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Foreign. Hey, what's going on, guys? Welcome back to the Mike Force podcast. Today we're talking cartels. Oh, this hat. Big shout out to Jason Moses for hooking me up with this hat. I do not like flat bill hats. It's the ranger student in me. But eventually this will be dialed where I need it to be. But everybody needs Jesus in their life. Praise God. Let's talk about the cartel. The cartel and the situation with El Mencho. Number one, I did not want to do this. Despite missing the viral window, which had been an opportunity for me, I didn't want to talk about this too early because things were taking place rapidly and I wanted to talk about context. And also secretly, I thought for sure they were going to release footage of special operators from tier one organizations on this raid, because I think that's what happened. Get into that in a little bit. Big shout out to Carnival, my premier sponsor. Freeze dried beef, pork and chicken. It's the best because it's like, good for camping, fishing, hunting, outdoor recreation if you want to eat clean. But it's also the best for breakfast. I eat it with my eggs every single morning. I just had it this morning. Lock in your meat prices for 12 months. You could do that now with a subscription. For carnival last year, 49% increase in wholesale beef prices will lock it in with a subscription and also get a free one year Survival Dispatch membership, which is a hundred dollar value. And I'll link all of that down below. Okay, so let's talk about El Mencho. So if you're going to talk about a raid targeting El Mencho, you can't start with a raid. You got to start with the history of CJNG and how it became what it is. This isn't just another cartel. It's one of the fastest growing criminal militarized organizations in modern history. The CJNG emerged around 2010. They're fairly new. Why? Because. Well, the Sinaloa, for example, flipped the script and decided to take the threats of Trump serious. And they basically relinquished control. In 2010, after the fragmentation of the movie millennial cartel, El Mencho consolidated power in Jalisco, which is a rural mountain town in Mexico. And he did that by eliminating all of his rivals. I mean, he literally just killed. Killed them all. Hyper efficient in killing them all. Early on, CJNG differentiate itself through brutality and messaging. They released propaganda videos showing disciplined, uniform fighters. You see the videos, the videos of them basically in military uniforms with military vehicles and military weaponry. As the Sinaloa cartel fractured and regional groups Competed for territory. The CJNG expanded aggressively, taking over all of the opportunities that the Sinaloa lost when they turned everything over. They moved into strategic corridors, including Pacific parts for precursor chemicals, inland meth labs, and especially fentanyl production. They're exclusively the main effort in this fentanyl production pipeline, feeding the US market and killing lots of Americans. By the 2010, CJNG wasn't just regional, it was transnational. US authorities tied them directly to large scale fentanyl trafficking and synthetic drug distribution. El Mencho built a hybrid structure. This hybrid structure at the top, centralized authority with loyalty on the ground, semi autonomous regional cells. Operationally, they function less like a traditional mafia and more like an insurgency network, which is why they've been so effective. They used armored vehicles, drone reconnaissance, early warning lookouts, encrypted communications. All the things that the military were using, they were using, including night vision and militarized weapons. In several engagements with military officials, the CJNG demonstrated coordinated counter ambush and the ability to mass fires quickly. Now, we already have a lot of information about how this went down. One, it went down because a girlfriend flipped the script on her man was tracked. We identified where his bed down location was with his bodyguards. And I say we because, I mean we American forces did all the targeting. Now, I suspect because I worked with JSOC before that it was Joint Special Operations Command and what they say is a specialized cartel counterterrorism organization that's going to be jsoc. And when they're bringing the assets to bear, they're collecting all the information they could identify, bed down location using sigint, humint, all these different triggers to execute a flawless raid. And apparently they use six helicopters. I suspect that those six helicopters came from the task force and they were members of Task Force 1, 60th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. I suspect that's where they came from. I also suspect because I've done this personally with task force in Afghanistan. I ran the Afghan partnering unit for Delta, not. Not for the entire unit, but for my troop. I was with A1. I ran the Afghan partnering unit on target. Why? Because Mike's a former Green Beret, he has good rapport and he's not a shitbag. So run the Afghan partnering units because we don't want to do it. Sure, I'll herd the cats on target. The Afghan partnering unit was a specialized Afghan commando unit. Stood up, recruited, assessed and trained by Tier 1 organizations in JSOC to include Delta, Dev Orange, and RRD Ranger Recon Detachment. Now, these organizations trained them up and then utilized them as a bilat option on target. What does that mean? It just means like you got the Afghan face, so you got the benefit of partnered host nation forces, but you're actually the main effort. It's U.S. army special operations helicopters. It's U.S. army special operations operators with lasers and nods getting the work done. But we got the Afghans with us. I suspect this was similar to that. I suspect that they had a bilat option and it was a Mexican military operation. But for sure there was advisors on target with them that were probably shooting bad guys in the face. Look, I don't know the capability of the Mexican special operations guys. I've seen them at work. I've heard from seventh group guys, C37 guys that have worked with them and I'm sure they're super squared away. But to take all that capability for such a high level target, are we going to risk that? Did we risk it with Pablo Escobar? We found out way later. I think it's probably confirmed now in open source that Pablo Escobar was likely killed by a Delta operator. So if that's the case, then I have confidence that's how it's getting done. It wasn't advertised that way. So it's been done before. Right. United States has provided intel via ISR to the Mexico for, for years because they're doing counter narcotics operations, typically signals intelligence. Again, ISR analysis, pattern of life development, all these fancy words for developing the intel picture so that we could find, fix and finish the enemy. The difference now is we have the authorities because the authority came when the administration named all these networks to include CJNG as a foreign terrorist organization. That opened up the floodgates of authorities and funding. So there is no confirmed public record of U.S. special operations operators conducting unilateral direct action raids inside of Mexico against El Mincho. But for sure there's advertised covert action and operations that have been conducted. So any cooperation would almost certainly have been intelligence, fusion surveillance and advisory in nature. Guys, I was doing advisory operations with the Iraqis when we were the main effort and we had like a couple Iraqis with us. And then it evolved where me and like the EOD guy were taking out a troop of Iraqi counterterrorism commandos on target. I mean that was super sketch despite how squared away ICTF was. It was super sketch because it was just me and another American. If these dudes flipped on us, that would be a huge problem for us. But we had a decade plus of rapport at that point. So when Mexican forces have attempted to capture or target CJNG leadership in the past, the fallout has been immediate and violent. One of the most notable examples happened in 2015. This is not new. When a military helicopter was shot down during operation targeting that cartel. Yep. Shot down CJNG fighters, used heavy weapons to engage aircraft. A rare but strategically significant escalation that demonstrated their willingness to confront the state directly. And you know what happened? They pulled back. They pulled back military operations targeting. In fact, after El Mencho was killed, the president of Mexico came out and said, look, look, we're not going to target these guys because we don't want to kill or capture them, because that's what fascists do. Now. That's what sovereign countries do when they're protecting their citizens. But, okay, let's not digress. And so every reported operation targeting El Mincho has followed a similar pattern. Initial insertion, rapid escalation, and then widespread retaliatory violence. So they go in, they kill El Mincho. He actually is injured with several of his bodyguards. They're taken off target, they're transported, and he dies in route. And then word gets out, is he dead? I don't know. Allegedly. There's a picture of him dead, blurred out. And it's legit. They say it's legit. Is he dead? Does it matter? No. Because the entire organization is retaliating. Seven different states had instances of violence spread around the country. In seven different states, we're talking 25 National Guardsmen from the Mexico military that were killed. A bystander was killed. Vehicles burned down in the streets all over Mexico with public transport, including buses, trains, and planes being targeted. Why? They put out the hit. They disseminated the word. And what was the word? Eleven hundred dollars for the killing of any military members that are tied or affiliated with what took place against El Mincho. Now, here's one thing that will happen. It's already happened. El Mincho is dead. Who takes his place? His successor. The. The next guy has already stepped up. So in the target deck pyramid scheme, you have the guy at the top, the head of the snake. He's just been clipped, okay? Now, the next guy bumps up. Does he know he's bumped up? I don't know. I remember in Iraq, US Killing the guy who took over. He hadn't even gotten word that he was taking over because we had intel from other members of the organization that knew that he was going to take over before he got the formal change of command ceremony. He gets schwacked. That's how Fast this happens. So part of the strategy is top down, we take out the head and we take out everybody who's the successor. The other part is disrupting the network and organization from the bottom up. Right. And that happens every single day, really, probably every hour of the day in some way. When people talk about the raid, what they're actually talking about is one phase of a larger operational chess match. And that's what this is. Now, the fallout from this leadership being targeted comes in three categories. First, it's the immediate tactical retaliation. Cartel gunmen set up roadblocks, they burn tires, they burn vehicles, and they initiate coordinated attacks to divert state forces. That's not random, that's deliberate. Again, part of a three phased attempt at retaliation. It's deliberate. Its disruption to complicate pursuit and extra and extraction, but also to demonstrate the true capability and reach of the organization. Seven states across the country burning things to the ground, shutting down air traffic control, shutting down mass transport, locking American citizens behind closed doors because the State Department is saying, you have to lock yourself down, it's unsafe. Second, strategic signaling that's already taking place right now. And they often. CJNG often releases propaganda, but also media reports through narco banners or controlled leaks. Again, they're operating like an insurgent, like a complex and intelligent insurgent organization to show they remain intact. They're going to demonstrate this through media. And then leadership survivability is part of their mythos. If El Mincho avoids capture, the organization uses that as proof of resilience. This time he didn't. He didn't get away with it. But they're going to continue to propagate that messaging. Third, geopolitical tension. Any perceived U.S. involvement raises sovereignty sensitivities in Mexico. And that's been my, my fear from the very beginning. If you have a circumstance where the US Is getting over involved, it becomes we are the invader, right? We're the oppressor, just like we were in Afghanistan, in Iraq, according to isis, according to Al Qaeda, according to the Taliban. So US Mexico security cooperation is politically delicate. When you have the president of Mexico coming out and saying, well, we will not target them at the same time that they're being killed in the background, with little caveats and snippets of US Coalition forces were partnered with them, we know what's really going on, but we're not advertising that. So intelligent sharing is common over kinetic partnership is super controversial. I'll tell you, as somebody who's experienced this, it's happening, it's just not happening. Overt, because we want to keep it on the DL. And covert operations are going on daily, for sure. So after high power, so after high profile operations, political messaging on both sides typically emphasizes Mexican operational leadership to maintain diplomatic balance. They know the deal. They can't afford the Mexican military working with the US coming down on them, cracking down on them, because they'll lose. So from a broader perspective, targeting on Mitchell is not just about one individual. It's about cjng. Structure is built to survive decapitation attempts. Removing him would create internal succession struggles, but it would not automatically collapse and destroy the network. The cartel's diversification. Synthetic drugs, extortion, fuel theft. Regional alliances deeply embedded in the police and military of Mexico. You ain't uprooting that by taking the head of the snake. So the operational lesson is this. CJNG operates more like a paramilitary enterprise than a street level gang. It's not like the Crips of the Bloods that are isolated in certain parts of Compton or la. We're talking about a deeply embedded network. So when we lay this out, they use insurgent style tactics, decentralized cells, covert communications, layered securities and psychological operations. Any raid targeting El Mincho carries not just tactical risk, but predictable second and third order effects. Lastly, my. My concern here is not just what's going to happen in Mexico at the potential of American citizens getting rolled up and taken hostage. That. That's the least of my concerns. More of my concerns is when you pin the adversary down, are they going to submit or are they going to fight till the end? And when they know they're going to lose, do they get desperate? So the question is, how many CJNG members are in America? That network exists here because we're the main consumer. And then what happens when they get so desperate because they know they're being targeted? These guys up and retire. They get a job at Costco? I don't think so. What's going to happen is they're potentially going to retaliate. And they're going to start attacking Americans in the United States deliberately as part of their larger strategy. So the real story isn't just whether he was hit, killed, captured in the fallout. It's how a criminal organization evolved into a heavily armed transnational network capable of challenging a state, and how modern counter narcotics operations now resemble counterinsurgency campaigns across the globe. This is going to get more complicated. And it is a threat to not just international security, but our domestic national security interest. And it could be coming to a town, even a small town, near you already. They've reported in Utah, here in Salt Lake City that Trenderogua has moved in town. Why? Why would they go to la? They operate in la, the main consumers in la. But where are they going to set up shop? Somewhere a little bit more low key, more rural. And then when crap hits the fan because they decide to pop off, how is that going to impact and affect you and our security? On top of Iran, on top of 12,000 terrorists, according to the Director of Counterterrorism, Senator JO Kent, that 12,000 terrorists could be in this country. It's going to get more complex for sure that that war with Iran. I'll be talking about that next week because likely at that point we have already struck Iran because they're not willing to cooperate. More to follow. I appreciate you guys. Hope you have a good day. Stay tuned for Reacts on my Mate channel which I'll link down below. I don't know if you guys know that I have a Mike Glover channel that has 720 thousand subscribers. If you guys are interested in Reacts and the videos kind of evolving that content outside of the podcast, make sure you check that channel out. I appreciate you guys. Check out my sponsors in the description down below if you want to support the channel. Till next time, peace.