden, “remain in Mexico” policies are immediately repealed, leading to record surges of migrants from all over the world (48:17–53:59).
• Cartel adaption: They monetize migration, charging migrants from Mexico ~$1,000, but those from flagged countries up to $20,000.
• “Gotaways” — those never apprehended or processed — likely double official numbers. The Tucson sector alone may have seen 30,000 migrants crossing per month at the peak (56:28–60:13).
  • “That 15k is actually about 30k ... times $1,000 a piece. That is what the cartel is making per month on just those bodies.” — Thomas (57:00)

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9. Human Trafficking & The Fate of Children

• Tens of thousands of unaccompanied children have been processed and handed over to addresses with no oversight; many disappear into trafficking networks (60:45–61:57).
  • Chilling stat: Some addresses had “200 children listed at it.”

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10. International Alliances, Chinese Involvement, & Fentanyl

• Sinaloa and other cartels form global alliances—criminal networks stretch from Chinese chemical suppliers (precursors for fentanyl) to local gangs and even some examples of US officials (82:46–93:55).
• Fentanyl Crisis: After marijuana legalization cuts into profits, cartels switch focus to meth and fentanyl, enabled by precursor shipments from China (92:11–92:49).
  • Quote: “When did you realize China was in bed with the cartels on this?...That would’ve probably been around the 2020–2021 time frame.” — Thomas (92:11)
  • Users seek ever-stronger highs, knowing full well some batches are deadly: “There's this new blue that killed 10 people. Man, we gotta get some of that..." (93:06)

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11. Law Enforcement Tactics & Cat-and-Mouse Evolution

• Undercover strategies: Long-term investigations have some effect, but cartels rapidly adapt, using lawyers to study cases, plugging vulnerabilities (97:15–99:41).
• Disrupting logistics—like targeting cartel "scout" resupply missions—proved effective; sometimes drew direct attention from cartel bosses in Mexico (100:09–105:27).

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12. Narco Terrorist Designation & Challenges Ahead

• US designation of Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations is long overdue but primarily serves to allow targeting financial assets, not overt military action (117:34–123:32).
  • Quote: “They’re classified as terrorists, so you just lost all your bank accounts...” — Thomas (119:46)
• Mexican economy partially reliant on cross-border remittances—a significant chunk possibly cartel revenue—measures thus require surgical precision (120:03–123:14).

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13. Undercover Experiences: Personas, Emotion, and Risk

• Thomas shares memorable moments from his undercover work: Dealing drugs to people he grew to empathize with, nearly blowing his cover, and relying on quick thinking (126:41–133:13).
  • “You have to pick a role that fits you so you don’t break character … My life depended on my role.” — Thomas (128:19)

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14. Crime, Empathy, and the American Underside

• Both host and guest discuss their nuanced views about the people they target—empathy for many, zero tolerance for child traffickers or those who hurt kids and animals (143:01–144:26).
• Organized crime’s paradoxical role in America; the balance between law, criminality, and the need for order and community, even between adversaries (139:15–141:00).
  • “There’s a part of me as a person that understands as an American … this big experiment has to coexist for this to keep working.” — Thomas (140:42)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Family Lines (06:36):
  “There’d be this unspoken rule of, this is family, no business … We’re not gonna hang out and be friends, but we’re not gonna kill each other either.” — Matt Thomas

• On Corruption (21:52):
  “They throw pictures down of his family ... 'We're gonna give you 30 seconds to decide if you want to lose your family, like we're gonna kill them, or you want to work for us.'”

• On Cartel Innovation (35:06):
  “Rock cairns in the desert—cartel tripwires for blacked-out law enforcement vehicles—then flares light up the valley, military style.”

• On Fentanyl’s Spread (93:06):
  “...there’s this new blue that killed, like 10 people. Man, we gotta get some of that, because that’s the ultimate high.”

• On Border Policy Whiplash (48:50):
  “It was an immediately erasing of anything that had Trump's print on it... Law enforcement was like, wait, whoa, whoa, that actually worked, could we keep that? And they were like, ‘Don’t talk to us, we’re experts.’”

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Timestamps by Segment

• 00:45 – Guest introduction; Thomas’s history
• 03:54 – On Venezuelan and Mexican narco operations
• 05:10–08:21 – Family gatherings & “green zones” with both cops and cartel
• 09:06–13:27 – Entrée into Sinaloa world; radio networks & “scout” infrastructure
• 13:27–19:54 – Cartel comms: radio encryption arms race
• 20:23–24:39 – Corruption: dirty cops, impossible choices, and informants
• 26:17–30:44 – Arizona’s border: walls, wire, and open gaps
• 32:45–35:06 – Tunnels & cartel counter-surveillance with rock cairns
• 48:17–53:59 – Policy whiplash: remaining in Mexico vs. record migration
• 56:28–61:57 – The math of migration & children lost in the system
• 82:46–93:55 – China, fentanyl, the shift from gangs to global manufacturers
• 97:15–100:09 – Evolving law enforcement strategies, smash-and-grab, resupply busts
• 107:38–117:34 – Cartel wars post-Chapo/Mayo; Zetas & CJNG rise
• 117:34–124:18 – US “narco terrorist” designation, assets, and financial targeting
• 126:41–133:13 – Undercover “acting,” street-level ops, near-misses, balancing personas
• 139:15–141:00 – Empathy, the necessity of law & organized crime in America

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Final Thoughts

Matt Thomas’s remarkable testimony brings home the complexity, danger, and moral ambiguities of America’s multi-decade narco war. The battle lines are ever-shifting; the cartels grow more sophisticated with every blow, and the story of the border is both a story of unspeakable violence and of rugged, everyday humanity. This is a must-listen for anyone seeking to understand the real forces at play on the frontlines of the US–Mexico border.

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Transcript

[A]

This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home with agents who close twice as many deals. When you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get [e-mail]. own the dream. All right, you were just saying off camera something about Sheriff Mark Lamb, who you were, to be clear, you were the number two with him for a long time.

[B]

Right? Right. So Mark got elected in 2016, took office January 2017, and I was a lieutenant when he got elected. And then he offered me to be his XO, his number two. And so 2017, I moved up into that position. So from 2017 through 25, no, 24, December 31st of 24 was his last day in office. So for those eight years, I was his number two. The new sheriff that got elected kept me as his number two and I stayed in that position until May, and then I moved on to be the chief of my current agency.

[A]

But you were just saying Mark Lamb was in. He was in Panama.

[B]

So we were talking about the. We were talking about the Venezuela thing. And. And I said, hey, you know, Mark was in Panama when it got overrun or when it got taken back, essentially. And so he had been living down there and he tells the story. He's been on a few podcasts where he's told the story and again his story. But essentially that night he had went up on the roof to help protect their building from getting taken by the guerrillas because the guerrillas were going looking for Americans. And so he had a LE rifle up on the top. And I think he said, I think he was 16 or 17 right around there. And then he says he sees the Americans rolling through, taking it back. And he said he was never so happy to see American soldiers that night.

[A]

I'll bet. Blowing up, baby. Let's go.

[B]

Yeah. So to your point, the Venezuelans, you know, some of the guys that you.

[A]

Yeah, same thing. Yeah, my long time editor. So if people enjoy the intros on the episodes from. I guess the first one would have been probably 285 with Red Man. But my guy, Christian, the Venezuelan shout out Christian, he lives right there, like right in, in the foothills, looking right down on Center Caracas. And so, you know, I was worried about him when I woke up in the morning. We didn't know yet, like, what was going on once we found out Venezuela was invaded.

[B]

But we could.

[A]

We couldn't get a hold of him. Then we get him on FaceTime, like in the afternoon. He's like, bro, it was amazing.

[B]

I'm like, you're good?

[A]

He's like, yeah, well. Oh, don't.

[B]

Good.

[A]

He's like, he saw the helicopters coming right above him.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

So they like, ran outside and they watched it like the Super Bowl. And they're all like, yeah. Because, you know, I knew a lot about this because of him more than anything. Like, he would get pulled over by Maduro's guys. Their electricity would go out for 13 hours a day. And then he'd be like, apologizing for me for not having the intro.

[B]

I'm like, what the are you gonna do? Right?

[A]

You don't have electricity.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But hopefully, you know, something good happens there. The one thing I, I don't know how much you know, we're going to talk about your undercover work and all the stuff you've done with the Mexican cartels in, in Arizona. So I don't know how much you know about this. I don't answer anything that, you know, you don't feel comfortable going into, but, you know, yeah, Venezuela's moving some drugs. It's basically like three baggies in an eight ball compared to Mexican. Am I wrong or I. I can't

[B]

talk on it, man. It's out outside of my wheelhouse. Because really we focused on the Mexicans. And again, we're a sheriff's office, so we're a local agency, so we're not as deep in it as like the federal level stuff. Even though we did some investigations with federal partners, generally speaking, our line would stop in Mexico. Right. And so do I know there's stuff past that? Yes, I do. And, you know, I read all the stuff just like you do. And I know that our country has a history of like, look at this. But it's really this.

[A]

Not talking about some files, right?

[B]

I don't know about anything. I ain't seen nothing. I ain't heard. They ain't talking about, you know. Yeah.

[A]

Suddenly a little bomb goes off in Venezuela. Oh, good, amigo.

[B]

Smoking mirrors, baby.

[A]

Smoking mirrors. But you were also telling me. I was just thinking on this. You told me about the family gatherings you'll have because your wife is Mexican. So you go to these big family gatherings where you are the 30, 35 year sheriff, right? And some of the other guys, not all of them, but some of the other guys there are Operating on the other side, literally working with the cartels. And you have these green zones.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

As you described it. What I was wondering, though, is, you know, you get a few surveys as deep at these things and start talking a little bit. Does that ever happen?

[B]

No, not really. And again, this was younger in my career, so those family gatherings look completely different now because a lot of people have gotten older, little kids have grown up. And so this was more in the time frame when I was working undercover. And so that was back in the early 2000s and some of the middle and into the 2010 era where these family gatherings would take place. But no, there was. There was pretty clear lines.

[A]

Hey, guys, three quick things. Number one, if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe. It's a huge, huge help. Number two, if you'd like to join my Patreon for early uncensored releases of the full episodes, you can join via the link in my description or in the pinned comment below. And number three, if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make content from the show and make money, you can join via the Discord link in my description below.

[B]

And I don't know, you just learn. I mean, I think I learned how to navigate that type of stuff as a youngster, Right. Growing up in a gang neighborhood, you try to explain this to people that don't understand it, and it's hard. But there are these imaginary lines that you understand you cannot cross. Because if I went past a certain road, I was out of bounds. I was in a different neighborhood, which means that essentially you're unprotected. And I wasn't a gangster, but I was from a gang neighborhood, and my friends, some of them were gangsters. And so you're guilty by association whether you like it or not, in the eyes of another gang. And so I got jumped a few times when I was out of bounds, I would go see a girl that lived in a different neighborhood, and I got caught a few times while in route or out of there, and I got jumped a few times because I don't belong in that neighborhood. And so there's all these imaginary lines. You learn how to work around these rules. And so that kind of applied at these family gatherings, right? There would be this unspoken rule of, this is family, no business. So none of my business, none of their business. We're not going to hang out and be friends, but we're not going to kill each other either. We're just going to let the families do their thing. Those Guys would be at a table by themselves over here. I would generally be over here with maybe some of the nephews and, you know, just minding my own business and staying stay out of theirs.

[A]

I don't know if this is applicable, but is there also. You correct me if I'm wrong here, but let's say, you know, that, you know, cousin Juan over there and. And Jorge, they're in it, but they're doing the weed and the coke stuff. They're not doing the traffic and stuff or something like that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I would imagine that's probably a little bit easier to sit with than someone who's doing that other stuff. Is that fair to say?

[B]

Yeah, for sure, dude. None of. None of those people were in the human stuff. It was all dope, which did make it easier because I think that it. I don't know that I'd have been able to hold those same lines.

[A]

Yeah, you'd be a better man than whatever it is. Different man than me able to hold those lines. But, you know, you're. We had alluded to this. You and I did a previous episode. So, you know, we kind of started to go to some of the stuff, but. But didn't really get there. Obviously in Arizona, you've stated it. It has really been, historically, over the last couple decades, the Sinaloa cartel.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's been the main threat there, very famous cartel. Given some of the media presence when. With regards to people like El Chapo and El Mayo who've been involved with that. And there's a lot going on today that's a little different. But, you know, when. When did you start to really get well versed in the Sinaloa cartel and how it works and how they operate in the United States and what they're doing.

[B]

That would have. The first touch of that would have been in the early 2000s, when I first started working undercover, getting kind of introduced to that world. And. And it was kind of like the matrix where, you know, I took the red pill and. Or the blue pill, whichever the right pill is, to see the world, but getting exposed to that bigger world and have a. Had a bigger understanding. So that was the first exposure where I saw the Sinaloans and started to learn about them. And then it became an OJT kind of thing. And a really good mentor was the guy who actually pulled me up to undercover work. Right. The guy that I said sat me down and recruited me. And the same dude that said, it's your heart, not your look. Right. So that dude was a big Time mentor of mine in the dope world. And he knew that world in and out, and he had been operating in it for so many years, and he had done a lot of undercover work in that realm, and he taught me a lot. So he kind of started laying out how structured they were. And as we started moving forward in time from the early 2000s, like some of the first things that he laid out for me, he gives me a sheet of paper that has a bunch of frequencies on it and frequencies and then GPS locations and stuff like that. And I'm like, all right, what are we looking at here? And he's like, these are the frequencies that they're currently operating on, and these are the locations where we found scouts. And I'll explain all of that. But essentially what he was showing me was their network of communication. And I was like, oh, okay. And so as. As we moved forward and he educated me more, he was like, essentially they have their own radio system and they're on frequencies in the US and they're talking back and forth to Mexico and they're communicating up. And these scouts are in the US they're on mountaintops throughout our county, and they communicate to each other all the way back to Mexico to coordinate the load movement from Mexico up.

[A]

Now, how would they communicate?

[B]

They had Kenwood and Motorola radios. So typically Latin based radios, much like a police radio. So if you look at your typical police radio, the cartel radios look very much like that. The easiest way to describe it for the, like, the lay person is a walkie talkie. Right. They had these black radios. They would. So when you go into Arizona, if you can pull that map up again, when we look at the map and we look at that southwest portion of our county.

[A]

And also, just for context, for people who didn't see the last episode but are listening right now, you said the 55 miles right below where you are and the border is basically no man's land. It's got some Native American reservations, open desert and mountains. And so you guys are kind of the first line of defense in Arizona.

[B]

Right? Right. So as you look at that area that you just described, which is open desert all the way down there, so south of I8 and west of I10, all open desert. And what it looks like is valleys and peaks. So you have these huge valleys with mountaintops spread throughout them.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so you can see for 30 miles in any direction when you're on one of these mountaintops. And so if you look mountaintop to mountaintop, that would typically be where Scouts Were. And so they were communicating on these. On one mountaintop to the other. They were communicating with each other and acting as their own repeater system. So Scout 1 talks to Scout 2, Scout 2 to 3, and they would repeat that message from i8 all the way down to the Boston Mexico.

[A]

Are these kids wives or regular cartel members? So we're a mix.

[B]

It's a mix. Right. And the weird thing is this, that they're all cartel. Right, because they all work for the same organization. But some of these dudes would be irrigators during the day, cartel dude at night. Right. And. And cartel operative is probably more of a proper term because they weren't. Like, these guys wouldn't be out slicing people up or anything like that. They were sitting on a mountaintop talking to a radio.

[A]

They're not made guys.

[B]

Right, right. They're their worker bees.

[A]

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[B]

Um, and so that was their communication method. And again, they, they would operate on multiple frequencies. And so we would learn how to listen to some of those frequencies. But as time went on, they got better and better and better at it. And so as we were talking about in the first episode, how did I see them change? They went from these very rudimentary smuggling techniques of just, hey, put it in a truck and drive it north, or put it on a person and have them hike it north and don't hide it or anything. And then when it gets to this spot, just get it to the next spot for distribution. And then as you went forward, they started like, okay, let's coordinate this a little bit better. Now we have coordinated movements where you go from point A to point B. You have to check in so and so knows about it and you check in with them when you get there. And then it goes from that point to the next. Then it went to, okay, now we have a radio system and we're going to do live checks. So you're going to take it from this point and you're going to have live check ins and scouts are going to be over, over the top of you watching. So if somebody comes in, law enforcement, usually they can alert you to that fact. So you can hide from them and then work around it. And so then the communication piece started getting more advanced. So they went from open frequencies where you could just. We used to be able to just run a scanner, right, A police scanner. And I could, I could sneak into the area, run a police scanner, and eventually they would talk and boom, it would key on that frequency and I would know like, okay, that's the frequency they're talking on. So then we would dial in that frequency and listen to their open conversations. And of course it's in Spanish, but they would talk in code sometimes even on these open frequencies. And so you kind of have to figure that piece out, but you would eventually start figuring it out. And then they moved forward, advancing it further. They started using encryption. And so they would have those same radios, but they would be encrypted. And so you would have to figure out the encryption piece.

[A]

Wait, how would they. What do you mean? Encryption with radios.

[B]

So the radios having the. Have the ability to have an encryption key. Right. And so if I have two radios, they both have to have the same encryption key to talk to each other.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

If they don't, you can't hear or communicate and anybody on the outside, you'll never hear that transmission. It's almost like a WhatsApp of radios. Right. And so it's end to end encryption. And so that was their next step up in technology, was encryption. But that encryption wasn't hard to break if you knew what you were doing. Right. And so on the government side, we had people that knew what they were doing, and we would still be able to listen to some of those. Then they moved to rolling encryption, which means that those keys now constantly switch. And so it's a rolling key that you can't really capture as easily. Then essentially, you have to have that encryption key to really get after it and get that information. I know that's driving you crazy.

[A]

Yeah. Again, if you didn't hear the last episode, we're dealing with construction next door. We've been dealing with it only for four months.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. But it's weird because it's all good, dude. I just feel like every time I get to a key piece of intel information, those dudes start banging.

[A]

That's what I'm saying.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's a little confusing. Although that one story you were telling, I was telling you this off camera. The one story you were telling about, like, going into the safe house and thinking the whole place was like, booby trapped.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And you hear like, go, go, go. They were doing the banging, and it sounded like very on brand. I was like, okay, that's okay. Give me more.

[B]

Right, right. But other than that, they've been off on the rest of it. Yeah, yeah. So rolling encryption was. Was next. And so they started advancing as much as the radios on the police side were advancing, because we were having the same technology advances on our side of the house. And now they're at a point where their radios are rolling encryption, their GPS monitored. And so if I issue you, Julian, a radio, and you're a cartel dude, Julian, here's your radio. I know where it's at at all times by GPS location. I can remote access your radio and I can remote zap your radio. So if your radio goes somewhere it's not supposed to be, I can remotely turn that radio off so you can no longer communicate. Because one of the ways we used to exploit the radios was the people that had the radios. Right. And so if you had a guy that you caught with the radio, much like you do in the dope world, I catch you with something, hey, man, you want to work yourself out of this problem? Here's what you have to do. Right. And so we would work Ourselves into those radios. Well, now their. Their technology has gotten so good that if that radio ends up anywhere it's not supposed to be, they do zap it, that radio is done, and they. They get a new one.

[A]

Did you notice at all? I'll even say, like, in the early 2000s, where obviously, you know, on the other side of the border in Mexico, law and crime are one in the same. They all, you know, they pay off everyone, they own everyone up to the president. But in America, were you encountering any unholy alliances between any aspect of the quote, unquote law in America and Sinaloa?

[B]

Maybe buying them off on the local level? Yeah, so. Or on a ground level, I guess. So if we're talking like admin level stuff like nation to nation or Feds.

[A]

No, yeah, no, I'm talking about.

[B]

Yeah, so on a local level. Yeah, there was. There was dirty agents, dirty cops that would get either compromised or bought off and the whole.

[A]

Catch any of them?

[B]

Yeah, we, I. I had a. In. When I was running my undercover squad as a sergeant, one of our detectives was ultimately found out to be dirty. I sent him on a money load that was a setup. We were working with the FBI, sent him on a money load, and he took some of the money. We could not prove that he was working directly with the cartel, but he was in Mexico a lot. He was a Mexican and fluent and had had family ties down there. But we never could connect the. The dot of him being directly working for the bad guys. But there was that suspicion, and we ended up arresting him for stealing money off of a money load.

[A]

Man, it makes it. It makes it really hard. I can't even imagine in Mexico. But, like, when you're dealing with organizations this ruthless, when you have leaks in your own ship, it makes the job that much more frustrating.

[B]

Yeah, for sure, because you and your concern is how compromised are you? Right? That's always a concern. And so, like that one, we tried to flush out as much as possible on how compromised were we because he was working on some big cases, had access to some big information, and I don't think we ever got a satisfactory answer to that. So we really don't know. But yeah, they. We had a Mexican. A local Mexican cop, so like a city cop from one of the towns down there that got busted on our side, and our guys debriefed him, and one of the guys kind of asked him, like, how. How did you. How'd you flip, dude? Like, why did you become a bad guy? And he says, well, it Was pretty simple. He says, I was doing my job. I didn't want anything to do with those guys. I knew who they were. I stayed away from them, they stayed away from me. Except one day two cars pulled in. And he says, I was just sitting on the highway watching traffic. Two cars pull in, one in front of me, one behind me, block me in. My passenger door opens, the guy gets in, sits down and basically tells me like, hey, we want you to work with us and all you have to do is not be on the road these times or whatever, or let these trucks go by without messing with them and blah, blah, blah. And his answer was, no, I'm not a part of your organization. I don't want to be. They were like, okay, well we kind of thought you would say that. And so they throw pictures down of his family and, and here's where your daughter's currently at, your wife's currently at all this stuff. And we're going to give you 30 seconds to decide if you want to lose your family. Like we're going to kill them or you want to work for us. And he says, and so I've been working for him since. And you know, that was his reality. Like, how do you battle that?

[A]

That's what I'm saying. I in that scenario, look, I can sit here and play holier than now and you know, Monday morning quarterback, but, but I don't even have a family yet. But I can imagine how you might be feeling. I. It's like, who do you want to over?

[B]

Right? Yeah. Right.

[A]

You are stuck either way. Stuck between a, and a fart.

[B]

And you, and you know that no matter the agreement, there's loss immediately attached to that. So yeah. And then, and so you further that even more. And now you're an American cop that has caught this guy, right?

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And he tells you this story and, and you're like, well, dude, I mean like it's. Now it sucks twice as bad because you were in a no win situation which caused you to now be crossways with us and, and sitting here across from, from us going to prison. So you're still going to be removed from your family, but like, you're not a bad guy. You didn't like set out to be a bad guy for profit or any of that stuff. Right. It started for you. Yeah, it's different.

[A]

It's different than the dude who just was upset about his paycheck or something like that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, but then you're in the shoes. It's like, well, what would you Do. That's one thing about. And I say this about any major, like, especially life or death decision or like that people, especially on the Internet, whether it be talking heads sitting in armchairs like me or people in comment sections, love to say some version of if I were blank, then I would blank. You don't know.

[B]

No.

[A]

You don't know till you're there.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And you know, what is the right decision? I don't know.

[B]

Maybe, dude, we. And. And, you know, we face that in our career every single day, especially with the more. More cameras are around. You know, everything we do is scrutinizing, oh, if I was that cop, I would have. Or if I was that cop, I would have done that. Right. So we. Yeah, we deal with that all the time. And you can't say unless you're the person in that situation at the time.

[A]

Now, I've had a lot of people in here from a border perspective who have discussed at length the Texas border, the California border. Like, those are the two. And we've run through all the different. You know, a border is not just obviously a regular border. There's rivers, there's trees, there's mountains. Depends where you are. There's places where it's wide open. There's places. Places where there's a wall.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

You know, there's places where there's holes in the wall. We've seen those videos, but I don't know that I've had anyone in here to, like, describe, you know, all the different aspects of the Arizona border. So definitely you can just pull this up for one minute. So we're dealing with 310 to Yuma right here, right?

[B]

Yep. And then probably even further east than Yuma, because the Yuma sector of. Of the border patrol, that sector has had a wall and has been more secure than any other portion of the Arizona border for quite some time. Okay, so you're probably talking about halfway between.

[A]

Zoom out, thief. So I can see where the Arizona lines are. Sorry.

[B]

Yeah. So halfway Arizona, right here. Yeah, that's Arizona. Most beautiful state in the Union, dude. But between Nogales and Yuma, about the halfway mark is roughly where we're probably starting. My knowledge base probably a little more towards Yuma right in there. Yeah.

[A]

So you said Yuma's got an enforced wall.

[B]

Yeah. And Yuma. Yuma looks a lot more like Cali than. Than our part of Arizona. Right. And how they're dealing with stuff. And so our portion there, that wide open desert, there's some geographical barriers. So there's some Areas where it's pure cliff and there's Mexico over there. So for them to cross and go up cliffs. Right? Kind of impossible. Yeah. So those, those geographical barriers are just natural barriers where they typically don't operate. It's the more flat areas and some of the mountainous areas where it's easily accessible and it's spotty, man. There's, there's areas where it's three strand barbed wire is the international border. There's areas where it is like Normandy style barriers that are, that are lined up at the international border. And then there's the, the, the typical border wall that everybody's kind of used to. The big like rusted metal brown looking wall that is metal pieces with. You can see daylight in between. There's a lot of that wall, but it's sectioned through Arizona. So you'll literally like down in Cochise county, down by Douglas, in that area, there's this wall that, I mean you, you can look for miles, you could see this wall and it's just blocking whatever it's blocking. And then boom, it ends. And then there's barbed wire for miles. And so it's like. Well, dude, like so. And that's another reason why our county became such a prime piece of real estate for the Sinaloa cartel. Because just by there we go, that, that middle left one there is like your typical border wall. No, no. Yeah, so that's your typical wall down there, right? So like when you're right around the, like if you're around Nogales, you'll see a lot of that type of wall and some of the, the fencing. But as you get out into the, some of those remote areas, it just ends and it's barbed wire. But again, so where, where this wall ends in Arizona and why our county became a prime piece for the Sinaloans was those gaps by terrain. So those gaps kind of funnel into our county. So where those gaps are in the, the border wall down there right on the, the international border, that area just by terrain, by valleys and mountains in between, or on the edges of them, it funnels it kind of right up into the southwest portion of our county. So it was prime real estate for them because that's where they were driving stolens through. So they would steal vehicles out of Phoenix, bring them down, load them with dope and drive them north. And that was like a continual thing. And so they were using a lot of that area.

[A]

Well, we all know El Chapo also was famous for the different creative ways that he would come up With. So speaking of drilling and hammering, he would do a lot of stuff underground and build tunnels. And you hear about some of the ones that like going to California. Did you ever encounter that in Arizona?

[B]

Yes. Me personally? No. Because the area we were working was too far north to have tunnels related to. Because typically the tunnels would come just, you know, like maybe a tenth of a mile into the US and they would hit a stash house. Right. So most of our work, we weren't right on the border unless there was a few cases that I did down in Nogales where I was doing the undercover work. But we never had any tunnel cases. But there were a lot of tunnel cases in Arizona that so groups. We would typically work with some of the DEA groups, hsi. Some of those guys were working those tunnel problems.

[A]

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[B]

Allegedly you're like, what? Allegedly.

[A]

I love that you said that. You're in the right place. But like, you see something like this is just the one he built under his prison cell. It had a fucking bike ramp for him to be able to get the motorcycle out of there. It's built in perfect proportions underground. It's not caving in on itself. And they were building so many. I know it's only coming a tenth of the mile into the border, but they're building things that are probably at least a mil mile long in most cases, you know, to be far enough.

[B]

And. And bro, I'm telling you, these guys, some of the they did was ingenious. Like what? Just rudimentary stuff. So rock karens, right? You've seen rock karens before? Like when you go hiking, people will stack rocks to kind of mark trails.

[A]

Yes, yes.

[B]

All right, so some of our operations were we would be driving vehicles blacked out, driving under night vision. Right. So we're out in the middle of the desert, no lights, under night vision, driving to wherever we're driving. And the cartels knew that law enforcement did that and they knew that other bad guys did that because there was these things called rip crews. Rip crews were basically robbery crews that would wait for the load to get Almost up to i8. And just right up in that area, they would jack the load and. And. Which was typically a violent takeover. And so the cartels knew that. That rip crews were out there and that law enforcement was out there. So one night at like 35 miles an hour, I found one of those rock cairns in the middle of a road. And so again, the ingenuity was this. That was purposely put there by the cartel as a early warning signal because they knew people were driving. Those roads blacked out at night. And so as soon as I hit that rock cairn, with my vehicle. As you can imagine in a. If you've ever been in the desert, you can hear voices from way far away, right? Imagine hitting rocks at like 30, 35 miles an hour. It's going to make a hell of a clank. As soon as that happened, then they started lighting flares off the hilltops. And so they, they essentially shoot flares off to light up the valley, just like a military operation so that they can start looking for whatever made that noise. And so, I mean, they're just, they're ingenious in some of the. That they do. And these tunnels are, are proof of their ingenuity.

[A]

Yeah, you were in, you, you did a documentary feature with my good friend Tommy G, who looked this up. So shout out Tommy as well. Everyone check out Tommy's channel amazing documentaries on there. But there was like you, I guess you gave him some footage and stuff as well of like some of those undercover, like, go, go, go, go, go. Right, like where, where you're catching the cars going full speed at night. And it's just like, I mean, I can feel the adrenaline rush watching it, but you see how these guys operate in one to two minute little spurts in the midd middle of a random spot on the border. And it's like, it's like catching. It's like getting a needle in a haystack for you guys. Because outside the places that are literally geographically protected by a canyon or actually protected by the wall, there's so many of these other open areas, it's like, well, they could be there, they could be there. They could be there.

[B]

Yeah. And, and it was a lot of times it was. You would have to combine intelligence. Yeah, you would have to combine, combine informant feedback and then just blind ass luck, man. And kind of looking at what's going on as to where you think they're going to pop out, right? And we would try and pick the areas where our success was higher than other areas. Like when we worked with like Vince and his crew.

[A]

Rocco Vargas.

[B]

Yeah, Rocco Vargas and his crew. He was born star, but he was connected to the boar attackers and the boar attackers out of Del Rio, Texas. At the time, time, during the book time frame, we worked a lot with them. When those dudes came out, they taught us a lot about that, right? About setting up choke points and where to tactically set them up better. And so we would look at those choke points and one of the guys told me, he's like, dude, Instead of covering 50 miles, let's cover 5 miles. Because our, our chances are better. And here's where we think we can do it. And so a lot of that kind of stuff, but it was still. Yeah. Needle in the hay, haste, that kind of stuff.

[A]

And.

[B]

And you would. There were times where they would even surprise you because you'd be like, man, there's nothing happening. And then all of a sudden, boom, there they are. And you're like, holy. Like, we weren't ready for that.

[A]

It's like when you're fishing suddenly.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Y.

[A]

You. I was going to ask you about that, though, and you just brought it up. The. The intelligence aspect of it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And informants, you know, how high level were you ever able to get with that? Or are you usually getting people like, you know, occasionally a signaler or something like that?

[B]

Yeah, for us, like, at a local level, we're usually low level informants. And quite frankly, if you would get a higher level informant, typically you would want to hand them off anyways because the damage they're doing at your level is not nothing compared to the higher level. Right. So if. If I have an informant that's much more connected than the cases that I'm doing, why. Why have him? Right? Because I'm going to limit myself to what I'm working. But if I know that he can help the greater good. A lot of times we would call the feds up and be like, hey, we got a guy that we want you to talk to. And the feds would talk to him and they'd be like, oh, yeah, like, can we have this dude? And you would. You would basically sign your informant off and give him to the. Because same thing. The. The. In the dope game, DEA is like the. The NFL. Right. And so we're operating at. At a college level on the local level. DEA is operating at the NFL level. And so we would get an informant that. That was higher up the food chain and had more info. It wasn't info that we would either be able to act on or have the resources to act on. So hand them off to those guys. They would take over that CI and they would do the work. Work.

[A]

Did you ever get a hold of a guy, maybe it's a scenario like that where you're holding it off where like the hair stands up on the back of your neck and you're like, holy.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah. There was. There was a dude. I. And it was early on. He was a funny dude, man. He was a. What was he. He was Cuban. And so it was weird. I. I remember thinking like, how, like you're Cuban descent. So mom was Cuban, dad was Mexican or maybe vice versa. But anyways, he was kind of a tubby dude and just funny as hell. Like he could be a stand up man if he, if he put his mind to it, right? He was, he's just that quick witted. So I, he's not even my CI he's talking to another detective and I'm listening to him talk and they're, you know, going through all their. And at one point I was just like, how the did we beat this, right? Like, how, how do you beat this animal? And so I asked him, I'm like, dude, are we even, like, are we even making a dent? And he starts laughing and he says, you really want me to answer that? And I was like, well, yeah, dude, I'm kind of, kind of in one of those spots where I'm questioning life, right? Like, what am I doing?

[A]

When is this approximately?

[B]

This was. Dude, this would have been the early 2000s, okay? And so, so he was like, well, everything's kind of stacked against you, dude. So. No, And I said, what do you mean? And, and he says, well, bro, it's all, it's all a big game. And I, I'm like, all right, well explain to me, bro, because I'm, I'm not getting it. He says, well, here's the deal, dude. He says, the guys that I deal with are down in Mexico in these villages, right? And he says every year they throw one or two big parties where the whole village gets invited and they hand out presents. They. Free alcohol, free food. Just a huge party, like all weekend. Everybody's drinking and eating good. These villages love these guys. They treat them like kings. And he says, so they are very secure in those villages and that's where they tend to live. And they don't get messed with by either gavachos or the Mexican military or any of them. And he said, so these same dudes will be the dudes. And he says, and I've been in some of these meetings where the US Government goes to Mexico and says, hey, you got to start helping with this problem, right? They're, they're Mexican cartels. And so the Mexico government is like u. S. We're trying, but we need arbitrary numbers. We need $5 million to, to help us fight these guys. You know, it takes resources. U.S. government's like, we're with you, man.

[A]

Here's it.

[B]

Here's $5 million.

[A]

We gave that to a daycare in Minnesota.

[B]

But again, arbitrary numbers. But just to prove the point, here's $5 million Mexico help us fight this fight. Cool. He says then my bosses would go meet with those same Mexican officials and be like, how much did us offer you? They gave us five. Cool. We're going to give you 10 and a couple throwdowns so you can put on a show and then we'll be good. Roger that. So they get 5 million from the US they get 10 million from the cartels. The cartels give them a couple throw down labs and some bad guys to lock up and parade across the screen. And he says, then life goes on. And he says it's a repetitive cycle.

[A]

All right.

[B]

So. Yeah. And you know, I don't know that that's true, but I feel like, oh, that stuff.

[A]

Yeah, true.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Talk to enough guys have been sitting in your seat from all these different angles and you all tell the same kind of story. Right. And it's like, you know, then this is the early 2000s.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because I was going to ask you, you know, we'll get to what the flip of the border was like, you know, over the past six years or so.

[B]

Right.

[A]

When you went from Trump to Biden and back to Trump and all that. But back then, I guess this is like during Bush's time. And I'm just thinking about it post 911 too do.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So they're worried about any terror cells coming in, which would include obviously getting through any kind of borders and stuff like that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You guys from everything you're describing are still having a significant number of problems though.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

On the border and patrolling at a time where the resources are probably even high. Which makes me think like right now, even if you have a guy like Trump who cares a lot about it and clearly has done a, a better job than, than Biden and cleaned up some things, I think we have the numbers to back that for sure. But like, you know, maybe it really still is like kind of an unwinnable fight. You have a few leaks in the current, that's enough to be able to get it through.

[B]

Yeah, dude, I, I don't know. I don't know. I, you know, obviously you, a guy like me, sits back and you look at your life, your career that you've, you, you've dumped your life into and you think like, what's it all for? Right? Have I affected anything? And I would always say the answer is yes, because I'm on the side of good. And I think good is always going to win.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And evil's always going to be there. And so really I, I can't focus on the stuff that I have no control over. And so as I went through my career, I just had to focus on what can I affect? You know, what world can I affect and how can I affect it and just focus on that. And I can't worry about the. That I have no control.

[A]

I've cited it so many times on here. But our mutual friend Tommy G has a great quote. He's like, I can't boil the ocean,

[B]

but I can boil my pot.

[A]

And it's so spot on.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, like, you gotta control what you can control in your area and the rest of it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's kind of up to the system to do, but it's got to be frustrating when you see the system kind of breaking in on itself.

[B]

Yeah, for sure. Well, and then, you know, you, like, especially when I was with Sheriff Lamb and working together with him as his number two, you're sitting at the table on a national level more. Right. And you're meeting with some of these alleged leaders of our nation. And you're sitting across a table like this, and you're like, you're a liar, dude. You're. You're out for yourself. You don't know what you're talking about. And you're. You're just a mouthpiece for whoever's paying you the most. And I always told my wife, like, when we would go to D.C. i'd always feel so dirty when I left there. I'm like, that's our nation's capital. Like, I. I love the history of that place, but I hate the people that are running our country because they're. They're just corrupt.

[A]

Yeah. I drive around D.C. yeah. When I gotta go south, I have no interest in ever being there. It's just. You feel. It's exactly what you said. You feel gross when you're there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, this is just all. And these people are all friends and then fight on TV to make us all fight in America. It's just very. You know, I. I will not have politicians on my show.

[B]

Right. Ever.

[A]

Don't do it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I remember one time when we did a case for my buddy who. Who was convicted of something that. That. That he didn't do. His lawyer was running, was going to be running for attorney General in Pennsylvania, and she was one of the people coming on here. She's awesome. Never mentioned a word about it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

We totally stayed away from it. She didn't ask to bring it up.

[B]

What.

[A]

It was completely separate, which I really respected. But, like, every time I I love dunking on politicians. I just really, if there's a term for being, like, prejudice against politicians, I don't know what that is, but sign me up.

[B]

I, I 100 politicianist. I don't know.

[A]

Yeah, it's it, like, who wants that job today?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Who wants to be that person? What. What's wrong with them?

[B]

Well, and I'll tell you, like, I watched it firsthand with Mark. So Mark Lamb was our sitting sheriff, and I watched the party come to him and say, hey, it's a good idea for you to run for Senate. We'll back you. Cool. So he decides, I'll leave sheriff and I'll run for Senate. And he gets into his run, and then he's like, hey, guys. So turns out I need a lot of money to run for Senate. Where are you guys at? And they're like, yeah, you know, some other stuff came up and you're kind of on your own, man. And I was like, dude, these dirty.

[A]

Yeah, chew you up and spit you out, man. If you don't play the game, do the whole song and dance exactly what they want at that given moment.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And you're done. That's why we see, like, the horseshoe theory of politics happen over and over again in America where it all comes back around because, you know, they're just, they're going wherever the next current is, and if you don't stay in line, that's it. But, yep, yep, you know, unfortunately, you have to then do your job on the basis of what the political environment is letting you do.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, and so we already talked about COVID in the last episode and everything, but, you know, when, when the, when the calendar did shift and I'll, I'll come back to Sinaloa and all that, but I do want to ask about this. Right, right now, when the calendar did shift and, you know, you move from Trump presidency 1:45 into Biden 46, where it was like, we don't really care about the border. I mean, what were the in. In the first year? What were the instant impacts on your world?

[B]

Oh, dude, it. And here's the thing, like, what we felt on the ground level in Arizona was this. It was an immediately erasing of anything that had Trump's print on it. Right. Even if it didn't. But they felt like it did. And so it became immediately apparent that all of their new rules were basically, hey, that guy. And so they would be like, we're doing this now. Why? Because that guy.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And now we're doing this because of the same reason and this because of the same reason. And we were like, well, wait a minute, this actually. So law enforcement was like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like that actually worked. So how about we keep that? Because like that was working. Like, okay, that other thing cool, we could do with or without, but like this thing really worked. Could we keep that? And they were like, don't talk to us, we're experts. What? Like I have never seen you here in my state where I live and have to deal with this, but you're somehow the expert calling the shots. Right, right. And so we immediately saw just they cancelled or adjusted policies that like the remain in Mexico policy was one that they were like, nope, immediately do away with that and now let's keep them on this side and remain in Mexico policy again. So that was the policy where they were like, hey, if, if you come over illegally, you're going to get pushed back and you're going to stay in Mexico until your case is done. Done. Right. So you're gonna, you're not staying in the US until your case is decided and either you get to stay permanently or not, you're going to stay in Mexico. That was working phenomenally because what it caused was people were like, well, that I don't like, I'm not trying to get to Mexico, I'm trying to get to the US and so I don't want to stay there while all this goes on. But overnight that switched, like, no, come on in. And at first it was like, come in and you're going to stay in these places. And then it turned into, come in, we're going to give you this note, like, you promise you're going to come back to court in five to 10 years and is that okay? And so then people were like, huh, I'll be there. Yeah, sure, just let me know. Here's my forwarding address. And so that flipped overnight. And so then what started happening is globally. It started getting advertised like, hey, Joe Biden said we can all come and we can just hang out until they figure it out. Right. And so we started getting all these different countries showing up and we're like, because dude, when I first started in the 90s, almost all Mexican migrants, almost exclusively, very rarely would you see what they call an OTM other than Mexican. And that's a, that's a border patrol term that they use for anybody who's not Mexican is an otm because it's kind of a different process for them to get sent back to their country than it is For Mexico, Mexican to get sent back. So early 90s into the. Or late 90s into the early 2000s, almost exclusively Mexican migrants. Now you fast forward to Biden's in office, and we're seeing hardly any Mexicans. It's like Venezuelans. It's Haitians. It's Iranian Turkey, India, Pakistan. There's all these countries. And they're all. All coming into South America and then coming up in through Mexico, like doing

[A]

the Darien gap kind of thing.

[B]

Yeah, doing all that stuff. And some of them coming straight into Mexico and then up. Right.

[A]

And half of them. Half of them are dead or traffic by the time they get to the end or don't make it to the end of the Darien Gap.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then the percentages even increase on the trafficking and maybe dead part as well by the time they get to the Mexican border.

[B]

Yep. And when you're talking. So now you look again at that one policy shift, right. Of. Of remain in Mexico, they change that policy shift. So then what we see is this huge influx in one of the biggest migrations the world's ever seen of people coming into a country and illegally. And so all of that is happening, and the cartels quickly figure out, like, wait a minute, we got to make some money here. Right?

[A]

Coyote time.

[B]

Yeah. So not just coyote time, but control of a border. So on the Mexican side, the cartels are like, hey, this imaginary line, that's our line. And if you want to go from this part to that part, you're going through our line. And so you have to pay U.S. taxes. Right. And so conservatively. Conservatively, a Mexican national, typically during, like, we're talking probably, I don't know, 20. 20, 20, 21. Ish. No, we're. I'm sorry, go a little bit further. 23, 24. A Mexican national crossing that line, they get the homie hookup price. So, like, you're only going to pay a grand to get across that line. And in many places, Texas, a little bit into New Mexico, kind of touch the edge of Arizona. We didn see it a whole lot in our area, but we got all the intel briefs on this going on. They would get like a Disneyland band. Right? So you pay on the south side, you get your band proof of payment, you get crossed over. And, oh, by the way, that only gets you across. So getting from there to your next destination, that's a different ride.

[A]

Did they tell that then before?

[B]

Oh, no, dude. You never get told before, you get told after. Right. And so that's how you get indentured slavery slaves. So they're on the south side. We'll go with the Mexican price. So let's just assume all of these people are paying a thousand bucks, which is not true, because if you were from a country of interest, I. E. Iran, any country that is considered an enemy of the state, they're paying 15, 20K a piece to get across. Right?

[A]

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[B]

So they're all showing up to the border. They're having to pay to ride the ride in the Tucson sector. So if you can pull up the Tucson sector of border patrol. Yes. So we'll just go there. Yeah.

[A]

So down by nogales so essentially, yeah,

[B]

essentially i19 goes from Tucson to Nogales. So west of that, out into that desert area that we're talking about.

[A]

All of the.

[B]

That area there is called. Is. Is considered the Tucson sector for border patrol. So in the Tucson sector, some of the numbers we were seeing at the peak were like 15,000, 20,000 people coming through in a month that you know of that well. And I was going to get to that. So that's. That's 15 to 20,000 people coming through that the US government admitted to. Right. That we've processed just this many. So 15 to 20,000 have come through, but we have this thing called gotaways.

[A]

Wait, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to cut you off when you say we've processed them.

[B]

Yes. Like they've given them their note. Like, hey, and let them keep you promised to appear. Yeah. All right, cool. Here you go. Right. That. That's how it. That's what it turned into was give you a note go. Give you a note, go. So much so on that note piece before I go forward that at one point, we were stopping human loads on i10, which runs through our county, where we would stop the load and they wouldn't run, which was abnormal because typically the driver was instructed to run, get in pursuits, right, and try and bail out, and everybody run. They would pull over. This is odd, right? Our people start talking to him like, hey, dude, what are you doing with this load of. Of humans illegals? Like, oh, no, no, no, no, we're good. They all have their. Their papers. Like, what are you talking about? They have their papers. Border patrol has given them their paperwork that they promised to appear. So I'm not transporting illegals. I'm just basically a Mexican Uber, right? And so I'm ubering them from the border up to the Phoenix area at like 100 to 200 ahead. Compared to doing it illegal. Illegal, it's like a thousand ahead, right? And so making less money. But you can't seize my vehicle. I don't get arrested for anything. So that became a thing, Right? All on this. This traffic trafficking piece. So go back to the money piece, right? If we're talking, you're talking 10, 15, 20,000amonth of known and then gotaways. What got aways are is border patrol has technology down there where they see an incursion. So a group, they can count them, a group of 100 crosses, but they have no agents available because they're all processing people at these stations or they're pulled offline to go do other things. So. Oh yeah, yeah. A thousand people went through this week that we didn't catch. Those were gotaways. So the conservative estimates are gotaways were probably 20% additional. But like on the ground it's more like 50%. So 50% got processed. 50% gotaways. So now we're talking that 15k is in actuality about 30k that is coming through. Just the Tucson area. Yeah, just the Tucson. Yeah. A month. And so then you take 30k times 1000 a piece and that is what the cartel is making per month on those bodies. And here's the deal. Dope is a one time commodity, right? So dope gets shipped. If it gets popped, they have to resupply that. And so if they lose a kilo, they got to replace a kilo. Right. It's still got to get to the destination. They lose a body, body, all good. The body's going to get shipped back to wherever and then it's going to start the process again. So it's a reusable commodity for the cartel. Right. So if the cartel crosses them over. Yeah. And they get popped by border patrol and get processed and sent back. Cartel's like good to go man. Because we get to charge them again for the 5K. Exactly.

[A]

Add it to the town.

[B]

Yeah. So it became a multi billion dollar cartel industry. But our government formed it or formed the circumstance.

[A]

You're saying that we know of 15 to 20k just in that Tucson region a month. So let's be conservative and say 15, 15 times 12 is what, like 180, something like that.

[B]

So, and I think most, most of the times when we were talking about it like intel briefings and stuff, the, the rough guesstimate for like 23 was about 300k.

[A]

And then there's the 300k or 500k or 600k that you don't know about.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And no one ever grabbed. Right. God knows where they ended up or if they ended up there.

[B]

And on that note, let's talk about the children real quick.

[A]

Right? Yeah.

[B]

Because there were tens of thousands of children that our own government processed. Some of them, some of the addresses that they gave had 200 children listed at it. Who the has 200 kids? Right. So our government processes these kids as part of these groups that have no mom, no dad, no familial ties to anyone else in their group. And you're talking like 5 year olds, 6 year olds, 7 year olds. Our government processes them, takes them to the address that the cartels have Already predetermined for them because they would have sheets of paper saying, this is where I'm supposed to go. Process them, take them to that address, drop them off with whoever is at that address. And that would happen over and over and over for tens of thousands of kids that our own government then turned around and said, we have no idea where these kids are.

[A]

I mean, it's a. It's a script of a horror movie.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, in. In the worst cases, and I'm sure there's plenty of the worst cases that that occurred, and we don't even know who many of them are. And again, you're also excluding the kids there that we didn't process.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, but the fact that we would process that. That and allow that to happen and that.

[B]

That was policies. Right? You take away the individual. I don't care who the president is. That policy. If. If the government understands, if we on the ground are telling them, here's what's happening because of this, they wouldn't even answer our calls. And so I'll say from one president to the other, the one big. The biggest thing that we saw in law enforcement was communication. Cut off this presidency. Open invites to the White House at any time. I sat on one of these invites with Mark Lamb, where the sheriffs went up to the table. They're the number twos that got to come into the room. We kind of lined the edges, so I was on the edge.

[A]

Godfather made in your Tom Hagen.

[B]

That's it. That's it, man. So I'm sitting back here. The president walks in. He has a seat at the head of the table after brief introductions, and when he sits down, he breaks out a yellow tablet. Tablet. And he gets his pen out. His staffers are just standing, like, off to the side. And he said, all right, sheriffs, let me hear it. What are we doing good? What are we doing bad? How can we help you? And the president sat there and took notes as sheriffs let him have it. Like, hey, dude, you're screwing this up. Could you help us out here? Hey, this would really help us here. And he's taking notes. And a lot of times those notes would end in action, following, sometimes slow, because it's a government government. But nonetheless, there was open communication. That was the biggest thing, right? We, the cops just wanted to talk to the federal level and say on the ground. This is what we're seeing. Overnight. You. One president leaves office, a new president takes over. They immediately cut off communication and refuse to talk to us for the Whole presidency.

[A]

There's no excuse for that. You know, Joe Rogan used to have this great line back when Trump. Trump, like, shortly after he first won, where back in 2016, I guess, where he was like, donald Trump broke people. He broke people in one direction or another, but he broke them in half. And unfortunately, that literally includes the people in power and administrative positions of power within our government who may have been on one side or the other of that situation. The fact that. Fact that, you know, they literally wouldn't listen to people on the ground. You can go argue with a wall here, but prior to Donald Trump coming down the escalator in New York in 2015 and saying this, ending rapists, this ended whatever.

[B]

We got to build a wall.

[A]

Prior to that, the same people who are now not taking your calls were a part of an administration that was literally like the deporter in chief.

[B]

Right.

[A]

With Obama.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They were. I'm not saying all their methods were necessarily done the right way, but, like, they were quite literally on Donald. On Donald Trump's side of the spectrum.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then strictly because Orange man said something, they now said it's like the guy, the cop in the town.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

I don't. You know, it's maddening for me to hear this over and over again, but then to be on the ground, I don't know how you don't quit.

[B]

Well, and again, you. You kind of. I felt worse for Border Patrol, quite frankly. Yeah. Those guys were so demoralized during that time period because they were absolutely cut off at the legs. And so for us locally, we were just kind of like. Because we've. It's been our problem forever.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And the funny thing is, like, Arizona's always been on the line, and we. We kind of joke and say, yeah, we were doing it before. It was like, the cool thing to do.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Because now everybody focuses on the border. But we were dealing with the same forever, just in different aspects. So, yeah, the Border Patrol really felt it because they were just demoralized, and then they were getting attacked by their own leaders. You know, all the stuff. The same stuff that's going on with ICE right now.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, Rocco, we. I had him in for episode 243, and we're trying to figure out getting him back in sometime soon. But he lit. You know, he lived through these eras. And then after he left, obviously, he's still, like, intricately involved with some of the people there. Like, he knows that whole issue probably better than anybody on the Internet. And it's just like like, you can hear him, like, when he's explaining it just. It's like, you know, there's just like a cliff dive, right? That happens. And then it's. It's maddening when then people are yelling at you for not doing your job. I mean, we see these videos where even, like, YouTubers will go up from that era, will go up to Border Patrol agents, and the guy just rides away.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And he looks like the bad guy.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But it's like 40 levels above him is all telling him he has to ride away and not talk to this huge YouTuber who's pointing out the 10 people who are walking across the border right there unabated.

[B]

And. And that was the beauty again, of. Of working for a local sheriff in a sheriff's office is we had what Mark and I had what we refer to as Border Patrol informants. And so during that time frame, because the administration under Biden was using the media to their advantage, Right. And they were directing them on what the story would be, and they were putting out these stories, and so we had to become the truth tellers and scream from the mountaintops. And a lot of times it was like, hey, dude, what's really going on? And they'd be like, all right, here's what's happening. So their numbers are times that by five. And, oh, by the way, this, this, and this. I'm like, all right, cool. We never talked about. And then we would go forward and be like, here's what is actually happening, and here's what our sources who are directly related to this problem are saying. And here's what we're seeing in relation to that. And so we would have to go out and. But of course, much like. So Mark got canceled on this one where he came out and he said, hey, did you know that our government is giving Visa cards to these guys as they come in? Immediately, he got attacked, and they were like, he's making this up. It's fake news. Blah, blah, blah. About two weeks later, just off to the side, like, oh, yeah, there were some visas given and stuff, but it, you know, it was NGOs. Don't worry about it. And, you know, so, like that, you're just like, what?

[A]

I was just gonna ask you about that. And you just brought it up. The NGOs.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I've heard about so many unholy alliances, no pun intended. Literally, like, sometimes some Catholic nos, right, who are. Listen, argue with a wall. In my opinion, there's no way that they don't know. Know that they were Literally working with coyotes.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But they're, you know, these non government organizations that have like free flow under the guise of religion too.

[B]

I mean, well, and, and some of these people, when you would talk to them, you would, you'd feel like, how are you this delusional? But honestly, when you get down to it, what, here's what was happening, right. A lot of these people that were ground pounders for these NGOs, they really did believe that they were doing the right thing because so did Hitler. We're helping the migrant, right. We're helping this person that is just trying to get a better life. And we're like, dude, they don't have a choice in this game, right? They're. They're upon. And here's what you're actually doing. You are helping the cartels traffic humans. And they didn't see it that way. They, they just felt that.

[A]

I don't believe some of them. Yeah, I really don't. I'm sure there's some that are just actually. So that they can't see what's sprayed. Right.

[B]

Can you say that word now? Yeah.

[A]

We still have to bleep it. So we'll make a mark of it, which is whatever. But you know, I don't, I don't buy that all of them are like that. I, I think some of them actually like, are just evil people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which the worst kind of evil person is one who operates under the guise of, of being benevolent.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

You know, and so I just have a special disdain for people like that. When I would hear those stories, it's like, you know, exactly where these people are going afterwards. But I mean, not ending up when

[B]

you get down to it, dude, you know, when you have a person like that, and I'm one of those guys that. I've had a career of reading people. Right. And, and knowing or trying to know what their true intent was. And when you get a person like that, that you, I think you have a clear understanding of, that is actually pure evil sitting across from me. That's not just some confused person or somebody who made a bad choice.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I, I don't, you know, don't put me in a room with those people. That's all I'm saying.

[B]

I've just heard the stories. Go Jersey on.

[A]

Yeah, something like that. We'll get that Louisville I was talking about. But you know, the, the other thing that's always the insidious kind of, you know, quandary or conundrum with this whole issue is the involvement of The United States governments for national security purposes with some of these organizations. You know, I. I've had a guy, Matthew Hedger, sitting in your chair for episodes 275 and 290, who was a knock. You familiar with that term? Not official cover. Deepest level cover that a CIA spy can be. The only reason he was even. Even on my show is because his cell was exposed by a foreign government on the Dark Web and they had to pull him from the field. Got real.

[B]

But that's some Jason Bourne.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Matthew's story is like a movie. And I honestly, I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't. Wasn't contacted by some of the people behind the scenes who were like, no, no, this. This is really it. And he got blown up here on the Dark Web as well. Like, this is very real. But he. He was basically pulled to a mansion, literally like Jason Bourne shit. And trained by a not quite billionaire, but guy worth hundreds of millions of dollars, who was a reputable United States businessman who, unbeknownst to the rest of us in this country, was a knock for the CIA. And they would have, like, people come in and train them on specific things like at school, like, almost like Brad Pitt in that spy movie. I forget what it's called called. And he was there for like a year. And then his job was to essentially just make. Go to bars and make friends with criminals. He ends up in a top four biker gang. His expertise he was trained in was money laundering. So what he would do, the whole point of this was not. They're like, we want you to be a criminal, but not because we want you to be a criminal, because it gives the best cover ever. As an example, what he would say is, like, with the biker gang, he's like, biker gangs. You know, in. In my case, there's some international stuff that goes on. So I fly to. You make up a country. He's like, I fly to Hungary, right? I come in with fucking six other bikers. The Hungarian FBI, of course, sees us come in and they're like, oh, yeah, biker gang, right? All right. Yeah, leave that to this department over here. They don't realize I work for the CIA, right? So when I take off my biker beard for five minutes on a Monday night and sneak out the back door to go meet with Vladimir, whoever the fuck about some Russian nuclear codes he's handing me. Me. I just did this entire thing just to get that five minutes of COVID to get this information that has nothing to do with the biker game. So long story. Short, he ends up from the biker gang, doing that for a few years through them, connects with the cartels, ends up deep undercover with the cartels, becomes one of their chief money launderers. The stories from that are insane.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But literally gets to the point where he ends up going into a bar with a top 10 banker at a top 10 bank bank from the United States. And without blackmailing them, nothing. Just slowly works him and eventually convinces the guy to launder money for the cartels.

[B]

That's crazy.

[A]

And like, now I imagine someone like you who's spending their life fighting this.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then, you know, Matthew, nice enough guy. I appreciate him sharing the story and everything. I, you know, he's a key on the cog here. But it's like, then you hear we're doing stuff like this that helps allow, facilitate these organizations to have more power for national security, while also then in certain administrations fucking over our national security by letting all the same people were allegedly fighting with those missions, potentially get people through the border. Because it's what, like, how do you not throw your head through that wall?

[B]

Well, we go back to Tommy G. Right. Can't boil the ocean, but I just boil my gas.

[A]

I thought so.

[B]

But that's, you know, dude. And when you dive into this world writing, especially after writing the book, meeting different people that were in different positions at the same time doing different stuff, some of them globally and then them like putting pieces of the puzzle together for you, you're just like, I think sometimes ignorance is bliss, man. And I am glad that, like, some of that stuff I didn't know at the time because. Because I think it would have drove you crazy. But again, for me, I was focused on my mission at my level and just affecting what I could affect. And. And does it piss me off that stuff like this happens? Yeah. And again, you look at your own government and you're like, you bastards. You know, I look at Brian Terry, right. That was in our state. Brian Terry was a border patrol agent who got killed by guns that the ATF had given the cartel.

[A]

Yes. Wasn't he friends with Rocco?

[B]

Didn't he know him? Yes. Because they're all from that any board attackers on that national level are all going to be connected. Yes.

[A]

That was Operation Fast and Furious. Is that right?

[B]

Yep. Yep. And so Katie, who did my forward for me, Katie Pavlich, we have it

[A]

down in the description. You can check it out, by the way.

[B]

Good stuff. But Katie did my forward and she wrote a book about the Fast and Furious operation and the Whole ATF debacle. And we were working these operations during that time period frame. So when Brian gets killed and info starts coming out, we're like,

[A]

what?

[B]

Like wait a minute, our government is now giving them guns?

[A]

Can you, for people out there who don't remember this whole scandal, can you just give like the high level what this was and when it was and what was going on?

[B]

Yeah, right. So essentially Operation Fast and Furious was an ATF undercover operation where they were doing what they call walking guns. So essentially they were allowing the, the cartels to buy guns in the US Particularly Arizona straw purchasers and that type of stuff and then ship those guns back to Mexico under the guise of we're going to get them down there and try to track them and tie them back to the cartels. But all of these guns essentially start disappearing. Hearing right and just assimilating into the cartels down there. Well, lo and behold, a border patrol agent in Arizona gets killed on an operation by. And some of these guns get left behind at the scene because there was a whole firefight with a border patrol team. Bad guys take off, one of them gets shot, they recover the guns, some of them, and they are fast and furious guns. So essentially the ATF had provided these to the cartel members who then use them to kill a border patrol agent.

[A]

Couldn't see how that one would have gone wrong.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that was. And the funny thing was, you know, at the time, President Obama and Eric Holder did a bunch of deny, deny, deny, but we have, I, I have one of my good buddies that I did a lot of work with who was assigned to the dea. Holder knew exactly what was going on. He was in some of the wire rooms where they were listening to wires where these transactions were happening. So they were fully aware of this whole thing.

[A]

You know, sometimes I, I know the world is a very complex place obviously and some weird decisions got to get made sometimes. And it's very easy for a guy like me in an armchair with no arms, you know, to Monday morning quarterback every, everything. I try to think about that one though, and wonder, you know, when they're drawing out the simulation of it to the best of their ability, what the percentage success rate was in their simulations. Because it couldn't have been high. Because you're not talking about, if I remember correctly at the time, like computer chipped guns or something like that, you know, the probability that these were going to get lost out there, which defeats the entire purpose of the thing, you know, had to be above 90% confidence interval. So you're telling me it's worth it to run a 5 or 10% chance with something like this?

[B]

Well, and the funny thing is there were agents that were right on track with what you're talking about that were like, whoa, King's X here. This is not going to go well. And so there were agents that were doing that and were getting shut down and shut down, like, shut the up or you're out of here, like we'll transfer you or you're going to retire early or, you know, that type of going on. On.

[A]

And that's, and that's, you know, the U.S. sponsored. U.S. government sponsored one.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But the gun running and cross border back and forth. Gun running, that happens, you know, in defense of the US Government now, not necessarily literally by their directive, allegedly, you know, is happening all the time. And that was the documentary you made with Tommy G. Where you took them all across the border and expl.

[B]

He was talking to a gun runner that was running guns.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Mexico, and doing the straw purchasing and stuff. Yeah, right.

[A]

So what's the nature of that these days? Like, do we have any idea how many guns and what kind of guns are coming across our border and back and forth and like, how does it, how are they doing it?

[B]

Well, the straw purchasing is the big thing. So if people aren't familiar with that, essentially somebody who can legally buy the firearm will go in, they'll buy, and sometimes they're going to different stores buying, you know, a couple of guns here, a couple of guns there, and it's whatever the cartel orders up. So the cartel will order, hey, we need 30 AKs, because we got a war going on down here. And so they'll order up 30 AKs. These gun runners will go fill those orders with. With people who can legally purchase them. And those are your straw purchasers. So they're purchasing the gun knowing I'm not keeping this gun, somebody has paid me. So if I'm paying, let's say, $1,000 a gun and, and what's happening on the back end of that is I'm getting 2,000 per gun, right? So I'm getting my thousand for buying it, and I'm paying a thousand for the gun, and I'm getting my five guns and I'm immediately handing them off to somebody. So I know I'm not buying it for my use, I'm buying it for somebody else. So those straw purchases will buy the weapon handed off. It gets handed off to the cartel operatives and then they, sometimes they break them down and ship them south. Sometimes they leave them whole, ship them south, they'll smuggle them south, they'll smuggle ammo south. And it's all towards the, the, the war with their own government down there. So the cartel versus the government or cartel versus cartel.

[A]

I feel like what I'm about to say is a really naive thing to say. It is just where my head goes is someone outside the situation with all the political power that the cartels have in Mexico and the control they have over regions and ports and stuff like that, in many cases, and then their economy of scale and how large they are and connections they have to rogue foreign government, governments or terror groups and stuff like this. I'm almost surprised that they're still doing this on a micro scale on the American side of the border or back and forth across that border, right. When, you know, maybe you could just call up Hezbollah and have, you know, 10,000 of them shipped in. Am I thinking of that way?

[B]

Well, I think they have, I think they have better control. Right. Because the one thing that people always discount is the strong ties between the U.S. and Mexico when you're talking about the Southwest U.S. right? So, so I'll give you, for instance, the, the, the town I currently work in, the north part of town used to be Mexico. The south part of town, I'm sorry, the south part of town was Mexico. North part of town was the US before the international border got moved down to where it's at now. So the Gila river runs through Arizona. That is where the international border used to be. Right. So I had a buddy of mine that I worked with and jokingly, we're drinking one night and I was like, man, go back to Mexico. And he's like, and this is Mexico. You moved the line? And I was like, that's not wrong.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so when you think about that, there's families that overnight like, oh, you're American now and they're Mexican and so they move the line. Well, those ties are strong, right. So it's easy for the cartels to be like, hey, you know, get them from people we know because like, when you look at the money situation, typically money runners are very well trusted within the organization because of the familial bonds and all that stuff. And, and just to take the conspiracy even higher here, let's, let's go, let's add another piece to this. People also forget that there was a group of slaves that worked the railroads way back in the day on the U. S. Side, but they forget about the Mexico side. So the Chinese Slaves were building railroads in Mexico and that was. This was back in the 1800s, prohibition, all that kind of stuff was happening.

[A]

Chinese slaves.

[B]

Chinese slaves, yeah. So they built the railroads in America. They were building them down in Mexico as well. And some of those slaves stayed. Right. So you have surnames in Mexico that are of Chinese origin. Now let's take that and look at it. So now you have familial bonds with China.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And then you talk about the ports and you talk about the chemicals coming from China, China and Mexico as, as there was one author that put it this way. Mexico becomes the knife that the Chinese are using on the U.S. right. So Mexico becomes a tool for a much bigger global war that a lot of us don't understand are going. Is going on.

[A]

Yeah, we've covered that as well in here.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And like the way you talked about like all the. What was the term other than Mexican?

[B]

OTMs.

[A]

OTMs. And we talked about like that daring gap and that whole thing, thing, you know, the. Probably the country that I've heard, at least that has gamified that system or did gamify that system. The best of like the order of how to go through South America up to North America and get in and take care of business was China. I mean there was. We, we had Nick Shirley in here a year and a half ago, long before the documentaries and all that. So he was less known at the time. But. But he did, he recovered and had it for us, which that was pretty crazy. The literal Chinese directions that some of the migrants. Big air quotes there. Yeah. Were caught with in this case by the Tijuana, California border. And it's literally full blown, almost like

[B]

a, like a usual.

[A]

A user manual.

[B]

Oh, gotcha. For like a. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Basically of like, you will start here, then you will go here, you will talk to this person here, and then you will go here and then you will go there. And then when they get into America, they have the whole system gamified the same way you were describing how people get processed and stuff like that to be able to end up somewhere where no one knows where they are, which they probably end up either buying farmland somewhere. You know. Right. By conveniently a U.S. army base being put into indentured servitude on like a weed plantation.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Or you know, there's probably a couple other scenarios there as well. And you know, then you have the whole concept that you're talking about where this becomes a reverse war from things in the past. I was even unfamiliar though with what you just Brought up about the slaves, the Chinese slaves building the railroad.

[B]

Because if you look, if you look at Arizona traditionally, like Pancho Villa used to run those routes way back in the day, right? So Pancho Villa and, and his crew would run those routes and smuggle back and forth across the international line back then. Those routes are still used to this day. So it's been going on, you know, you had Prohibition, then you had. When alcohol came back for the U.S. then they had to figure out some other commodity, right? So they, they just switched commodities. But the Chinese played a big part in that. And people often forget, and I'm sure you've talked about this before, if you've talked about the China piece, is, is China considers the West a forever enemy because of the Opium wars. They think that we tried to wipe out their race and the. We Americans are included, like they include us in the west. And so they feel that it's their forever job to wipe us off the face of the earth. Right? And they are long game, guys, man. So, so it's long game. Yes.

[A]

We think about maybe tomorrow in this country. You know, our culture is that way.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There are a lot of the cultures around the world that play this game decades out and centuries out.

[B]

Right. And so tie that all back into the, the huge migration that we had under the last administration, under the Biden administration, and the theories of tipping scales by percentages, of, of nationality. Right. And so how much nationality can we influx into a country so that we can shift the scales in our favor? Right? So when you're talking about the Chinese game in the system, all of the Chinese that we were coming across were military age males for the most part.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So all, all that age group, and a lot of them were dropping any form of identification, passport, anything. They were dropping that stuff as soon as they crossed over. So tell me, what person would drop any form of identification if they plan

[A]

good things, you know, totally innocent person.

[B]

Right. Would do that, Right?

[A]

That's, that's what I would do. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But, yeah, no, it's, it's a huge, it's a huge, huge issue that, you know, that one I've heard, I want to dig into some, some people. I mean, obviously you're on the ground in Arizona, so there's probably some stuff you're seeing, but I always heard about that one in California a lot. And I'd love to talk to someone about what that is today, if any of that is still happening. I gotta imagine some of it is,

[B]

but it's less and it so Switch presidency again from, from Biden to Trump 47. And almost overnight a lot of that stuff cut off. Right. Because policies shifted again.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

And so once those policies shifted, a lot of what I'm describing went away.

[A]

When did you first remember encountering, I'll even say, like, not even the first, like time you encountered it, but the first time you realized, whoa, this fentanyl is a significant problem.

[B]

Oh man, it probably would have been around 2019. Right. And some of it was intel briefs, right. So the feds were kind of telling us like, hey, there's this new thing, right? And that's probably 2018 into 19. Hey, there's this new thing. And hey, by the way, you're going to see a shift in what the cartels are doing because of the legalization of wheat weed. And so in Arizona, we saw medical come first and then medic. We had medical marijuana for about a decade. And during that decade we still saw meth and coke. And then when they went full legalization, that's when everybody started and that's, by that time you had several states doing it. Right. Legalized weed. Legalized weed. Legalized weed. They said the cartels are about to shift because that's cutting into their profits. They don't have control of that like they do. They did the, the old weed because that's all higher grade stuff, right. When you go into the medical marijuana compared to what they call like Mexican ditch weed, lower THC levels and all that out of the Mexican stuff than the high grade stuff. So they said you're going to see a shift coming where they're going towards synthetics because stuff that has to be grown has a growing cycle and a processing cycle. Synthetics, they can just make 24, 7, 365. All they need is the chemicals and it's more profitable for them. And so that's when we started to see that shift to synthetics. So they, that, that's when meth and fentanyl really became the top two and everything else kind of dropped below that. And then fentanyl 2019 is when we first started seeing like, man, this is, this is starting to kill people, right? And then we get into 2020. And the funny thing was in Arizona and we only, only all of us in the law enforcement world, we know our areas, right, that we're working. So in Arizona we were like, yo, yo, yo, all the other cops out there, like, there's this stuff and they're like, nah man, we're not seeing that. We don't see any Blues. We haven't heard any fentanyl. We're good. And we're like, no, no, no, no. It's coming. Like, when we're catching pounds of powdered fentanyl, it's not staying here because we're a source of state. So standby to standby, right? So we started kind of sounding the alarm down in our area when we would go to national meetings for, like, sheriffs and stuff, like, hey, there's this new thing coming. And then slowly but surely, right, it starts hitting the US and pretty soon it's killing tens of thousands of people because. And they're not overdosing. They're poisoning. Because they, like, they're taking what they think is this thing, and it's actually this thing, and it kills. Kills them. And so it's not an overdose, it's a poisoning. And so we start changing the narrative on all that stuff.

[A]

When did you realize China was in bed with the cartels on this?

[B]

Dude, that would have probably been later on, like, around the 20, 20, 20, 21 time frame. And again, that's when they started more discussing because, again, you got to realize on the local level, a lot of times we're getting what the federal level is feeding us, right, for intel, because they're doing the global intel. So in our debriefs with DEA or hsi, they would start letting us know, like, hey, there's these connections that you guys need to be aware of.

[A]

I understand China's emphasis on this because as you already laid out, reverse Opium War, the Do they care?

[B]

Right?

[A]

What I've never really, I think, been fully able to wrap my head around is why the cartels lean on it so heavily, because was they need clients who stay alive.

[B]

But, dude, if you. So have you talked to anybody that's hooked on fentanyl?

[A]

Have you ever had anybody not on the podcast?

[B]

Okay, yeah. So if you talk to people who are fentanyl addicts, they are always chasing a better high. And the weird thing on the street is when you talk to, like, a severe fentanyl ADD addict, they're like, hey, man, there's this new. Like, up in Phoenix, there's this new blue that killed, like, 10 people. Man, we got to get some of that, because that's the ultimate high, right? So they're chasing that ultimate high. And I think on the cartel side, the same reason they don't give a as to why they rape a female in front of a tree and throw her panties up is. And the customer thing, I think they just. It's a numbers game, right? You're not going to.

[A]

You're not going to just keep finding new ones, basically.

[B]

God, that's dark.

[A]

Yeah, I've cited many times before, but that guy Ben Westoff, who wrote Fentanyl, Inc. Back in 2019, just fell into the story by accident, turned into a book. He went. He did Joe Rogan episode back then in 2018 or 2019. That really was like an eye opener for me.

[B]

But, well, the so funny thing was I, I. It was. I think it was 2018. I was on Tucker Carlson for Mark. So Tucker wanted to do an interview. Mark couldn't make it. So Mark's like, hey, go do the interview with Tucker Carlson. I'm like, all right, cool. So we set up the interview, and we're talking about just smuggling and that type of stuff. And he's like, so, you know, Chief Deputy Thomas, what is the next thing? And I said, fentanyl. And he's like, what is fentanyl? And I'm like, well, you're gonna have to look it up. It's just. But that's. That's what's on. Going. Coming. So the same thing we were trying to tell people ahead of time, like, hey, it's coming. You just got to get ready.

[A]

This guy Ben, as a regular author, I always thought this was gangster. He just. He's like, well, let's see how easy this is to get. He got on a flight, went to China himself, went to, like, a factory. And he's like, so how much? And it was basically like, going to, like, a deli. They're like, all right, you want a pound there and have a pound here. Like, wow.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, it's obviously extremely risky for him to do, but he was, he was like, like, it's this easy to grab it. Imagine what they're doing on an official basis with the cartels. Yeah. Thief has it up here. Yeah, I always cite that. That book, it was just such a eye opener. But it has happened very fast, and I don't want to get lost in this. I always want to cite this as, well, you know, the Sacklers Forever for getting so much of our country addicted to pain pills, usually completely, like, through a doctor, innocently, in a way, where they had an injury and they got addicted. Addicted to this.

[B]

I had a nephew go through it, right?

[A]

So we've all had people we know who go through something like this, and then, voila, they become a customer of something like this because of that.

[B]

It's like, well, then we saw it. So on the ground to that point. Real quick, we saw the pill addiction happen. And the Mexican's answer to that was heroin. Because the pills became expensive. Heroin was a cheap alternative. So the cartels were pushed heroin quite a bit at that point. And we started seeing more heroin than we had ever seen because it was the gap filler for the, the pill addicts, because they needed that opiate, right? That's what they were after was the opiate. So the heroin, the black tar heroin out of Mexico that they were manufacturing became the gap filler in our area, at least for that. So the pill addiction led to heroin addiction. And then you fast forward to fentanyl and it's much easier. Your sticking a needle in your arm has a certain psychological thing to it, right? But taking a pill, we're trained to do that in the US and so switching back to fentanyl, where you're taking a pill, made it an easy transition for the cartels.

[A]

Crazy. Crazy. All right, I got more on this. Just real fast.

[B]

I gotta go to the bathroom. Yeah, we're good. Yeah, me too.

[A]

So we're back now, by the way. So what have you guys been doing? Have you, have you been able to do like some effects, effective kind of undercover strategies without delving into proprietary information on the ground to try to stop the stem of fentanyl in the US Man.

[B]

So yes and no. I mean, right, your, your, your operations, I think we see the localized effect, but we've also had, we had a big case that was a year long case, wires attached to it, all that kind of stuff. So you know, where we're listening to phone calls, we're doing all this stuff, right? So it's a, it's a big case. Case comes down, we do a bunch of indictments, smash a bunch of houses, take a bunch of cartel tudes to jail, and two weeks later they're back up and running, right? And so it, that becomes very disheartening and you learn some lessons from it. But these guys, the other thing they're good at is adapting. So they will take our cases and they'll have their lawyers get every piece of a case that they can, and they will pick it apart to figure out where their gaps were and they'll fix that for the next time, right? And they'll eliminate anything they see as a threat that, that threatened them during that last case or caused gaps to happen. They'll eliminate that stuff and they'll move forward. And so we have to get better, they get better, we have to get better, they get Better problem being on the government side of things. We're effectively limited by budget and what we can legally do all that kind of stuff. Right. And they're not, not, they, they're a for profit criminal organization. So it's, it's a tough fight sometimes. And we saw like with that particular case we saw okay, we're not having, so we, we just did that for a year. And yeah, we took some people to jail and, and took some dope and stuff off the street. We took some of their assets and made them our assets. But what effect did that have moving forward? Forward a two week. It gave us some relief for two weeks. And so from that we learned like let's, let's change our model of how we do these long term investigations. And so we branched that into pieces and went more to a model of, and, and this actually, you know, if you read some of McChrystal stuff and, and some of the stuff they were doing overseas with top tier units, it was kind of the same methodology. So we, we kind of said okay, that big long term investigation is good. It got us some good results. And like the feds were able to make some global indictments off of that and chase some of the bad guys and put more years on their prison term if and when they catch them.

[A]

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[B]

But on a local level this is what happened. And in that medium range of maybe lieutenants and captains, this is what happened, happened. So let's attack all three tiers, right? And so we'll have a long term investigation but attached to that we're going to have small smash and grabs and intel gathering and that type of stuff. So instead of just because what tends to happen is these large investigations, it becomes the overarching thing. And so everybody's focused on this long, long term, huge investigation. All resources are dumped into that, that and we said instead of doing that, let's, let's have that happen in the peripheral because we need that. But while that's happening, could you guys trickle down information that is not necessary to keep your case going forward? So trickle down information that we can action on. And then at the local level, we'll do the smash and grab. So we would, we would do a smash and grab on a crew and, and take pocket trash and, and intel and, and get whatever we could off them. And we would feed that into the intelligence side, right. And so then the intel side would, would put their stuff together and then feed it up to the investigative arm. The investigative. Investigative arm was the long term piece. The intel people were the tie together. The ground level. We were just nightly grounding and pounding and hitting people and taking them off. Hitting people, taking them off. Much better effect. And then we started figuring out different ways we could affect them. They had these resupplies. And so resupplies were for the sc and so the scouts being up on the hills, they would stay up there sometimes for weeks on end. So they would be living up on a mountaintop for several weeks. Well, to do that you have to have supplies, right? So there's logistics attached to that. So at first we didn't know what we had stumbled into. When we would catch these loads going south, you'd catch a vehicle with trash bags, I mean, big 55 gallon trash bags full of food. Food. And they're in the middle of the desert. Going south is going on like, why are they bringing food out here? And so we start diving into that a little bit and we figure out that's a, it's a resupply for the scouts. And so we had to start attacking their network in different ways. And so we figured out like, well, if the scouts can't eat and can't drink, they ain't gonna stay up there. And so we started taking their food, food and started taking their water. And so as we did that, then what would happen is they would get up on the radio and start complaining openly to their bosses like, hey, we need more food, we need more water, we haven't had whatever. So much so that there was a couple of occasions, and this was rare. It was rare for it to happen in the first place, and it was rare that it happened while we were out there. But bosses in Mexico would get up on the line and tell everybody to shut up, do their work, or they're going to pay the price, right? And so everybody would kind of get back to work. And then on the federal level, the feds would tell us like, hey, man, that was like so and so, like what? That was him that got up on the radio, right? So they would get a Mexico boss that would intervene every once in a while. So we knew then we're having a good effect by, by doing this, these smaller hits and just disrupting their network. And so that's really what we focused on at that point, was let's just disrupt their game as much as we can. We're never going to stop it. We knew that, but let's disrupt it and, and then if we can take people off, let's take as many as we can take off. So much so that their network became rookies. Right? So we were taking off some of their more seasoned people, and all of a sudden we had newbies on their side doing stuff and making bigger mistakes. And so we were able to exploit those mistakes more as we got new people. So we would. We continued to smash and grab, smash and grab, feed the intel up. The big case was going on. We were taking off little people, we were taking off middleman. We were eliminating some of their tenured employees and causing employees, causing rookies to do those jobs. Rookies were making bigger and bigger mistakes, which would allow us to infiltrate even more. And it was it that became the model. And we created a whole task force modeled that way. And we actually had really good success doing that and kind of crippling their network. So much so that on a national scale, they looked to Arizona, and this was a joint effort between locals, state and feds, like the Border Patrol and hsi. And it was, it was one big task force where we all sat at the table. I was, I was in charge of the local, like us, the so and then the, the guy that was in charge of Border Patrol would be at the table, HSI would be at the table table. And we would all agree as we briefed each week, like, all right, this is the direction we're heading this week. And we were much more nimble and got a lot more done. So it felt during that time frame that we were making a lot of progress, at least at slowing them down and kind of jacking up their network.

[A]

Obviously, the cartels are working with their own organizations on this side of the border and what they set up or connections they have, have through Mexico, etc. But have you been able to also really identify other major criminal organizations on the US Side who are directly getting supplied by them, whether it be for fentanyl or some of the other drugs we see coming across.

[B]

Are you talking other countries?

[A]

Are they talking. I'm going to make up an example. That's not what I'm looking for. But, like, are they working with the Italian American mafia?

[B]

Oh, I got you.

[A]

You know what I mean?

[B]

Stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every once in a while. So for us as locals, again, those type of cases. Not really. Because when you're talking like those international shipments or international partnerships that they have or with the. The bigger criminal organizations, I. E. Let's just say the Italian mafia, that would be the federal level that is working those types of cases. So a lot of times we wouldn't know beyond what we were dealing with in front of us. Right. So we're dealing with it here in Arizona. Would there be occasions where we would be working a case and the feds would be like, hey, this is connected to something way bigger? Xyz? Yes. Omg. Or you know, outlaw motorcycle gangs in different countries Sometimes in the U.S. street gangs in country that were not necessarily American street gangs, but international street gangs or criminal syndicates. Yeah, we would always hear of those. But there was nothing that I worked directly where I could say like, oh yeah, we were, we were connected to like the Triads.

[A]

Got it. Did you notice, I mean you talked about, and I assume this also applies to present day, the way you've been discussing it throughout the day, but like, you know, with quote unquote Sinaloa kind of having control over Arizona with. With on the US Operations when it comes to cartels. Have you noticed things change in the wake of the years since like El Chapo got taken down and then especially since El Mayo went down in 2024 and if so, like, what does that look like?

[B]

Yeah, so the, the biggest change when just like any organization, when a long standing leader is removed, like not willingly, there's a power void. So when Chapo was taken out this last time, there was a lot of fighting going on just south of the Arizona border in New Mexico. And it was between two Caloa factions, right. And those two factions being those loyal to Mayo and those loyal to Chapo. My understanding of it and this is just in conversation with CI confidential informants or talking to people in the game. The, the Chapitos in some people's minds are spoiled brats. Right. Considered like silver spoon kind of kids. Right. And that Miles, people are not that way. They're. They're more of the, the ground pounders down to earth. Right. And so when Chapo got removed, that's kind of the feeling that we had amongst the groups running Arizona was there immediately became too fast factions and one faction was like, those are spoiled brats and they ain't running. We're running this. And these guys were like, we're the heirs of parent and this is Our game because of our dad. And these guys are full of. Right. And so it creeped into Arizona a little bit. But all of those battles really stayed below the. The international border and they stayed on the Mexico side. Some of them were right at the border. Like there were some. Some very long gunfights between those groups right across the Arizona border in some areas down by Sonoita and Arsonoida and Nogales area. And we even had intel briefs that, hey, some of this may spill over, just FYI because these two factions are warring and they're going at each other and some of it may spill into Arizona. But like in our county specifically, never really. You would have bodies drop here and there, but no, like all out. Like when was it Obeldo that got captured? And. And essentially, yeah. And they rallied the troops to get him back. Like you don't see like that on the US Side.

[A]

Have you seen any growing presence or noticeable presence in Arizona of like the new generation, the Jalisco new generation cartel?

[B]

Yeah, a little bit.

[A]

They're nasty.

[B]

Yes, they are. They are. They're very. They remind me because again, been doing this since the early 2000s. They remind me of when the Zetas kicked off. Right.

[A]

Can you explain the Zedas to people who aren't familiar?

[B]

So the Gulf Cartel was over in the Tama Lipas area. And. And the Golf cartel had a. Essentially a militarized branch of enforcement that were all trained by the US Military.

[A]

In fact.

[B]

Deltas. All that. Yeah. Yeah. So these were the top tier Mexican military guys that defected over to be the muscle for the Golf Cartel. Right. And so the Golf Cartel had the Zetas as their. Their muscle. And then at one point actually 000 is a good document or not documentary. A good show that is much like a documentary.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It kind of shows us the rise of the. The Zetas. So the Zetas go to work for the Golf Cartel and then at one point they're like, dude, why are we working for them? We can do this on our own. Right. So they become their own cartel. They split off from the Golf cartel, they go to war with them and the Zetas become their own cartel. And the problem with the Zetas were they upped the violence level extremely quickly. And. And they were mean. Right. And so they. They took it to a whole different level where like before you would have a cartel dude get kidnapped and whacked. Right. And. And that would be it. Like kidnapped, shot to death and dumped.

[A]

That's the way to do it. Nice and clean.

[B]

Well, I Mean, you know that there was, there were lines. And so the Zetas crossed all lines. And so they were like, ah, you killed one of our guys, so we're gonna, we're gonna kill your guy. But then we're still skin them, right? And then we're going to put them out in public and. All right, so now you skinned one of our guys back. So we're going to cut your guys head off and we're going to take those heads and we're going to throw them on a dance floor to give everybody a message, right? And oh, you know what? Skinning them dead, that's not that savage. We're going to take one of your dudes and publicly stake him and then skin him alive and videotape that, right? And so they kept upping the ant with their war with the Golf cartel. And then all these alliances shift through time, right? So like the enemy of your enemies, my friend. And so they would. You would have the Zetas aligned with another cartel because that cartel was against the Golf cartel. So they would align. But ultimately somebody always wants to be the guy in charge. So when they don't agree on that, then they go to war. And so then, wait, okay, now this cartel is at war with the Zetas. This cartel is at war with the Zetas. So then these two cartels would be like, hey, why don't we get together and fight these guys, right? So that went back and forth, back and forth. The Zetas eventually kind of faded out. And a lot of that had to do with the Mexican government getting some of their leadership taken out. And what was that again?

[A]

There's so much here.

[B]

Well, the. So the Zetas started to kind of fade off. And, and why that happened is some of their top leadership was captured or killed on the Mexican side. And so as that happened, that started. They started to kind of fade out and then you move forward and things kind of calm down with all. Like the cartels were still violent and still doing crazy, but there wasn't always this like one upping thing. And, and going back to the beginning of the Zeta stuff, a lot of this was like MySpace was still around and YouTube. I know this will be hard for youngsters to believe, believe, but YouTube was letting. Whatever. Oh, yeah, Wild West. And so there were open. Like there was one in particular that was funny as as hell, but I, I know that heads rolled over this. One of the leaders of the Golf cartel, the Zetas, were the first ones to kind of manipulate social media feeds in, in this way is they took A. They took a video and they made this guy, and they. They put somebody else's lips on him talking, and he basically was like, I'm a little girl. I'm a little girl. Like, I like it in the butt and that kind of stuff, right? And so you see the face of a cartel leader on YouTube saying he's a little girl and. And that he's homosexual. And, you know, they're using that as propaganda to put out there and basically challenging the Golf Cartel, the Zetas thing, saying, like, there you go, and what are you gonna do about that? Right? And so there was all this crazy stuff going on during that time frame, and it was like the wild, wild West. And then. So anyways, you fast forward things kind of calm down. Well, we go through the whole Chapo thing, and now you have C.J. and G, who has come back to light and. Or has strengthened, and they are looking very militaristic, just like the Zetas were. So they're very structured, very clear, organized hierarchy. And when you see them and you can find videos of them all over the place of these. These guys, they're running armored vehicles. They're running what's referred to as a technical. Right? So you have a.50 cal mounted in the back of a truck. They're running those technicals. They're all kitted out with camouflage and. And full military gear. And they look very much like a military unit, not a cartel, and so very dangerous. Dangerous.

[A]

It's. Some of it is like. I don't mean to, like, make light of it, but some of it's almost, like, cartoonish. When you see it, you're like, that can't be real. Like, wait, no, that's the Mexican military. No, it's cartel.

[B]

Right? And they're very. Oh, yeah, a lot of machismo, a lot of pounding chests. And look at me. And I'm better than that guy because, look, we have more guns and we have more people, and.

[A]

Yeah, but you've seen some of this float across the Arizona border order as well. Like, you know, so not the.

[B]

Not. Not how they look. Right. What we've seen is there is some CJNG incursion into the Sinaloa territory, but they're doing well. I mean, they're just so. For our purposes. I don't know that you overtly see it. It's when you debrief people and who are they aligned with? And they'll tell you, oh, we're aligned with them, or we're aligned with them, but we're also Seeing some alliances between the Sinaloans and the cjng, because, again, the enemy of my enemy. So you got to keep in mind that the Chapitos and the Myitos are fighting, right?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And so the CJNG is going to exploit that. So the, the. Right now it looks like Chapo's peoples are aligning with the CJNG to fight the Mayo alliance for control of. Of all those plazas there. Right. And that directly affects Arizona. Arizona, because they're. They're fighting for that. That's one of the plazas they're fighting for. So I would say that the CJNG is going to become more prominent with that alliance because they're, you know, they're kind of down here in Mexico. And the Sinaloans absolutely control that north end right up where they're touching Arizona. Whether it's Myo faction or Chapo faction, they have a good stronghold there. And so the CJNG aligning with one of those means that that that's going to dump into our state and we're going to see more of that. And I don't know what that equals.

[A]

What do you think of the cartels being declared officially by the US Government, terrorist organizations? And I say that because we're, I don't know, eight months into this or nine months into this. And obviously, Mexico is. Is a huge trading partner of ours. They're a large economy and a sovereign nation. But if we declare something, a terrorist network, in the past, you just hear and bombs going off everywhere, and they're not. So, like, what are your thoughts on this as, like a policy stance versus it just being, you know, some symbolic gesture?

[B]

Well, I. We had been screaming for it for years, so I love that they finally did it. Right. So from our perspective, we knew they were narco terrorists years back, and we've been calling for this, like, let's. Let's call them what they are. Because when you have. When you have criminal organizations that are skinning people alive, when they're trafficking humans, when they're doing to humans what they're doing fits all the parameters. Right. And so like it, because I think it also one of the. The pieces of them being narco terrorists and in that terrorist category is the seizure of assets associated with that. And so one of the ways that America was having a good effect on jihadis was anybody that did business with those groups started losing assets. Right. And so same thing here. Right. And so you have to think about, why aren't we bombing Mexico? Because despite us being short sighted in the U.S. i think this is more of a long game thing. Thing where they are looking at, okay, let's start affecting the people who are controlling the money or helping the cartels with the money, because that's where you win, right? You take their money away and you're, that's where you're having a good effect on them. So I think there's that going on in the background where they're going after assets and it gives them the means to say, like, hey, Julian, you're doing business with the Mexican cartel. They are classified as terrorists. And so you just lost all your bank accounts and the US Government now holds those.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So I think there's that going on in the background, which is helpful. And then I, I don't know if it'll get to a point where we actually take military action. I mean, that's a delicate thing. Right, Because I think a lot of people don't understand remittances either from the US and the effect that that has on the economy in Mexico.

[A]

Can you explain that to people? We've had people talk about remittances and a bunch of scenarios in here, but for people who don't understand the full context of that vis a vis US Mexico.

[B]

Yeah. So if you look at, again, look at the familial bonds, right? Let's just talk Arizona and Mexico, right? So the familial bonds between people in the US that have relatives in the, in Mexico and, and why the narco terrorist thing plays into that is because if we take military action, we'll disrupt this. What I'm about to describe, and it could, it could have a severe impact on the whole country. So remittances are essentially the, the easiest way to describe it is money being sent back to people in Mexico from people in the US So that's essentially what it is. So money is coming from the US and it's going to Mexico. And if you ask one side of the aisle, that side of the aisle will say that's just people sending money back to their families in Mexico to support them.

[A]

Them.

[B]

I don't disagree with that. I think that is part of it. But the problem with only that statement and not understanding that it's a much bigger picture is I think, I'm not sure if we can pull it up or not. But I think remittances is still number two for Mexico as their GDP behind, I think either car sales or oil or car exports or oil.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And so if you don't think that the cartels are not in on that and using that as an avenue to get money back right down to Mexico.

[A]

Mexico's remittances hover around 4% of its GDP serving as a vital financial lifeline, especially for poor households with recent figures suggesting around 3.7 and 2324. Though the fluctuates. This fluctuates slightly with economic conditions and peso strength. They are a major source of foreign exchange often exceeding tourism or FDI supporting basic needs, education and health particularly in marginalized regions. I'm trying to see but it's, it's, it's junk.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For sure. Yeah. We're to trying score more with the college branded Venmo debit card and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo stash got paid back with the Venmo debit card you can instantly access your balance and spend on what you want like game day snacks, gear, tickets and more. The more you do the more cash back you can earn. Plus there's no monthly fee or minimum balance. Sign up [e-mail] collegecard the Venmo Mastercard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA Select Schools available Venmo school stash terms and exclusions apply at Venmo me terms max 100 cash back per month.

[B]

So and it had fluctuated as over the years as I paid attention to it. It fluctuated. It would, it would go up to like it was at one point their number two.

[A]

And we can't track all that.

[B]

Right? Right. Right. For sure. So you, you add that piece in too. Right. And we'll disrupt. Essentially you're talking about disrupting the economy of another country and, and potentially shutting that down.

[A]

But what you're talking about is you know people hear the word terrorists and like we said they think explosions and stuff. But you're talking about the critical infrastructure of put you know to put into place with something like this is more of a balance sheet war than a bombs war to start.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because of the nature of where they exist. Yeah.

[B]

Because you gotta, you, you've gotta work on the organization itself. Not just because I mean it would be easy to, to go snipe or blow blow up with a Predator drone the heads of these organizations. But that, that's going to get filled again. Right. So if you start crippling the organization start crippling their ability money is their ability to buy people off, to buy weapons, to do all this stuff. Right. If you start crippling that and do I think there's going to be some head Cartel dudes dying. Yes. As a result of this narco terrorist piece. I think they're going to start taking out some of those key players. Players with this narco terrorist designation. But I think it's all, it's all kind of planned out so that one effect enhances the next effect for sure.

[A]

Did you, like, when you did your undercover work, did you do stuff across the border in Mexico?

[B]

You with IA or what?

[A]

Dude, am I what?

[B]

Are you with internal Affairs? Because.

[A]

Is that an internal affairs question?

[B]

I mean, I'm not supposed to cross the international border. I don't have any authority in Mexico.

[A]

I don't know what the, what the deal is there with you getting like.

[B]

No.

[A]

Depending on what tasks.

[B]

So typically speaking, feds would do that more than locals every once in a while. If you're assigned to certain federal agencies, you can do that. But no, I, I. Have I been in Mexico by accident? Yes. By accident, yes.

[A]

But God, I just must accidentally cross that border.

[B]

I'm just saying not, but not intentionally because I didn't have any authority there. And, and we wouldn't do operations because you have, you really lose control when you cross that, that border.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so lose control of like resources and stuff like that to get help. And so no, I, I did not do cross border operations. That would have been, I probably would have been a hard pass on that because of the lack of control.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And if I, if I wasn't a fed, knowing what I like, even if, when I had family go into Mexico, I would contact my federal partners to get contacts in those areas so that I had resources for family members if they needed them. And so it's, it's tough doing work in that country. Yeah. And any of those feds, I can tell you, they got balls of steel when they, they go do the work they do.

[A]

Oh yeah. I mean, we've seen what happens if

[B]

they, they get discovered. Not nice.

[A]

Yeah, they don't give you a badge respect on that one.

[B]

Now, now. So we, we tried to stay on the US Side for the most part. That's. And again, we're going for prosecutions. Right.

[A]

So yeah. Now you. I like, we've really only been like high level on any undercover stuff you've done today. I'm sure there's some stuff you can't talk about. But you know, you did mention at one point in our conversation. Can't remember if that was the last episode or this one one. But you were talking about how yours were more quote, unquote, like the guest appearance side rather than staying under for a year or two or something like that. But you know, what I've heard about, like, missions you've done in task forces you run, but what kinds of things that you're able to talk about were you doing undercover besides, you know, set up dope deals and stuff like that?

[B]

Well, the undercover work was all street level stuff for the most part.

[A]

Right.

[B]

There would be some cartel level stuff when. When we go up the food chain. But the. The regular, like, day in, day out undercover work was street level deals where I'm buying eight balls of meth or. Or coke or whatever, you know, and I'm dealing with your local street dealer, and I'm trying to work my way up the food chain to figure out who's supplying what for these areas. So that was a lot of the work I did. And, and really, undercover work is. Is a working information, working intelligence, working sources and developing sources to figure out who's who, who's doing what, and then trying to get into those groups. And like, the best cases for me that I would work or my detectives would work would be where I was buying drugs from somebody.

[A]

Right?

[B]

That was the easiest case, because if I'm buying drugs from Julian, then I can go into court and I'm be like, hey, you're on honor. This is who I am. And I bought eight balls from this dude, and I bought them on these three occasions. Here's how much I paid for him. Here was a conversation, and boom, there you go. Jerry, what do you think? And those. Those were slam dogs. So those were the easiest cases to do. The harder cases is where you're working sources of information and trying to figure out can they get into these places and all that kind of.

[A]

I mean, whenever you're doing this kind of thing, though, know it. It always blows my mind when I have guys like you in here, like, yep, you got to be a great actor.

[B]

Yeah, Yeah.

[A]

I mean, you got to have that skill in a way that it's almost like you go. You probably go act professionally now.

[B]

Well, so I. I got a buddy, AJ Buckley, shout out to him. And AJ is an actor. He was an actor on. On Seal Team is one of his big parts. Right. And I told aj, we were talking about the book itself, and I was like, bro, Hollywood actors, come on. Like, my life depended on my role. So, yeah, the Hollywood stuff would be easy peasy, because is, you know, when you have to do it for your life on the line, it's a little bit different.

[A]

How do you prepare yourself for that when you're going into one of those situations.

[B]

So you have to get your motivation. You know, you have to kind of totally being a dick. What's my motivation for this undercover buy? Okay, you're saving the world one drug deal at a time, doing the Strasberg, and you're trying to get your. All right, does this sound cooler or does this sound cooler? No, but it's different because it's different for each person that you deal with because you're kind of basing it on who you have in front of you. And so whoever you're dealing with, you. You kind of deal with that person based on what they're giving you. But for me, my undercover Persona was always like, I had a person, and I teach some of the undercover stuff too, but when I teach it, I kind of try to relay this to people, is you have to be who you are. So you. You. You basically pick a role that fits you so that you don't break character, right? Or if. If you're called out on something, it's natural for you to. To go right into the. And I'll give you an example. I had one of my undercovers that he. He said, hey, landscaping is his background, right? I'm a landscaper, and that's going to be my undercover gig, and blah, blah, blah, right? And so he goes to do one of his first deal, and this was a newer undercover. Goes to do one of his first deals, and the guy's like, oh, bro, don't you. You work in landscape? And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's like, oh, cool, man. I want to get some rock for my front yard. So, like, per ton, what is it running right now for this type of rock? And he's like, oh, I don't know. Like, well, dude, don't you landscape? Well, yeah. How the. Do you not know how much rock is? Because everybody in Arizona gets rock for their front yard because we don't have water for grass. And so that kind of was a learning experience for him. Like, if I'm gonna pick something, I gotta know what I'm talking about. Right? And I guess actors probably do this. They research their roles and. Oh, sure, right, right. So they. So it's kind of the same thing as you prep to go do something,

[A]

but you get to craft it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And so essentially, going into an undercover role, you kind of craft who you are.

[A]

Are.

[B]

So I crafted who I was. It was always stuff that I knew and I could talk about. And then, you know, you. You just get good at the back and forth and the. And sometimes it's just a. A pure game of. I had one guy. I had two phones, right? I had a. A normal work phone, and I had an undercover phone that wasn't tied to anything. And my undercover phone was what I dealt with all my drug dealers on. Well, at this time, like, burners were kind of a thing, but not as huge as they are now. And so it was abnormal to have two phones. So I was getting ready to do this deal, and I realized I have my work phone on me and my dope phone. I got to get rid of my work phone. So I knew where one of the surveillance guys were. My guy wasn't supposed to be there for 20 minutes. Had never showed up early to any of our meetings. Meetings. So I was like, I got a couple seconds to go over to the car real quick. So I go over to the car where one of my surveillance guys is, and he cracks his window, and I dump my work phone in. And I'm talking to him, right? I'm wired up, so I'm letting him know, hey, I'm walk over to you. I'm gonna dump my phone off. I forgot to leave it behind. He's like, all right, cool. I'll crack my window. So I walk over, and. And he cracks the window. I dumped the phone in. And I'm like, I don't know where the this guy is, but, you know, he's got about 15 more minutes. Minutes. And so then I turn, and as I turn around, boom. My guy's right there. Oh. And I'm like, hey, what's up, dude? And he's like, who the you talking to? And I'm like, what are you talking about? And so he's like, who are you talking to? Us. I'm talking to anybody. He goes, yeah, you were talking to somebody in that truck. I said, nobody's even in the truck. What are you talking about? And he's like, no, I just saw you talking to somebody. And I'm like, bro, just talking to myself. I was wondering where the hell you were. I said, there's nobody in the truck, man. Come look at the truck. And. And he's like, it, man. Let's do this. And I was like, all right, cool. And so, you know, you just work through problems like that?

[A]

Yeah, it's one way to do it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, my God. That's so awkward, too. I've been like, I don't know if I could have pulled that one off. Like, there's nothing the Guy didn't see what he just saw. Gas like the. Out of him.

[B]

That's it.

[A]

That's the man. Like you said, it's in Hollywood you get takes, right? And this one, take wonder or you're done.

[B]

That was it, man. And. And the funny thing was that that dude, I. I really liked the guy. I grew to like him. He reminded me of one of my uncles. And. And so, you know, I did several deals with him and. And Strange, a meth dealer, and grew to like the guy. He. He called me a couple times. I'm with my wife. He calls me on my burner phone. Mike McCarthy. Girlfriend broke up. Mike was my undercover name. Mike. My girlfriend broke up with me and blah, blah. I'm like, oh, you know, it's gonna be all. All good, dude. And I'd talk him off the ledge with a broke breakup. And so it was a weird dynamic, man, doing the undercover stuff, because.

[A]

Yeah. Did that get to a point where you're like, man, I really. I actually do like this person. And now I gotta take them down.

[B]

I mean, hits you, right? You don't lose the fact that this is a person that's like him. He went away for 25 years. And on. On our case face. So that hits you. But it always goes back to what they're pushing too, man. Like, this dude's pushing meth. And, you know, and I've seen some of the meth addicts, and I've dealt with some of the stuff that goes on with that. And so in the. In the grand scheme of things, you're like. Like the dude but shouldn't be doing that, right?

[A]

Yeah. So you're able to keep that perspective. Which actually, on that note, would Meth. I know Breaking Bad was in New Mexico, but, like, how realistic was some of that?

[B]

Pretty legit dude we had when. When. So the difference being when we saw meth labs. Like, that was back when the bikers ran it. Because before Mexico took over meth, the Hells Angels in our state ran it. And so our state, then Arizona had a biker group called the Dirty Dozen. The Dirty Dozen got patched over to help Hell's Angels. When they became Hell's Angels, the state became a Hell's angel state. Right. And then since then, we've had Mongols move in, we've had Vagos move in, we've had Pagans move in. So everybody's kind of saying it's theirs, but all that to say back then, the biker groups or those associated with them were in control of meth and it was the. It was the. Not the meth you see today. And so we had mobile labs like that a lot where people. People were cooking meth on the. On the go in RVs and apartment complexes, in cars. But as. As you move forward in time, that got less and less. And then when the Mexicans took over the meth trade, essentially, those kind of disappeared, and we stopped seeing them. Came different. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I just had George Christie in here, who's, like, the longtime dude.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Of the Hell's Angels. And, like, I love organized crime stuff. I always have. I study a lot of it. Biker gangs are one thing I've never spent, like, a ton of time on or anything. It's a little bit of a different frontier. But he was so fascinating because I was telling you this a little bit off air, but I think he kind of had, like, a romanticized view of what a biker gang should be.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Rather than what all of it actually is. But there's. What's weird about them is, like, you look at a cartel, they're all cartel guys.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They all slaying drugs. Maybe some of them do trafficking. Maybe some of them do all the above. They're in the cartel. They're doing completely illegal at all times. But you deal with these biker gangs. Clubs, as George kept correcting me, you know.

[B]

Yeah. The government term is gangs. Yeah.

[A]

Some of them in. In the club, they legit. Just bike and drink.

[B]

Right, Right.

[A]

And then other ones are, like, running international heroin operations with the cartel.

[B]

Yeah. I think to that point, like. Like, we talked off camera to that point. Some of them do treat it like a club.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But some of them have made it into a game by what they're doing. Right. And so if you look at the definition of a gang, they meet it. They don't accept that in, like, the George Christies of the world, like I told you, real mad if he were here. I know, I know. I know.

[A]

Freaking the out.

[B]

I know. He. And. And believe me, I wouldn't mess with that dude. And. And I. I kind of told you this, and some cops will probably not like this statement, but you can't deny that a club like the Hell's Angels, that is a piece of American history. Right. And some of those guys that started that. They started those clubs and. And what have become gangs, they started those on the premise of we're just. We're a club of dudes that need to get together and be dudes and do dude stuff and motorcycles and. And. And drink beer and. And just be rebellious but not necessarily criminal organizations, but like everything else, that when the crime starts working itself in, it changes things.

[A]

Yeah, he felt like he. He kept telling that story of, like, when he was 10 years old and seeing the dude on the bike at the stoplight and everyone else was scared and he wasn't doing anything, and then he just revved away.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He just thought it was the coolest thing ever. And I think in his, like, child, child, like mind at the time, he kind of put that on a pedestal and then convinced himself at all times that's what the Hell's Angels is. And it's like, on the one hand, I. I think. I think George has, like, a lot of personal principles. Really likable guy, too. And was always very accessible to the media and answering questions and putting himself out there and stuff, too, which was certainly different. But, you know, I think, like, in his own life, he viewed a lot of shit from a more moral lens when it came to his immediate family and his closest friends and some of his guys in the biker. In the biker club, you know. But there's like. When it came to him as a leader, obviously becoming aware that some bad was happening with guys in the. In the gang, he had this kind of amoral view on it. Like, all right, that's them. They're a part of it. As long as they're here having a good time and following the rules here, I don't worry about it. And it's a really, you know, it's like a strange dynamic. But he's. He's a fascinating, fascinating case study.

[B]

Yeah. Well, and one thing I do, I've said lately, as we talk about the prospect of. Of other countries taking over the U.S. right, that we have all these enemies that think they're going to come in and take us over. When you look at that realistically, there's two groups of people that they have discounted completely in our country. When you talk about a takeover of our country, and that's gangsters and bikers and those two groups. Yeah, in some instances. But when you look at those two groups and. And when I'm talking gangsters, you can talk about a mafia gangster. You can talk about, like, Italian mafia, You can talk about. About a Crip. You can talk about a gangster disciple, any of those groups, right? Those dudes are very good at protecting their neighborhoods. And so let a Chinese military group roll through a crypt neighborhood and see how that works out for them. Right. Or let them try to take over a clubhouse of one of the OMGs. So I'm just saying there's, you know, there's a part of me as a person that understands as an American, like this is all this, this big living thing that just has to all kind of coexist for this big experiment to keep working.

[A]

Cop needs the criminal, criminal needs the cop. Sometimes the cop needs the criminal when the cop can't cop.

[B]

That's it, man. Hey, and. And I will be the first to admit that there has been occasions where my life was either spared or saved by a gangster.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Where?

[A]

Do you have an example you can talk about?

[B]

Well, so, for instance, if you're dealing with hardcore gangsters and you have a youngster that is trying to prove themselves and you're the target of that, and so they're gonna pull out a Glock with a switch on it on you and try and pump some rounds into you, but you got a shot call caller that you have a level of respect with, and they give the no go on that. Then a gangster just saved my life. Right. And there are instances where I was like on our SWAT team where we had served warrants on, on gang houses and had dudes down in cuffs and stuff like that and still trying to deal with one or two of them that aren't necessarily cuffed up yet. And as you get older, you're trying to fight less and, and so you're just trying to like, look, dude, this is not going to end well for you, but they're willing to go at it with you. And then you get an OG that'll jump in and be like, yo, youngster, just do your thing, man. Like, shut the up and let this cop put the cuffs on you. So I've had those instances where you've, you know, they, they've helped.

[A]

It's a strange dynamic.

[B]

It is, yeah.

[A]

I mean, I always think about the World War II example. Example, you know, Dewey was going to war with, with Lucky Luciano and the New York mob. And then suddenly World War II broke out and we had some problems on the ports. Need to make sure them U boats weren't getting across.

[B]

Right, Right. And then we become. We. We become very united.

[A]

Listen, they're very patriotic.

[B]

Oh, I know.

[A]

Yeah, I know.

[B]

Well, and I mean, we could say the same about Christie and his crew, right? Same. Same thing. When it comes down to they all. Well, not all, but a lot of them served their country in the military before they jumped into that.

[A]

Yeah, he did. And he also carried the Olympic torch in 84, you know, loves America too.

[B]

Yeah, that's it, man. Like I said, it's, you know, for me and you. And I kind of talked offline. This has never been, like, a personal thing where I hate. I hate the person on the other side. This is just a job I'm doing, and sometimes they're on the losing end of that because of circumstances.

[A]

Do you have empathy for you? Obviously, I wouldn't ever expect you to have empathy for, like, a dude trafficking kids in here or something like that, but sometimes when you're. When you've been tracking down a dude who's, you know, listed as a bad guy, he's in the cartel, he's a bad guy. Have you ever come across some guys that you feel some empathy for because you're like. You kind of understand why they got to where they are?

[B]

Yeah, for sure, because I. I have a complete understanding because I've watched some of my friends do it. I understand how easy it is to get caught up. I have one of my friends. Friends who. So the. The guy that got killed by the AK when I was young, across the street from him was another friend and two brothers. And my best friend Jose. He sent me an article. This was probably, I don't know, six years ago, maybe five years ago, he sends me a Mexican article, and he was like, hey, Tomas got killed. And I was like, oh, what happened? And he's like, wow, he was a sicario down in Mexico, and. And he got caught up. And, you know, we all told him, like, hey, man, you got to stop doing that or this is what could happen. He says, well, they finally got him. And so, you know, again, I. I know people on both sides, and I have a complete understanding of how easy it is to get wrapped up in that crap. And so, yeah, to the empathy question, yeah, there's. There's very few people that I don't have empathy for.

[A]

And I.

[B]

You described him, you know, anybody that hurts kids and dogs, man, got no empathy.

[A]

Right.

[B]

For. For those people. But most people, I can still see and feel humanity in them. And so you always kind of wonder, because, dude, let's be honest, any of us are one charge away from being locked up in a penitentiary, Right?

[A]

Sure.

[B]

So, you know, any of us could make a bad decision or something goes the wrong way, and we're on the other side of that coin. So I always try to approach it that. That way.

[A]

Even some of the people, though, that you and I don't feel empathy for when they do just some of the. Some of those awful things. The thing is, they were once a child.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I think about that often because it's like, you know, and I guess this is the question. Do you think there are some people who are just born evil or do you think the environment and their decisions has to cause that?

[B]

Bro, that's a deep one. I, I don't know. I, I would say because of my faith that I would not believe that people are born evil. I, I would think that that's something that creeps in over time or creeps in because of circumstances or whatever. I think people become evil. I don't think they're born evil. I think when people hit this world, we're, we're all an image of God. And, and so I don't think he would allow that. And that's, you know, that's Matt Thomas leaning on my faith answer. It's a good answer.

[A]

Matt, we've been talking for like damn near five and a half hours. We just did two episodes. You, you, you were awesome, man. This is. To get firsthand accounts from any of this stuff is always great. To get it from people who have legit been front row seat with it and in the game for decades is really, really cool. And you know, obviously this is something you're still intricately involved with, obviously in a different seat than you were like a year ago for so long, but you know, also training people at different events around the country with your experience, it's pretty cool, man. So people want to learn some more from the man himself. You check them out in this book which we will have linked down below. Just read the table of content contents. It looks pretty nuts. And also by the way, your, your little forward right here. I've never seen this before in a book. As such, the content of this book is not suitable for children. Seen that before. The language used to describe experience with the Mexican drug cartel may be offensive to to sensitive readers. Please exercise caution while reading, listening to or recommending this book. So you hear that? Don't recommend this book to everyone. Even though I'm sure you're public publisher. Love that.

[B]

Yeah, you know, whatever it is what it is. I, you know, and the book is a weird thing because I, I wrote that out of a feeling that I had the ability to tell the story. I wasn't restricted by any NDAs or any stuff like that. That a lot of guys are that do this kind of work and that, that is a piece of American history that a lot of people don't know, man. And I wanted to get it on paper.

[A]

Yeah. Well thanks for getting it on Mike as well today.

[B]

Yeah. For sure, bro. Appreciate you having me having me. Jersey's been great, of course.

[A]

Thank you to Tommy G as always. Yeah, Tommy G. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought, get back to me.

[B]

Peace.

[A]

What's up guys? Thanks so much for watching the video. If you have not subscribed, please hit that subscribe button before you leave. As well as leaving a like on the video. It's a huge, huge help. You can join my Patreon via the link in the description and you can also join my clipping community via the Discord link down below. See you for the next episode.