EP 134 From Cartels to Corporates: Meth Labs, Microsoft & Moral Dilemmas with Christopher Macolini DEA Veteran and Security Professional

"It wasn’t just about drugs — it was about removing violence from communities. That’s when you knew you were really doing good."

– Christopher Macolini

BIO

Christopher T. Macolini is a recognized expert in investigations and security throughout Latin America, bringing nearly three decades of combined law enforcement and private-sector experience in the region.

For the past 23 years, he has been a Partner at MIC Worldwide, a full-service investigative and security consultancy specializing in intellectual property investigations and broader corporate risk solutions. Previously, Chris led Microsoft’s Anti-Counterfeit Investigations in Latin America, overseeing complex enforcement operations across multiple jurisdictions.

Earlier in his career, Chris served 15 years with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, primarily in overseas assignments, where he gained extensive experience managing sensitive investigations and security initiatives.

In addition to his investigative work, Chris is an accomplished author, with several published books and screenplays to his credit.

https://christophermacolini.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-macolini-b7ba143/

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

0:01

If you enjoy the security circle podcast, please like share and comment or even better. Leave us a fab review. We can be found on all podcast platforms. Be sure to subscribe. The security circle every Thursday. We love Thursdays. Hi, I'm Yolanda And welcome to the Security Circle Podcast, produced in association with ifpo, the International Foundation for Protection Officers. This podcast is all about connection, bringing you closer to the greatest minds, boldest thinkers, trailblazers, and change makers across the security industry. Whether you are here to grow your network, spark new ideas, or simply feel more connected to the world of protection and risk, you are in the right place wherever you are listening from. Thank you for being a part of the Security Circle journey.

Yoyo: 1:13

Wherever you are listening, don't forget to give us five stars on your podcast platform. Okay, so listen, uh, what can I say? Every single week I bring you an amazing guest, and this gentleman is amazing all by himself. He's an international investigations and security expert. Let's hear about his history through the DEA drug enforcement. And why? He's a security expert now and he's written books. Christopher Macolini how you doing? Welcome to the Security Circle podcast.

Christopher: 1:47

Yeah, I am doing great. How about you?

Yoyo: 1:49

I'm good. Macolini Is this an Italian name by any chance, Chris?

Christopher: 1:54

It is. It's my grandfather. My grandfather came from Italy, so yeah.

Yoyo: 1:58

Wow. Okay. Um, look, we, we've gotten to know each other. You've written a couple of books, we wanna talk about that. Uh, but first of all, let's start with war stories. Not a lot of people would entertain or, you know, joining somewhere like the DEA. And so I'd love for you to sort of shed a light on why you decided that was the route for you into security.

Christopher: 2:26

Okay. Well. I have a bit of a different story, um, as I kinda grew up in DEA. My father was the first DEA agent in South America in 1970. So I grew up a at that time I was eight years old, so I grew up, uh, with DEA as a kid. And I lived in Argentina, Venezuela, and Mexico with him while he was, uh, stationed to the embassies in each of those countries. I graduated from high school outta Mexico. Then I went to college and. I studied international relations at college and when I got out, I was looking for something to do that had an international aspect to it, and it seemed interesting and exciting. And DEA just fit the bill. And so, I joined DEA and um, then I spent, 15 years in DEA, most of it in Latin America. And then I. At some point along the way, I decided that I got tired of doing drugs, as I say, but I made doing investigations and drugs, and that's when I jumped ship over to the corporate side. So,

Yoyo: 3:27

yeah, look, it's not for everybody, uh, the drugs business. I've personally never been that much into them myself, to be honest. And it's such a shame that it's such a ferous industry. And that anyone would wanna go into that, I guess for power and money. As a DEA rookie, I'm gonna say, what sort of ideology did you join with and how did that ideology change as you learned the job? I.

Christopher: 3:57

Well, it, uh, DA was, at the time, it was small, there was only 2,500 agents worldwide, and it seems much bigger because the name is much bigger than the amount of the amount of people involved. I don't wanna say it's bigger than the people involved, because the people involved are what made it, what it was, which is great. So my ideology behind that was, I had to believe, and I still do believe that we were doing good, right? So we had to try and take the drugs off the streets to help people. So I, I truly believe that my time in DEA, that's what we were doing. It wasn't about putting people in jail. It wasn't about, even, uh, I guess breaking down organizations, even though it was what it was trying to help people and do good in the world. As I got into the job more and more. I started to realize that, well, there's a lot of people out there that want the drugs and, there's a lot of people out there that are gonna pay good money for the drugs. So while I thought we were doing good, I had people actually telling me, Hey, you know, you're stopping people from doing what they want to do. It's freedom to do what they want with their lives and so forth. So that. Changed a bit, but I still felt even throughout my entire career that there was a mission that we were doing was to try and help people.'cause even if they wanted them, my, my mindset was they just don't know any better. Right? Um, yeah. So that's how, kind of how it changed. But, um, you know, I always thought it was funny. When we're in the, the jungles of Peru or in Bolivia in an operating cocaine laboratory where they make the cocaine. If somebody who enjoyed taking cocaine ever saw how it was made, I mean, I love to take'em there. I doubt they'd ever use it. It's just, it is just that. So it is nasty when, you know, in the laboratory, so.

Yoyo: 5:43

You, you kind of went where I was gonna go there with that, but because it was quite funny, during COVID where people were like, I'm not putting that injection in my body. I don't know what's in it. Yeah. And yet people were quite happy to literally stuff agents up their noses. And even in London, even now, you know, you don't have to go very far, even in the corporate world. To come across cocaine. It's become almost a lifestyle, for a lot of business professionals in the city. There are clearly lots of people who don't take drugs, but it's not you don't have to go far to find it. And we joke, you know, over the last couple of decades that people are putting Ajax, Ajax is a white powdery cleaning scrubbing thing. I don't know what you call it in the states, but the stuff that, yeah, it's nasty, nasty chemicals. Yeah. Um, but listen, humans aren't really, um, renowned for making great decisions. There are clearly great humans that do, yeah. But that, but that's why there's a need isn't there for this type of agency, what was your journey like as you learned about the real challenges that were ahead?

Christopher: 6:50

Well, it had its ups and downs. I mean, you know, some of the cases were fantastic when you get to put somebody, take someone off the street who's a violent criminal, and, um, who in addition to selling the drugs is also, corrupting politicians, killing people and doing really, really bad things. But then you had the flip side of it too is you have people that you, you met who were selling the drugs that, that, You kinda say, well, they were just in a bad situation and they're not bad people. They just made bad choices. So I'll give you an example. We arrested a guy selling methamphetamine out of his parents' jewelry store. And this was kind of a, a sad situation because we had to arrest the parents as well as the, this guy, the parents were 70 something, almost 80 years old. The son was in his sixties and their jewelry business of their entire life had fallen on bad times. And, the kid was selling a kid, 60-year-old kid, the son was selling methamphetamine basically to prop up the parents' business to keep so they have something to do in their retirement. Right? It was wrong. Obviously meth selling methamphetamine is not a good thing. The parents saw it as hi, the son was making the medication that women use for dieting is what they, the son told the parents, right? They ended up losing their entire business over trying to just stay with their head above water. So that was a, a situation that was kind of, um. Kind of heartbreaking because these weren't violent people., They were absolutely doing wrong. And they were doing harm to people. Absolutely. But they weren't the violent criminals that you see portrayed on television. Now, flip side to that is, yeah, there are a lot of violent people out there that we came across and, you know, people that were, that, you know, the value of life was almost nothing. Um. Those people, I had a special satisfaction and when we arrested them and put them in jail, because it, I mean, that amplified the feeling of really doing good because not only were we're stopping drugs from coming on the streets, we're also removing the violence from a community. And that perhaps is a bit naive too, though, because when you remove somebody from from that community in that type of an area, there's always a vacuum created and somebody else moves in and, So it's a never ending story. It's a never ending story, and it's always down to, you know, as long as there's a demand for it, there's gonna be people that are gonna be selling it. Right?

Yoyo: 9:27

I can't help but, you know, draw a reference to, one of the most downloaded box sets ever with Breaking Bad and mm-hmm. The Serious Miami Vice, what they did to raise the. Public profile of the DEA, I don't know any other two programs that have done that. Was it a pretty cool job or was it a job that you found you couldn't really talk about it outside of work?

Christopher: 9:52

Oh, it was a blast. I mean, it was, but I gotta tell you, it's, it was a blast as a single man. Right. Once I got married, then you start worrying about your family and where they are and all that sort of stuff. And, and you get being a bit paranoid, You know, I got to the point where I'd ask my wife would say, oh, I met somebody, you know, a new friend. And I'd say, what does the husband do? Where is he? You know, where does he get his money? What car does he drive? That sort of a thing. Right? Did you give him our phone number? Do they know where we live? But as a single person, it was a blast. I participated in the invasion of Panama. Right. Um, okay. Yeah. So I get the call, the US is invading Panama. I'm watching it on television. I get a call and they said, well, what are you doing? I said, I'm watching the invasion on television. They said, well, pack your bags. You're going for seven days. And that afternoon I was on a flight out to Panama, landed, dropped my bags off at the Air Force base where we landed. Jumped on a helicopter and went over and executed a search warrant on Noriega's house. And as we're taking off in the helicopter, we've got Gunner hanging out the side of the military gunner hanging out the side of the helicopter. And as we're flying over their bullets ping off the side of the helicopter. And I had a big old grin on my face saying, well, who's got it better than me? I mean, this is, it was great. It was fun. It was, it was a blast. And then to go in and, and execute a search warrant on the. On the, one of the residents of the president of, well, the de facto president of, of Panama. I mean, it was, uh, it was a blast. But not only exciting, you know, those are the, the, the adrenaline parts. But there are other exciting parts too. I mean, when we worked in, in foreign countries, um, part of the work was a diplomatic work, right? So we're meeting with. We're meeting with, uh, ministers, we're meeting with judges, we're meeting with really high level people that are, managing the, uh, the country. Right? Um, mm. Met with presidents. Um, uh, we in Argentina, after one case we were invited over to the president's house and he had a cocktail party thanking us for, for one of these, in one of the investigations that was conducted there. So. Um, it offers a, a really fascinating, uh, access to parts that you never thought you'd have before. Right? I mean, I, I never thought I'd be meeting with a president Right. Or a minister, but there I was. And that, that was a fun part. So,

Yoyo: 12:21

I mean, for those that might not know this invasion, when you go just Googled United States Invasion and the first thing that comes up is of Panama, would you believe.

Christopher: 12:32

Oh, really? Yeah. Well, uh, most recent, yeah.

Yoyo: 12:35

Yeah. Right. And uh, and this was December, 1989. Yeah. So there may be some folk who, you know, may have just been in school when that was going down, but it was quite, it was quite a big thing at the time because America had never done this. And literally as soon as America entered into Panama, they appointed their own president. Yep. Literally got rid of the old one. It was quite a swift and bold move. But that was George HW Bush for you, wasn't it?

Christopher: 13:05

Yeah, well, I mean, there are,, there's some backstories behind it, which I, I'm not allowed to, uh, really elaborate on, but, But it was an interesting time because when we, when, when the US invaded Panama, Noriega was the reason why we were involved in DEA was because there was a, uh, arrest warrant for Noriega, for trafficking cocaine into the United States. So we were there to execute the search warrant or execute the arrest warrant. But the interesting thing about it was, is, When the raid went down, he disappeared and nobody could find him for the first like 48 hours. And where he was incredibly, he was in, he was hiding in one of the, in a motel, one of these motels where you drive into and the door shuts and you slide money through the, through a slot in the door. And he hid out there for two days and then he went over to the papal enunciate, which is the Vatican Embassy. He acclaim, he claimed asylum there and, um, and remain there for, if I'm not mistaken, eight, seven or eight days. And then you had, you had a whole bunch of things that ensued, which, you know, the, uh, the US young military guys there put speakers out in front of the Vatican Embassy and playing Guns n Roses and music, you know, 24 hours a day, allow music to try and get'em to come out. And just funny things like that happen. But, Yeah, it was a interesting time

Yoyo: 14:27

and he was tried, he was basically expatriated to the US where he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Prison. Yep. So 1989, that's, 2029. I mean, 2029 would be his 40 years. What do they plan to do with him after 40 years? Do you know? P.

Christopher: 14:45

No, no, he's not alive actually. He, he left and was, uh, he got out for good behavior and was, if I'm not mistaken, if I'm not mistaken, was extradited from the US to France, or I, I believe it was to France because of a, uh, uh. They had a, an arrest warrant for him as well, and then he passed away. So I, I'm a number of years back. So, but, but anyways, that, that was, that was one of, that was an interesting one. Yeah. I mean, there's, yeah. Never expected that I'd be in an invasion of a country, but there I was. No,

Yoyo: 15:18

and I guess that would've been your first really big exposure to maybe multi-agency approaches as well.

Christopher: 15:26

Well in, at a massive level. Yeah. But I mean, day one, when I came on the job in DEA in, in Colorado, um, I remember we had case with US Customs, um, that we were working jointly and it wasn't working well at the time. And I remember, I recall, uh, you know, brushes between the two agencies and things along those lines, but. In general terms, the cooperation among agencies, I gotta say, is you, you, you hear all these bad, bad, um, reputation things about the fights at the senior levels, maybe, right? Everybody's looking to, um, to protect their, their individual agency. But on a, on an. Uh, agent to agent basis. I never had a problem with any of the other federal agencies and we worked very, very closely with them. So,

Yoyo: 16:23

so, up to the point where you retired, from the DEA, what was your career like at that point? And where was your mindset in terms of, right, okay, I've been doing this for 15 years. What next? At what point did you decide what you were gonna do?

Christopher: 16:39

I actually, it's interesting'cause I didn't retire, I quit after 15 years. Uh,, and what happened? I mean, I'll tell you. So I was living in La Paz Bolivia and I had a, um, a 1-year-old son and I don't know if you know anything about La Paz Bolivia, but it's 13,500 feet above sea level and my son Sounds awesome. Yeah. And my son got there when we were, when he was four months old. He had trouble breathing and wasn't growing appropriately there. So he moved with my wife down to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, which is at sea level. And my wife, um, her grandfather and grandmother were bivian, so she actually stayed with them in a little small apartment and I went to visit him every week and I tried to get a, um. I tried to get de to switch me from La PA to Santa Cruz and to be based out of there and they refuse. And then they, they did agree to bring me back to the US after a year, which is kind of, it's, I mean, I, I really have to thank them for trying to do that because normally if you go for a three year commitment, you're, you're supposed to be there for three years, right? Mm-hmm. But they saw the situation and they were trying to help me, and they actually offered me a promotion to go back to headquarters. And we get to Washington DC in the dead of the winter to take a look at it. And neither my wife nor I decided that, look, this is not what we really want. Right. And I also knew that I had 15 years left with the DEA, and if I got the headquarters, it would be tough to get out. I mean, that's the hard part about going to headquarters and right along the same time, um. I got an offer from, uh, Microsoft. They reached out to me to be head of investigations for them, for South America, and it was based outta Miami. And so, you know, all, all things, all things considered, I said, you know, I've done my time here in DEA and I enjoy what I was doing, but maybe it's time to look elsewhere. There was also a bit of a difference too because, um, I came on with the kind of old guard of DEA, which was. It wasn't a job, it was a lifestyle. Right? And then somewhere along the line, some of the younger, younger people that came along, uh, were having a bit of a shift, and it was more of a job than a lifestyle. So you'd have things like, well, hey, we've got surveillance Friday night. And they're like, oh, I've got a date. I can't go on a, I can't go on surveillance. No, you gotta go on surveillance. Now, that wasn't all of them, and that was a, but it, it was some of them. And. There was a bit of a shift there for a while. I think it swung back again, right? I think it's back to the lifestyle type, but there was a period there where I just kind of felt like I was, I, I didn't have the same mindset as the other people or some of the other people that had it there, and. I felt I needed a change, and, and so that's what I did. And I don't regret going to Microsoft at all. I loved every minute of my time with DEA. I mean, there, there wasn't, I mean, even the, the bad moments were good moments, right? I mean, I, I absolutely loved it. But then the next step in Microsoft, my career was fantastic as well. And then, so I, I don't regret anything. It was great. So.

Yoyo: 20:06

You know, a lot of, people that in the security industry have a commonality in the sense that they've had to transition from one maybe institutional entity to a corporate one. How did you find the transition when you'd lived and breathed and the DEA was a lifestyle? Uh, it was a whole full commitment because even when I left the police, there was some adjustments I had to make in the uk. Mainly around communication. Mm-hmm. Uh, it had to be softer, little vague, a little bit more ambiguous. Yeah. What did you find that you had to transition

Christopher: 20:43

with? Well, it's actually kinda interesting because a month and a half into working at Microsoft actually handed my resignation, uh, o over a difference and I'll, I'll go through it. So, um. I was hired to do the, uh, uh, investigations for intellectual property for, for Microsoft. So any counterfeit products that were Microsoft products. Um, I was, uh, I was supposed to see about how to remove those from the markets. So I remember going into my boss one day and I said, Hey, look, I found this, this, we have this organizations that, that are, are counterfeiting, um, Xbox Games, and Xbox is a Microsoft product, right? It was in Brazil. And um, and I was told, uh, yeah, not, not, I said, they're, they're counterfeiting about 20,000 of these a month. And I was told, not interested Chris. Uh, thank you. I'm like, okay. Oh gosh. Went back in a couple days later, I said, Hey, look, you know what we found out they've got like 60, they're doing 60,000 of these, not, not, you know, 20,000 of them. I get one of these, uh, same response as Chris, I'm not interested. Yeah. And so out there trying to develop other things, and then all of a sudden we, the, the person that's feeding us this information, we find out that they're, they're, they're burning off a hundred thousand of these things a month, right? Yeah. And I went back in one last time and I said, Hey, look, you know, this is a huge organization. They're, they're selling a hundred thousand of these a month. And the response was, Hey, Chris, I told you twice already. We're not interested in this. Drop it. I walked outta the office. I'm like, geez. Confused as hell. Yeah. And I walked back in and I handed my resignation. I went, I went back to my desk. I wrote out the resignation, walked back in, and I said, Hey, look, you hired me to do a job here. You're, you're not allowing me to do the job, and I'm not gonna sit behind a desk and do nothing. And I, I handed in the resignation and they're like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Sit down, Chris, sit down. Let me explain something to you. I said, okay. They said, we don't sell Xbox in Brazil. So we don't sell it right now. We only sell it in the United States and in, I think it was in Japan at the time. They said, so it's not taking away from our market share at the moment. In a couple of years when we start selling in Brazil, we're gonna want you to go in and clean it up. They said, but since we're not selling anything officially there, we're not, it's no harm to us'cause we're not losing money. Right? I mean, you can debate on whether yeah, it's still a damage to their brand and all that stuff. That's what he told me. And something snapped at me and I went, ah, it's all about the money, right? Yes. So the big mindset before was DA was right or wrong, right? So this guy's after him, right? If it takes 10 years to go to get him and you know,$500,000 in expenses, that's what it takes. Yeah. You go after'em. It's right or wrong. But in the corporate world, I often find that it's, if you can't solve the problem in two to three weeks. For a, a limited budget. We'll move on. There's other problems that can be solved.

Yoyo: 23:54

Let's go into the critical thinking space, because Brazil wouldn't have been major issue or threat to Microsoft because they've got a hundred thousand of these being burned off every month. They're getting dependent Xbox gamers generated in the environment. Who would ultimately, they would guess transfer over to the real thing at some point. Yeah. So they're creating a market with the acceptance of the fraud.

Christopher: 24:20

Yeah, and I mean, this wasn't stated, but when you think about it is even the counterfeit, uh, Xbox had to be played on a genuine console. So they were selling consoles somewhere that were being brought to Brazil, so it wasn't hurting their market. Right. But I wasn't looking at it like that. I had the mindset of right, wrong. Right. And, yeah. That since, since, I mean that was a big shift for me'cause I realized, okay, now I understand the game. The game is about doing absolutely the best we can in a little timeframe with a limited budget to try and protect the company. And from that point on, it was, um, I was very successful in in, in Microsoft for the next two years. So.

Yoyo: 25:04

So can you tell any success stories of anything that you really did get your teeth into there while at Microsoft?

Christopher: 25:13

Yeah. I mean, um, we did, uh, they were, at the time the Microsoft was, had the physical discs. So they were selling, um, all of their programs and mostly office and, and, and Windows programs off on physical desks. And there were people that were counterfeiting these and selling them all over Latin America. We, um, we ended up, uh, I mean in Brazil we did a big case where we ended up they had three people in, in three different states that were counterfeiting and, and doing a big, counterfeiting, ring that, that counterfeited the disc and also counterfeited the security seals. Yeah. And. We were able to arrange for a sting where they came in to receive the money while I was buying, a bunch of products, and they ended up arresting three other people. And so it was, it was a really interesting case, um, because we ended up not only charging them for, uh, fraud and counterfeiting, uh, items, but also they, they, um, they had sold to the government at one point, so it was fraud against the government. Tax evasion. And they also, at one point even threatened me. Um, so we got'em for criminal threat charges as well. So it was, it was an interesting case. It was a very interesting case. Um, but then we had another case that we did in Paraguay, which was really, really interesting. Um, because one of the guys that was arrested happened to be an individual who five years earlier in the DEA. We were discussing with him, uh, in an undercover capacity, um, where we would offer him a kilo of cocaine and he was gonna give us a surface to air missile. Oh, that's the movie. It's plots. Yeah. And it was the same individual. The same individual that we later got for counterfeiting Microsoft products. So. Yeah.

Yoyo: 27:12

Oh, we used to have this phrase in the police. You know what goes around comes around. You miss'em the first time. You might miss'em the second time, but they're gonna come around again. Yep. Absolutely.

Christopher: 27:21

Absolutely.

Yoyo: 27:23

So Microsoft great. That's a, a great role. And it sounds like you had the opportunity to tell your colleagues then, when you were doing those things, that you were kind of going back to your DEA days a little bit. That must have been fun. What did you then go on to do after leaving Microsoft?

Christopher: 27:40

Okay, so what what happened with, with a lot of the investigation, Microsoft, was we were, we were subcontracting out to different investigators in Latin America, and I suddenly realized that I could do a better job than a lot of the people that we were subcontracting out to. At least that's, that was my thought at the time. So what I ended up doing was I ended up, um, opening my own investigative company based in, it started off in Argentina. Um. Uh, offering investigative s services throughout the region. And it was really interesting is, um, my first office, my wife and I closed, we had a two meter by one meter balcony that we closed off. And she and I sat back to back, uh, you know, with laptop computers and that was our first office. Wow. And that's how we started. We started the company, um, and, um. That's now been going on for 23 years, so this year we. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yoyo: 28:44

And you, you must have felt a bit worried at the time'cause it's a bit of a leap, isn't it? Going for the, the safety and assuredness of the DEA to go into corporate pink and fluffy, regular salary, you know, you can trust that. And the, what do you call it? Your pension, you call it, uh, something, what do you call it? You know, when you get a regular pension? Pardon?

Christopher: 29:07

You're

Yoyo: 29:07

retired. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and then, um, and then you've kind of decided to, to get rid of all that security in the terms of the comfort and to do it in a different country as well. That's not easy what you did.

Christopher: 29:22

No, it was matter of fact, it was scary. And about two, two weeks into it, I remember sitting on that, that little balcony office saying, oh, what the hell did I do? Right. I mean, you know, at the time I had two young kids. Um, and, and you know, we're living in a, a small two bedroom apartment and we were, you know, trying to drum up business and I had no, I had no business background. I had no, um, no, no idea on how to run a business. Um, luckily my wife did. Right? Um, and then. Word kind of got around that we were starting that, that we were there and we got one job and then another job and another job, and things sort of just kind of started tumbling. And um, by the end of the first year, which was good, I had equaled the salary. I made a micro Microsoft,

Yoyo: 30:17

so Oh wow. I left.

Christopher: 30:18

That's great. I had equaled it the first year. Um,

Yoyo: 30:21

and it just goes to show your instincts were spot on actually, Chris, you know, in terms of how you could deliver the service better.

Christopher: 30:29

It was funny because I kept saying, I, you know, I was the guy that was saying, this is what I really wanna do. This is what I really wanna do. And my wife was like, well do it. Yeah. I'm like, well, no, no, do it. And she's the one that pushed me, pushed me to do it. Um, uh, in a good way. Right? I mean, she, she's like, look, if this is what you really wanna do, wanna make you happy, you know, do it. And, um. You know? Yeah. Again, I, I have to give her a lot of, a lot of the credit for this because, um, but it, it's, it was great. I mean, uh, it was scary at first and then it got better and then better and better, and it's now been 23 years of good.

Yoyo: 31:09

I mean, look, the, the UK certainly had a bit of a tumultuous time with Argentina. What was Argentina like to live in as a, as a, an American citizen?

Christopher: 31:19

It was great. You know, see, I lived there as a kid from, from 70 to 74. Then I lived there from 91 to 97 with DEA and I, I kind of got worried at, at first when I went, we went back, I said, geez, I've lived as a diplomat where, where you go with a black passport, the everybody opens the doors. It's easier, right? But then I realized that as living as a, an expat there, it was actually easier than living. As, uh, as a diplomat because while the, while the black passport opened the doors for me, nobody paid much attention to me in terms of, of what I did and what I didn't do when I, uh, when I, when I came to, to live there on my own. But the people of Argentina are great. I, you know, I love, I love the country. It's, um, it has a tendency to have its ups and downs in terms of the economy. So, um. Every couple of years. It's expensive. Every couple of years. It's cheap. Every couple of years. It's expensive. Every couple of years it's cheap. Um, and right now it's expensive again. But, um, but it, to me, it, it was absolutely fantastic. I brought my kids up in Argentina. They were raised and went to school. They went to a bilingual school in Argentina. Um, they had some really great benefits because, uh. In addition to being bilingual, um, when they came back to the US to go to, to college, they, they were able to get into really good universities, um, without much of an effort, um, because of the bases that they learned overseas. And they also had a good foundation in sports with one of my sons playing rugby and the other one playing soccer. And, um, really well. So it, I mean, I have nothing negative to say. It was, it was fantastic. So.

Yoyo: 33:07

Somehow amongst all of this, you decided to write books as well. I mean, what, tell us, first of all, what was going through your head? Because one of the commonalities I learned from talking to authors is that, you know, they had this book in them. They had it for a long time. It's what they really wanted to do. Was that the case for you when you were manifesting your, your first book?

Christopher: 33:29

Well, sort of, yeah. So, um, part of it was that. I have written thousands and thousands and thousands of pages for reports where it's precise writing this and that. Right? And, and, and it's report writing. And anyone who's been in law enforcement or in the security industry knows how you have to, it's nothing creative about it. It's just, you know, the facts. Well,

Yoyo: 33:55

let me just, let me describe it. You write here that you wrote this book to provide brand holders and investigators a kind of proven roadmap for combating monetary and reputational losses due to counterfeiting. Yeah, and the book is written as a mix of real life stories and practical advice aimed at protecting the integrity and reputation of brands and protecting the assets of the brand holders who. Who wouldn't want to read that, Chris? Well,

Christopher: 34:21

well here's the funny part though.'cause I started writing that and, and so I like telling stories too. Um, I'm, I'm, I like telling what we call war stories, uh, of, of what happened in the past. And so I, I, I also like teaching. I, it just, I happen to like teaching and helping people. So my wife said to me, she said, you know, you always wanna do that, so why don't you write a book? I said, oh yeah. You know, that's right. I, I do write a lot, so I will. So I sat down and I wrote a book and I, and I, I wrote it out the first chapter and I handed it to my wife and I said, Hey, could you just read this? And she got into the, the second sentence of the book and she said, this is crap. She said, it's, it is absolutely terrible. She said, as boring as, as can be. It sounds like a, a textbook. And she said, would you read this? And of course, I. My pride was injured. So I sat back and I okay for two months, I just threw it aside and said, I'm not gonna write this thing. And, you know, and then my wife, she said, why don't, you know, you like telling stories, tell stories. And so I sat down and said, okay, you know what? I can teach people through the mistakes we've made. And so that's what I did in this book. The, that book is, uh, war stories, uh, counterfeits war stories and lessons learned. So what, what we did was. What I did was I, I started writing, um, okay, this is what we did before. This is how we screwed up and this is how I learned that we should do it now. And it teaches you, I mean, step by step how to do intellectual property investigations. And the reason why I, I chose intellectual property investigations is'cause we've been doing, we've done a lot of those. That's what I did with Microsoft. And that's what what I do for a lot of other companies as well. We help'em protect their brand. So, um. Before you knew it, I had about 200 pages of a book that the, the, uh, put together and it, and, um, I sent it into a publisher. He read it, he liked it and said, you know, uh, or an editor, he said, yeah, it looks good to me. And so then I published that in 2019. So, um, I, it wasn't that I had always wanted to write a book, but I had, I mean. I, I did discover doing it, a love for writing, even though I hate writing reports, right? I mean, I hate writing reports just because it's regurgitating a lot of the old stuff, right? I mean, and, um, but, but in terms of, of just sitting down to write something, it's actually kind of fun. And then I also started a blog and started putting out little things about my life and started writing. And I realized that that's kind of cathartic to me. I mean, when I, when I can put something out there, you know, if I'm having a bad day, I'll just sit down and write something and it won't necessarily come out as bad. It will come out as good what I write, but, um, but it, it helps me get things off my shoulder. So.

Yoyo: 37:03

No, I think, I think it's great that you, you felt that way and that you were able to dedicate the time to it. And what we'll do is, uh, we'll provide you a website as well so people can find a link to, um, look at the book and download it. But you went one step further. You've now written another book, and this is complete and utter nonfiction, isn't it?

Christopher: 37:24

Yes. Yes. It's, um. Um, and, and that one there was, when I started writing my blog, it, it, it had some things about me and my, you know, my thoughts and so forth and. Then I said, you know what? I wanna just try something. Absolutely. Just totally creative because I keep thinking of myself as a non-creative person because I'm, I'm, I'm stuck within the confines of the job that I do, which as all security personnel know, we can be creative to, to a, to an extent, right? I mean, there's, there's rules and laws and everything that we have to obey. So with the book, I sat down, I said, I'm just gonna write, and I had an opening. An opening scene in mind that I just kind of kept going over and over my mind. And so I, but that's all I had. That's, I mean, that's, that's literally all I had. So I sat down and I started writing and first thing you know is, uh, I've got the first chapter written, and then the second chapter was written, and then the third chapter was written. And I didn't even know where the story was going yet. Right. I hadn't mapped it out. I just said, well, well, let's, let's see where it goes. Um. But what I kinda liked about the book is, is while the, the, the plot of the book is completely fiction made up, the people in the book aren't necessarily made up. So there is a police officer in there that's actually a police officer that I knew, and it, and, and, and so the description of him in there is. Pretty much the same guy I knew there is a drug trafficker who is actually a real drug trafficker. Okay. He's in a different context, in a different location, but this, his story is, is, I mean, dead on story of, of what the guy was like, how he was raised and what turned him into being a drug trafficker. There's a kid that was a, an assassin and, and I'm talking a kid, he was 14 years old. Um. That's his real story, uh, in there. But I, I, I mixed that into a fictional book. So, um, yeah, so, so that's, that was kind of fun for me because I was able to take real, real people and make up the events around it and, and make it into a book. That, to me, seemed like an interesting book.

Yoyo: 39:41

Well, they say the best writers write about what they know, right? Mm-hmm. So it makes absolute sense, and I'm sure that every author who's written nonfiction have had an idea of characteristics and traits in individuals and people they've met that they've, you know, they've adapted. And you hear authors quite often say, well, there's not really one person. The main case, it's amalgamation of two or three people. You know? I mean, is it, is it though. Yeah. Is it? Yeah. Um,

Christopher: 40:11

well, some of, some of mine were dead on, so I mean, they were dead on the people that, that,

Yoyo: 40:15

yeah.

Christopher: 40:16

Yeah. So

Yoyo: 40:17

I, I think it's clear that in some form, those individuals have made a real impression on you enough

Christopher: 40:24

Yeah.

Yoyo: 40:24

For you to really feel good about writing their story in, in a sense. So you are kind of. Inspired, aren't you? Even if the behavior's bad, it still can be inspiring.

Christopher: 40:38

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Yoyo: 40:41

So, you know, you've, you've mastered the fiction world, you've mastered the nonfiction world. Uh, what's your new book called, by the way, your nonfiction book?

Christopher: 40:51

It's, it is called The Hunter.

Yoyo: 40:53

The Hunter, yeah. And can we provide a link as well so people can take a look?

Christopher: 40:59

Yep. It's on, it's on my website as well, so.

Yoyo: 41:02

Awesome

Christopher: 41:03

question. Yep.

Yoyo: 41:03

I should have, I should have asked for a preview copy. Shouldn't I? I miss, I missed a trick there. I have a whole bookshelf here of books that I get sent to review, uh, because we like to talk about them. Um, a lot of our guests on the security circle have written books not to diminish.

Christopher: 41:20

I'll send you one, I'll send you one afterwards.

Yoyo: 41:21

Well, it held to the years, but, uh, one of the most phenomenal books that I've got, and I've got quite a lot is, um. Somebody that you might know. Do you know Eduardo? He is, uh, a Mexican national living in America, but he's got extensive knowledge of Mexico and he does an awful lot of writing, both in Spanish and in English, uh, of things like, you know, the power of knowing your threats and operating in South American and Latin American countries as a physical security professional. I think you have a lot in common. He also recorded a podcast with me and his stories about Mexico and operating a business in Mexico and drug lords and all of those sorts of, corruption and politics and,, you're probably, have quite a lot in common with him actually. Yes, I'm sure we do. Um, yeah. So,, what's next for you, Chris? What's next in your list of things you want to achieve?

Christopher: 42:23

Well, I got a couple of irons in the fire right now. I've got a, i, I have a, um, uh, I can't think of the word in English, a pilot series that I'm, that, that's making its way around, um, uh, the circuit in Hollywood right now. So we'll see what happens on that. Um, well

Yoyo: 42:44

say no more. Hush hush. Yeah, but what I. These organizations, including Netflix, are a big, big, and I'm, I'm not making a an inference, but Netflix is always looking for original content. Yeah. And this wouldn't be the only time I've spoken to somebody who said, oh, I've already had the conversation with some Netflix producers, because they like, you know, they like the originality of, of my background in whatever it was, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So there's this huge thirst isn't there for different content.

Christopher: 43:15

Yeah. Yeah. And that, that one's actually, it's kind of a, a more personal one because it tells kind of a, my story and my dad's story and my,'cause you know, I mentioned my dad was first de age in Latin America in 1970, but prior to that, he grew up in the Italian section of, um, Boston. And, um. When he graduated from college, he entered, he ended up working as for the IRS, the internal Rev revenue service as a special agent, and went undercover in the mob, in the Italian mob, and he spent six months undercover. And so he has a really interesting story as well. And then that ties into my story. And then I have other family members with very interesting stories as well, so.

Yoyo: 44:00

Well, I'm kind of thinking we need to do a Security Circle podcast episode on your father's undercover operation with the mob.

Christopher: 44:09

Yeah. Yeah, that was a,

Yoyo: 44:11

that sounds awesome.

Christopher: 44:13

Yeah.

Yoyo: 44:13

Uh, look, exciting stuff with you, Christopher. To be honest, it's more than meets the eye, I have to say. I think what you've achieved is phenomenal in the DEA and you've shared just a fraction of it with us, and you've gone on and you've mastered the corporate thug life. I mean, the corporate life. Because it is a different entity, corporate thug life. It really is. It is. It is. Yeah. And then you've thought, screw this for a box of chocolates. I'm gonna set up my own company. You've done well at that and now you've written books. It seems to me that if they didn't take you up on your pilot, more fool them is what I would say.

Christopher: 44:53

Oh, we'll see, I mean, there's a lot of people out there writing pilots right now, you know, it's funny because. Everyone says, oh, you've had an interesting story, you've had an interesting life story. And I, I believe everybody has an interesting life story. I truly do because my life is different than your life and is different from other people's life. But, you know, I love to hear about other people's life because I didn't grow up in one location. And I have friends that have, and they're fascinating, their stories about how they grew up with the same friends, not me. I was moving every three or four years. I think everybody has a story to tell and, it's interesting to hear all, you know, as many as you can.

Yoyo: 45:29

Well, Christopher, we're gonna put your LinkedIn profile link on the bio as well. Do you know that you and I have 444 four people in common? Really?

Christopher: 45:40

Oh my

Yoyo: 45:40

god, yes. If you and me, if you and me had a party and everyone we knew on LinkedIn turned up, we'd have to cater for a lot, put it that way. Yep. Absolutely.

Christopher: 45:49

Yeah.

Yoyo: 45:50

But look, it's been super thrilling talking to you. Thank you so much for being my first DEA guest. It was great to hear about that and I wish you all the success for your pilot. Fingers crossed. thank you for joining us on the Security Circle podcast.

Christopher: 46:06

Thank you for inviting me. It's been a pleasure.