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The Narco Talk Podcast - Episode 1: Deep Dive into CJNG with Chris Dalby
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In our inaugural episode of The Narco Talk Podcast, I sit down with Chris Dalby, the author of CJNG: A Guide to Mexico’s Deadliest Cartel. Chris, who runs the website worldofcrime.net, brings his extensive research and expertise to the table as we dive deep into the origins, rise to power, and current influence of the CJNG (Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación). We discuss the operations and impact of this notorious cartel on Mexico and beyond. For more insights, check out Chris’s book here. If you have any questions or want to reach out to Chris, you can contact him at cdalby@worldofcrime.net. Join us as we uncover the layers of one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world today.
Transcript
Introduction to Narco Talk Podcast
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to the Narco Talk Podcast, where Narco experts come to share. Your host, Mika, is an independent researcher, profiler, and analyst with a background in technology and psychology. He's been researching cartels in multiple languages since 2008 and considers himself a cartel profiler, not just your typical journalist, providing non-traditional, in-depth insights into cartel dynamics.
00:00:31
Speaker
If you're ready to uncover the truth behind the headlines, then you're in the right place. Here's your host, Mika. Welcome. This is Narco Talk, the podcast where cartel experts come to share. I'm your host, Mika. And for nearly two decades, I've been investigating Mexican drug cartels.
Mika's Transition to Podcasting
00:00:53
Speaker
You may recognize me from my time at Borderland Beat, where I was a contributor for many years.
00:00:59
Speaker
As things change, I decided it was time for me to do my own thing. And I did that with Cartel Insider. My new project, the Narco Talk podcast, will feature exclusive interviews with Narco experts from around the world. As the shows progress, you'll learn more information about myself.
Chris Dalby's Crime Journalism Journey
00:01:18
Speaker
But for now, let's focus on our first guest, Chris Dalby. He's written a book on the Cartel Jalisco new generation, and he's come to share. Chris, welcome to the show.
00:01:29
Speaker
Well, I think your audience might have a legitimate complaint. Why should we trust this half Welsh, half French, limey journalist to tell us about what's happening in the US s and in Mexico? I mean, that's a fair question, right? Plus being from Britain and France, we've been telling half the world how to run their business for 250 years. So, you know, I might need some justification here. I'm a journalist, I'm an editor, I'm an author. I started off as a film critic, nothing to do, you know, a world away from, from even political reporting.
00:01:56
Speaker
moved to China in 2005, right at the beginning of the China boom, run up to the Olympics, started working as a foreign correspondent for various newsrooms and magazines, and then I got into a dust-up with the Chinese Triads. That was my first face-to-face with All Guys Crime. I was in a nightclub. We knew which which was Triad owned. That night, not reporting though.
00:02:17
Speaker
and one of them tried to hit on my girlfriend. um i I think told him not to do so in a way he didn't like and he waited for me with seven of his goons and beat me and stabbed me and bamboo caned me and screwdrivered me to within very much an inch of my life.
00:02:33
Speaker
managed to survive for after a while in hospital, moved to Malaysia, then moved to Brazil. And Brazil obviously started covering crime a lot more closely because it's a country where crime in politics, crime in economics, crime in society just go hand in hand. And I started to notice something which was bothering me. Why crime, organized crime, didn't have the same expertise when it came to journalism as say climate change.
00:02:57
Speaker
Climate change deservedly is done by journalists who increasingly have PhDs in ecology and environmental law. Crime, for the most part, is still being covered by generalists who do you know the El Chapo escapes from prison or the El Mayo captures, but who don't necessarily understand what makes organized crime tick. I moved to Mexico and and shortly after I had the chance of of starting to work for Insight Crime.
00:03:21
Speaker
Inside crime, many of your readers will know who they are, but those who don't, it's the go-to encyclopedia of Latin American organized crime, right? Both for short, daily articles and then these huge investigations and reports that they do.
00:03:35
Speaker
I was the managing editor there for five years until December last year, and I didn't talk about a crash course in everything crime, right? ah Covering anything that, that narcos buy, sell, traffic snort, we covered it, right? Even butterflies at one point. A story that did very well, actually, I recommend it as as a resource to anyone who wants to know about Latin American organized
World of Crime Project & Jalisco Cartel
00:03:54
Speaker
crime. In December, I started World of Crime. The motivation for World of Crime was a question that I got recurrently.
00:04:02
Speaker
from politicians, academics, law enforcement, prosecutors. When they were looking at a specific group, where do we start? There's countless articles and reports and investigations out there about every criminal group under the sun, but it seemed like those who who operate and who act against organized crime didn't know the basics. There was a lot of misinformation out there about Mexican cartels to start with. So World of Crime began with that goal of being a place you could come to to find out up to date operational details on the cartel. and The first way that we did that was in publishing in May, the CJNG, a quick guide to Mexico's deadliest cartel. ah That's the first of a series of books. We've got two more coming out this year and four more next year. They're like primers, short primers for the biggest organized crime groups in the world. Why did we start with the Jalisco cartel? Because they killed the most people.
00:04:55
Speaker
it's not even close. They're probably second to similar in manpower and resources and amount of drugs being trafficked. But according to the Uppsala conflict data center, the Jalisco cartel has been involved either committing or receiving 80% of cartel death in the last decade. That's an astonishing status. Right? In a country with as as wide a range of of criminal groups as Mexico, for one group to claim that lion's share is astonishing.
00:05:21
Speaker
um And that's what we've got to stick to today. Chris, I've read the book. It's a great read. What goes into a book like this? So, the secondary reason for the Hadiskar cartel as the first one is it's probably the group I knew the best, right? We'd reported it extensively at Insight Crime. It's a group I understood. ah So, a lot of the research, a lot and lot of the materials that went into it was information that was publicly available, but then we'd compiled that Insight Crime, right? From there, it took about four to five months to finish up the the research and then another three months to actually just write it up.
00:05:53
Speaker
The difficult thing, as I said, it's a quick guide. It's 45,000 words. It's what you put in and what you leave out. There's a chapter about El Mencho that's about 10% of the book. It could have been the whole book. He's a fascinating character.
00:06:06
Speaker
Then when you talk about just their implication in fentanyl and the and the synthetic drug journey that they came on, that could be another book on itself and shouldn't be. How do they stand out? Their use of violence is another topic that could be its own book. Because one of the problems that we in Canada is US enforcement thinking that cartels are this amorphous blob that can be fought in in a single way. And that's not at all true. And thinking that is going to make your operations and your anti cartel operations much, much, much less effective.
00:06:37
Speaker
The Sinaloa cartel is an old school cartel dependent on land, on community, on trafficking routes that they've controlled for decades. And they'll certainly seem to expand from that, but you know they they are sticking to to those routes and in Northwestern Mexico for the most part.
00:06:51
Speaker
The Gulf Cartel was still in all its now splintered iterations, still is around Tamaonipas, right? A little bit of Veracruz, a little bit in Tamaonipas, and a little bit in the San Francisco Sea, but it is a Tamaonipas group. The Jalisco Cartel, despite its name, Jalisco, a state in western Mexico, doesn't have that same history to fall back on. It's a newer group. It's been through major changes either chosen or forced upon it. It's a group that went from being dependent on a core of members from Michoacan to now being largely brewed by foreign, right?
00:07:27
Speaker
when you When you see the arrests of CJNG guys, lower guys, it's a lot of Central Americans, it is it's Colombians, it's Venezuelans, even a couple of Bolivians in a recent example. So the group itself is is very much more flexible, let's say, and than other cartels. And so that's what we were trying to, to the balance that we were trying to find in the book was to put enough information to explain who they are as a very individual, very unique group, and also how they fit into the larger cartel dynamics of Mexico.
00:07:56
Speaker
Cartel Jalisco, new generation, is one of the fastest and most violent growing cartels that we've seen in a long time. What sets Mencho apart from his rivals? Why El Mencho is like this is a subject of endless ah psychological speculation. And since he's been in the public eye, much, much less, he's never been in prison, right? It's not that we have interviews with him that we can look back on like El Chapo with Sean Penn, where El Chapo's psychology and his background will fairly well understood. With El Mencho,
00:08:26
Speaker
Even though we know the the journey that he went on in the different stages of his career, why, when he becomes the the head honcho of the CJNG, he launches into this orgy of violence? It's actually not, no. And for many interviews, no one could actually give me a ah good answer for that. What is certain is that the CJNG, since their origins in late 2010, early 2011, have used violence as a constant.
00:08:51
Speaker
If you look at the way that an el Chapo or el Mayo, even the Chapitos, do violence, they'll do it. They'll kill a lot of people and they'll do it hyper violently and they'll do it very publicly, but they'll do it when they need to. They'll do it to send a message.
00:09:05
Speaker
And I'm not excusing them, of course, but the Sinaloa Cartel in all its factions looks for a status quo because the status quo is good for business. You pay off the right people, you get the police off your back, you stay off the radar and you make more money. Now, the Hanisko Cartel doesn't view it that way.
00:09:23
Speaker
At least, that's what my figures seem to show. In 2011, when they start, they start off in Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit, Northern Michigan, El Mencho decides to go close to cups immediately, right? So they move into Guadalajuato, they set up shop there, they get a secondary criminal economy, which is the oil pipelines that's you fueling their growth as much as drugs, and then they move into Veracruz. And in Veracruz, they run into the splinter groups or the descendants of the Zetas,
00:09:48
Speaker
And it's just, you know, it makes Veracruz at that time among the most violent states in Mexico. The Tachacotl doesn't come to dominate Veracruz, but it comes to control enough of it that it has Atlantic ports and Pacific ports. And then you're off to the race. Because then you've got a well-established empire. They've got the logistics. They've got access to Mexico City. They've got access to the marijuana and heroin or opium poppy plantations in southwestern Mexico. They've got access to oil pipelines. They've
Jalisco Cartel's Expansion Tactics
00:10:12
Speaker
got access to the facilities they need for synthetic drug production. And that's the basis that El Mencho sort of seemed to aim for in his first wave of expansion. You would think, if you look at cartel history, that that would satiate him for a little bit. Not in the slightest. Not in the slightest. You see quick moves into Baja California to contest Tijuana. You see quick moves into Southern Tamalipas to try and contest those routes from Gulf cartel groups. You see moves into Cancun to try and and take over elements of the entertainment and hotel and restaurant extortion racket.
00:10:48
Speaker
that had been largely run by the Sinaloa Cartel and local groups at the time. He's looking to dominate Mexico. Now, he's not done that. The CJNG, for all the people that wrap it up, has actually not succeeded in being the only criminal group in a lot of the country.
00:11:03
Speaker
like No, they've dropped a lot of bodies. They've also been hit a lot, taken a lot of casualties. In that, they've shifted to a new model, which I would say in the last like five years, where they need money. They have a lot of people they need to pay. They need to recruit people. They need to obviously to pay
Leadership Speculation in CJNG
00:11:22
Speaker
international collaborators, whether it's in Mexico or China.
00:11:26
Speaker
India as well, and they're recruiting a lot of foreigners into their ranks. And the way they do that is, again, something that we haven't seen since the days of the Zeta, which is this foot on the neck extortion to a level where we will extract every peso from a stone and then shatter that stone and then rebuild it and extort it again. It's not a sustainable form of extortion. They drive people out of business. They take 50% of profits from businesses that they target.
00:11:54
Speaker
whether it's the tequila industry, cattle ranchers, hotels and restaurants, avocados, obviously, very famously. And you think, well, why? right Wouldn't it be better to be sustainable and know you take a bit less every month, but it'll take more in the long run because those businesses will keep going? Well, no.
00:12:10
Speaker
They need that money now. And in a lot of of occasions, when those businesses fall and the people run, it's cartel associates to take over those businesses, especially if it's ranching or agricultural industries like avocados, where it's relatively easy for the CJNG to access people who have the knowledge to run those businesses. One of the big questions that many have is on the health of El Mencho. There's been reports that he's sick, that he's dead.
00:12:39
Speaker
And of course, this brings up the word succession. Who will take over? There are a lot of big personalities. Who do you think will be the one to take over? Yeah, this is the sort of the the nerd in me enjoys the sort of Game of Thrones level manipulation and power plays within the cartels, which is, if I just take a detour, it's an underestimated weatherbait for cartels. A lot of people think, and it's true to a certain extent, that no matter who falls, no matter who dies, no matter who gets arrested, there's just always another narco.
00:13:07
Speaker
For sure, there is always another narco, El Mayo, the similar cartel boss who was arrested a couple of days ago, for sure. His arrest means very little to the flow of drone. But in the case of the CJNG, where one man has built this cult of personality while being in the shadow, while letting it be believed that he might be dead, which I do not personally believe, although I can't prove it.
00:13:30
Speaker
If he was dead, it would be very difficult for Jalisco cartel bosses from Chiapas to Baja California to all put his name on their balance, to have masked gunmen shouting somos la gente del puro señor mentioned in every video. right That's a cult-like rhetoric that has to be hammered home at a certain point.
00:13:52
Speaker
And you see, if he was dead, someone would put their finger up and go, actually, one of them. There's also, in a lot of videos filmed in Jalisco and Colima, a voice that presents the video off-screen. That is a voice that is similar, if you listen to the audio recordings of Al-Nentry in the past, it's a similar male's voice. So my pet theory is that he's still there making videos, just not on there. But either way, if he dies, there are a few top left animals that would want to move into the role.
00:14:17
Speaker
and have been sort of doing early champagne preliminaries of positioning themselves into a certain point. The obvious one, the absolute leading product runner, is Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez, Elias Pelon, or Eretres. Why? Quite simply, he has the name Valencia in his name. No leader.
00:14:41
Speaker
of the Jalisco cartel, the millennial cartel before it, which was its ancestor, and the Valencia family going back 30 years. No leader of that clan has not been a Valencia.
00:14:53
Speaker
El Mencho was not born of Valencia, but he married into them. He's married to one of her of the Valencia daughters and his best friend is the elder brother of the group. So he's sort of Valencia associate from the early days. So Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez is Mencho's stepson. He's not his son. Mencho moved to California in the eighties with his wife. They have two children. Both of those children have been in prison in the US.
00:15:17
Speaker
But his wife had a previous son from a previous marriage and he adopts him and they become close very young. He becomes his step-nail, and Rencho becomes Belon, that father of the age of three. So he raises him as his own. He's never been arrested. And so he's after Menchito got arrested in 2015, Juan Carlos Valenzue Gonzalez becomes the heir apparent.
00:15:38
Speaker
There's a couple of issues. He's similar to Al Mencho from media reports in that he also doesn't like the limelight. He also stays behind the scenes. He's been associated with a lot of the top current campaigns of the DGNG, but in a quiet behind the scenes kind of way.
00:15:53
Speaker
And so it has led to speculation of does he have the following, right? Because Al Mencho, before he became this recluse, was in the trenches, was obviously part of the matazitas, was a known cicario, right? Was in California learning to cook mess in the 80s. He had a track record of being, for the drug world, a badass. Binon doesn't have that track record. So does he have the, let's say, the nerves to give the group together?
00:16:20
Speaker
After that, you have three big guys, Aldias Flores Silue, Elias Jardinero. He spent some time in North Carolina. He was in prison ah in North Carolina for a while. He's an expert money launderer, and he's been in charge of building up CJNG operations in new parts of Mexico. So he was in places like Tlaxcala. He was in places like Tawasco, where you know it's off the cartel radar, but he's maximizing money laundering
CJNG's Internal Power Struggles
00:16:45
Speaker
opportunities there. He always got popped.
00:16:47
Speaker
Last year, he was living in in luxury in Jalisco, and they raided his house, and he came very, very close to getting arrested. He's a very well-known entity to the US government, and there's a lot of pressure to catch him. That might be a problem. do you If El Mencho turns up dead tomorrow, do you leave the keys to the throne to the guys who's trailed their very hall?
00:17:08
Speaker
There's two more. El Sapo, who you mentioned, Gonzano Mendoza in Gaetan. He's based in Puerto Vallarta. I believe you've covered him extensively on on Cartel Insider. ah We know he has a pension for tigers that he very sells to other tigers. I learned that from Yumi. I hadn't mentioned it in the book. El Sapo from Conversations I've Had might be marginalized.
00:17:29
Speaker
He might've been pushed to the side a little bit. He's apparently very difficult to get on with, just not a particularly congenial guy. His wife, Liliana Rosascamba, also an expert money launderer, apparently is not particularly well-liked. And so, again, this is speculation from what you hear on conversations and and from police reports that he might've been sidelined. And if Tom Enjo dies, he might go to business for his for himself. And then the last one, and he's my favorite,
00:17:56
Speaker
I'm actually trying to do to get a U.S. Russian government need to do a a series about this guy that I'm just mentioning, who's a ritarodot of Robis Velasco, maybe it's Doble Eri or Elidos. Why? He didn't come about this as a politician. He is the one who has become best friends with Almencho, best friends with Almencho's stepson, at least in the many, many narco-corridos that he has pained to be written about him. So in all these narco-corridos, and there's like six or seven of about it,
00:18:24
Speaker
They describe him me as generous and congenial and a man you can have a beer with. And he talks about, you know, how grateful he is to Al Mencho and how grateful he is to the stepson. Yeah, he talks a little bit about how badass he is and how he kills his enemies, but it's much more like a politician, sort of glad-handing people.
00:18:41
Speaker
And then that reputation gets compounded when on Christmas Eve 2022, in the neighborhood of El Retiro in Guadalajara, a convoy of trucks rolls through the town. The people clearly knew it was coming because they were all standing on the side of the road.
00:18:56
Speaker
And you see armed, masked, the scenarios, giving TV screens, home appliances, toys. They filled the people thanking El Mencho. When they put the camera, then when they when they
El Mencho's Rise and Strategy
00:19:10
Speaker
upload the footage, and they upload the footage. So they filled their own Christmas parade. You see them saying this was you know organized by W.E.E.T. It's everywhere. So he's marketing himself and what's the one take over.
00:19:23
Speaker
And yeah, the way he runs his narco empire like a politician, absolutely fascinating to me. He's my low key favorite. Tell me more about Mincho's wave of violence. So there's two stories, but I will say that I'll i'll give a spoiler for the end. The end, the the consequence of Mincho's reign of violence is that the Mexican army doesn't have the monopoly on the lethal use of force anymore, the CJN genome, across Mexico, except maybe some simultaneously.
00:19:47
Speaker
CJG has the monopoly on the lethal use of violence in Mexico and has had for a while. Why? Because they're willing to use it and because most of the time they get away with it. Let's talk a little bit about Almento's journey and just the highlights because it really begs the question, what leads him to become this sociopath? He grows up, he was born in in a little town outside avocado growing plantations in Michoacante, the town of Aguilia.
00:20:11
Speaker
At the age of 11, 10 or 11, he leaves the family home and he goes to work in the avocado field. Why? Because that's what you did. This is a fricklingly poor part of Mexico, and generations of entrenched poverty. And he had a big family, six brothers, and he had to put food on the table. He goes to work for the Valencia's. I mentioned before as that core family that runs through the, the millennial and then Calisco cartel.
00:20:36
Speaker
and There's many, many Valencia's in the hills. I've been talking about one of the funny stories in the book, which is not my story. out I sat in police files, which was, it's impossible to prosecute these bastards because if you know one of them is called Arturo Valencia and you go into the mountains to try and find Arturo Valencia, you'll find a bunch of them. It's difficult to identify which one and possibly many of them are involved.
00:20:55
Speaker
And I'm in no way painting a picture where everybody in the avocado plantations of Michoacan were drug traffickers, but they were engaged in criminal economies because that's how you make money. This was before NAFTA. This was before America discovered guacamole.
00:21:11
Speaker
the Valencia's have positioned themselves as sort of the local casiques, right? They would finance businesses where the banks wouldn't provide loans. They would give jobs to people, whether it was growing the avocados or growing marijuana and opium poppy, transporting it, packaging it, right? They were engines of of economic growth. They were the large family in the area and they hired Almentio. Now from there, because he became famous,
00:21:34
Speaker
His teenage years are kind of apocryphal. It's difficult to know what's fact and what's fiction that he's conveniently propagated. There are some who say, yes, by the age of 12, he was running marijuana plantation. I find that hard to believe, but he certainly had a very rapid ascent. Why? Because of the same generation as him, you have a bunch. And I say bunch because we don't actually know how many they are. There's a family of Valencia's brothers and sisters.
00:21:59
Speaker
ah Some people say 12, some people say 13, some people say 15, some people say 18. Whatever, there's a bunch of them. They were called the Queenies. Why the Queenies? Because Queenie Que is a little squirrel that lives in the hills of Michoacán and breathes very, very rapidly. So people called them the Queenies because they were just so many. El Mencho becomes best friends with the elder brother of the Queenie clan, Abigail Balenci, who becomes El Que and becomes Mencho's right-hand man until he goes to prison.
00:22:29
Speaker
And then later he falls in love with the elder sister, Rosalinda. So talk about how to marry into the family. You're best friends with the elder brother, you marry the elder sister. Long there in the 80s, he does what many young Mexicans did who wanted to learn the drug trade. He takes Valencia heroin, goes to California with his best friend Abigail and his brother Abraham, El Menjo's brother Abraham, and they turn up in San Francisco and other places in the California Valley. And they're selling heroin at the same time as biker gangs and other groups are producing mega labs to make crystal meth.
00:23:05
Speaker
Well, that's a convenient little place to me because you suddenly learn the basics of the drug trade that is going to underpin American drug overdoses until today. They get arrested. and He gets arrested. He goes to prison for for three years. He gets sentenced for five years. He gets released after three years back to Mexico becomes a cop in Jalisco for a little bit before going back into the, what was then the millennial cartel. The millennial cartel at the time that El Mencho comes back to the fold is a completely changed piece.
00:23:34
Speaker
They've made enemies with the Zetas. The Zetas are obviously the most brutal of Mexican cartels who invaded Michoacan and over a couple of years forced the Valencias out. They literally had to flee their home base for decades. It's one of the biggest humiliations in in sort of modern cartel history. I don't want to compare it to the to you know the the Jews in Egypt, but it really is this it's become this almost religious thing for the old guard in the Hadiska cartel. When they had to run, and where did they run to? They ran to Sinaloa.
00:24:04
Speaker
And they get into bed with El Chapo and his wife's uncle, Ignacio Coronel. And the Sinaloa cartel is all too happy to harm them. They're not necessary. They're not like a taken over by the Sinaloa cartel, but they become like a vassal state where they have to help with the synthetic drug trade. They have to help launder money. They have to help on assassination. And this is where El Mencho begins to come up. El Mencho gets on well with Ignacio Coronel, who's the Sinaloa cartel boss in Guadalajara.
00:24:32
Speaker
He's trusted, he becomes a Sicario on a number of of missions, and his profile starts to come up.
CJNG's Global Money Laundering
00:24:37
Speaker
2010, the Mexican government shoots Ignacio Colomel dead. There's a power vacuum. The man who was controlling the millennial cartel is no longer there. Elmentro sees an opportunity, breaks away from the Silloa cartel, pills a bunch of leadership within the Jalisco cartel who didn't want to follow him.
00:24:55
Speaker
and starts what becomes today the CJNG. Hanisto Cartel, because they were they were in Hanisto, Nuevach in the nation, because it represents a new start for the Valencia family and their followers. Chris, let's talk about the money laundering operation of CJNG.
00:25:11
Speaker
So, in the early days of the Hollywood Hotel, El Mencho comes to a realization, possibly with the help of of his brother-in-law, El Quine, Abigail Valencia. El Mencho becomes the leader. He becomes focused on expansion, on drug traffic. He leaves the money to his brother-in-law and his siblings, who become known as Los Quines. Within a couple of years,
00:25:36
Speaker
2011 to about 2014, the Greenies build a ridiculously complex money laundering operation across North America, South America, Asia, Australia, and Europe that we know, as it it could be more extensive than that. We see them secure chemical precursors in China. We see them laundering money in Hong Kong.
00:26:00
Speaker
We know that Abigail himself was in Barcelona buying real estate in Las Ramblas, like the main tourist hardcore part of Barcelona. He's in the Czech Republic. He turns up in Greece. There's rumors he was in Japan and Switzerland. His brothers show up in Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia in different iterations, hiding millions each time. It actually leads to the to the US government, the DA, actually putting out a report saying that the Queenies are the world's wealthiest cartel.
00:26:28
Speaker
That would make the CJNG the world's wealthiest cartel because the CJNG, the Queenies, were always side by side. At the same time, and this is a curiosity, at the same time, most of their Mexico-based money laundering was in county school. They bought countless hotels, shopping malls, advertising companies, tequila brands to launder their cash locally. So they were hedging their bets. They were doing it locally and they were doing it internationally.
00:26:56
Speaker
Internationally, it seemed to be a little bit more like a few big schemes, rather than like a multiple ah plethora of schemes internationally. In Halesco, it was like 78% of their front companies were all in Halesco. Even to this day, a lot of CGFG money laundering is in Halesco itself. Puerto Vallarta are the big tourist destinations in Colima and Nayarit as well. So, Halesco and neighbouring state. The Queenies that. The Queenies do all that. The problem is that very quickly,
00:27:25
Speaker
the DA and the Mexican authorities understand more about the Queenies than they do about the Jalisco Cartel. The Jalisco Cartel seems to be treated as some kind of upstart, right? Oh, they'll, they'll fade out in a couple of years. They'll be crushed by the similar Cartel, but the Queenies are the ones who are making all the money.
00:27:40
Speaker
So Abigail and his brothers and a couple of his sisters, they start popping up on the radar fairly regularly. And what happens is that they start getting arrested. So Abigail is the first to fall. Two of his brothers, Gerardo and Jose, get popped in South America ah where they've been invested colossal amounts of money. So once those three are gone, Abigail, Gerardo and Jose, the Queenies faction against the Cromwell,
00:28:06
Speaker
A couple of the brothers that popped in, in Jalisco in their cars, you know, a number of the, whether they be 12, 15 or 18, a lot of them are beginning to fall like dominant. Once they started falling, whether some of them provided information or whether the monitoring happened, they started falling like dominant.
00:28:22
Speaker
There was a little bit of time where Elmenta's wife, the sister, the eldest sister of the Queenies, takes over as the main money lover for the Jalisco cartel, but she's doing it much more locally. She doesn't have these international ambitions as her elder and and younger brother. She's laundering it in in Karwa his and a real estate in Jalisco. He eventually gets called as well. Legal drama ensues. She actually doesn't make it to prison.
00:28:46
Speaker
for very long, but essentially the Queenie's faction that helped the Heine Shlokna make so much money so fast gets absorbed into the group. By that time, the group is big enough that they don't need to have like ah an outsourced money laundering operation. They can do it internally. When one domino falls, it's a family thing. It's really easy to connect the dots, I would imagine.
00:29:07
Speaker
It's true, but with the greenies, whats what's interesting is you have the period where the men are running the show, so Abigail, Josef, and Ardo Gonzalez-Valencia, and then they all go down, and a couple of others as well, Ulysses, Elvis, ah yeah one of them was called Elvis, and then from 2018 to 2021, it's absolutely the women who are running the show. There's Rosalinda, who's Almenjo's wife, she has three sisters, Maria Yvette, Berenice, and Naomi, or Noemi, I believe, and then two of her sisters-in-law.
El Mencho's Family Involvement
00:29:35
Speaker
ah The White House of Abigail and the White House of Heraldo are all listed by the US authorities and sanctioned as as being involved in Marilong. There are a couple of other greetings, so we don't really know what they do or if they were involved, we just know they're on the list. So they might start doing things. And then, of course, there's the there's the comical thing where you see that the next generation is always less cautious than the elder. In February 2020, El Benjo's daughter,
00:30:00
Speaker
Jessica Joanna is in Washington DC. She's an American citizen. She was born in California. Her brother, Ruben, is on trial. She unexpectedly rocks up at the courthouse in DC broad daylight. She doesn't do it inconspicuously. I mean, she's wearing a Rolex watch, a Louis Vuitton coat, a hairless bag, and inside the bag is several thousand dollars in cash. And you're walking into the courthouse where your brother is being prosecuted.
00:30:26
Speaker
Your father is like end public enemy number one in the U.S. and Mexico. That takes some quarters. Of course, she immediately gets noticed, immediately gets arrested because she was also ah suspected of sanctions. ah She got off with a a wrap on the knuckles. She didn't spend much time in prison at all. My apologies. No, sorry. i'm I'm confusing. That's the mother who didn't spend much time. Jessica Driner did go down for about two years, and two and a half years. But essentially she she was looking for that. She walked into the courthouse. Maybe she didn't know that she was being ah watched and followed, but but she was standing against the kids.
00:31:00
Speaker
You know, you just would have thought for sure that they have lawyers that do all these kind of things. Because these cartels, they are like Fortune 500 companies. I think that the general public doesn't understand. A drug dealer is somebody that buys, sells, and the money's in their pocket. But it gets on the scale that's so big. They're counting money by weight, and there's so much money for them that it's impossible to keep up.
00:31:27
Speaker
But then again, how many self-made millionaires or self-made billionaires have kids who you know piss away the wealth and do dumb things because they're not as invested or not as wise to it as the parents?
00:31:38
Speaker
And I think that's what you see with Jessica Joanna. You see, I'll say I haven't i met her, I haven't spoken to her, but just the fact that you would walk in, glam down to the nines like you're shopping in Dubai, into the courtroom where they're prosecuting your brother, tells you of a certain lack of self caution, of self protection, right? She goes down two and a half years as a result of that. Wasn't Ash Friday too? She had the cross over her forehead. I don't recall that movie. I might be wrong on that, but I thought I saw that picture in that.
00:32:06
Speaker
But yeah, just ah even Morgan's picture was left. She was definitely under the radar. However, just the her brother definitely has lawyers advising him, because earlier this year, and if you follow the Apologies I Swear on your podcast, the absolute chit show about Menchito's trial, so Mencho's son, has been in the US for several years now. His trial has been proceeding at a snail's pace.
00:32:27
Speaker
because the beginning, he refused it to cooperate, he was pleading not guilty. Obviously, they really wanted him to roll over, so they were trying to push a plea deal on him. They finally get him to do a plea deal. I think 24 hours before the hearing, where he's going to to admit to the plea deal, a lawyer who nobody on the US prosecutorial side knew about is attached to the case, talks to Mancito, and he revokes the plea deal, and goes back to pleading not guilty.
00:32:53
Speaker
which infuriates the judge. Like, what? you You're wasting our time here. What are you doing? We could have had this trial over by now if you've done this. So clearly there isn't some lawyerly pressure on senior cartel members in the US. I love what I just said, yeah. he's got the aotic photo where he's sitting down with about 20 guys behind him, and he's got something wrong with his leg in the bus. He's recorded to be one of the key witnesses against. And so how ironic, right? The Valencia, the origins, and Manchita was the well-known number two. And I mean, what a change for Vence. It's just such a dynamic scene. And Lobo is pissed. And to be honest, Oscar Nava Valencia and his brother was El Tigre, was Juan, and his brother was Juan Nava.
00:33:44
Speaker
They ran the cartel before El Mencho, so there was the if you look at the generations of leadership of the cartel, you have Armando Valencio, who ran it when he was the millennial cartel. He's the one who got into the war with the Zetas, which was horrible. Then they go ah north to a shelter with Sinaloa, and at that time it's Oscar and Juan and Lobo and El Tigre who are running the show.
00:34:06
Speaker
And then El Mencho comes up around that time. Now we get into what is educated speculation. There is a lot of rumors that one of the ways El Mencho went up the ranks was to conveniently snitch on people, to get leaders and friends and rivals removed.
00:34:24
Speaker
Like a lot of them have come out and said, yeah, no, I'll mention as a bitch. I'll mention, I'll portray this. I'll mention, roll those. That includes Oscar and Lolo. And that includes Eddie Guevara and Cesar Azadaro, Cinta, Cinco. Oscar is just furious. Still to this day, when you see his witness, when you read his witness statements, this guy went down because he got snitched on either by Al Mencho or by Al Mencho, along with Ignacio Coroner, the uncle of El Chapo's wives.
00:34:50
Speaker
He's genuinely just looking to get revenge on everybody who wronged him when he was still in Mexico. his The sort of the righteous anger of his witness statements are something to behold. And yeah, as I said, he was he with he's been a key witness in in several big trials. Some of the testimony, or I shouldn't say testimony, I mean, some of the documents, the legal documents that have come out against Vincito, going to describe his contact with Russian mercenaries and how they've acquired some of these large firearms. What do you think about L. Mitchell's use of those foreign fighters, Guatemalans?
00:35:28
Speaker
He's brought in a lot of expertise and that's unfortunately a whole new thing where bombs are are the new thing. I think it's worth putting some misinformation to rest.
00:35:40
Speaker
El Mencho and El Machito and the CJG have absolutely 100% used training by foreign mercenary. The Russian case seems to have been, from all that we know so far, two occasions that I know of, one with the Holiesz Krip Marcell, and one with the Familia Mitro Apana in Gered or where we know, ah okay, there were a couple of Russian guys there providing training.
00:36:06
Speaker
The extent to which that underpinned you know a leveling up of cartel military tactics, I don't know. Obviously, getting back another generation, you have Caibiles from Guatemala, you have special commanders from Colombia being present in in Mexico, the Zetas themselves obviously were all for special forces. so There's always ah some level of of military training. When you look at the cartel tactics, they're not and we'll get into the drones in a second. But when you talk about the skirmishes, right? They're not doing West Point level military analysis and tactics, are they? It's still a lot of, you know, rolling in in either ambushes or rolling in in strengths, skirmish a few shots, a few people killed, retreat, do it again the next day, right? It's not... Yes, they have insanely good weaponry.
00:36:51
Speaker
They had access to, you know, 50 cals, sniper rifles, anti-tank missiles, but the actual body count from that? I don't know that. There's famously that military parade that they did a couple of years ago, right, which is on the, which is, I use the picture from the bottom of the cover of my book, where you see a bunch of highly skilled cartel guys wearing CJNG patches, masks off, faces uncovered, with a line of trucks, armored trucks going into the distance. It looks impressive. It is impressive.
00:37:21
Speaker
But if you actually look carefully down the line, those trucks get less impressive as you go back, right? You can tell after about six or seven, they become pickup trucks. they become like, you know, Dodge Ram trucks. Good cars, but not, you know, narco tanks or anything. And then you look at the the things that make the headlines, the narco tanks. Narco tank battles have happened, what, a handful of times in Mexico? They might have killed a few people, but it's not, it's it's it's a weapon of all, and shopping always, is not killing a lot of people. The drones,
00:37:52
Speaker
that the CJNG is so proud about, they have their little droneros, cute little droneros patches on their uniforms. What's the body town from the drone attack? It's been going for a few years now. Low double digits? Low double digits? Then we can prove low double digits? Again, I can believe that if you're a random rival Sicario and you see drones dropping C4 on you, you're probably going to huff it.
00:38:13
Speaker
But as an effective weapon of murder, it seems like shooting them just gets the job done a bit easier.
CJNG's Military Tactics
00:38:20
Speaker
Now there's this whole hullabaloo, which I hate about chemical weaponry. No, please no. They dropped some smoke bombs and fumigation devices. One case, I think, of an incendiary device. Then local villagers reported to the pressers, it made our eyes water. And from there, the Mexican press and some of the foreigners goes, they have chemical weapons now.
00:38:41
Speaker
it's It's very exaggerate. So, Chris, it's been a pretty exciting Friday and Thursday. Tell us what happened. What's the big news? Well, by the time your podcast comes out, maybe this mystery will have been resolved and one of the two stories will have been confirmed. But obviously, everybody whos who follows Mexico saw that Enrique Zambada
Impact of El Mayo Zambada's Capture
00:38:58
Speaker
was arrested. El Mayo, the founder of the Silloa Cartel, long-settled Chapo, been a target for Mexican and American law enforcement for 40 years, was never captured, never went to prison.
00:39:10
Speaker
ah Before that was in the Juarez and Tijuana cartels. So he showed up on a plane in El Paso, Texas, with the youngest son of El Chapo, Joaquin Guzman Lopez. And immediately two completely different stories come out as to what happened. Well, it's published by mainstream newspaper.
00:39:29
Speaker
One story says that for three years, two to three years, the DEA and U.S. representatives were in negotiations with the entire leadership of the similar party. And that at a meeting, an offer was made to El Mayo, to his family members that remain in in Mexico, because some of them already in jail in the U.S., and to the sons of El Chapo saying, look, if you surrender, come over to the U.S. willingly, you'll get light sentences,
00:39:57
Speaker
give us information that we can use and we'll be nice to you. Everybody refused to except two people. Elayo, 76 years old, has been running a hell of a long time and may have just been tired of running and wanted to see his children again who are in prison in the US.
00:40:14
Speaker
and the youngest son of El Chapo Joaquin. Why is that credible? Why would El Mayo after years of staying on the radar and and being now in the, you know, having taken a backstep from, from active drug trafficking suddenly be willing to give himself up? Well, that is 76. He's apparently in ill health, but he doesn't necessarily have a long time to live. And yeah, probably was tired of hiding and want to see his children. I think that's an impulse we all can understand. Joaquin was also the one of the Chappitos that we understood of less.
00:40:41
Speaker
We didn't know his role in the in the organization. We didn't know how willing he was participating. We didn't know how crucial he was to chapter two operation. So the fact that those two would go actually kind of makes sense. Then there's a different story that has become the now dominant narrative. I was on CNN this morning and they were only talking about the second story that Joaquin Guzman Lopez was contacted by US law enforcement, EA, and told that if he could get El Mayo or other Sinaloa dignitaries to the US on a false pretense, they would be nice to his family. Essentially, he could get better treatment for his brothers and his family. The story goes that he went to El Mayo and said, hey, I found some new real estate that we want to buy to lend all the money in, come and see this girl in the plane. And then that plane went to El Paso. Again, plausible. But why would El Mayo
00:41:34
Speaker
who has, like, laundered money all over the world, and all over Mexico, need to get on a plane to go see real estate, right? That's a little bit strange. But either way, one of these two stories is true. Also, this is something that's gone under the radar. It appears that the day this happened, a video of Video Guzman, the chapito who was arrested twice, once in a culiacan with the huge show of strength that forced his release, and then again in Mexico City, and was soon extradited, it appears that he was released.
00:42:04
Speaker
then Avinio Guzman was released and went into witness protection the day that El Mayo and Joaquin Guzman Lopez show up in El Paso. So some dealing, some negotiation has clearly happened. However,
00:42:19
Speaker
The result is El Mayo, the last of the old guard of traffickers in Mexico, has been captured. He's in US custody. What is that going to mean? For the US, this is a coup. Uncontested, absolute slam dunk of an operation. If they can get him to talk.
00:42:36
Speaker
If he's willing to talk, to give information in exchange for better conditions for himself, for his son's early release or witness protection, oh my God, he can talk about what, 40, 45 years of political protection, of criminal collusion, of drug trafficking routes, of bank accounts, of money laundering techniques, oh my God, the amount of operational intelligence he can provide.
00:42:59
Speaker
However, in terms of what it changes in Mexico, not a damn thing. It's not a damn thing. The barrier to entry for mass and treadmill is so low, it's so easy to get across the border. The Chappitos and the CJNG do it in such industrial quantities, even with the temporary bad they had last year on making treadmill.
00:43:16
Speaker
a mile being removed doesn't really change those dynamics. so it's a wild story man it's out of like a movie um i had a fbi source keep me up in real time and told me that basically he had been kid now And it's kind of to find out that it was over looking at some property. We just learned that JGL, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, that he is a CFO of the Los Chapitos. That he is the financial brains. And I've truly filed him. I knew he was very intelligent. And I knew that he also is not obligated because he's in the separate family. The Chapitos are basically, you know, the brothers of
00:44:01
Speaker
two different families. So what I've heard is that the mother Lopez is actually behind all of this. Okay. That Joaquin had coordinated this because this was the only way for her to see her as her son because she cares about the family. Yeah. Remember she had the assassination of her eldest son. So that's what I've been told that it makes sense that this was an exchange of It went on for about a month playing the FBI, basically creating an illegal capture on foreign territory. And that's why they bypass being arrested in Mexico because we know what happens. They sit in jail forever and never come to the United States. But basically, the terrorist party on was his freedom and his brother's freedom.
00:44:50
Speaker
And we'll help you get on my own. That's what I've been told. and Look, i hadn't heard I hadn't heard that version. I think whatever is true, and they're all plausible. This sounds plausible as well. Two things. One, this is a conspiracy theory that is going to be talked about for years. Years. Just like who let El Chapo escape prison and who was in on it, right? Or who was in on all the Zeta's going down. This is going to become a mess of masculine cartel history. The the capture of El Mayo.
00:45:19
Speaker
Even if the FBI like releases the full story, people are not going to believe it. One thing that is clear is that the Mexican government knew precisely Jack Chet. And I can understand it. Would you trust this administration? Like, would you trust any Mexican administration, of course, when we know they lead like a civil that El Mayo in particular has had decades to protect himself politically at the very highest level? There's an excellent book by Annabel Hernandez called, El Cartel y Sinoa y Anro.
00:45:46
Speaker
La Historia Secreta, and it details years of contact between the Silo Cartel and Amlo Bronis. If I was the US, I understand clearly why we're not risking this. We're not telling anyone. We're not risking this getting out, especially if it was whether it was a month or two years. We'll tell them after the fact. This is an administration that has denied that fentanyl is produced in Mexico. It's denied that Mexicans are dying from fentanyl. Well, either you try to save face in the most childish way possible, or you're just blind to the truth.
00:46:15
Speaker
Either way, that's not a partner you can trust. I'm not as negative about Cloud to Shine Balm as many. I think that should be a slightly decent partner for the US, but at the moment. there's no collaboration because Mexico has made it so. You can say the US bullies Mexico or or forces them to do things they don't want to do, maybe. But when you have a president who denies reality at that level, why would you trust him? So this now has the vacuum for the Sinaloa cartel, the alliance, the experts, everybody comes to agreement that Laita Flaco, the son
Sinaloa Cartel's Internal Dynamics
00:46:45
Speaker
of Sambada, that he's now brought in the show. So you have this very old alliance with young people
00:46:52
Speaker
then it's gone through a generational like ability to speed with cartoon violence. You have been running it. Who knows how that conflicts, but is Menjo just sitting back, do you think? Just saying opportunity? I don't know if Menjo is sitting back. He's mad or not. If, I mean, he's not with CJNG way to sit back. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sit back. I mean, he's just like sitting there and he's like, no, this is perfect. Well, yeah. And saying again,
00:47:18
Speaker
We need to see what happens. If it turns out that a Chapito betrayed Mayo Zambada and got into the US against his will, knowing the personality of Mayito Flacco, you'd think there's going to be some payback, right? He's not a tender hearted man. Now, I'm not saying he's going to go and assassinate the Chapitos, but it certainly doesn't bode well for the very catchy trust that exists between those two factions, right? So let's see. Maybe they can hold it together. Maybe there's a similar civil war. Either way, I expect within short order, the CJNG detests to just probe. What can we get out of this? Whether it's in Tijuana, whether it's in Chiapas, whether it's in Zacatecas. I'm not saying they're going to do like full blown on invasions. I think they're going to see who they can carve off.
00:48:13
Speaker
I think they might talk to you know similar cartel plaza bosses and say, hey, well, it doesn't seem like they're particularly solid. Would you like to come work for us? And that's worked in the past. And there's another element that, for me, if I was a similar cartel, you know, mid-ranking Closewolf, I might think about my future, is the Salazar. So the Salazar is of this this group in Chihuahua and Sonora who were crucial for the Chapitos drug pipeline door. Early 2024, that alliance breaks. And the Salazar now fighting the Tributas, I think now at a slightly lower level, but in in April, May was was pretty bad. So you have
00:48:49
Speaker
maybe the most powerful sin low cartel ally turning on the torpedoes. Now this... Yeah, that's, it's a lot for even a group as horizontal and as fluid as the Sinaloa Cartel. This is a lot to take. It's hard to say if the Sinaloa Cartel, I mean, I always say that it's not your your father's Sinaloa Cartel that basically you've got three different groups. They don't share resources like they used to. For Joaquin Guzman to have somebody's son testify against him in court and now to have the children
00:49:21
Speaker
of Chappo do it the other way. You just can't make this up. is We're going to see a lot of splintering, especially with the Marios. I see a lot of territory we can test. And if you will, i mean if you will, that southern part of Sinaloa looks mighty tempting.
00:49:38
Speaker
to just probe in there. See what happens if you get you throw resources at the heartland of Samoa. See what you can get. It makes sense. If you know if you see the way, the strategic way, the Hadiz Fatal moves and just actually just invades new parts of Mexico with, first with radical mantas and videos, and then just moving it in force, they've done it in Zacatecas, they've done it in Chapas. Yeah, I think we can see similar tactics being.
00:49:59
Speaker
Chris, I really enjoy you being on the show. Tell everybody, what are your plans? What's going on in your career? So World of Crime as a publishing house is going to continue publishing guides to Latin American organized crime this year. We're probably preparing one on the Te Deraigua, which is the big Venezuelan group that has taken over so much of organized crime in in South America, and which is reported somewhat wrongly to be a threat to the United States. And then in December, this is an issue one we're doing with Japito.
00:50:26
Speaker
Obviously, we can't be changing the structure of that book and with recent events, but we want to continue being a one-stop shop where you, if you are a law enforcement officer, if you are an academic or you're just someone who's interested in organized crime, you can come to us and get up-to-date, actionable information on the cartels.
00:50:45
Speaker
The next step is education. We're now looking to turn the first Tejaliska cartel book and future books into courses, both for Mexican and American and Canadian law enforcement to try and counter some of the staggering misinformation and disinformation that influences police operation.
00:51:05
Speaker
And I'm not saying, I'm not saying that police ah are doing a bad job. I'm just saying with a lot of the information they base their actions on is incorrect. You see headlines that have been quoted to me as fact, like the Jalisco Cartel New Generation is in bed with the Terely de Aragua, the Venezuelan group, to become the first hyper cartel in America. Like absolutely no part of the ministry, absolutely no part of the ministry.
00:51:29
Speaker
or all cartels are the same. No, if El Menjo dies and El Pelon takes over, or El Hadidina takes over, or El Sapo, you're going to have different reactions. You're going to have different parts of the border that are being tested, because across that border is where those three have different power bases.
00:51:45
Speaker
one in California, two of them in Texas, and one of them in in North Carolina. So I want to show through these short courses how those little changes in cartels actually make a real difference in the way you fight back against. If people want to see what we do, please come to worldofcrime.net and also our blog, so sorry, our newsletter, seasonsofcrime.com. We think it's a cool concept. Every two months, we shift completely.
00:52:11
Speaker
And we look at a different way in which organized crime is affecting a sector of society. So right now we're doing sport, particularly football. We have several articles coming out on the way that the Mexican World Cup in 2026, the World Cup in Mexico, US, and Canada is going to play into cartel hands, the way that cartels might pose a security threat to that. And yeah, as I said, follow us and then hopefully the future guides will do as well and will be as well received as our Jalisco book has been.
00:52:36
Speaker
I've got one last question. How does this all end? Where do we go? We've got America with a big drug problem. We've got corruption. The world is in chaos and the cartels are more powerful than ever.
00:52:49
Speaker
How do you think this ends? What's the future? Anybody who tells you they know how this ends, hang up the phone. They're lake oil salesmen. In the short term, it's more money, more drugs, more violence. There is no level of political collaboration in the United States or in Mexico to have coherent long-term approaches. What this needs is for me two things. One is follow the money. This is the way you hurt them.
00:53:12
Speaker
The way you heard them is, and there are many, many ways in which cartels move in law and move the money, of course, it's very difficult, but long-term sustained investigations without the urge to act and seize, without the urge to act and arrest, let it play out. Multi-year investigations. Follow the thread. Find the middlemen. Find the Chinese bankers. Find the way they're moving drugs to Australia. Find the financial connections to Ecuadorian gangs, to Colombian gangs, to Australian bikers. Map out those financial connections.
00:53:42
Speaker
And when you strike, you do actually cripple the drug trader, Lee Sempero. The second is that there is now this rhetoric in the US and Mexico, and it's not new, that narcos are seemingly these binary individuals. Their eyes are victims, young children, young men, women who need to be protected because they are vulnerable to being recruited.
Future of Cartels & Law Enforcement
00:54:05
Speaker
The split second that they're recruited, I mean, it's faster than light. It's instantaneous in the rhetoric change.
00:54:10
Speaker
the minute they you start selling drugs or the minute they pick up on God and kill someone, they're hardcore scenarios that need to be put in the ground. There's no middle ground. That might be useful when you're planning an operation. It's not useful when you're trying to take down the conditions that a cartel thrives in. What does a cartel do? The cartel goes to young or vulnerable people and says, we can make your life better. And they deliver on that promise.
00:54:37
Speaker
absolutely 100% deliver on that promise. It's a life of violence, it's a short life often, but they do make money, they do get power. Sometimes they recruit people for specific specific purposes and it's a very short, you know one mission, suicide mission, but a lot of the people who go to work for a cartel and who survive do have a better life. They can buy houses for their families, they can give money to their mothers,
00:55:00
Speaker
They can put better food on the table. And until there's an alternative, until you understand that these are human beings going on a journey and making decisions for them is a rational decision, you can't fight them. The minute you demonize your enemy, you can't make any long-term journey.
00:55:19
Speaker
Chris, thank you very much for coming on the show. I have to tell you, I think you're a really cool guy, man. I really enjoy having this conversation with you. I ask only that you will please come back when the Chappitos book is available or when you're in the middle of that. And again, thanks a lot. and Thank you so much. hard I'll tell you one thing. I've done dozens of the interviews on Coachelles. Mika Trevino is the most informed and articulate and passionate and expert that I've come to meet. You should be on on this side of the podcast. And I actually think you should find someone to do an interview with you for your title inside a podcast. and Until next time, Chris, thanks. Thank you very much. but I wish I had more time with them. What a great guest. Well, we've come to the end of the first episode. There's been one simple goal since the beginning. Produce content that interests me. If I like the content, the chances are you will too.
00:56:15
Speaker
I've guests lined up, and the next episode has been recorded. I think you're going to like what I have in store. With each episode, I'll improve and fine tune the show. Thank you to everyone who encouraged me to produce a podcast. It's been a fun journey. And special thanks to Saul for joining Cartel Insider. We go way back to the Borderland Beat Forum days. Make sure to check his workout at CartelInsider dot.com. And if you liked it, let me know. Until next time, be safe.
00:56:44
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Narco Talk Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review. For more updates, follow us on Twitter, at Cartel Insider One, or visit our website at www.com. If you have any questions or topics, email Mika at mika at cartelinsider dot.com. Until next time, remember, be safe and stay informed.