#1302 - Ed Calderon

May 22, 2019

Ed Calderon is a security specialist and combatives instructor with over 10 years experience in public safety along the northern border area of Mexico. Follow him online @EdsManifesto http://edsmanifesto.com

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and of course we have a special offer for the audience of this podcast you can receive 20% off your for Sig Matic order when you go to for Sig manic.com Joe that's fo you are SI G m-- atic.com Joe to receive twenty percent off your order ha ha my guest today is an expert on the cartels and crime and and Border policies and shit that's happening in Mexico worked there in Mexico as as well as a police officer and in counterinsurgency with cartels and he runs an excellent Instagram account called Ed Manifesto and I really enjoyed talking to him was very enlightening and very interesting and I hope you enjoy it too please welcome Ed called the wrong The Joe Rogan Experience trained by day

Rogan podcast by night all day it's a bit how are you man great thanks for coming here man appreciate it thank you for extending the invitation well I love your Instagram it's very and it's very informational and what tell everybody what you do so people get a handle on this yes I'm a non permissive environments specialist basically I teach people how to live move and travel in places where they probably shouldn't be traveling you know how to get out of handcuffs how to get a zip ties and you know I show people how to survive in such environments my background is in law enforcement in Mexico so you know I spent a lot of time down there and over the years that's kind of led me into teaching myself how to survive in that environment and apparently after a while that

made me kind of look sought after as far as teaching other people how to survive in such environment so I've been doing that for a while here in the US military law enforcement civilians all yeah and you started working and law enforcement what year it's 2004 2004 the you started before everything got really crazy yes oh yes so you can you can kind of Trace back where it officially kicked off by the the start of the Felipe calderón's presidency which is the the second-to-last president we had he basically said you know full-on war against the cartels and by that time I was kind of just getting done with my training in northern Mexico as a police officer and what I thought was going to be you know community policing and stuff like that turned into a full-on you know here's a assault rifle and just go climb up on that tummy

with those military guys and let's go arrest cartel members oh Jesus Christ so you thought you were just getting a regular law enforcement gig but yeah I mean realistically there was no such that sort of kind of job description this was supposed 9/11 I was actually in med school and that the economy and all over the border with the tighten security and stuff like that kind of went down that drain and most of most of the money that I was using for med school you know went away and you know that in the newspaper young unmarried individuals that don't have any kids you're welcome to join type thing young unmarried individuals with no kids they want that specifically yeah that was probably a big alarm Mill City some of my head but the but the but the the you know there were there weren't a lot of opportunities for somebody my age there that didn't have a career and I thought it would be you know everybody said don't go you know but yeah a little said that was your friend I'd like head

but it was it to me it was a challenge and a lot of people said I couldn't do it and I did it and then it turned into something that wasn't what it most most people expect the one that went into it and it was a full-on urban Warfare type situation wow so post 9/11 the borders get tightened up and the economy gets very bad in the Border towns is that what happens because people can't get through as easily it's yeah it's heightened security so Commerce isn't is freely done on both sides border weights that you should take an hour now would take three hours or four hours depending on the time of day so you know things got affected also you know a worldwide recession situation kind of happened so everything kind of went down toilet you know I have a lot of family in the Border region and all like most of our family businesses that that we had you know basically kind of Tanked and that during that time so from 9/11 to here we are 18 years later it's been a pretty radical

yes safe to say yes hundred percent change like what if you had to like try to describe it so I mean basically the the part of the country that I have most of my experiences the Baja Sonora Juarez type region northern Mexico basically what happened is that all the cartels started fighting for the most rich drug routes on the planet one of them of course being the city of Tijuana so the city of Tijuana is that's the corner of Latin America it's the most it's the most cross-border on the planet and with that you know there's a lot of Commerce that goes on in that region a lot of think a chipped at the one and then dropped open up into into San Diego and a lot of people have businesses on both sides and amongst among all of this movement now there's a giant organized crime war going on it used to be

over like on the streets middle of the day you would see these cartel convoys arriving at a restaurant all the cartel guys outside with their a case it's like that this was 2004 2005 error and what how what is the military or law enforcement attitude towards that like how the hand so we go back to 2004 when I first got it started and it would look the other way really yes look the other way look the other way that was specific instruction that you got it was one of those things where I went there and I got I got a firearm here you go here's your Glock 17 here you two magazines here's your Mossberg 500 and you see all those cars over there we don't ask them for anything let them pass that's you know we don't do anything wow that nature and then would see members of the military as well kind of go the other way type situation mm this 2004 do you think that this was just to avoid conflict or was it because of

corruption it's always corruption I'm always at always levels at all at all those types of levels down there during this time there was a lot of corruption things changed but you know things in a way in some levels are always the same mmm there's definitely some sort of pact going on some sort of fear-based packed during that time and when Felipe Calderon finally said you know enough is enough we're going to declare war he basically militarized a lot of the kind of narcotic efforts in Mexico so the military went from being you know when they're in their bases or Manning stations out there to actually actively going out and looking for cartel cells and trying to eliminate them right so basically our me on the street type situation and another thing he did was basically all of the police chief a lot of the police sheeps around the country were being traded out for former military officials or

military guys huh officers one of them was a lieutenant colonel leyzaola I don't know if you're maybe your audience's audience could look them up it he's a very famous lieutenant colonel from Mexico actually has a documentary on called Mexico's most bravest man very pretty interesting guy he was the one that headed us up he directed us at the start of this these operations against the cartels and he basically said you know this is this is in a policing problem this is a counter Insurgency problem so we're gonna whoa we're going to militarize it basically and after he kind of took control everything everything in it changed you know there weren't as the cartels which is avert as they were so we started going underground so when you joined you expected it to be regular law enforcement when it became this counterinsurgency militarized effort against the cartel

was there every time you were you like I gotta get the fuck out of this job this is too dangerous yeah I mean My Generation I was part of the seventh generation of of officers going through this this program policing and out of my generation the first year we had two of them in jail for corruption charges and three dead you know just for out of how many out of 23 guys so I just 23 guys too long ago five gone five gone two of them very dramatic that's two of them were kind of the origins of how I got into the whole counter abduction type thing to my guys got to picked up outside of a hotel and the downtown Tijuana and bye-bye cartel members dressed as federal police officers the whole nine yards is uniforms the car everything cloned

they got they got asked for their papers outside and got put into a van they found them a day later you know horribly mutilated and all this type of stuff tortured tortured you know and that kind of that was the this I should real nice this is real and I should probably have a you know Escape Plan yeah and but it wasn't I didn't know anything else basically so it wasn't like I had something to fall back on right and it was good pay for what it was and yeah but feared that that's when fear got you know the stress must be insane Yeah it's you're always on you know there's a you know we were taught this thing on the the meeting wall it said there's no vacation even when there's vacation you know you would go on vacation you would get your gun to go on vacation of course yeah it was pretty insane now

have you ever been confronted yeah yes yeah of course I mean there's no there's the there's no it's not you know I have a lot of friends that are in military up here in the US and it's not like it's not like them they go off to overseas and they do something in a different country with different people with don't speak the same language I was doing all this in the place I grew up whoo all right so I knew some of these people at times you know I we every now and then I would say hey I know that guy from when I was a kid or we were in school together and now he has a plate carrier with it and they q47 in a gold gun on his bands right and it's like whoa the gold guns big giveaway all gold guns are you know that's how you know yeah those are some amazing websites that document all the different stuff that the cartel has but they love gold guns yeah that's all Chapo got like a gold very special

gun when he was when he was named one of one of the top earners in Forbes of the Forbes list I think he got his number on the gun and everything the second to last time he got caught because he got caught a lot of times and escaped somebody somebody in the military that goddamn took it you know oh no and it ended up in the museum I think it's I think it's in a museum somewhere in Mexico City where a lot of these gold guns at that that's a war trophy for those guys right so this is like a gold gun section of the museum yes yes there is mostly Mexico City wow yeah it's pretty wild the gold gone gold a keyword AK-47s you know now if everything is so corrupt on there how does a guy like El Chapo keep getting popped because when I when I saw his Escape yeah I was like this is hilarious the fact this guy goes to the toilet and then opens a door and Boop he's in a tunnel and on an electric scooter and goes a mile pops up on the other side and they had everything set up for them with electricity like

I mean you know the I think the thing that people kind of don't understand about the corruption is it's not just corruption because people are greedy it's all good it's also fear-based corruption so if you don't do what I say we're going to kill everybody in your family even your dog that type of thing I'm so after a little Chapo got it escaped that last time you know all of the staff at the jail got you know put in prison and so they were all part of it there's rumors that they were you know seems like somebody had to hear all that digging of course you know it's only a mile away they well it was pretty deep yeah some some some things that should have been patrolled weren't patrolled it was a pretty good well-made tunnel for what it was really well made so a lot of the people that dull Chapo actually use for these tunnel operation because the same people that we use for

tunnels in the Border region all the active tunnels that are somewhere you know along the border all of those guys were pulled in from from Silver mining companies that used to operate all over Mexico that kind of went into the toilet so they were looking for jobs and wow get El Chapo outs good job that's the order manager or drug tunnels you know when you saw all that shit go down with Sean Penn and Sean Penn visiting El Chapo and Sean Penn writing an article for Rolling Stone like odds were you like what in the fuck is going on here yes for a lot of some reasons that might not be you know mainly was why are they giving him a wire to giving him the Celebrity Status yeah you know there's a lot of glorification and a lot of

yeah of people venerating some of these people down there you know when they do a lot of harm you know so they're basically giving a voice to somebody it would be the equivalent of somebody up here giving a voice to somebody that was responsible for a lot of damage that done to the US you know it's why do you think they did that like what what what was the Roma it was it was romantic right something about it's like here's Sean Penn one of our biggest movie stars yeah with one of the biggest drug dealers ever I mean he is El Chapo down because I've been to see Noah and I've actually done classes there which was pretty surreal he is he's a folk hero he's a he's a he's a Robin Hood basically to these people and like witness a real moment that I had down there was driving along this bad bumpy ride Highway and all the sudden turn into a nice that kind of Highway and the guys that I was with was with told me oh yeah this is the cartel made this highway

and the back part of it that's the government part of the highway this is the you know schools careers lawyers doctors all their careers paid for I'm cartel immigration processes of people that want to come over here sponsorships on type of stuff on both sides right so the the span of influence that's you know that's how he kind of got to where he was he was always helping people and he was investing in people and these people this is these Investments would pay later on you know in a lot of ways it sounds like he benefited them he benefited some aspects of the community yeah I mean the reason why the military couldn't get them you people could take her option but because the he was basically he had a human shield around them you know all these towns owed you know schools hospitals every instead of Christmas down the day celebrate the Day of the Kings you know so

people get presents Mother's Day they would all get presents that type of thing so why would we want to help them uh Jerry come in here and they'll chop oh he's right doing this type of stuff you know that's in that is the same all over Mexico with some of the cartels you know they they hearts and mind hearts and Minds type approaches what makes some of these groups long-lived so how much of an effort is there to eradicate the cartels because if you can get a guy like El Chapo who at least in terms of like popularity's at the is he at the top of the list as far as popularity but at the top of that he's at the top of the list as far as popularity but when as far as like the actual drug dealers is he at the top of the list or they're more clever folks in hide underground yeah there's rumors of people above them that are still out there somewhere that's what everybody like that's the great conspiracy is that like El Chapo's basically the bank manager but that well you know there's a he has a Compadre Compadre somebody that if you're the daughter

you're the Godfather of my kid my compadre right so he has a Compadre out there a mile some bada and he is still out there right and the the extent of how he works and where he works is unknown so he's more slick exactly he tries to stay more low-key well there's you know some people get sick with the fame probably want to go outside once that the TV show narcos came on yeah then every well with people died oh I think there's a lot of people who did not realize how crazy life of Pablo Escobar was yeah and what really went down in Colombia yeah I mean it's crazy Pablo Escobar was a single you know he was a phenomenon is time and age but he was one man now imagine replicating that type of insanity over the span of Mexico and it's about eight or nine guys you know that was the 90s early early 2000s because these guys were

you know Legion of Doom type thing where they would be enemies but they would have reunions and they would meet up and kind of agree on you know certain times and stuff yeah just like in in the Pablo Escobar show yeah yeah yeah he's so they really do that they get together and have meetings and sometimes they kill each other that's that's the that's the that's a reality you know they do and at times or did at times because things are currently after El Chapo you know things kind of shifted and change what happened well main thing is a power vacuum and with a power vacuum and

legalization on this side of certain substances substances like marijuana the the the pot fields are now poppy fields and and you new things like like

like them now dedicate themselves to heroin instead of instead of the weed with that's mysteriously they're still we'd feels down there for some reason you know you guys are way better at making it then anybody time there but for some reason they're still has will be filled well I think it's a lot of his access especially in the states where it's prohibited yeah it's just they're probably more willing to get it to the people it's probably at meth meth precursors being brought in from China and to Mexico or now being made in Mexico mmm like Industrial Level stuff right and I knew I knew up surging cartel down there that is trying to overtake the Sinaloa cartel the new generation cartel is coming out of wall ahora and they're kind of really militarized kind of wing of a cartel activities that are trying to take control over the whole thing what is the plan in terms of the government and if they can take out a guy like El Chapo what is the plans to eradicate all the

and is there really a plan to eradicate it or is it one of those things where it's sort of a plan on paper but realistically they sort of accept the fact you're never going to get rid of these people so I have a like I have a thing like that like basically catch that cat that quatl was a feathered serpent and I have a image of a feathered serpent biting its tail Mexico has a problem with amnesia a six-year cycle of Amnesia every president comes in has all these plans to eradicate the cartels president goes out nobody likes them anymore new guy comes in and says well I have a better plan you know and that's the cycle we always go through so it's a big issue in Mexico yeah and current currently we have a leftist president that doesn't want to have anything to do with the past

okay Administration there are more on the right of the spectrum his name is Andres Manuel López obrador I'm Lou vocally supporting Venezuela that that type of guy apparently he has a good relationship with Trump that's what's what people say but his whole thing was amnesty for the cartels that's a campaign promised amnesty yes what does that mean exactly nobody knows what that means that's what he was saying that was you have a plan for this amnesty or is it just like a statement it was a statement and now if you see counter-narcotics operations throughout the country they the military is not as active as it used to be well some of the cartels are growing in influence because of amnesty could be you know basically I don't see the efforts that were there when I was active down there okay things change you know so I don't know II

I truly think that the Absurd because we're on route of be to to having the most violent year in Mexico as far as cartel related deaths right when I got out Tijuana had been on the top most dangerous cities on the planet list and I actually work there when it was on the top and through efforts both for the from the government and through people like Lieutenant Colonel leyzaola Tijuana was gone off the list of most dangerous cities in the world and now it's again at number one right yeah you sent me that I was pretty shocked because you don't hear about that here it's six murders at night you know I was down there two days ago and it was

it's basically cartel on cartel so they're cleaning each other out and just bodies appear in the morning you know I'm Bridges hung from Bridges tortured shot you know that's you know but again the nobody's doing anything about it did she let you know but kind of turning a blind eye in a lot of ways oh and so with this leftist President this guy with who has this idea of amnesty the the people that are in charge of handling the cartel the the military and the police officers they've got to feel like a little abandoned yeah or maybe some of them will have a business plan and they're working a one side so that's a problem too yeah so so so people aren't aware you know we have a separation of powers down there as well so the Army constitutionally shouldn't be engaged in combating the cartels they shouldn't be engaging police roles but there was something amendments

to the Constitution and laws passed but you have to realize that some of these people that are fighting the cartels and policing type role from military some of them can't read write or some of the uncomfortable parts of Mexico that shouldn't they shouldn't be doing that type of activity so you get a lot of you know a lot of failures on that side of the fence we do have some high level SF community members in Mexico that are doing the work but they're few and far between and then you have the federal place which has gone through about four or five name changes in the past you know ten years because every time well not going to call him that changes uniform because they're all corrupt Jesus but now they're there now they're this police right so so they just change appearance it change the name you know but like the refresh the public opinion of it there was a famous you know model investigation federal investigation

called the a fee and they were like modern investigative federal police it's going to go after and they were corrupted self you know and they all they did was gonna get a name change and all these guys got shuffled around and later on I was like hey I know you like what not know I'm this now you know but they're still the same person compromise yes yeah so those are the federal guys right currently they want to do like a national National police force and you're like wow they're going to get new people they're going to be National Police Force know it's the same guy changed uniform change your hat so that's on the federal side you know so we're pretty wanting their Stateside each state has their own police force investigation police force and a preventative type force and these are politicized because each state government may be opposed to the federal government so there's a there's some static there now and each municipality has its own police force and they meet might be completely different

logically then the state and federal so

it must be for you to have your life on the line over there and see all this chaos and obvious either lack of organization or outright corruption it must be insanely frustrating yeah I mean well the putting people in that were clearly guilty of things you know and then seeing them come out or the legal system down there then I got with that I had to endure you know you would have to go and do a face-to-face with all these people all right go into a federal courthouse leave your Firearms behind do a face-to-face with these people inside that you just got that you just got for however many tons of cocaine or pot or whatever and then go outside and they're outside you know now now I know who you are you know there's no anonymity in that in that regard so you would have to sign things you know

and then seeing some of the people that were with you working on your side and seeing them how some of them would fall into corruption charges and then sue the government and then get your jobs back but now you have somebody is compromised within your own unit wow so they did try a few things to try and clean out police forces one of them was a plan they called the C3 plan it was like a like a filter for police officers down there it's still it's still an action but you know it's questionable if it's effective or not I saw a lot of people go through it and later on they would turn out to be cartel guys basically they would do a background check FBI background check polygraph exam drug testing

all the all of these things to see that you were you know clean to work on these police forces the problem is that the polygraphs turned out to be unconstitutional to fire somebody over them so a lot of these people got hired back after they would fail polygraph basic polygraph exam so again it's a lot of attempts to clean it up you know and you would be on the level and all these people won't be on the level but they were still there so like what percentage of people are not on the level if you had to guess roughly the I mean I would say will depend I'd say 30 percent probably that's a lot but I got on my experience of the people that I worked at 30% weren't on the way you must cherish the 7000 like family yeah like family and you just you you would know when some of these people were not level because you know I have this running joke that I have this I I went in with the same car that I drove out of the office with

yeah shitty truck that I had that I bought that I bought when I you know I love my own dime first truck first car and I drove out of the office when I quit the when I quit the job that same day I drove the I drove out of the office in that truck but a lot of these guys would come in with her you know Hummers and H2S and just weird cars are like oh wait a minute that's it doesn't make sense like we are working the same off is why do you why do you have a three-story house so obvious though prove it you know yeah but but the obviousness of it oh yeah the blatant driving a nice car living in a big house and everybody else is like what yeah there's you know there's this obviously these this that these Unwritten rules of know you won't you wouldn't tell on this guy of course but you know was obvious yeah and when it came time to share information of a certain kind or we're going to go over here and you would have to turn around

look around see who was listening you know yeah you wouldn't trust a lot of these people so how are we going to how we're going to do our job if we can't trust the people that are working with us well who was it that recently called for decriminalization they got was it that your president they're called for a decriminalization of all drugs in America to go along with Mexico so it was yeah try to do something about the cartel yeah we're on the brink of legalizing marijuana and Mexico right now like there's been a few landmark cases and you know it's gold rush type situation right now there's a lot of companies down there that that have had experience up here that want to go down there right so the culture is ready for it I think do you think that would help I don't know when it comes to legalizing pot up here it hasn't held down there as far as lowering things actually made things kind of worse how's it made things worse they changed they change the changes what they were producing so that

the one reason is the reason why there's a heroine heroine epidemic up here and Fentanyl epidemic up here I think has some relationship with how things got legalized up here and how they just switched product down their so lighter-colored heroin is coming down from Mexico and I've seen I've done work with law enforcement up here in the u.s. doing classes and kind of you know they send me things like what do you think about this Ed and I've seen that lighter colored heroin pop up in places as far off as just cause that's a huge so you know it because of the color yeah the color are the smell the consistency you can kind of tell if it's Asian or Mexican is a different strain like it's a probably a different strain and it's also the amount of sun it gets in the region where it's going to be in Grown higher altitude so it's lighter color not a stinky I don't know but I think it's a relation that that kind of relates to the legalization issue down there they didn't affect them in the pockets they

switched product it's got to be it's such a strange relationship because the reason why these drug cartels have so much power is basic because they're selling drugs to the United States yeah so it's like you have this connection to this country that has his great big wall that it wants to build and on one side everybody's buying up all the illegal drugs and the other side everyone's killing everybody to try to make and sell these illegal drugs yeah I mean and there's a lot of holes underneath that wall and I drones yeah phone technology tribe was that wall going to help anything well the walls already been up for a few years part of it and in place like the Iguana which is like one of the richest strike while droughts on the planet and it's the drugs are caught the same you know it's the same it's yeah and what about like the ocean can't we just take a boat I've seen one large submarine in my time working real a large like like military size like like

sighs where the fuck does somebody by a submarine eyeline apparently really yeah you can buy a submarine can buy a small submarine for a small amount of money I think the main part of the submarine ownership is maintained maintenance that was the reason we found it is that it wasn't properly maintained so it sunk you it it actually no it actually floated couldn't sink oh and it had a bunch of things hanging off but summaries scare the shit out of me can't see where you're going well so there so yeah I've seen submarines drones like a squadron of drones with a bunch of loads on it yeah wow how have you can a drone get still fly perhaps I've seen full like two kilos on it really yeah

they just fly in the coke over the top yeah and the only reason we I find out about those one of those crashed in roadside next to the Border fence were you around when that CIA drug plane crashed in Mexico with tons of cocaine on it I've wasn't there but I was aware of that situation what the fuck is that about I mean realistically there's there's a lot of Americans running around in Mexico yeah that's that's that's in and there's a lot of cowboys right yeah a lot of people say listen we just make this one run I like the government doesn't give a fuck about us my pension sucks it could be you know could be you know every now and then you know in this is this is this isn't a secret every now and then you would see a dude out there that's blond tall and has a bunch of tattoos that don't belong down there working on the military side of things in Mexico or some dudes doing something someplace

and then you will get a call you know oh they're fine just you know just leave him alone that's enough so who knows you know who knows so if it's 3 out of 10 were corrupt where you were it might be like 1 out of 10 I have no idea hey guys I mean you know usually we would get to since I have a pretty good spoken English I would get I will get sent places for training or for liaison work with some people that would go down there and I would never know what the hell some of these people were from you know hmm so who knows yeah it seems like it's very loose like there's a lot of room for fuckery Calderon era and Bush Administration era it there was a lot of there was a lot of stuff going on Obama administration era after the whole Fast and Furious thing

things kind of cut went dark for a while you explain the fact that a lot of people don't know what the Fast and the Furious is it was a they it's sold guns to the cartel under the guise that this is the way they would track the guns yes it seems so fishy oh I learned about it from CNN and I feel my friends were killed with some of those guns down there which is you know everybody talks about the the u.s. agent that was in Mexico was killed by some of these guns but there was a lot of you know Mexican agents and people civilians killed by these guns as well so there were very specific types of guns you know so like imagine somebody giving you a shopping list about types of guns you want right including in these lists were 50 cal Barrett Barrett rifles and fn57 S which are very odd to it's a pistol with a very high velocity round that goes through soft armor like this this type of stuff that was issued to us right

so all of a sudden we're seeing these space best tools in the hands of the cartels and very specific parts of the country were like but what a Preposterous idea that they're going to sell it to the cartel track of the could track them well I like it that sounds like horse shit to me that sounds like someone's trying to make money and they said oh we'll just say we're selling it to them to track it well the the suspicious part is that all of them went to one specific cartel the Sinaloa cartel so it sounds like such horseshit the fact that I mean who went to jail for that Eric Holder didn't go to jail he should have he should have he should have I mean there's there's blood yeah people died there was a I can't say the name but somewhere in in Baja little girl lost her arm an agent that was a friend of mine got killed and the wife got killed with fn57 that relate directly related to that whole thing right so you can go to jail for fucking tax evasion but I just got can get away with that

I think that the idea that you would run that by people and they would go yeah good idea yeah give them guns and to be clear I don't know the realities of that operation on this side people say it's there was it was it was happening way before all I know is that when that happened nobody told us and there was definitely some weird resentment on part of the government down there that people down there as far as you know and there was some weird conspiracy theories going on as well down how could there not be yeah I mean that seems like it's conspiracy theory right in front of your face that's the fact oh yeah we just sold him the drugs or the guns so that we could track the the Hell No One's Gonna Die it's not like a bad idea the main thing you would hear is people settlement in Fast and Furious executive privilege lawsuit between doj and house this is how it ended or wrapped up within the last two weeks I guess really it's this is just wrapping out yeah just some settlement on Mars wow because this is from what nine years ago

yeah at least and the guns are still showing up so I don't know how many of them they don't know I've never known what numbers but I've last time I we found some and I have actually have images of the ones we found they were buried in somebody's backyard inside of a water barrel and all of them were obviously u.s. origin guns and they're like what do you mean all of them had very specific accessories on them that nobody else in the world puts these accessories on their guns is a u.s. because they're pretty ridiculous accessories like what kind of accessories things that had things letters on them like see you in hell type things on upon America Punisher skulls Punisher skulls of the big one yeah and that is hilarious that a cartoon skull has from a Marvel comic book has become a gigantic part of spec ops yeah it is it is pretty ridiculous

well the main room or down there like with conspiracy theory wise and you would hear all sorts of things you know because down there there's there's no such thing as top secret clearance in Mexico you know there's like there's like hey don't say anything you know that's that's about it I know so you'd hear crazy crazy things main thing was that the u.s. was planning an invasion you know they're the their destabilizing the region so they could put boots on the ground oh Jesus now that was the look like a going conspiracy theory going on the u.s. invading Mexico yeah how fucking crazy would that be well you know as far as a reaction on the side of Mexico people aren't feel then this is again this is purely speculation and they weird rumors that I would hear people were planning to do poison drug loads on that side to create a Health crisis in the US as a reaction that was pretty like when I heard it's like we'll look who's talking about this yet you know and so full

War almost could be you know and then you would transfer you all who's doing that and the cartels so the cartels of the government or the same thing like what's going on right right right and again this is just weird stuff you what a credit is a crazy perspective right the cartels would poison the drugs to punish the Americans for the military invading the country yeah yeah so to create a to create a Health crisis in the u.s. so they would have to go back wow I mean not the rumors you know the they know how many guns they brought over I've heard all sorts of numbers we never got told us he was going number nearly 2,000 Firearms were illegally purchased for 1.5 million according to the doj Inspector General report fuck hundreds of guns related recover the United States and Mexico yeah maybe 50 cows were so the and it's always an escalation with the cartels right so the we they would get

AK-47s and we would get German mangy 3s that were say around the same caliber and we could fight back right hmm and then all of our leaderships are rolling around in armored vehicles so let's get 50 Cals to you know make holes in the these armored vehicles so it was all it's always been an escalation now this is Chris you guys were getting 50 cal so you can shoot holes in the armored vehicles yeah though the cartels were getting them first and then then we had to get them because they were rolling around in armored vehicle so the Mad Max hype armored vehicles they would make they would first first they would make them like homemade Mad Max armored vehicles they found a few other online somewhere one of them was called La Bestia which is like a giant the old it all that was missing was the guy with the guitar on the back of it you know like and they would use these to roll into town and like how would you fight that right and then we had to get a 50 cal or will get them

Terry to shoot them from the sky oh my God there's a there's a famous video from somewhere down in Mexico where they shoot a Vulcan rifled down at a cartel member in a car number vehicle but then you see well you know well the Checkmate Checkmate government against the cartel but then you realize that the cartels like the new generation Cartel de Guadalajara I've actually down helicopters in Guadalajara military helicopters because they have anti-aircraft capabilities Jesus Christ so that then you now you're like Checkmate cartels you know that's that's how where does this go like where did where I mean how far does it escalate that's that's that's the thing that you know you have to think about the so killing and death is not at the Industrial Level it's that is being done in Mexico not just killing but you know this being wrought he's making body disappear I was I was a I was around when they got the stewmaker

the stewmaker was a guy that worked for the Sinaloa cartel in Tijuana and he would get rid of bodies using caustic soda right so he would get bodies every night and he had these basically these Industrial Level just barrels of it just go it's caustic soda it's a chemical mixture yeah you can get most of the components at a hardware store basically it dissolves bodies you know he would get get some of this mixture he said in interviews that he got trained by Israelis that how to do that so who knows if that's true or not but in the night he said he would get rid of you know dozens of bodies and this gets rid of everything you know DNA bone everything so there's a lot of families on Mexico that are looking for the kids for years and there's just no way of giving them a body

and the amount of juice that goes into cartel working just gets you know kill there it's just it's a whole generations and whole towns of women and Old Men

you know they're out there which is like whole Generations just God you know all the men in the gone I've gone to gone to a few small towns were like they looked at me like

youth you know young man it's like so it's rare it's some places it is because the men are all getting killed all getting got God in the you know in the cartel operations and killed or recruited forcefully recruited or voluntarily recruited but don't hold your durations just white though now the people in your line of work the people that have boots on the ground really understand the problem what is the thought in terms of what could be done to fix this

I think the main thing is any sort of any sort of plan any sort of plan to fight the cartels that involves just a six-year plan won't work because that's what that's what the main problem has been with Mexico each present with your presidential its terms six years each president comes in with a six-year plan he either does very good or does really bad and then it gets forgotten and another one comes in and there's also definitely an addiction to money from the US side of for counter cartel operations there's a plan Medi that it's called it's a international plan where the u.s. pays for counter-narcotics type operations in Mexico so there's an addiction to that money on the side of the government so it'll there's a lot of interest for that to keep going no so they don't want to resolve the problem is much they want to in some ways you know yeah

they refused to professionalize the police horses down there they don't put enough effort in that in that regard you know good people that are there that I've know there's some amazing guys out there doing amazing work and they get passed up for a promotion because they don't they don't have any they don't know anybody high level they don't work for by their side of the gang you know so a lot of people just get cast aside you know and you know it's kind of hopeless and that regard you know a lot of a lot of the good guys when they get when they come out of the job there's only a few options to them right I had I had options but a lot of the guys that go out of job Dome so

they get recruited by the cartels did you did anybody ever attempt to recruit you yeah yeah you get offers you get off and offers there's a there's a famous guy there's famous quarter either which is like a Mexican folk folk song called I'm going to talk about my past right and it's pretty interesting song it's about a cartel guy that used to work as a cop and and somebody from his past approaches him and says you want the kids haven't done Kali you want to you want to do a job that's what you would get you know people within the police horses asking you you want to you want to work in the side that was the entry you know and or you know we'll pay you this much what is it like when you say no

it's pretty pretty hard it's a it's not it's not it's not specifically saying no but just saying I'm not the one to ask for this and you said you know I'm not the one who asked for this you know what I'm I'm I'm only in this for the money of the for my paycheck and you know I don't want to risk anything so and how do they leave that they don't then they're not happy usually you know so you get on a list sometimes and you know something that follows you but it's a much better thing than actually going and getting into some one of these guys Pockets hmm once you take something or there's right like the mom like the mob you know a lot of thing it's a lot of these guys actually took place you know they have a lot of these cartels down there they kind of venerate the whole gangster era the u.s. it's like a thing so it's like a thing they looked up like look up to you know right so like you see a lot of gold plated Thompson machine guns down there pieces take picture with him so there's a

lack of professionalizing the police force yes and that you think is a conscious effort I think I think it's a so Captain fairlie incompetent I think so you know a lot of ways we we were we were as a group the route that I used to work with we there was a lot of efforts to professionalize us to like a getting a getting that a career path to actually being you know making it a career there's no right now where I used to work there some pension there's no retiree wow if you want to get any sort of a credit for anything the credit the credit companies won't even touch it because you're too high-risk you know you too high risk because you might get shot yeah wow it is the most dangerous city on the planet right so so they wouldn't touch us and realistically culturally

being a cop in Mexico is you know

male porn actor copper probably is along the same range as far as a shame you know wow yeah do I we wouldn't eat at any restaurant that we didn't know the people you know because it would spit in there it really a lot of you have this hate don't hate or why they hate cops so much they like as a as a culture Mexico police police culture of Mexico has earned it a lot of guys working both sides a lot of guys being you know again the whole you're going to be a cop because you know somebody in there and people that shouldn't be in any sort of Public Service mmm so there's a lot of corruption I got a lot of corruption lot of a lot of things done wrongly by the cops a lot of abuse has you know a lot of human rights violation type situations so it's earned you know so the big shift over there in terms of crime in terms of cartel crime occurs first with September 11th

of the borders then it starts to ramp up after that because of what the government first started targeting certain cartel heads you cut one head off Hydra and yeah to head spawns who had three heads pop up our vacuum our vacuum the fight to try to gain power and the cartels realized you know what we are standing on the riches drug routes on the planet so we should probably you know start fighting over them yeah and also what also what happened is that you know a lot of these people is something that people Americans kind of don't have don't get yet this isn't a Mexican problem any more specifically as far as the cartel violence going on a lot of these people had their kids up here in the US in the 90s A lot of these cartel guys you know a little chapel has kids had kids in the US and a lot of these people are now

coming of age you know so cartel influence in the u.s. is a thing you're going to start seeing if you're already seeing it but you're going to see more of it because a lot of these people are actually american-born the US citizens now working in tandem with any sort of Interest down there so that's going to be the new shift you know and you know people are sometimes kind of horrified by some of the stuff that I post up some of the cases down there people can look up the little spy Leo's gang in in Southern California there were actual cartel group that would kidnap people in the US dressed as federal agents in the US and drag them back down to Mexico now this happened a few bucks almost I think tonight nine years back but this is happening to you in the u.s. no it's not something foreign anymore you know a lot of people want to think that you would you can build a wall and keep all that down don't get me wrong

that wall I have nothing against it but selling it as a security thing it's just I don't think it makes that much sense in a lot of in a lot of the parts words it is up violence is rampant on both sides but if the the the argument would be that if the wall didn't exist then it would be too easy to come back and forth at all spots yeah could could you know but again drunk dials catapults yeah Thrones for drugs and terms of what kidnapping people and a lot of other things that you cut off at least some of the vehicle right yeah I get it I get it I think again I'm not against the wall you know build a wall that I interviewed a guy I do articles for a few magazines and I interviewed a guy who was a coyote coyote moves people from the border and he said this about the board was asked in the interview about the border wall he said it's good for business you know you make something

seem like it's harder when it isn't and it's good for business well so you say listen I can't get you over 3,000 it's got to be 5:00 and yeah it's tighter yeah or if I'm to Canada and they walk down which is that was his one of his one of his new favorite methods so Northern United States probably got a lot of Mexicans now yeah the Canada Boulder board is hilarious it's a path yeah so carved out a hundred yard Pat we put pictures of it up the other day but like look how hilarious is is the difference between Mexico and Canada Canada they make it easy to know where the border is like just get across here a and be fine snow Mexicans yeah it's really strange well I mean it's the the the amount of creativity and problem-solving that goes on on the on the criminal side you know if if your best plan is the wall of a secure wall these guys have been working against that best plan for the past

here's so they aren't there already way ahead of the curve hmm you know and that regard there's interesting time in drunk and people can look this up drone technology had a I had an upsurge in innovation in Tijuana out of all places in the world for a time you know hmm like why that's funny no wonder hmm what they were doing with those what could be done to radically curb this you know like if you were the king of the world said what are we going to do first off legalizing sums up some of the substances would probably help that would help a lot

that's a pretty good question but even some substances that are legal like fentanyl is essentially legal because you can get a prescription for it

but

you're never going to have like fentanyl just over-the-counter it's just too deadly you know another thing that you know I think about and that's a very good question I wish I could answer I think everybody wishes they can answer it everyone just sort of like shrugs and so the the cartels aren't just a drug-fueled business hmm they also have money that is in property and it legitimizes businesses they work in human trafficking like they act you you if you used to be you can cross that border and go to the desert and cross it yourself but now you have to pay a toll protection rackets across the on both sides of the of the Border sex trafficking piracy like you name it they have they have hands in it right so so they just essentially took that drug money and just different about a crime business Diversified now they've been Diversified for a long time like there was a recently two three three

cartel members from Sinaloa walk in Malaysia released out of all places so you just think about that to Sinaloa cartel Guys Somewhere in Malaysia got caught somewhere and now they've been released and they got it like a hero's welcome to Mexico to get a hero's welcome oh yeah really the Sinaloa that you know that again seen a lot was a pretty that's I have this nickname for Mexico I call it the upside down you know because everything's being basically upside down that right and yeah these guys got funny thing is that the Mexican Government was involved in the release and then they send them back and Hero's welcome what were they doing all the way over there and that part of the world I don't know diversifying diversifying

so no one has a real plan here goes Malaysia pardons three Mexicans on death row they were on death row damn you want to talk about a kick-ass Corrido like a folk song song about you those guys are probably going to get an amazing folks on you know so there's a lot of Romanticism kind of yeah I mean it's it's Romanticism it's religion there's definitely some some occultism involved in a lot of the higher ups in these cartels remember when I found out about the Narco Music These what are those songs called I Corridos the folk songs there's a lot of them you know there's a and they all them have a secret language in them sometimes or they're all a history of something that happened and you pay somebody to to to make one for you or somebody makes it for you and then if you do a good career song for somebody and the rivals will send somebody

tell you you know really so like even even the musicians are on either side of the cartel kind of groupings as well it's pretty weird but it's wow so if you're if you're for the wrong cartel if you make a song you kind of have to like go into hiding well or not so not play any in any places where the Rival cartels territories are oh Jesus Christ will they come to your territory to come get you if you yeah yeah there's a test fit of be up in a few high-level singers Mexican folk singers that got there you know killed for messing with girlfriends will cartel members or for singing the wrong song in the wrong place so that's in the culture and and the religious occultism the cartels have as well you know it's pretty interesting thing things like Santa Muerte the the death cult that is kind of in different parts of Mexico it's like a think of a very dark free

masonry type thing right some certain levels you have people that are part of the part of that cult from the cops to the military to the cartels it's kind of two prostitutes and drug dealers it's interesting how how that kind of also has an influence on the way some people go into very risky business is like being cops or cartel guys and how they wear or the Empower themselves by some of these occult iconographies you don't like or or there's the the Trinity is the Jesus malverde which is it was a folk hero from turn-of-the-century Sinaloa basically abandoned that got caught and killed and he turned into a Satan now there's a giant Church to him in Sinaloa with a bunch of money stuck to the walls and and pictures of guys in the US would like a F-150 truck or a Hummer like thank you my brother

I'm living the dream now because of you wow to roadside altars with with the Statue of the Virgin Mary and then you look behind her and there's a Reaper behind it because it's a hidden Santa Marta Shrine and they do that too so the military doesn't destroy them because they have standing orders to destroy these things which shouldn't be but you know kind of religious persecution but they actually do that

it's so it's so different than the United States and a lot of ways it is I mean I don't think we understand like all this stuff I think the average person has no idea about the songs no idea about the culture of it all they have no idea of the depth and How Deeply it's connected Society down there I mean the death the death cult worship is I think it could probably trace it back to the Aztec days all right so there's definitely when you see all these highly graph highly violent bloody cartel executions and things like that I don't know I mean yeah but I think there's some sort of genetic memory from that type of those times that it's not abnormal

physically for some of these people do that type of thing you know ripping somebody's heart next to a tree is like there's videos of that stuff out there remember getting contacted by people that I knew on this side of the Border in the u.s. that were very curious why all these people from the Middle East were looking at all these cartel execution videos and then a few years later you had Isis doing some high production execution videos the more inspired by the cartels you know wow so is that interesting that we don't think about that we think about how my God look at Isis they're cutting people's heads off I was he learned from Mexico which is connected to us by Lands write down their fucking walk there like you have to fly to Afghanistan you could walk there it's not in Libya it's near La Hoya yeah you got a little oil you see these fucking multimillion-dollar Estates with his gorgeous view and everyone's driving Ferraris and Porsches 20 minutes drive your in Tijuana yeah the most violent city on the planet right now so great

see ya and when I go to San Diego that's the one of the first things I think is how what a juxtaposition how crazy it is that this is the border to Mexico and it's all military San Diego is filled with fucking seals and Rangers and Marines and basis and it's just all military down there sits so military influence and it's right next to the most violent dangerous city on planet Earth more than Karachi more than Pakistan we were we were injured by MetLife and the MetLife agent said let said something along those lines like you're better off going to Afghanistan or Iraq then you know working here basically numbers wise and I was like that thank you for that you know that's felt it felt like a good pat on the back but seems like they're getting cartel on cartel crime yeah fused with regular person crime so but that's how it always starts you know it's usually starts off and again this

goes back to everything cyclical down there that that snake eating its tail so you get cartel on cartel crime and then they finish each other off and then they realize well now what do we do so they start abducting people extortion just for money just extortion comes into play you know protection rackets

cross us guy now they're very bold that now they're at the party somewhere and somebody looks at him funny so they come back and they shoot up the whole party I like your daughter she's pretty hot I'm going to steal her and if you do something I'll kill you and you're never gonna see your daughter again that's how it starts you know that's that's how it starts kind of growing just bold Brazen that's cruel that's how you get it sociopathic that's how you get say get to that point and then it again I experienced it back in 2006 era and I saw it get into all the way to when the whole of the Municipal Police were they basically Army surrounded the Municipal Police office of the police the police at the you wanna and it took all the guns and a few of them were taking on a plane ride to Mexico City and the for a few weeks there was no armed police in Tijuana and the municipal armed police imagine somebody imagine somebody disarming the whole LP all of the LAPD and just having the Army in there instead

wow so you would see you would see these events and then things coming down you know the only success story as far as as far as the city coming back from the brink was Tijuana for with a wooden all that like the Raging drug or went down Lieutenant Colonel he's all of the guy that I used to work with he took numbers down like everybody down in Mexico that he had got hired then on to go to Juarez to try and replicate his success the only successes were there because he basically treated the problem has a counter Insurgency problem not a policing problem hmm and he he got nine attempts on his life the last one took the use of his legs and he's currently currently running for mayor of Tijuana believer huh and he's in a wheelchair but he still wouldn't want not want to mess with that guy wow yeah we're aware that my myself and some members of my family are actually helping out with his campaign but

you know he's got a his one of his campaign offices got shut up shut up recently so is there any plans or is there any push to try to treat the entire problem as a counter Insurgency problem to replicate the success that they had in Tijuana no it's it's that was a solution brought in by the right side of the political Spectrum in the in Mexico so it's it's a no-go right now because everything's still the left this guy just got in office he's he's he's has a few months and so yeah he just got into office so so you got five and a half more years of this dude wearing for a ride that's all I can say yeah kindness doesn't seem to work when you're dealing with cartels it seems like now you give them a hand it'll take your feet that's that was that's a Mexican say man it did for you to have been in that

business and to sort of be connected to about side of it now it did it seem like there's it seemed I mean it must be incredibly frustrating but it also must feel futile like you've wasted time almost because not there's no no progress is ever going to be made I have a you know have a weird experience that I had burned about 2 Acres of pot somewhere in Baja right towards the end of my career

and then things happen politically a bunch of shakes a bit she comes over the office I got called in and the director at that of the institution that I was in at that time was a shady character and I decided to see you know what my mom had just passed away and that kind of affected me a little bit a lot of the a lot of it you know and starting a family and stuff like that and you know it said you know what this is this is not worth it so I left quit my job handed everything in know people were suspicious about why I did it you know what you probably found a million dollars somewhere and you're writing or shit like that right so I had to leave in a hurry you know got a few threats wow gladly I gladly I have a luckily I had some great people on this side of the Border friendships that I developed for a long while and they helped me out you know

I went to Denver about two weeks after I got done with the job and old lady handed me a special cookie at one of the dispensaries and I saw the people walking in you know and it's like this is this is this what I've been you know right burning and chasing people in the middle of the night and looking at drug planes and violence and all this is lady with a cookie snouts a store it's a it's a beautiful store in Denver there's a store in front of Allah in front of the Improv that I have to I have to put a video up because me and Andrew Santino were there last night making fun of it I'll send it to you Jamie right now because it's so ridiculous they have shit under glass like look you looking at art pieces I mean again I don't know why they're still producing pot in Mexico with you guys have it have it in the stratosphere as far as an art form I'm sending this right now Jamie

yeah well they definitely have it down now but it's just it shouldn't be illegal in the first place and that's not hurting anybody I just wanted to there's a bunch of there's a large Shamanism and occultism all over Mexico and mushrooms and use down there for sent like forever yeah and you know growing up stuff like you would see it and it was you know the demon is Asian comes from the conflict around it none that it's right you know well there's should be real demonization when it comes to things like fentanyl to just wakeley this that you turn the volume up so we can see it here this

people are stand the state of marijuana in Southern California I'm inspecting the crystals today they lie Chrissie Hynde a magnifying glass this is no bullshit these are all in glass so you can look at the crystals because a lot of these marijuana dorks are like wind Orcs or any other thing where people really get into it you take it too far when he's looking at weed under glass and Joey Diaz would be here right now he'd spill shocks like it's a fine sharp names I'm not it's just weed man that's all it is it's just right Angie Santino speaks the truth it's just weed man that's some Antique Road Show type level stuff ridiculous that they give you a magnifying glass and they had all these displays with that this is a hybrid this is an Indica strong hybrid this is a sativa straw sativa dominant I supposed to smell it under that glass good question yeah the right there are stores have a little jar that you can smell through the very good question

we would just grab all of it machetes and just put in a big pile and just chop it up and look like a part of the wind coming from over there I'm gonna sit over here wow yeah you know you would get a pass after that so it was fine you gotta get a little fucked up oh burning all that stuff why second-hand smoking it butter M&M's that was my thing was there a sense of frustration when it was legalized in so many states and United States in some regard yes what are we Dying For What are we fighting for whatever lost brother exactly you know a lot of people were killed over finding tons of pot somewhere and now it's fine yeah no you can just buy it and it's I mean but you know the frustration isn't isn't with the pot itself again it's what happens around the politics around it the amount of money invested into fighting it and and and violence and interest around it but the plan itself up again might my mom used to grow it and

put it in a jar with alcohol and rub it on her muscles you know and it's a thing it's always it's always been there they all of a sudden you have full full auto machine guns protecting it and the grow somewhere and full auto machine guns another place people coming in there to burn it because you shouldn't be selling it it's just while I was doing it you know my mindset was these are bad people when I when I started you know these are bad people are drugs and later on I was like just she's just a plant stinky plant some people are smoking it and never never in my life did I encounter a hyped up you know pothead the one of the fight you know so I was like they should they should make this exclusive it would calm down Jim a difference Coke is different methods of of course but you know pot when you were talking about how everyone with a six-year plan it's not going to work it's never going to work it seems to me that

with the Romanticism of the Cults and the way that it's ingrained in the culture and that they look at these people like folk Heroes that this is a generational problem when you take many generations before it changes in calms down and I would struggle to think of what would be the thing that could cause it to come down like what could be the Catalyst for change yeah and more so than things kind of

things are getting even more complicated now with migrant Caravans going through Mexico now and now you have all these displaced people from South America now adding on to the problem of an already have to take is the Caravan we hear about it on the news like from Fox News talks about it like Scare Tactics so I was I don't know in people can fact check me on this but I was probably one of the first ones to publicly say that they were going to go so the first cabin it's going to go straight to Tijuana everybody was now they're not going to go straight to the Iguana there the sister too far off they should just go to Texas and they went straight to Tijuana and you know there were about 3,000 strong when they got there may be a bit more and you know the bunch of memes came up because of it as they were going through all the Mexico most of the people were pretty welcoming because they weren't going to stay you know they were like here's a lot like when somebody's doing a job run

Marathon they would handle bottled water bottle in you good riddance they finally got the TJ and TJ is very conservative like politically is very conservative place and they met with a wall of protesters wearing make Tijuana great again hats no yes yes no yes and I may or may not have produced a few of those myself and all of a sudden you see the mayor of Tijuana with a make them make the Iguana great again hat on his head wow and the reason why they were so adverse to these guys coming in is that they were a lot of them gang members you know 14th Street gang members the reason why they're going to go the other route is because it would have to have crossed little set this territory was a cartel that has problems with the 14 gang so they were just curtailing that they were complaining about the food they were getting at the shelter's the third world country feeding durable migrants and we would feeding them tortillas and

and there's a famous lady that was like I'm not going to eat this is pig pig me a koala great again so it's trolling on another level wow so these guys came in but people started calling Mech the the people from Tijuana racist the brown people from Tijuana raced against other brown people wow and you would see some of the you know some of the news agencies from the u.s. come down and volunteer groups hippies you know with sending all their donations to these people in some of these Meyer Caravan camps they will grab the donations turn around and sell it on the back side you know all these things they would sell the backside so we would they were we had just absorbed about 2,000 or 3,000 Haitian immigrants after the earthquake in Tijuana no problems at all they're integrated into the culture all of a sudden now we have Haitians in the culture you know no problem at all but these guys came in they were really kind of disruptive in that way right so

do you think that was because it's all the attention they were getting yeah that's what they wanted you know they wanted to create some sort of situation on the border so they Rush The Border a few times I was I was around there when they the famous picture of the lady with the kids running towards the Border happened it they were throwing rocks at the border patrols they put border patrol guys and that's you know they got the gas and response and that's when she was running away yeah and they had a lot of people they're throwing rocks yeah that they threw rocks constantly that was her thing and it's funny how a photo can give you a totally different perspective again anybody this doubting any of this go down in Tijuana and ask to be from Tijuana Tijuana people did not want those people there they saw them as disruptive crime went up one of the encampments that they have was next to a school the school had to be shut down because of all the needles and stuff that was getting getting found outside of the playground the school it was a massive Nightmare and then we would see it on the news and it was like flowers and

you know the narrative you have the narrative was like I don't know what these guys are talking about well Trump is such a polarizing figure than anything that would would be anti-immigration like that like antimatter they just don't want to hear it but they'd be out of the a li the weird thing is how so a lot of people Mexicans like Trump you know yeah which is really well yeah why is that I think the whole are I'm going to defend our people type thing that's there like that yeah and a lot of people have to remember most Mexicans are very conservative Catholic concerned guys so it kind of resonates with them a little

but you know again we're divided as well as you guys are politically so there's a lot of a lot of to the left hype leading people down there so they again narrative you know divide and conquer but the people in the left what is their perspective on the migrant Caravan support it you know you can open the borders you know let him through not boots on the ground

no well then notnot that you generally have boots on the ground their cities are not the ones that are hosting all these people right right right there not right there yeah it's going down they don't have a realistic perspective yeah so it's a narrative so imagine these the this Caravan came into TJ and affected the businesses the cross-border and tourism business of all the people that live there so a lot of businesses actually closed down because of these people coming in really and yeah and the only reason they came in you know was to disrupt and created an international scene which is what exactly what they did so do they plan on actually trying to get across or they were planning on jumping the fence and claiming Asylum out Asylum on the other side and the famous lady if we hold as that I kind of made famous on my Instagram account she jumped the fence claimed Asylum went to Texas and then her and her sister assaulted somebody somewhere and then she got arrested got deported probably so you know that's kind of the story of these people and then you would get track some of

people on social media so they would be all poor in the Maverick Caravan videos they would have on the news and then you would see him on their social media accounts from back home Louis Vuitton bags and stuff like that you know maybe a fake one but still you know they were fun talk ther Flossin you know it's a weird dynamic on the border and as far as I think it's being utilized in a lot of ways as a political type thing is currently because of the present you guys have up here and it correct me if I'm wrong but they do make an effort to not go into tourist areas to resort areas and the cartel well this is the thing because they own it or they have investments in it that's wow so like if you go to Punta Mita or something like that you think they have investment they it's in their best interest of have things you know quiet yeah a lot of people so I do a lot of trading as far as do a lot of classes stuff like that travel safety things and people are amazed with some of the cases that I bring out

or that they think they're going to get abducted or drugged by the cartels in some discotheque somewhere down there yeah and it's usually American Americans traveling down there doing their thing now they're against other Americans in color back up it's perfect you know crime oh really yeah there's a lot of did not happen with a guy who killed his girlfriend down there yeah there's a case something like that yeah somewhere in the Caribbean yeah that makes sense like that would be a good way to get rid of some of these a lot of those cases in a mistake the cartel got her I miss her so much man a lot of that a lot of the a lot of the drugs that happened that down there during the spring break type era that type of time frame it's always Americans against Americans kind of doing that song and people think it's a the cartels are drawing people know it's sometimes it's Americans taking advantage of the whole being in the foreign land I think I was staying with my family in Punta Mita at the Four Seasons and we we they we had this golf carts and you can take the golf carts out

the resort and they're like we can we take the golf carts to the town the lecture go ahead we leave the resort the first thing you see is a military vehicle armored with soldiers standing at the border of the fucking Four Seasons with machine guns on the roof of this thing standing there ready to rock in case anything goes down yeah for the probably waiting for the Rival cartel guys to come through so again a lot of these people legitimize our businesses your years back so a lot of the money in those in those Resorts probably probably trace it back to cartel interest wow so it's just deep it goes it permeates the entire culture

yes it's it's part of the business model and the whole lot of the money moves around down there there's some sort of relationship with it Jesus Christ man it's kind of feel for you for a guy like you who gave your Blood Sweat and Tears and was a part of trying to stop this it must feel so strange to watch this nightmare sort of play out you know so being up here and most of my friends for some reason I have attracted so many like Marines to my life I don't know why a lot I have a few seal friends and most mostly just crazy marine guys and I've been learning about what post-conflict is post conflict or being a veteran a combat learning is through them through their eyes hmm you know things like post-traumatic stress disorder and and stuff like that is TBI are things that I didn't even know where thing till it came up here no one

about it Mexico it doesn't exist it's not you know it's not discussed now you if you go into a situation and you you know do something somewhere you get a few days off you know that's about it and come back to work wow and medical wise you know you like I've been discovering all these issues I have from that experience down there and it's like what kind of shoes yeah my nose is pretty as pretty has been pretty substantially destroyed and my I have a few head injuries and now I didn't know what they were you know I just it stress you know where on the body it's my age I'm 36 I shouldn't be feeling like this you know and through them they kind of pointed me in like you probably have this because this is what I had because I was in Iraq it's like I wasn't in Iraq might as well been in Iraq well that's that's the thing that the the and also you guys recognize your veterans

you know not many not enough not enough there's no such thing as a veteran down there you know somebody somebody one of my asshole friends Marine friends gave me a Mexican drug war veteran hat because all they all those guys had their own hats you know so I think he gave his Mexican drug war veteran hat and had an eagle you know being strangled by a snake and it was pretty funny you know but it made me realize how there's a bunch of guys down in Mexico than amazing things and they get no recognition because it's a war that they didn't I right there's nothing happened is no war happening this is a good of the cartels and but there's no war you know even the current president said you know this is the end of the drug war because I said so kind of thing oh so there's no war anymore okay because why there's the war is over

did you have any involvement this is barely related but did you have any involvement of know anybody that had any involvement with those Mormon Cults that are down there yes I'd I do know people that and the horrors region that some of the Mitt Romney's family members in that region area yeah I knew some federal I know some federal police guys and Military guys that

we're curious about the amount of firearms at these guys have because they had some they basically fought the cartels off how crazy is that well it's you know it's pretty it's pretty interesting being there and finding a white guy that speaks amazing English and it was born in Mexico and he and there are Mormons and non-mormons and they have to get like a visa to travel to u.s. pretty of people don't know that like Mitt Romney's dad the reason why Mitt Romney's dad never ran for president because he was born in Mexico yeah yeah I mean there's a lot there's a lot of white Mexicans which is another one thing that people don't know about or can I lo Louis CK yeah Louie CK Mexico Canelo yeah anybody that's of Irish ancestry if you go into a bar in Mexico some bars in Mexico you can probably get some free drinks if you tell me why rush because the Irish betrayed the Americans in the last Mexican-American war and a lot of them stayed down there and married some of the locals I gotta Irish last name 1/4 right

you gotta Cannella problem right yeah the the the Mormon community in that area basically a few of their members got abducted yeah and the cartels were you know wanted to do more against them and these guys apparently got some high-powered long-range rifles and they were shooting at these people from afar and they set up this whole security apparatus around the town and the Mexican Government basically look the other way and kind of said you know well it's fine just don't you know don't be get too crazy with it there was some sort of interaction as far as them trying to appease things with them you know because realistically the town that there that they made out there as a paradise I mean amongst other towns in that area it's a beautiful place really the beautiful plates very organized very what is it called this it Jamie

this is their Mormon little town so what kind of military do they have their protects this town like if they've they've made their own military so I actually got to do a few reconnaissance things they're just this this is passing by and what I saw that they had were a bunch of basically Machine Gun Nest on some of the hilltops and they lit the they limited the amount of access points to that little town so they had the bear basically there what happened when the people got abducted I think one of them got killed and then you know they wanted to kill other people and that there was there was this whole thing they went to the government for help and they didn't say anything so somehow they you know procured Firearms down there so these are defending their own what a strange story that is because they left the United States when polygamy was illegal yes when they started making polygamy illegal in Utah they went well we'll just go to Mexico because back when they did it there wasn't even cars

so it was like no big deal to live in Mexico that you're writing a fucking horse to wonder where you are yeah no didn't know difference and they said we'll go over here but it is a nice I mean again it's a weird American like town in the middle of Juarez I mean how many people go Willa it's probably in the thousands tens of thousands maybe even yeah all Mormons all Mormons and a lot of Mexican converts now so really yeah there's a lot of Mexican converts down there as well and other more than one family more than one of these towns I think so yeah yeah there's a lot of there's a lot of family names or in that region there are kind of famous you know why one of the Barons are one of those but it's only this one town it's one of said there's a there's a few out there there's a few others few more me communities out there wow it's all the same sort of deal the arm to the tits discreetly armed you know I don't know if it's open as it was but it's back then when it was really

Audi they were they were openly doing things to keep people from not coming to their town and their full on Mexican citizens yes wow but there but they speak English in their white so it's they don't speak Spanish some of them do but if they don't need to because they live in this community they don't go out of it a lot so you know it's a way it's a weird place that's fucking really weird yeah yeah yeah just like when you when you're over here and you look at do you see it any differently from looking at it the looking at the situation over there and how crazy Mexico is from America like how ignorant Americans are to how bad it really is yeah I mean so I've been up here for

for years now as a resident right and I came up here at the weirdest time probably in the US history as far as you know when I was going through my immigration process Trump you know got elected so it was pretty interesting you know and you know being pulled to the both sides of the political Spectrum you know you and seeing how people would talk about Mexico in ways that were like you're realistic or you know just weird things that you would hear it's like that's not how it is you know that's not how it happens but what's a big misconception that it's a Mexico problem only in that the the influence and the cartels are not here in the US to you know they're not they're everywhere outside the border the Border thing is like that's a border but there'll on both sides you know there's definitely cartel ear in the US

so then most Americans thinking thinking of it as a foreign problem mmm it's foreign if you live far from the border maybe you know but yeah it's everywhere it's everywhere that's one thing that I was he like

and also that that it's a problem that Mexico should fix itself you know that's a lot I also hear that now they should fix their own shit yeah but their own them you know this Palms down there you know stem from firearms and money coming from up here and big drug Market

and you know the money going into some corrupt hands down there at times and then basically them burning the manual every six years I just starting a new on their fight and the cars anybody else say this other than you like does anybody say that politically over there there's a few people there's a few people I was actually in charge of the governor of Baja security detail towards for two years to almost three years I was put there because he was a very good friend of Felipe Calderon he was with his Compadre and he was very high level and there was a lot of threats in this life and again he was heading up the tip of the spear for the counter cartel operations and the whole of Mexico and he implemented a plan and TJ That Was Then replicated throughout the country

and he would be very vocal in his you know counter cartel rhetoric and how we could do better and how we should all work together he developed these groups called boom groups basically Army Municipal Police State Police all of them working together these operations groups and just going out there and it's the jurisdiction of everybody here to do whatever we need to do and he was prettyyou Know instrumental his name was a tsunami young and he's out of politics now and he had a lot of threats on his life and it was pretty interesting working with him he's one of those people think that all politicians corrupt out there it's not true there's some good ones he was one definitely on back work directly with him and I could tell you he was a he was one of those good ones and Lieutenant Colonel he's all who's now running for mayor of Tijuana he's one of those vocal guys there's a reason why he's been tried to try to kill him nine times you know he's saying something you know he's he's represents something right

are good people down there willing to fight it's just that there's a lot more bad people want to kill you must have seen some horrific shit over the course of your career yeah yes yes I'll bodies the brutality torture all that all that type of stuff down there again I tell people working down there is the closest thing to the wild west you have currently it's basically people and when the people say third world country as there's a lot of Cosmopolitan place has just crossed a border that aren't necessarily alien to americanize right yeah now imagine all this you know crazy things happening down there like there was a famous firefight in Tijuana the cupola which is basically there was a Big Cartel stronghold inside of this Castle type thing it had a big giant Dome on top of it the cupola shootout and when you went that happen basically a

of everybody responded to this thing it was next to a school and kids were being evacuated from it was pretty horrific a lot of the people on the inside they had a lot of people abducted on the inside and they basically executed all of them and some of the people on the inside with the cartel guys would put zip ties on themselves and you know kneel down the ground so they would you would think it was them and you saw it uniformed police officers inside of their shooting outside two uniformed police officer so you would see how crazy corruption and you know

l a shootout happens bank robbery two guys with AK-47 North Hollywood that one militarize the whole policing in the United States that type of thing happens in tea and make in Mexico in Mexico every day and nothing happens nothing changes you know that's that's that's crazy part you know how somehow that just is part of the normal now down there nothing changes no no adjustments no adjustments no Evolution you know these guys used to roll around dressed as cops with clone vehicles and now they roll around in taxi cabs and are more discreet and how they move these guys used to use drug mules and Drug tunnels now the use of unmanned drones and other means to cross our drug so they're always kind of evolving and adjusting and the government is trying to smash it with a hammer for the past you know ten fifteen twenty years just whack amole whack-a-mole

what made you start your Instagram account because your Instagram grounds excellent it said Manifesto and it's all you talk so much about the problems that are going on over there and you also do a lot of situational Awareness stuff you show like what's wrong with this picture yeah what do you see here yeah main thing was when I started I was still active down there so it was kind of like a reporting you know so I was trying to share things with people to try and you know raise awareness

but after that and became more of a thing of I just spent over a decade working in this environment down here and I have nothing to show for it so I need to take that experience and make it worth it for people to share some of that experience with other people and to make it you know just to make it I had to justify it to myself just I need to make it worth worth the while it worth my while to having done that there's not a lot of people doing what you're doing though no no I think it's the the strange thing about me is my English and the fact that I worked on the border so I had the opportunity to cross that border and you know share some of those experience up here like I've been to the FBI Academy so real you know this kid from TJ is now at the FBI Academy showing some weird shit somewhere people Secret Service Academy some of your some of your SF guys have you know contact contact

and I've done work for them and I show them like wow Ed like that trick to get our handcuffs that's pretty cool where did you learn that like who showed you that 15 year old kid you know TJ told me how to flip handcuffs and weaponize them that's pretty gnarly fucked him and weaponize them yeah so there's ways of releasing your handcuffs and flipping the side of the arm the hand cuffs what looks like it's still on but it isn't and somebody approaches you and you flip it open and use that thing as a meat hook and a 15 year old kid showed me that after we applied try to apply that on one of our guys and that's the stuff I wrote on in my little Manifesto was basically it manifested was a notebook and I would write all these things down document most of them and when I would come over here in the to the u.s. to do training like I did some training with NCIS and Coronado during my career and some of those guys were Team guys seal guys that's how I met a few of them and they were like hey Ed this is how we do

get protection in the Middle East as like wow that's how we do it where I cross the border right down here what yeah what really yeah wow that's crazy God yeah and you know would show them flash drive with a bunch of pictures from stuff down there and they would like be blown away by it and sharing information and and kind of that basically making use of that experience a lot of people down there a mute they don't share that experience they don't think it's worth anything I think I realized that that experience and that knowledge place is worth something to at least as far as sharing it yeah not a lot of people think that you know kind of you know we downplay ourselves we have this problem in Mexico most Mexicans are very doubtful about themselves you know there's a like I were Mexicans like what what what would we have to share with these high-level guys you know mmm and you know being in a place like that low means low equipment load training being creative that's a lot of things that come up from those

that experience of being you know solution wise as far as you know keeping safe well I think part of the problem

with the United States and Mexico is our view of Mexico and someone like you what you provide is a realistic perspective and real information real photographs real stories go and just enough and then this conversation just enough where enough people here it'll shift the idea of what is happening in Mexico a little bit that I mean I guess again thank you for this invitation and I thank you I have a like a have this weird comparison that I have with you as far as you know this podcast scab listen to it way back when you know and I remember this whole feeling of being around a campfire and hearing it was a people talk about their things and kind of you know passing the pipe that's it's pretty interesting that's something I've always I've only kind of seen as far as exchanging information of that like around campfires are shamans or

sweat lodging type situations down there a lot of our guys were Native so they will do I will get invited to these sweat lodges stuff like that and you get that and changing information but yeah definitely start talking about it that's the first step and a lot of people don't want to talk about it because of fear now people are like hey aren't you afraid of talking about this so I was afraid for 12 years yes I am but I I know that nobody else is going to going to so like if not anybody else you know well if you stop and think about how many kinds of worked on the border how many guys have worked in these counterinsurgency operations and how fewer talking about it and how many of them died nobody knows where they are all right how many still out there nobody knows who they are or you know sicario that movie cigar okay yeah those people are looking at that movie it's a lot of the followers just suspicious of that I havenít a little having an MP5 I was the only Mexican rock in an MP5 submachine gun down there right so it's like is that you know what did you think of those movies

horrible unrealistic you know they should have if it's somebody doesn't hire me I'll do it for free just I'll consult for free on that I'll make it look a little bit more closer to what it is but it's the main thing is how how I everybody saw that movie and that's how they would you know that's that's the reality you know how fiction is kind of a basis for reality so sicario to comes out and it's basically the United States declaring the cartels a terrorist organization you know and I saw that and I was like hmm

usually fiction kind of pre kind of has a way of influencing reality further on the line you know that Denzel Washington movie called Siege were a bunch of terrorist attack New York and then militarized New York and that's how kind of like a president for 9/11 hmm so you see sicario to and then you know we're going to terrorists prompt now says they're going to thinking about declaring the cartels as a terrorist organization

that's pretty interesting mainly because

realistically Mexico has been calling them terrorists forever yeah what did you think about that about Trump doing that do you think that that actually is something that could happen if you're going to militarize efforts against it and not just get considered a law enforcement type situation I think people should be afraid down there if you do go that route but just realize that's going to be open Warfare not in a foreign country across the ocean it's going to be right next to your border yeah where people can walk across yes or make things happen now in there that will affect you up here yeah in a very real way you know and it'll get ugly before it gets better you know II hopefully it doesn't you know but that's realistic but if that doesn't happen if they don't treat it as a terrorist organization and try to have some sort of impact on it what could be done I mean I think I think culturally they're trying to get us ready for that you know hmm I don't know I mean I think that's what's that's what's happening you see a lot of the Cross you know

borders US military assets training Mexican Marines down there and having a open relationship with them you see that in that the push is to maybe you know preparing for something you know I think they're preparing for something you know what could that be I don't know so the what we get about it publicly is just a small sliver of the actual conversations that are being had yeah and and also there's a lot of you know misdirection there's a lot of misdirection I know that I'm personally because the it - yeah but listen Ed I really appreciate you coming down here and enlightening us and telling us all about this and I really appreciate appreciate your Instagram account and they the Instagram account is Ed Manifesto what else you have it's Lana medium its Manifesto on Facebook as well and it's manifest.com all right beautiful thank you brother appreciate it man thanks for coming in here thank you bye everybody

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