Ladies and gentlemen, my next guest is no stranger to the show. He is possibly the most knowledgeable investigative reporter when it comes to all things cartel, what they're up to, how they're doing it, and everything in between. In fact, this will be his third appearance on the show. This guy is two years ahead of mainstream media. In fact, his first visit on the show, which was over two years ago, he broke the story that China was aiding cartels in the fentanyl crisis that we're seeing here in the US today. He talked about how the cartel is sending in chemists to train the cartels and how the Chinese are sending all the supplies and chemicals that they need to make the world's most potent fentanyl. Now, two years later, you see this in mainstream media. You see it in presidential campaigns. Everybody's talking about it. Hate to break it to you. That's old news. Now he comes back and he tells us that the cartels are starting to move.

Out.

Of the drug trade and into completely legitimate businesses. That's right. They're growing and they're getting stronger and they're turning legitimate. Big problem. Major problem. Ladies and gentlemen, if you get anything out of this show, please head over to Apple Podcast, Spotify, Leave Us Review, tell us how we're doing. Like, comment, and subscribe to the YouTube channel. I see you all out there making content using our Reels. In case you didn't know, we have a link below. It has thousands of raw cut Reels waiting for you to download them for free, put them on your channel, make channels, put them on IG, TikTok, YouTube, wherever you want, monetize them, make money.

All we ask.

Is that you tag the Sean Ryan show. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, please welcome Luis Chaparro.

To The Sean Ryan show.

Luis.

Chaparro, welcome back.

Thanks, man. For the third time in the show, I really appreciate it.

Repeat offender. Third time. I don't think anybody's been on here three times.

I don't.

Know, man. You're the first one. But man, you always have cutting edge information on the cartels and what they're up to. And watching the news cycle, we've known each other for what, about two years, maybe a little bit over two years. And it's interesting because the stuff that you were talking about on this show two years ago is just now hitting mainstream media.

You were the one, to.

My knowledge, I've never heard this stuff anywhere else. You were the one that broke the story about how China is sending in the chemists to train cartels how to make the world's deadliest, most potent fentanyl. You were the one that broke the story that China is sending in all the supplies to make the world's most potent fentanyl. And just now I'm starting to see... I'm interviewing a lot of politicians because election season is coming up, and I am just now seeing politicians start to talk about this stuff. I'm just now starting to see mainstream media talk about how China is involved with this whole fentanyl crisis. I'm sitting here watching this, and I'm like, Man, we broke this over two years ago at this point.

I mean, it's always a good thing that they're actually talking about it. But I think they have a delay, right? Two years delay on the right side.

Totally they're outdated at this point. Yeah. I mean, again, we're going to dive into that because I've been hearing that cartels are starting to... I don't know if moving away from the drug business is the correct term, but or sentence, but it sounds like they're trying to legitimize their businesses and move away from the drug business. I want to dive into that.

But.

That's a compliment. I just want to say, what do you think?

When you look at the news and you're like.

I've been talking about this stuff for two years now. You guys are just picking this up. It makes me almost seem hopeless because.

It's-yeah.

They're like-Honestly, I'm so far behind the problem.

I'm very used to it right now at this point because I remember that time I told you that a lot of people believed that was a conspiracy theory, and they were holding me up for that. That sounds like conspiracy. A lot of these media outlets wouldn't take those stories because.

They're-people were calling you a conspiracy theories? Yeah, well, they were-You had-Hold on, let me make a correction. Last time you came down here just to prove that you were in the fentanyl labs, you brought in.

Video.

Footage of cartel chemists wearing Vigilance elite hats.

I don't.

Know how anybody... I mean, AI wasn't even a thing back then. I don't know.

I guess when I tried to pitch some of these stories to mainstream media back then, there was a bit of reluctancy. I was faced with these anti-China general feeling, racism, conspiracy theory. I was like, Dude, I'm not going against Chinese people. I'm just telling you what I've learned from on the ground in Tinalua. I wasn't really publishing most of those stories back then because of that, because they thought that there was not enough evidence, like a cartel source or me embedding with them and stuff that was probably not enough. Eventually, it's getting into the mainstream media. Right now everybody wants that story. Right now, everyone is like, Dude. And I'm like, Dude, there is a lot of new things happening. But yeah, I feel that I'm getting used to it, used to feel that the mainstream media, politicians are always behind of what is happening in the streets. My job is to report this stuff timely and correctly in an ethical way. If they don't want to take it, if they want to pick it up, it's on them. It's already proven that this is happening. This is why I'm trusting shows like yours, specifically your show, saying this guy opened up his cameras and microphones to listen to proofs, not to listen to a conspiracy, not to listen to me thinking or overthinking things, send you videos, send you photos, my reporting, and now it's coming up.

I'm glad it's coming up. It's been to the news and to the politicians, but now there's a lot of new things happening.

In development. Yeah, we're going to get into if that story is even relevant at this point. It sounds like things have developed so much that maybe this stuff isn't even relevant. There's another thing. At dinner last night, I learned something interesting about you. I don't want to make light of it. We were laughing about it. But you have a $60,000 bounty on your head. Why do you have a $60,000 bounty on your head? And who's put it on there?

I honestly don't know. I'm not sure who put it out. A source reached out to me, a source within the a federal agency here in the US. Us Federal Agency? Us Federal Agency. He's been my source for several years, and he sent me a photo of a post they got a hand of. They didn't share any more details, like where the types they find that or how or whatever, probably on the phone or something, on any device of one of these guys they arrested recently or something. But on that image, there was my photo from socials, one of the oldest photos I have on Instagram or something. He was asking for help from his guys, from his people. Like, Hey, guys, here is 60,000 for the head of this picture that are alive. I was like, Wow, 60 grand. It's good money. I was a bit.

Blushed by it. I'm not going to lie, Luis, I could use an extra 60 g.

Right now. Me too, dude. I told my wife and she's like, What if we... It's not bad money. This is the thing. I don't know how real that is. I don't know if it's really the Cine La Roche-Tale or a faction, at least of the Cine La Roche-Tale that put that out. I don't know if it's an online troll or whatever, but that was apparently not to share online to make fun or make a joke. That was retrieved from a device on one of these guys, as per my source. That's what I said. Oh, wow. I asked him if this was serious. I was like, How serious is this shit? He's like, Dude, any threat, you should take it as being serious. Because I get a lot of threats all the time.

Do you really?

Most of the times it's just like copycats, trolls, people that we call them cartel fan boys. It's people that they don't even know anything, but they just are big fans of-They're pretending. They're pretending, and they're like, Shut the fuck up, man. Don't ever publish that shit again or we'll kill you. And then you do a little bit of research and it's like, Yeah, dude, come on, you're just a fucking cartel fan boy.

What is the... What's the cartel think of Cartel fan boys? Do they... If somebody's putting a bounty, because it sounds like the San Lowe Cartel is actually a big fan of you.

Well, certain factions, I guess, and at certain points, in certain moments, I do know that they got pretty pissed of the last time I was there because I broke inside the son of El Chappaqua's house hours before he was extracted and arrested.

You broke into the son of El Chappaqua's house?

Yeah, dude, and it was absolutely crazy. Of course you did.

How did you break into his house? Is it somebody sitting on it?

No, so this is the thing. That morning, I can't remember the... It was January, I think, this January. That morning, I started getting a lot of messages on my phone. I usually put my phone in silent mode. Only a couple of secure apps I used to communicate with sources, those are always on. I started getting a bunch of... This is like 5:00 in the morning. I read it and I said, Hey, there's a lot of things going on in Culiacán right now. Culiacán is crazy. There's a lot of narcoblocates. They were setting up trucks and vehicles to block roads around Culiacán and setting them on fire. I was getting all those reports and I was like, Yeah, they're probably doing an operation against someone big. Never thought they were going against one full chapel of sorts. Until one of these messages said, Apparently, the operation is in Jesus Maria. I knew that Jesus Maria is the town where Ovideo Gusman was hiding. He has a ranch, beautiful house, state-of-the-art property in this very poor, impoverished ranch outside Culaacán, like 40 minutes drive outside the main sitting in Sinaloa. When I read Jesus Maria, I was like, Shit, they're after him.

This is happening. They're going to get him. Woke up, first tweeted, put it on my Instagram, I think this is happening, and start recording on my cell phone like, Hey, guys, I'm hearing reports that this is happening. Pitched lies. Hey, guys, I think this is happening. I probably should be getting my ass there. I'm going to for my whole trips, but I want to pitch this story to you because I like publishing that story there for them. They said, Yes, let's put together a legal team, a security thing going. But by the time they did that, I was already booking my... I booked three different flights because I know they have people in the airport, so they will know if I'm coming. They will see the list of names of people declining. I booked three different flights in and out, round flights, three different hotels on three different nights. The security team from Vice asked me not to be more than... Not to spend more than 10 hours on the ground and be out the same day. I was thinking of that. I was like, I'm just going to get there. I didn't reach out to any source beforehand because I was like, No, do it.

If they know that I'm there while they're still... That was very recent. That was happening that morning. By 10:00 in the morning, I was already having the confirmed information that Ovidio was arrested and he was taken into a hangar in Mexico City. But people were still fighting by 10:00 in the morning in Tinelloa. I left home. My flight left at noon. When I landed, it was still going on. The infight was still going on when I landed in Mexico City. Then I flew the next day, early in the morning to Culacán. I arrived in the first 5:00, 6:00 in the morning. As I arrived there, I reached out to my sources. I was like, Hey, dude, I have a strong source in the Sinala cartel in Culacán. I told him, Hey, dude, I'm in Culacán, I'm in your town, and I probably need a couple of extra hands to help me out getting there to Jesus Maria. He said, What the are you doing here, man? You're going to get you and me killed because shit, it's just the fan. I had previously had a ban by the Sinalo cartel from going to Sinalo because of a story I did inside weed, let's call them laboratories, where they're manufacturing weed products and stuff and setting up dispensaries in San Lua.

They already asked me, Don't ever come back to San Lua. There I was again, a couple of weeks later. This just happened like three weeks later after I was banned from San Lua. I called this guy and he was like, Dude, you shouldn't even be here, man. I was like, I know, though, but I don't have anything, anyone else to call. He's like, Just stay there where you are. I'm going to pick you up in a different car. Picked me up, took me to a hotel. I called a photographer or a local photographer. I said, Hey, dude, do you want to join with me? I need photos, I need video, and I'm doing this shit. I understand if you feel sketched out, but I'm doing it. He's like, Let's do it, man. Go with you. Brave dude. We went up to Jesus Maria. Of course, all the way up to Jesus Maria, there were still burnt trucks, burnt busses, hand cannons all over. It was a fucking war zone up there. As we got to Jesus Maria, there was a checkpoint from the Sinema or Cartel Henshman, a lot of cicarios and motorcycles, driving around the arcs that said, Welcome to Jesus Maria.

Do you have footage of this?

Yes. All this stuff, it's in my channel view. I did a short documentary. I recorded everything as I arrived into the city, as I drove up all the way there. We went in and we started approaching Ovidea, was man's house. As we approached, I watched this woman and a bunch of suited guys. My photographer said, Oh, it's the fiscalia, the General Attorney's office. We're good. There's government. I'm like, Okay, so we're safe. Jumped out of the car with my camera and hand. Then this woman starts saying, No, no, no, no, no. Then these dudes jump at me. Then he's like, Oh, shit, this is not government. It turns out it was Ovidia Gusman's mom, former wife of El Chapel, she also has a $5 million bounty by the US government for being involved in the Central Courtel. She immediately starts to tell me like, No, just get the fuck away. I'm not recording. I don't have my camera on. I just want to talk to you and probably go inside Ovidius's house. She's like, No, just get the fuck away from here. These dudes told me like, Just get the fuck away. If you want to interview neighbors, that's fine by us.

Don't come over to these properties. All good. I went, did a bunch of interviews around with the neighbors. They absolutely loved the video, loved the Guzmans. Old people, old sick people saying... That'll be the deal. The Guizmán's family has always helped them out with medicines, with money, with whatever they need it. But again, if you look at their homes, very poor people.

Really?

Poor people, man. Without anything, without a car, without old washing machines, not food on their fridges. Absolutely poor.

I wouldn't expect this guy to live in a neighborhood like that.

It was one of his properties outside the city where he was hiding. The thing was he was hiding there because he couldn't celebrate Christmas or New Year's Eve with his family because he know he was being sought after. So he waited until all that went through a couple of days into January. Then he brought over his daughters, his wife, and a couple of friends to have a family party on that property. When they got him, he was asleep. Hes asleep. He got a big crunk last night, stayed up until late. These guys just, let's do it right now while he's asleep. I interviewed the neighbors and I noticed that his family and the attorneys left the property. I was like, This is probably a good time. It's now or never. I need to go in. I need to see what happened inside his house, how he was sleeping. I need to just go inside his house. I told the photographer, I'm going in. He's like, Dude, if you spend more than five minutes in there, we're leaving. We're taking off. We're leaving you there. There's people around circling Cicario's henchman, and we're just making it look as if we're taking photos from outside.

But even from outside, dude, bullets everywhere, unexploded Grenades. It was blood everywhere.

Wow.

I found a hole on the wall, on the wire hand on the wall, and I literally jumped over the whole inside his house and started recording. I had my phone and a GoPro, and I started recording everything inside. And inside was a war zone. A war zone, like heavy, like 50 calls all over, blood all over, man. I was like stepping in, sticky blood all over.

No.

Kidding. Yeah, dude.

And you have.

Footage of this? I have footage of that shit, man. Can we put it in? Yeah, absolutely. I'll send you the footage. It's crazy stuff. Then I went into his daughter's room, completely soaked in blood. I don't know. I don't think it was from them. It was from his henchmen that tried to hide inside the house when they were still fighting the government. But yeah, man, it was very contrasting because you will have a setting of a family party. Wine bottles, expensive wine bottles, dinner table plates, what we call a nasimiento. Nasimiento in Spanish, which is baby cheeses and the whole... You know.

What I'm talking about? Yeah, like a Nativity scene.

Yeah, exactly. Yes, exactly. They had that in the party of the backyard. But at the same time, everything was riddled with bullet holes, and blood and unexploded Grenades, 50 calls. And his closet, he had a bunch of Rolex boxes open. The Mexican military stole everything he owned, man, everything. It's expensive shoes, expensive shirts, tennis shoes, raw legs, Hovall watches he had there, jewelry. It was all empty. I asked the neighbors and they're like, We watched how the fucking Mexican government was putting everything on pillow sleeves and taking all out. They took everything. I record the whole thing. As I was coming out, I remember finding a hole. It was a tunnel disguised as a water system. It was a tunnel. Then I asked my guy like, Hey, can I go out now? He's like, No, just stay there. You can hear on the video I shot, my heart was racing, man, because these guys were right outside when I was trying to get out. I could hear the motorcycle circling. Government or cartel? The cartel guys. And I was like, If they find me inside this place, they're not going to shoot me. They're not going to kill me.

They're going to call the authorities. They're going to put me in jail, and they're going to torture me for several years in a standalone jail. Oh, man. So I was like, Stay hidden for a couple of minutes. Until this guy told me, It's now, man. You need to get out. Now we're leaving.

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I went again through the hole. I was so nervous that I fell back on my back. I was like, Fuck. Then I handed over the camera. I was like, Dude, just leave. I'll get out. I managed to go out. I immediately switched the footage, the card to SIM cards and everything. As we were getting out, we got stopped by the checkpoint of these guys, and they just literally asked me, Everything good? I'm like, All good. He's like, You're done? I'm like, I'm done. They're like, Okay, you're safe. I'm like, Thanks. Off we went. They put a guy to follow us until probably they were expecting us to go outside of town and then he'll just get back. On our way out, I was still shaking with adrenaline and I was still like, Shit, man. I can't believe I have this footage. I can't believe I have this story and these guys are still following us. I need to catch on. Two of my flights were already left, so I had one left by 5:00 PM, and it was already like three or some shit like that. We're driving out and then the car breaks in the middle of a nowhere highway with these Frenchmen following us.

I was like, my life, dude. I was like, What happened? This dude was like, I don't know, man, he overheated. I went to a corner store, got some water and Gatorates and poured the Gatorates on the radiators. It's like, Oh, shit. We just need to get out of here, man. I'm sorry for your car. We managed to leave. I lost my flight, so I had to go into one of the hotels I had booked. Went to that hotel. Turns out the attorneys and Ovidius's mom were staying at that hotel that night. I still had somewhat long hair. I put a hooyie over, went into my room, bus, caught my fucking head off, and left everything ready to go. I was literally just waiting for my next flight the next morning.

How did you know that his attorney and who?

His mother and his mom? His mother and his mom, yeah. Because I watched them on the restaurant. As you enter the hotel, there's a lobby, there's a restaurant, and they were sitting at that restaurant. I watched them. I was like, Oh, they're here. I just literally went for the elevator, put a hoodie on. I remember recording on my phone like, Oh, shit, these guys are here. I'm just getting ready to leave tomorrow. I can't wait. Then this morning, I left 5:00 in the morning, stay a couple of hours in the airport. The two longest hours of my life at the Kulecan Airport. I was like, I need to leave. And I left. Those two things made these guys, or at least one faction of these guys, not happy about my work. When I posted this shit, went viral, went everywhere, and they were like, This mother fucking broke in Op deal's house. He recorded everything. Which, if I'm being honest, I'll think like, Dude, you probably can't prove a case. You got stolen by the Mexican government. They shot at your whole place, not giving any fuck about your daughters being here and your wife.

They could probably use that. But I know they got mad at me because of that shit.

I mean, does that bother you? When you have an insider of the federal government on the US side saying, Hey, I just want you to know you got a $60,000 bounty on your head. We just recovered this off a device.

It worries me, man. Absolutely. It worries me because of my family, for their safety, and for my own as well. I want to leave until I die from age and to see my kid grow old and shit. It worries me. But at the same time, it's like, What am I going to do, man? What am I going to do? If they ask me to stop doing what I do forever and they tell me, You know what? You need to stop forever. I have enough reasons to believe that is true. I'll probably think about it. But up until today, I've never been asked to stop. I had to stop. I've just been asked to nothing. Just get empty threads. Probably because they're furious, because they're coked up, they're drunk, and they're impulsive people. Most of these guys, this is the another thing that gets me into thinking that the understanding that these threats are real. But at the same time, there is a lot of things playing out. When you ask me about how these cartel guys feel about cartel fanboys, they absolutely hate them because they bring a lot of heat to them. Why were you think would happen if I reach out to both governments and say and make a presser and bring in NGOs protecting journalists and shit and say, The Sinaloea cartel put a 60,000 grand bounty on my head, and I need protection and I need help from you guys and I need to start making a mess and a big thing out of it, pitching stories about that to every other media outlet, this is just going to bring more heat to them.

I know for a fact they don't want... I don't want that. They will go after the guy who probably, without permission, put up a hit on my head. They will probably go after that guy and say, Dude, just leave alone. Just stop that shit now. We don't need the right now, especially when we already have both of our governments after us because of the fentanyl and other shit, and what happened to Ovidio. They just want to be clear from all that shit. I don't mean to cause any more trouble for what I have, right? Yeah, I know that another time-.

Real quick.

Before we move on.

You broke into.

Ovidio's.

House. -ovidio's house. I just want everybody to know who exactly that is.

Yeah, absolutely. Ovidio's man is the youngest son of a chapel. He's one of the three leaders of what we call Los Chapitos, which is the main faction of the Sinema La Cartel. This dude, I think Ovidio is about 32, 33 years old now. He was arrested in 2019 in Culacán and whole hell broke loose in Culacán, what we call Culacánasso. Hundreds and hundreds of henchmen went out the city, started fighting the government. They grabbed the families of the military members involved. There is a military base in Culacán. They grabbed the families, locked them up on their houses, on the military base, and set a lot of explosives around with gasoline and shit. They threatened the government to say, If you don't release a video, we're going to kill all these families. They opened a hole on the prison, on the main state prison in Culacán to let a lot of the in a law cartel members in jail out, armed all the and asked them just shoot around the city, everywhere and everyone. Imagine a city of probably less than 300,000 people, absolutely taken by probably 100,000 armed people around. It was a mess. The Mexican government had to release Ovido from the custody.

That was embarrassing for the government, of course, and that was empowering for the Sinaloa cartel, the Chapitos faction at least.

Yeah.

Ovido, this man, was in the center of that stuff, of that detention. Then he was freed. He lived free for two more years, probably four more years. That happened in 2019. He was arrested early in January this year. He was just extradited last month to the US, and he's currently in Chicago, MCC, probably facing life.

Wow! You broke into his house.

And I broke into his house. Man, that's crazy.

I got to be honest. Hearing some of the stuff he did for your tradecraft, I'm impressed. You weren't doing that stuff the first time I talked to you. I mean, you booked three different flights, booked three different hotels, took the SIM card out of the camera. I mean, most people aren't that heads up.

Yeah, no, dude, I've been trying to step up in terms of taking care of myself and not being so reckless. I mean, it is reckless enough to literally go and do that shit. But I was like, No, I can't be that reckless. I need to... And that's the other thing. I want to keep covering this beat, cartels and organizations, probably just going to do big stories and stop doing a bunch of little small stories that are going to get me in trouble. That threat was probably related to that. That threat was probably related to that. Probably, I think. Probably. I don't want to say it is related to that. Or again, a fan boy who got angry because I broke into his fan dude, whatever, or video.

Yeah, talking to you last night, it seemed... I asked you this question last night at dinner, and you told me about that. I was like, Man. Last time we spoke, it sounded like everybody within the Sinema Loa Cartel is... It sounds like they love you. I'm not going to lie, I get a little nervous. The life. I've been trying to get you back on here for a while, and I'm like, Louise, what's going on? Why aren't you coming back? I see you going on these other podcasts. Come on. And then I got where I was like, Maybe we went a little too in-depth the last time and he got in trouble.

Now you know for a fact that they actually love your show too, man. They're watching your show. They like your show. They enjoy your guests and your show in general. I think these guys, I don't know if they love me or they hate me, I guess-.

Maybe it's a little of both.

What I've been told by one of the higher-ups in the Sinema or Cartel is something very straightforward, which makes sense. He's like, Dude, you talk a lot of bullshit, but you still don't tell a lie. What we respect is a journalist who probably comes after us and tries to expose what we're doing in our operation of the shit. That's fine. That's your game. This is our game. You're not the first one. The authorities, the governments are after us. We know how to take care of us. But if you tell lies and you're getting paid by telling lies, that's going to get you killed. That's going to get you hated by us. They know that I don't tell lies, not purposely at least. I know that he called me out on a couple of things. He was like, When you said this and when you said that, that's absolutely not true. But he could tell that that was not true not because I wanted to put out a lie. I had just wrong information as every other journalist. Probably bad sourcing, and that was it. But it's never my intention to intentionally put out lies for the sake of whatever, money, cloud, whatever.

I'm trying to be responsible as of my information, confirmed different sources, if I can go there, be there, see it for myself, and record. Yeah.

I mean, you're essentially... We'd spoken about this. I mean, you're you're a part of their publicity.

Specifically, the San and the Law Cartel, they're really big on that. They're really big on putting their name out and saying, We're huge, as long as you don't get us in trouble by publishing specifics, right? Locations, faces, specific names, last names, that stuff, which I don't care. That's not my job. I've been asked a lot of times that if it is my responsibility to share this information with authorities to end up with them and stuff. It's like, Dude, I'm not a cop. I'm not in the business of justice. I'm not in the business of arresting people, of sentencing people. I'm not a fucking police. That's not my job. My end of things is telling stories, shedding light. The responsibility of the authorities is, Okay, we have this information we're going to act against. My part of this business is I'll turn on the light on a dark room. I'm not going to take anything. I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm just going to turn on the light on this dark room so everybody knows what's in that room and everybody knows what to do with that information. It's not up for me to tell you or anyone what to do with that info.

It's up to me to find info that is made to be hidden, right?

Yeah, we do a damn good.

Job of it. Really appreciate it, man.

Well, we got a lot to talk about, but everybody always gets a gift. Oh, yes. Different gift this time.

What.

Happened to the gummy.

Bears, Ryan? Oh, don't worry. We still have the gummy bears.

I love the.

Gummy bears. No, I partnered with Laird Superfood, so you watched a lot of my military-type episodes. We are very big on mental health. Oh, yes. There's a bunch of things in there that will keep your mind sharp as part of your mental health. -dude. -keeping good mental health is keeping your brain sharp. Those are performance mushrooms. Put that in with your coffee. Those are a daily green supplement.

These are all the stuff you're taking to keep your mind on check, right?

There should be some coffee in there. Those are more of the greens. Oh, yes. There should be some coffee in there that's functional mushroom coffee. That's functional mushroom creamer. This stuff tastes good. It's the cleanest ingredients you.

Can get. This is cool stuff.

Yeah, we partnered.

With them. My wife has been putting me in the superfoods, trying to get me more and more into it. It's not that I've been reluctant. It's just that I forget because she has all sorts of different things. But dude, this is great, great stuff.

That's to mix it up and work it out.

I really appreciate it, man. I think this is definitely going to help a lot of my to be in the right mindset with all these mess.

I'll send you some more. -wow. There's plenty of.

Stuff to go around. This is cool stuff, man. I really, really appreciate you.

And-laird Superfoods.

-laird Superfoods. -superfoods, man. Great stuff. Thank you.

All.

Right, let's get.

Into the good stuff, Luis.

I got a.

Bunch of stuff to talk about here. An outline, but I'm just going to let you kick it off, man. I mean, it's been about a year since we've met face to face. What have you been into? You always have the latest and greatest stuff.

I've been all around, man. As I was telling you, I'm trying to do more big stories instead of a bunch of little stories. I guess my last trip, my most recent trip was to Michoacán, Central Mexico. Great place, great state, great food. It's an amazing place all over. But that's where the self-defense groups were born in 2013, 10 years ago.

What.

Self-defense groups? 10 years ago, people and farmers just had it with fucking cartels. They were like, Dude, we just had it. We have enough money because they are avocado and lime explorers, so they're making some really good, good money. And cartels were basically extorting them, kidnapping them to get a piece of that money back in 2013. These dude, Lito Mora. Dude, I respect absolutely, man. I have the utmost respect for Hippolito. He was just recently killed, and that broke my heart. I had an interview set up with him, and he was burned outside his house, his buddy. He was still alive.

He was.

Burned alive. Yeah, dude, that was fucking gruesome shit.

An.

Avocado farmer. Yeah, dude. And the first who told people, Let's arm ourselves and go against this fuck. We can own this shit too. And he managed to do that in 2013. He bought a lot of weapons. He said if cartels can't get a good dealer to traffic weapons for them, we can do that too. They brought a lot of weapons from the US into Mitraean, armed themselves.

Are all these weapons coming.

From the US? Most of it, yeah. Probably 90 % of it.

And it's just from local gun stores. They just send the shopper in. It sounds like Instacart. They just send somebody up and they're like, Yeah, give me 200 AR-15s, give me 150 AK-47s, make sure we got plenty of magazines and ammunition, grab some cool optics, and we're going to need a lot.

Of pistols, too. That's literally how it works. You send out a list to your source or contact in the US. He goes shopping around in different gun shows, gun shops everywhere, takes photos, send you the photos, Hey, this is the stuff you're looking for. You're like, Oh, yes. The revenue you're making out of traffic and guns, it's more than three times its original price in the US.

No kidding. P pistol that costs thousand dollars, you.

Get it for three grand. Three thousand, easily cash. These guys are making a big buck. Especially when there is war between cartels and government or between rival gangs and stuff, you need a lot of weapons, a lot of ammo, and all this stuff that's coming from the US. So it's big money for a lot of people. And the border going south, it's pretty much open. There is no checkpoints, there's no barriers, there's nothing.

I think the border is pretty much.

Open on both sides. Oh, boy. At this point, you're right.

It's probably even worse.

There goes Louis again.

Hey.

Buddy.

It's pretty much yeah, you're right. Absolutely both ways. Yeah, dude. I think it's probably holding you more coming northbound the lines, the long lines than the actual... Yeah, dude. These guys order a bunch of guns, a bunch of heavy weapons, ammunition and shit, train a lot of people, and they literally close the whole farming sites, their cities. They started setting up barricades. And one morning they decided to go out in arms and start killing a lot of F. R. T. Members, arresting them, turning them over to the authorities, engaging in fighting. And after a couple of months, they were out.

They won. They successfully pushed.

The cartel out.

Yeah.

Instead of like that for a couple of years until again, cartels got smarter, right? What they did is the cartels pushed or lobbied, I'm talking like fuck money to the Mexican federal government back then, to start going against these guys, calling them terrorists, calling them guerillas, calling them illegal operations, armed civilians, that can be, but cartels. Oh, yeah, no, they're fine. They went after these guys. These guys had their own fights with the Mexican government. They looked probably bad on the public eye because they were now fighting the Mexican government. The Mexican government came out with a truce. They were like, All right, we're going to legitimize you. You need a badge, you need a proper shirt, like some rural civilian force, but we need you to be registered as a self-defense member. They were like, Let's do that then. They started to register their arms, themselves, and going more on the official side of a civilian armed group, but backed up by the Mexican government. A lot of these cicarios and Narcos and cartel members, they were handing money to the government saying, Hey, man, can I have a badge as well so I can carry my gun and shit?

The first was one and then ten and then a hundred and then 200 and then 1,000. And then basically the government legitimized a whole fucking cartel. They became self-defense groups, but they were a cartel. There were the Viagras Cartel, there were the Familia de Michuacana Cartel. There were all sorts of different cartels wearing shirts and registered arms as self-defense members. So Hippolito was like, Shit, this is not self-defense. This is all cartels. I'm going out. He stood up himself for several years as a solo vigilante going against cartels, naming them, putting out in social media like, These guys are a cartel, that guy is operating here. This guy has a laboratory here. Calling out for it and saying, Hey man, I found a fucking Metham Phenomene laboratory here. Come over, rate this place. They wouldn't listen. So he was all alone, all by himself. A couple of months ago, he got killed as he was coming back from his farm back home. I went to his house and he was building a barricade on his rooftop. It wasn't finished because they- To fight for him? Yeah, I think he felt he knew that at some point he was going to have to barricade himself on his house and start fighting these guys from his own trench.

But as he was driving back home, he got ambushed and they killed him. Before he was dead, they put his body out and set him on fire in front of everyone to see. There's footage. I also have that video on my YouTube. There's footage of his body just in flames. Wow. When people looking around could be confused and shit. That was basically to send out a message that you're not going to stand against us. You're not going to bring, again, because the rumors were he was putting, again, another new group of self-defense, of good people, to fight back against the cartel again. Wow. But that hope died with him.

So nobody else is doing this? This didn't spread across the country, in Mexico?

No, I spoke with his brother, and he was absolutely terrified. He was all alone. Just that his brother, Hippolito, his brother is called Guadalupe, brave man, honest man with big balls. He's like, Dude, if the government is not going to get rid of the Viagras cartel, I'm going to have to go and fight them myself and face probably same faith as my brother. He lives in a town that is surrounded, dude, surrounded. You can go out of his house and right in front, you will have handshmen sitting on sidewalk just waiting for him to go out. He can't leave his house. He can't leave his room because it's going to get popped. So he's living there by himself, alone in the middle of that chaos. This is a great man. There is a small community called Tancitaro, which is the world capital of the avocado. That's where all the avocados in the US and probably the world are coming out of, or most of, huge avocado farms, a lot of money. They still have self-defense group with barricades before you enter the town. Armed people, armed civilians. I interviewed one of them and he's like, Dude, I'm a teacher.

I'm a teacher at an elementary school. But on my free time, I come and guard post on this barricade with my AK and shit, waiting for these guys to try to take over our town. That's the.

Last-so the people are really starting to try to take matters into their own hands.

Yeah.

Because the government is a complete failed state.

The government is excited with the cartels. They've been trying to disarm these guys and not the cartels forever.

I mean, the last time you were here, you were saying that the government was actually becoming more profitable for the cartels than the actual drug business.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, exactly. Now it sounds like they've completely infiltrated it. It's done.

Yeah. I mean, or de facto government, it's criminal organizations, different cartels on different territories. It's like we have different governors depending on which region of the country you are. And they rule. They rule. Politicians, they're just like the representatives of the law. They're not really in charge, man. Not at all in Mexico. Not at all. That's worry.

Man, it's sad, but it's also good on the people. We're finally saying, Hey, this is enough. We're tired of this. If you aren't going to handle it, then we're going to handle it. They say courage spreads. It's contagious. Hopefully that starts to spread a little bit. There's two directions we could go right now. One, we go into the drone stuff, or we could go into the new direction of the cartel, which we're going to hit both.

Let's dive into the drones because I think it's related. That's him reaching.

Let me lead into it then. You were talking about this guy, the avocado farmer, who built this barricade in his house to fight off the cartel. My first thought was, That's great. I love his mindset. You've been talking about on your social media about these drones last night. At dinner, you were talking about these drones. And ISIS started making these drones quite a while ago. And basically what they're doing is putting explosives on them. Just regular everyday drones, stuff you can go buy at a hobby store, attaching explosives on them. Basically, it becomes a IED, improvised explosive device. Does this guy know that before he died, he's building this barricade? All they have to do is just fly a drone over there and it's done.

Yeah, they got to him before he got to that. But his brother, Guadalupe, he got a share of one of those drones, like probably a month ago. He was- Oh, really? -someone started sounding the bells of a local church, apparently calling people out. Apparently, it was going to start a rise up in arms again. Guadalupe went out and he was talking to people, and I guess people was coming together, and then the fucking cartels just dropped a fucking explosive drone in the middle of that place. Heard a couple of them. Guadalupe was fine. But that was not happening before. When Hipolito, his brother, raised up in arms. The cartels didn't still have the technology to have explosive drones, but now they do. That's how they're controlling that whole region by exploding drones all over. They know you can operate that from a distance. You have cameras on it. Then they use plastic explosives like tovex. They also use a mix of chlorate, I don't know, this and that. They send me the exact mix they use, and they put a lot of like snarple. Scrapnol. Snrap. I can't say that word. Yeah, basically a lot of nails and-Bolds.

Yeah, exactly. -pieces of metal. -to make more damage. That's what they're doing right now. When I was there, my guy in Michoacán, he's a local journalist there, and he was taking me to places. We went to look for a priest at a local church to talk to him because he's an activist himself. His people told us like, He's not here, he's in the main town, but probably come in the next two hours, he should be here. We were leaving, they dropped the explosive drone at the same place we were, literally, what, two minutes after we left? Oh, wow! We could hear the explosion at the very corner we were parked. This guy was like, We need to move. We stayed at another shitty hotel in the middle of nowhere. That night, one of my sources inside one of these cartels sent me a video of how they were torturing the chief of police of that town. He was like, You want to know who's really in charge? Have a look at this shit. Twelve in the night, sent me that video out and showed me how they were torturing the chief of police of the town.

And he's like, We rule this town, man. So if you want to talk to someone, it's us. And then on the video, they pop it. You can see on his things and then… We killed him. Machucan is crazy, man. That place is crazy because it's different cartels, like probably five or six different powerful criminal organizations fighting against each other, breaking truths between each other and then breaking that truth and fighting again and stuff. You have the cartel, Jalisco, the Jalisco Cartel, New Generation.

Huge there. Are all the cartels using these drones now or is this one specific?

I think all of them are probably using it more, but the guys that are really on top of that game, it's the CJNG, the Jalisco Cartel. Those are the guys owning that game. They have these... It's called. Diales, like Special Drone Operators. They have their own badge, their own symbol and thing, which is basically a drone with a school in the center and the C, J, and G letters, and then Droneros on the lower part, which is drone operators. They're putting together a special unit to operate drones and to keep seeing new trends and new drones, acquiring new tools, getting explosives, training more guys in the use of drones for burgeon lands, but also for IETs, basically.

When it comes to these drones, are they anti-personnel? Are they anti-vehicle? Can they take out a building? Or can they do... I mean, how advanced are they with their explosives? -for the most partIt's very simple to make an explosive that's anti-personnel that's going to take humans out. It gets a little tougher when you're looking to take vehicles out. Obviously, buildings, you're talking about packing a lot more explosives. What are the capabilities of.

These drones? For the most part, I would say probably 70, 80 % is what you will call fireworks. It's just like antipersonnel. Hand-made explosives out of a different mix of things. -whatever they can get. -yes. But a good percentage of that shit, it's actual explosive stuff, real dangerous stuff like Tovex or C4.

They're getting actual legitimate explosives. They're not even making their own.

Where is this coming from? This is coming from the US. The C4 is coming from the US, and Tovex, which is like the Mexican version of C4, or that's what I understand, it's getting from Mexico. I know that they still don't have, or to my knowledge, large amounts of that, because we haven't seen that in a widespread use. For the most part, it's that makeshift, explosive things with the drones. But in some cases, they've installed mines with or C-4 that have exploded the armed vehicles or official vehicles of the Mexican military.

If they're getting C-4 from the US, how are they getting it? Would they have to put people inside the military?

I have no clue, but I have a source inside the Mexican military. I was having an argument with him because it was like, They're not getting C-4. I'm like, Dude, I know for a fact I went there. You saw it. I saw it. They told me, and I sent you a video. I don't think that's C4, what I sent you that video, where they're putting up the drones and explosives, but on the same setting, in the same place, they had Tobex and C4, not large amounts. But I was on this guy, I've seen it myself, and he was like, We don't have any intel as of they're getting C4. That's extremely hard to get. Then probably a month after, in a small place in Chihuahua called Palomas, Puerto Palomas, border town, the Mexican authorities, the Mexican customs, seized a somewhat large amount of C-4, snaking from the US towards Mexico on an American citizen.

That was trying to- An American citizen. -send.

I sent the news article to these guys. It's like, Dude, you see what I'm talking about? They are getting their hands on C-4. And he's like, Oh, shit, yes, you're right. You're absolutely right.

Wow. What are they using these for? Who are they targeting? Are they using this for cartel wars? Are they using it on civilians?

They're using it for both. I've only seen they're using these heavy stuff against armed vehicles from government and from cartel. What they call them monsters. These makeshift, armor, rhino-type vehicles that they make. They're absolutely armor to the engine, doors, everything. It's all makeshift. They're extremely hard to take out because they even armor the tires and stuff. But that's what they're using these explosives for, because any one of these vehicles pass over a load of C-4 and they detonate that shit, that'll damage the armor vehicle. They've used it against the official armor military vehicles.

And it's working?

And it's working, yes.

Do you have any.

Video of that? I don't think it's video, but I think there are photos published online. I'll look for them and send them right over.

Are they using this on US Border Patrol at all?

No. For the most part on their border, what they're using drones for, it's for vigilance of the movement of the Border Patrol and US authorities. They do have specific bases to watch over the US movements. Also, I wrote a story, another thing I was recently into is they have what they call... How is it called? C... I can't remember the name of what they call it. But it's basically vigilant bases. They establish in different border towns where they set up different video cameras all over the city. They ask permission, probably from an old lady in a house, Hey, can we put just the security camera, so you're safe and whatever. We're just going to install it here. They have a lot of those, a lot of eyerings on different places that they can keep watching over.

They have-Like just regular ring camera type stuff?

-regular stuff that they get from Amazon. Then they have this center of intelligence where they have a bunch of cameras, a bunch of screens, and they're getting information through WhatsApp and handing over information either for rivals or Mexican officials, US authorities around the border. If they want to place a hit, they're like, Hey, this guy is driving a black SUV with these plates, and they'll just start watching the cameras all around town and say, Okay, these guys driving that way, so you can get that guy on the next street up. It's like a proper established intelligence center.

Wow. Have you been in one?

I have a bunch of photos. I'll send yousure to the photos of these places from inside these places. Oh, man. Yeah. It's crazy because they're-These.

Guys are more sophisticated than on the government.

Yeah, man, they're getting to that level. I know that they're still at law, so that limits their power. But as they keep going up the ladder in corruption and getting more permission and more access to government stuff, they're getting more sophisticated and more established.

How are they... What are the range of these drones? Do you have any idea?

I have no clue. I think it really varies because these are all commercial drones they get from Amazon. They are, for the most part, are DGI drones.

What's the most weight that you've seen one hold?

They had these Maverick camera-I don't remember the exact model of that. But it was a somewhat big Maverick drone. It was meant to carry a DSLR camera with extra batteries and probably a microphone. That's probably the most.

Okay, perfect. So maybe a.

Couple of pounds. Yes. Remember, they were loading that one up with a box, with a plastic box with a bunch of stuff in.

Yeah. Well, how were they detonating the explosives?

By impact. They just impact the drone against the house or a person, vehicle.

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Well, there has to be more than that, especially if they're using C-4 because C-4 can only be detonated with a charge. So basically to detonate C4, you could set C4 on fire. It's not going to do anything but burn. You could throw C4 at a house. It's not going to do anything. You can play kickball with it. It's not going to do anything.

But.

If you prime it with a blasting cap, then when that blasting cap explodes, then it detonates the C4.

So it has to be- I have no clue, man. I know that for the most part of the makeshift drones with the makeshift, the explosive I was telling you, that's basically by impact.

But all the other stuff, when they hit the renales and that stuff, I have no clue how they're detonating that stuff.

That would be interesting. I'm trying to find out. It's a relatively, I would think it would be a relatively easy defense against the drones. I mean, you can get these commercial jammers and jam the frequency that the drone runs off of. You can get these for relatively cheap. You can Google it. I mean, they're illegal, but you can buy them. They'll ship them to you from China.

The Mexican government has been afraid of using those jammers because they know that drones have explosive charge on them. They don't want the drone probably... They will probably have to coordinate where it's going to fall or something. Yeah.

I mean, the caveat to that would be your cell phone, everything. Every signal is going to be jammed, you know what I mean? So you're out there, but that would be-Because.

If it falls, it's going to Yeah.

I mean, if they could figure out the frequency that the drone is running off of, which should, I mean, it's probably in the user manual, you know what I mean? You probably just google it or look it up and.

See what the frequency is running. So you take over control of the drone and not necessarily just drop it?

Well, it would drop. It would drop. If you can get the bubble big enough to where it's jamming, it's not going to drop on you.

Probably or not. Because what they told me when I interviewed these state police in Nichocan, they do have these weird-looking guns that are apparently signal jammers, and asking why they're not using that stuff. They're like, If we shoot a drone down, it's going to fall probably on a house, on atrip to the end, and it's going to cost.

Well, guess what? It's going to fall somewhere.

Somewhere. Whether the cartel makes it fall or whether the jammer makes it fall. But yeah, it would be an issue. They're actually developing... They have them.

I've.

Been actually talking with the owner of one of these companies. They're making energy weapons that they don't take ammunition, they don't take anything, that they'll disable a drum like that. You could watch 50 of them all fall out of the sky at the same time. There's no sound, nothing. It's just...

That's pretty much interesting, and that's probably helpful in Mexico because they're getting big on technology, all sorts of technology.

Moving into some of this stuff. Let's talk about it's interesting how their weapons continue to develop and how resourceful they are is fascinating to me. But you know what else is fascinating is I've been reading that some of these cartels, I don't know if moving away is the right sentence. I mentioned this earlier, I think, but it seems like they're definitely expanding out of the drug market. It sounds like that's not even the majority of their income at this point in time now. I know there's a lot of human trafficking happening, gun smuggling, drugs, but it sounds like the cartels are becoming so sophisticated and becoming so powerful that they're actually taking over a legitimate business in commerce. Do you want to expound on that?

Yeah, sure. I think the main reason for a criminal organization to exist is money. It's revenue. They want to have more money, more power. And wherever they have a sense that there is money in whichever industry that is legal or illegal, they're going to try to bank on it. At some point, drugs were the most profitable revenue because they were legal, hard to get, scars, and there was a huge demand in the US. Right now, the price of cocaine is plummeting. It's probably at its lowest in history. You can get a break of cocaine for 16 grand. Already in the US, which is absolutely ridiculous amount of a price. They're still moving.

What was it?

At the hype? 30, even a low price will be 30, 35, 40.

A low price will be 30,000?

Okay.

It's like a fire sale with.

Cocaine right now. Yeah, exactly. Everybody in the US is getting a hold of a couple of bricks of cocaine and then trying to split that over and get some revenue. They're still making money out of drugs. But the thing is that's an established revenue stream now. They managed to have that streamline of revenue established. No issue, no problem. They can even calculate how much money they're going to make over a year of shipping different kinds of drugs and stuff. So that's basically settled for them, for their business. What they're seeing there is an opportunity is in natural resources and human smuggling, and of course, the political power, capitalization of political power, political positions. That's where they're now not moving away from drugs, but probably saying, You know what? We have established drug routes, we have established revenue. We have established providers and clients. Now that that's established and it's getting to a established level of money and it's not even that high anymore-There's.

No word left to even expand in the drug market.

Exactly. We basically own it, and that's it. Because they find new clients, like Europe and then Africa and stuff, but it has a cap. Then they move from that to other revenue streams. One of them being mining. First, they started embedding with international mining companies to bring security. Even if those mining companies I reached out to, they say they have no clue, they don't do that deals with cartels, and they disguise everything as going with private security companies, well, I guess what private security companies they are. They are a cartel. They paid these private security companies first to lobby with Mexican security forces to assure that their operation in certain region is going to be secure. They're like, Oh, we're too afraid of cartels. And we want to explode this mine of lithium, gold, silver, whatever. We want to know we're safe. They're smart enough, and they do have people doing research enough to know that that region is highly controlled by the cartel. They will just see it and negotiate through different security companies. That means that the security company says, Okay, usually we charge, let's call it a thousand dollars for a deal like that, but now we're going to charge $3,000, three times more, because we're going to split that with a cartel, and then you'll be safe.

The cartel basically owns the security around most of these mining companies on different natural resources. That was first the beginning. Then, cartels started like a step ahead, putting a step ahead and saying like, Oh, you know what? It looks like we have rumors that here could be a lot of new silver unexploded yet. Why don't we establish right there and hold that place for a while? So when a mining company comes and say, Hey, we want to explode that place. We're already here, man. Yeah, you're going to have to give us the good money to keep you safe, to get rid of all these people, and we're good. That's been going on and on in different places. When we see cartels fighting in places like Saca-Tecas, Puebla, all that stuff, the government tells us, Oh, they're fighting a drug route. It's like, Dude, that is not even a drug route. There is no port. There is no main highway that leads to the US, whatever. Not the only one. That's not a production site. But what you have is a lot of silver, like in Teca Tecas. These guys want to own that place because they know there's going to be a new project coming in town, and that's big money for them.

That's all they're fighting for. In Chiapas, Cartel, Jalisco versus Sinaloa Cartel, fighting hard, killing a lot of innocent people, making a mess, making parades. You will see parades of cartels going, The people will be like, 'save us, please, ' from the other cartel, whatever. Where are we? Here we are. Here we are. Chiapa is the major and main human trafficking border and human smuggling border right now, there is in all of the Americas. That's where the bottleneck is. That's a new US border. The US basically moved its border to Southern Mexico. They negotiated that with the Mexican government. Just put up a bunch of military in your southern border so they don't reach our southern border, which is not working. But still, they're paying Mexico to do that. While Mexico is trying to do.

That-what's it look like down there?

Have you seen it?

Dude, it's a mess, man. Is there a line?

There is a river. There's a river and there's a bridge, and there's this little small booth of security. There's a bunch of military. It's a total joke. Dude, it's a joke. People are literally walking across the river with merchandise, even. They go in Guatemala, buy cheap stuff like clothes or toys for their kids, whatever.

They just walk over. It sounds like it is so bad, and we're going to get to this with the lobbying of the government from the cartels and the cartels in bedding within the government. I mean, you were talking about this the last time. So essentially it's so foolish. The government has embedded so much in the Mexican government that the US... This is actually the exact same thing as the US paying the cartel to... They're paying the cartel to police their own. Yeah. It's absurd.

Remember the last time I told you that I knew that a cell from Cinella, a cartel was moving down to Chiapas because they were moved specifically to stop the influx of migrants, right? Who's paying for that? Who lobbed that shit? That was the US government. That was the US government and through the Mexican government towards the cartel. It's basically this. Us government says to Mexico, Hey man, loud enough so the cartel is here. I need you to secure your southern border. I'll give you something in exchange, but I need you to secure that border. Mexican government says yes, but it's going to cost you this much. They're like, We'll fund you all the money you need. Hand the money over. Probably Mexican government keeps 20 %, 80 % goes for the cartel. They're like, Hey, guys, go and do your thing. Cartel gets to the Southern border.

The cartel gets there-Because the Mexican government is.

The cartel. Exactly. And the cartel gets to the Southern border and at the beginning, start doing their job. Nobody's going to cross if we don't know. And then they start taking more money. He's like, If the Mexican government already paid, why don't we get some extra cash from these guys as well? So they're like, Yeah, come on over. Just pay us. They're becoming more and more and more powerful. And the US government is like, Mexico, what the fuck? You're letting everybody through. Where's the money we gave you? Some of the cartel hands. So that's what happened. These guys are trying to monopolize every other aspect of our regular lives. In Michoacán, the avocados, every Super Bowl season, dude, it's bad stuff for Metro Can. Every Super Bowl season, the amount of avocado that it's consuming the US spikes the shit out of prices in Mexico. Cartels are, Let's go for those avocados. Let's put a cap on the production of avocados. Even if they go to shit, even if they go to waste, even if they get rotten in a warehouse, we don't give a.

Shit, man. They're controlling the supply.

We control the supply, so they control the price. Same thing withlemon. They've just recently... Like last month they killed a bunch of farmers. Poor lemon farmers that decided, You know what? Fuck you. I have my own lemon trees. I'm going to sell that shit. I need that for my family. They're like, I told you, no more picking up Lemons because we need the prices to spike.

They're going to sell. They're going to control the supply, make Lemons and avocados very rare to inflate the-This is what the De Beers family did to the diamonds.

Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what they're doing. That's exactly what they're doing with everything. They started doing that with avocados and Lemons. You go to a corner store here in the US, they're like, What the fuck? This avocado is extremely expensive now. It's not because of supply and demand in the market or whatever. It's because of fucking cartels taking over the production or the picking up of their fruits. Wow! It's crazy. Then I was also in Chihuahua, Northern Mexico, the state where I see that is this, it's right across El Paso. It's a huge state. I was deep into the mountains in what we call La Sierra de Chihuahua, which is the little the mountains of Chihuahua, a region controlled absolutely by the Sinaloe cartel, by a faction anyways of it, to learn how they're modernizing water. Water did. I was there during a draft, one of the worst that ever hit northern Mexico. Water was absolute scores. The government was telling us, You need to take control of the water usage because we're out of water. Also, the rivers that flow from the mountains down to the Rio Grande, down to the river that divide both countries, Mexico and the US have an agreement of sharing waters.

The Rio Grande is born in the Colorado Mountains. Then it goes into Mexico and then back in the US and then back into Mexico, up here in Kuala, and then back in the US in Texas, and like that. They have an agreement. You let that water flow and I'll give you 20% back, and then up ahead you give me 20% back of that water that cross into your turf. That's an agreement, right? We're at a point where the US and Mexico relationship is very fractured because of water. The US is saying, Mexico owes us five years of water they haven't paid. And Mexico is like, We are on a draft. We don't have enough water to pay you back, and we need that water for our locals. Cortez learned about this shit. They said, Oh, so water is cars now. So water is money now. We're trying to control every river, creek, lake, and this region, at least in the region we own. They start doing that in Chihuahua, in the Sierra de Chihuahua. How they start doing that is literally putting lookouts, cicarios, and hansmen around those crics, where the crics were born or where the rivers were born.

They're looking for natural springs.

Natural springs, yes. There is a huge lake called Lago de Arareco, beautiful lake in the middle of the mountains of the hills in Chihuahua. The last time I was there, it was probably only full to the third part of it. Absolutely empty. When I asked locals that no one wants to say what exactly was happening to the Arareco River, to the Arareco Lake. That lake doesn't have an exit. It doesn't have a stream of the water is going to through that river, through that whatever. The water stays there. It's the natural lake that fills every time it rains. The locals have this joke, and they were telling me, I think it has a hole on the right bottom of the lake, and that's where that water is going because every morning we see the lake, it's more empty. You go to sleep one night and the next morning it's more empty. I was like, They're trying to tell me something they can't say. I started working my way in with locals and with biologists and people around, and they show me how the cartels by night goes with every night goes to that creek, to the lake with these water pipes and start extracting a lot of water from it.

Then they sell that water to hotels, stores, Airbnb, for tourists. You go to a hotel in the middle of a draft and you can open the faucet and leave it open for hours and you're not going to run out of water. But if you're in a local house, you're immediately going to be out of water, probably within an hour of leaving the faucet open. All these guys are sourcing from the cartel, and the cartels are making shit tons of money.

They're controlling the water supplies?

Water.

Supplies, yes. Is this spreading?

I still have no information about other states. I did my reporting specifically in Chihuahua because it was going through the worst drought in history in Mexico. That was where water became more and more scarcears. I think it's happening also in Nuevo de León, also border with Texas, in Monterey, La Redo, all those places east of Mexico. It's the northern east of Mexico because also water is absolutely scarcears right there. They're banking on that. They're banking on jellyfish, in Sonora. Jellifish. That's very new. That's a very new revenue stream they just popped up. In Sonora, in the Mar de Cortez, which is the Pacific side of Mexico, there is a massive population of jellyfish. We don't use jellyfish for anything, so it's became basically a plague in Mexico. But in China, apparently, dehydrated and covered or curated with salt. It's an exquisite plague. It's something expensive.

It's a delicacy.

Yes, exactly. They pay cheatons for a jellyfish, dehydrated andand curated with salt. Well, that's been happening before the Sinema or the Cartel. Local fishermen have their season. They'll grab a bunch of jellyfish and sell that out to the Vietnam and... It's Vietnam and other- Thailand. Thailand governments. Yes, both of them. They're selling that to those governments, and then they are selling it to the Chinese government and making a buck out of it. Great season for local fishermen, the jellyfish season. When the Cartel learned how much money they were making, it was something like $10 million a season or something like that, the revenue from that, they were like, All right. You're not going to sell anymore directly to these companies. You're going to sell to us and we're going to sell to the companies. We're going to export this shit. Many fishermen decided like, You know what? No, I don't think that's a good idea, man. We're going to be left out of this business and we're going to just be left with just a couple of bugs around. They didn't listen. They killed two, three fishermen, and then they started burning the trucks where they were transporting the gelfish and killing some of the drivers to make a point.

It's like, Okay, you keep selling directly to these guys, and I'm going to keep killing you guys. Now they own that business. Now, the fisherman had to ask for permission first to go out and sell and get jellyfish, and then they have to report exactly how many jellyfish they gathered, and they sell that to them for super cheap price, local price. Now the cartel is handling with Vietnam and Thailand companies to export that shit out to China. They're literally getting in the middle of a lot of heavy revenue businesses. Wow.

You had mentioned something about Lyft and Uber as well.

Yes, that's another thing. There is an app. If you don't mind, let me tell you which app it is. Do you think that's fine? We're fine if we say the brand? We're not going to get in trouble?

It's up to you.

I'm not going to get in trouble, but I don't know if you want to call out the brand. They probably don't even know. But let me see. Well, there is one of these ride applications like Uber and Lyft, specifically in Kuliacán, in the main capital city in Sinaloa. I can't find the word. But this is an international brand as well. The next-top competitor to Lyft and Uber. They established business in Culiacán in Sinaloa and in several different parts of Mexico as well. But in Culacán, there was an order by allegedly Los Chapitos, the sons of El Chapo, Guzman of the Zinalow cartel, for everyone to stop working for Uber and Lyft and to start working with that company exclusively. There was a time very recently where you will see the local news in Zinalow, there was a lot of Uber and Lyft drivers getting killed. Everybody started wondering why. I asked one of my sources what's happening, and he told me there is an order for every Uber driver, Lyft driver, to stop working there and start working with these companies specifically. I still don't know why he couldn't really give me an answer. It's like that was the order.

I was like, Do they have money on that company? Do they pay something? Or what's the deal?

Is it their company?

I don't think it's their company because this is an international company. I think it's a US-based company. -it's like Uber and left.

-interesting.

Yeah, I'll find the name of the company.

When did that start happening?

Probably two months ago.

They're getting involved in transportation.

-water. -water.

The water supply. The food supply.

Human.

Smuggling. Human smuggling. Drugs.

Fishing. Well, yeah, food supply. Food supply. They have their hands on everything, man. And again, their strategy is when they feel there is an opportunity to be making money out of an industry, they'll dive in. They'll dive in. They're probably.

The-who's engineering these ideas?

That's the thing, dude. It's weird because when I was talking to these higher-up in the San La Martell, one of the guys that it's in the leadership of the San La Martell, they're smart people. They went to schools in Europe, in Canada, in the US. This is highly educated people.

These are serious business people.

Yes. They know and they have friends with money that probably they give them ideas.

I mean, they're probably... Not probably. I mean, if they're hiring these people, they're doing a straight market assessment. This is what the avocado industry brings in every year. We need to take a piece of this or the whole thing. This is what the water treatment plants and the water supply businesses are making.

I think if you think about an investment house, they have two things. They have analysts that look at the trends, and they have people on the ground pitching in new ideas saying like, Hey man, I just learned that water is going to be scores in this state for the rest of the year because there's a drought and there's not enough water and Mexico needs to pay water to the US, that stuff. I think Cartel has both. They have analysts saying how much and how is the market of different things moving? And people on the ground saying, Hey, there is no water in Chihuahua.

Are they webbing out into anything else?

That's as far as I'm aware now. These past couple of years, I've been reporting on all sorts of different stuff they're doing. Traveling from Chihuahua to Michoacán to Chiapas to Sinaloa to different places. Right. And it's wild, man.

Yeah, I mean... How do you even begin to combat this when they are illegitimately legitimizing themselves into just everyday, regular business? I mean, it's a crime to... I mean, it's... How do I say this? I mean, they're forcing these businesses to comply with them. But once they're complying, the crime just goes into the past. It seems like it would be impossible to break them up.

Yes. We're definitely past that point now because I think there was still a time where a business owner, a politician could have closed the door for that and said, You know what? I don't care if I'm going to make three times more money. It's fucking dirty money. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to comply with you. I'm not going to do it. They were not still that powerful back then. They were still like cartels. I don't even call them cartels anymore. They're either criminal enterprises or pseudo paramilitary very armies. They're everything but drug cartels. I think that's a term that it's absolutely outdated. We shouldn't be calling drug cartels because they're not drug cartels.

What does this mean for Mexico? What does it look like 10 years from now?

It's looking bad. It's looking sad. Imagine on your daily basis, you're a regular man living in Mexico, middle class. You say, You know what? I probably can put together some money, some savings to make a business. It depends on where you are. You're going to get extorted or kidnapped immediately to rip you up of what you're building. If you pass through that, you're going to learn that you're going to have to make decisions and say, If I'm going to make a business in Mexico, if it's whatever you're doing, you're setting up ladders for whatever or building houses. If you're making enough money, someone's going to come after you. Someone's going to say, say, Hey, man, why don't we partner? And you start laundering money for us, and I'll give you protection. And you say, No, man, I'm not interested. I'm doing my money. And then they start extorting you or kidnapping your family. They're like, Hey, what about now? And you'll be like, I'd rather close my fucking business or comply and make a fuck out of it. But now you're part of it.

I mean, it's just getting to the point where even if somebody wants to start a legitimate business, let's hope. You can't get into the avocado business, you can't get into the lemon business, you can't get in the jellyfish business, you can't get in the transportation business. You cannot get into the water business. You can't dabble in the drug business. I mean, it's just-.

What does that make for the economy of our country?

That's what I'm getting at. I mean, what's left? Power. They'll probably go after the power.

They're on-They're on exactly. -control that.

Medicine, the medical industry. They're on that. I mean.

It's-they're on everything. They're on everything. It's a fucking plague. I mean, the thing is they're going to start shrinking the middle class so much that there will be no economic development in Mexico for a good while.

Yeah.

And we're probably facing that. I'm of course, very ignorant or how the financial markets move, whatever. But you think of it, if the middle class is absolutely shrink and all you have left is probably an upper class and then a lower, lower class, right? And the cartel is monopolizing and going in between both, then a lot of the money you need for that country for that middle class to leave, it's going to come through illegal sources.

These.

Study by science, this new research by the Science Magazine said that the cartels are the fifth largest employers in Mexico, right below the Mexican government. Fifth largest employer in Mexico. If the Mexican government will go after cartel activity and stop all the money moving related to any criminal organization, we will become poor immediately, man. We will become one of the most poor countries in America, in the continent. In the world. Probably in the world, man. Because this money is getting through everywhere. Mexico is a highly cash-based country. You use a lot of cash. There's a lot of different stores, corner stores, different places that they don't want to pay taxes because they're going to get left without anything, so they use cash. Perfect for money laundering. But also where is this cash getting from? You don't go to an ATM and withdraw money all the time. There's cash moving around the city. You can pay with cash. It's dirty money. It's cartel money. But that's the money that it's backing up Mexico right now.

Man.

I guess Mexico needs to find a way to legitimize all that dirty money, all that money made with dirty hands, put it into a legal, basically, laundered money for these guys, and then stop the fucking revenue and opening up more, I don't know, man, shops or whatever.

Do you have any ideas on how to even begin to combat something.

Like that? I think a good start, it's again, the Mexican government recognizing we have an issue, we have a problem. But putting a blind eye, it's not helping.

Saying we're not- I mean, where would they even start, though?

I guess if you start openly saying we have a war, a non-declared war in Mexico that we're losing, you can get resources, you can get people, you can get smart people jumping in, making education policies, health policies, financial plans, don't know how to get out of it, how to fight these guys? Not only just going after them and shooting them. But actually, how do we hurt these guys? How do we take the money and the power out of these guys? One strategy that has worked in the past is divide and conquer. You make a bunch of little cartels and then you go fight them. But you're only going to fight the armed branches of the cartels. What about the financial branches?

You're talking about using propaganda against the cartels.

You need to switch and change the way-.

You're a.

Smart dude. Yeah, dude. That's how they're getting into everywhere, right? By propaganda.

We would have to... You turn it into a sigh-up.

Yeah. I think that's the only way to go out at this point of that.

That's a very interesting conversation. Let's take a break and we'll come back. Maybe we'll pick up right there.

For sure.

Next on the Sean Ryan show.

We embedded with a girl, with a woman. She's the mother of five kids. She lost her child during the pandemic. And a friend of her at a bar came out like, Hey, dude, I know a couple of guys that will give you a car. It's a nice car and it'll give you five grand every time you cross. The cartel guys that were stashing her car, they told me the first five, six times we send her across without anything. She thought she had anything, but we're doing that to test her first and also to get the custom officers used to her crossing every other day, once a week, every weekend. We did that several rounds. Then after the sixth, we loaded the gas tank packed with fentanyl pills.