Is Mexico still safe after the attacks in Jalisco? Live Q&A With Expats Near Guadalajara

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Transcript

0:01

Hello. Hello everyone. Boy has it been a crazy week here in Mexico. I'm sure by now you all have already seen all the headlines about what happened in Mexico earlier this week with a military operation that, uh, killed not just. One of the, well, the top cartel leader in the country and much of the, uh, management of that cartel, but that there were cartel blockades and cities on fire and you know, so on and so forth. Justin and I are actually in Hali school. We were in one of the states that went on a lockdown. On Sunday, and I wanted to let you know that we're totally okay. We're completely fine. Everything was reopened by Monday. Uh, we're back at the office at the entrepreneur expat office in the Lake Chapala area, and things were back to normal and they were back to normal pretty quickly. So what we wanted to do on this particular, uh, podcast episode is a few things. Number one, obviously we wanted to let you guys know that we're okay and we're safe. Our Airbnb guests are okay and safe. The second thing we wanted to let you know is how business is going, because that is a question that we've gotten asked a lot that we actually haven't had a chance to answer yet on any of the other posts that we've done. Uh, the entrepreneur, expat business is doing quite well even after this. I understand that there's concern. For the economy in Mexico. Uh, but we're doing well. Our Airbnbs are completely booked. We have people sending in, uh, requests for us to handle the residency process in Mexico every single day. We still have people coming to the office every single day. To start their residency process or diversify their assets by investing in Mexico. In fact, that's where Justin is right now, is meeting one of those people. Um, and yeah, I mean, nothing really changed much over here. If anything, the demand has increased. Because if you are a part of the entrepreneur expat community, you're one of the smart ones, and you're not just a tourist, you're not just a random tourist, you're not someone who is not globally aware, uh, you're not someone who follows headlines blindly. You're likely someone who wants to a Plan B and wants to start globally diversifying yourself. You're probably a globally aware person of what goes on in all parts of the world. You don't pretend to live in a perfect world, it's quite the opposite. You like to have systems and backups in place for when the world gets chaotic, as we are seeing right now in multiple countries all over the world. So things are actually going quite well, uh, for us, but we also do not work with tourists. Um, those who are in the tourism industry, they might be. Seeing something a little bit different. And then in addition to that, we are going to play on this podcast episode, we're gonna have a recording of a live q and a that we did on YouTube as soon as we could when these events were occurring, to answer all the questions that we had coming in and everything being bombarded. So. You'll find the recording of that here, uh, where we answer all the questions. We talk about our experience and what happened on Sunday, on Monday, what we saw, what we didn't see, what actually happened. What's a myth? Uh, because a lot of the US news is definitely over izing. Uh, what happened on Sunday and finally. Because we just realized this, this morning, our apologies. We, we didn't realize that we had not, um, spoken to our podcast audience about what happened. Uh, we had spoken to the YouTube audience. We obviously sent an email to our email list on Instagram. We were keeping everybody updated and on our Facebooks, uh, as well. And we didn't realize that we had not done the same thing with the podcast audience. And we realized that there's some people who don't even know that. Entrepreneur expat actually started on YouTube, right? And that only listened to the podcast. So our apologies for that and what we advise you to do, and I'm gonna have links to everything. In the description section for you guys is we highly, highly advise you to join our email list, uh, because those who are on our email list are the first to know what is going on when headlines break out, when immigration changes, when we have new offers, uh, anything, anything at all that happens that affects the entrepreneur expat community. The email list will be the first one, uh, to find out, so you can actually. Uh, sign up by going to entrepreneur expat.com. Um, you can also go to entrepreneur expat.com/abroad. And, uh, as a free gift for joining our email list, you will get our Ultimate Moving Abroad checklist, which will help you with everything that you need to know about starting to set yourself up for moving abroad globally, diversifying yourself, immigration, taxes, all those things. And secondarily, make sure to. Write to us on YouTube if you haven't already, and also find us on Instagram, entrepreneur expat. Official, uh, because those are the main channels of communication. It's email list, YouTube, and Instagram. Uh, and then of course we were posting on our personal Facebooks because so many people were concerned about what was going on. So I will have links to everything, all of that below for you guys, so you never miss anything moving forward because the world is changing. Very, very quickly, and that's the best way to get ahold of us, um, as well. So without further ado, uh, I'm, we're going to start this, um, part of the podcast where we are going to have the recording of the live q and a that we did on YouTube for the entrepreneur expat community about everything that went down, uh, this week in Mexico, how we experienced it, and again, you know, separating the truth from the lies. Hello everyone. Thank you for coming on here. We are live from the Lake Al area. Uh, that, that, that thing that you see in the background there, um, that's not our background right here in our home office, but that is the background from, uh, our patio right downstairs. And that's about what it looks like. Uh, right now as we speak. Things are. Very chill. Um, I've got a little puppy half asleep on my lap. This is our, this is our new puppy that we rescued just a couple weeks ago, uh, from the, the thermal spa. Actually, there were a bunch of little puppies back there. We'll tell you the whole story, uh, about how we got this little guy later. He had a, a hurt little paw and we, we nursed him back to health and now he's doing really good, but. As you can see, uh, from us and from also a little rocky here, everything is, is pretty kosher. Um, there's not a lot really happening. Uh, a lot of people have been asking us, you know, friends and family, they've been sending us, you know, text messages and emails. I think you got what, a couple dozen in the last two days from

Speaker 2 7:02

people, Instagram, Facebook, email, comments. It's been nonstop the last two days as this news broke out in Mexico that the Mexican military. Um, killed Elcho and many of his, uh, I guess management, many of the C-suite of, uh, the, uh, SCO and then chaos kind of ensued, um, in Mexico. So we've gotten lots and lots of dms from Instagram, from Facebook, from our personal Facebooks, our families blowing up our phones. So, uh, we didn't get a chance to come on live the last couple days we were with our Airbnb guests. Our neighbors, things like that. We finally got a chance, so we decided to come on online. Mine,

Speaker 7:46

I didn't have internet. There's

Speaker 2 7:47

another

Speaker 7:48

situation, didn't have the internet where, and sometimes the, well, our main internet does go down just, just, uh, occasionally. And it happens a lot, you know, on, on weekends, on Sundays where maybe once a month it'll go down. Most likely what happened is it was one of those things, but because of the chaos on the streets and some of. Some of the roadblocks, they couldn't actually go to fix it. So we were without our main internet for a couple days and we finally, uh, we finally got our starlink working as well. After, you know, a, a few hours of, of fiddling around with that, we were able to get a starlink working. Um, but it's, it's been a lit, you know, just a little bit of chaos with everything and yeah, you know, staying home and, and internet issues. So now we're finally able to go live. Uh, Shannon says, where in Zaban. Um, how's everything there, Shannon? We, we'd love to hear. Uh, we, we actually lived in Alita for a few years before coming down here. And from what we hear, uh, from our friends that are in Guadalajara, everything is is more or less

Speaker 2 8:38

slowly

Speaker 8:38

getting back to normal. Getting back to normal. Yeah. Yeah. There's a couple roadblocks. In, in other cities, uh, around Guadalajara. But from what we've heard, most of the, most of the roadblocks were removed. And by roadblocks I just mean the remnants of like the, those narco block Gales, which, which is where they had, you know, people burning buses and things like that. That did happen for sure. Um, but it was mainly removing the debris of that, um, the actual roadblocks. Uh, yeah, she said they're in, they're in Alita as well.

Speaker 2 9:04

Yeah. Alita iss a great neighborhood,

Speaker 9:06

but, but the actual roadblocks of like armed people there, I mean that literally just lasted as long as they. And they weren't hurting individuals. There was one death that that was reported that we heard about, which was like an innocent bystander who was just in the crossfire in, but that was one civilian death. Uh, in the entire country when we're talking like seven different states, seven or eight, I think different states involved, not just how these go. And like, they're not going after civilians. They're definitely not going after tourists. They're definitely not going after Americans. So,

Speaker 2 9:32

so what did happen because, um, we've had people sending us videos that have been debunked to, like they said there was a shooting in the water. Let's talk about what didn't happen. First, yeah. Let's talk about what did not happen because we've seen some crazy things even on American news this morning, sharing videos that have been debunked

Speaker 9:50

mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 9:50

Already in Mexico by people here, by the airports, um, by the government. A lot of these videos and photos going around social media, and we even see American news showing it as of this morning. We've seen both Fox and CNN. Showing a video that has been totally debunked. Yeah. As this did not happen. And we can tell you from eyewitness accounts, um, that it did not happen, which is why we wanted to come on here. So we wanted what, what I, what did not happen.

Speaker 10:19

Yeah. Let's

Speaker 2 10:20

start there. 'cause there's been a lot of things circulating around going crazy that the entire country of Mexico is on fire and like,

Speaker 10:28

no.

Speaker 2 10:29

Yeah, it's, it's gotten very

Speaker 10:30

crazy. So people, people were saying like that, they were taking people hostage. That was not true. That did not happen. We have not heard a single confirmed report. Of that happening. People were saying there were, there was a shootout at the airport in Gu Guadalajara

Speaker 2 10:42

did

Speaker 10:42

not happen. There was a video circulating there that, again, the, the Grupo Rio del Pacifico, which is the company that manages, uh, both Vallarta and Guadalajara airport, I believe in several others throughout the country. They already put out a statement. Saying that that was not true, that was fake news. Um, most likely that was either AI or possibly a video from many, many years ago. If there, I don't, I don't, I've never personally actually heard of any shootouts, at least

Speaker 2 11:06

in the airport.

Speaker 11:06

In modern times. Yeah, in the airport. Um, but that was, that had absolutely nothing to do with the events of Sunday. Uh, that was completely fake news. They were not lighting any planes on fire. That was also disproven. And in fact, I listened 'cause I'm, I'm a pilot in training, so I listened to the air traffic control radio. Uh, even that very Sunday in the afternoon, like after, you know, the initial shock of, of, hey, there's, you know, uh. Uh, cars and, uh, trucks going up in flames. That, that definitely happened around the airport, like outside of it, on different, you know, highways and roads. There were, there were a couple trucks, uh, and buses that they lit on fire, but they, there weren't any people in them. They evacuated the people first. That was mainly because they're trying to set up blockades so that they, you know, the military would get, kind of get slowed down. And so they were trying to do a show of force, which is like, understandable. Um, but in terms of. You know, people being in injured or kidnapped or anything like that, other than that one confirmed death that we've heard about, and obviously tell us if, if we're missing any information, if there's anything updated. Um, there were about 26 deaths of different, uh, members of the military, of the Mexican military, as well as at least eight confirmed, uh, deaths of. Uh, the cartel members themselves, uh, including mento. So that was, that's what we have heard so far. And again, we're on the ground here. Um, we're, we're in a, we're near where there were a couple events, like they burned a couple stores like Oxo and I believe there were also some banks that were burned down.

Speaker 2 12:35

Yeah, I think it was an Oxo, a bank, and they did close off the road going into Guadalajara. So from the information that we have so far, and this is from the social media pages of the governments around Lake. Paula, I, he, he no damage. Not surprising. Um, I think San Antonio, I didn't hear about anything or Rivera or no damage andante that we have seen. We did see in Kopec, 'cause we can see Kopec from where we live. We did see plumes of smoke, uh, Sunday, late in the afternoon. And then it was confirmed that a bank had been burned and Oxo had been burned and they had, uh, blocked. The highway that goes to Guadalajara. And then the same thing happened in Chapala. So there were, there was like an Oxo, a bank, and they blocked the highway going to Guadalajara. So were there not called es? Yes,

Speaker 13:29

it happened. Yeah, we, we did, you know, we did our basic precautionary stuff. Like I mentioned, we had. A backup internet, um, with starlink because we don't know if, if the internet being down in certain parts of the town was something that was intentional, if they cut, cut, like the fiber on purpose or if it was just a, a result of, you know, there being fires on the road, that, that, uh, melted the cables. We don't if the

Speaker 2 13:47

government did it to halt communications.

Speaker 13:49

Ah, I don think so. Think I would probably say yeah, no,

Speaker 2 13:52

would not.

Speaker 13:53

Um,

Speaker 2 13:53

yeah.

Speaker 13:53

That, that's, you know, we're not in Iran. Yeah. Really? That's not a thing that they, that they do here? Probably

Speaker 2 13:59

not.

Speaker 13:59

Um, no, it was, it was probably a combination of, you know, fires on the road that took out some of the cables or even some other unrelated incident that took out total play in the area, all the way from, at least here, all the way to Ahah that we've been hearing about. But the fact that, you know, there were road closures and there was a mandatory, uh, like stay at home warning. And that obviously the technicians were not gonna go out to fix it. Uh, that, that didn't help get it restored. So now it's, I think it came back, was it this morning or yesterday? Last night came, yeah, yeah, last night it came back. So it actually, even with everything said, it only took them 24 hours to restore internet to our part of the, the town here. Um, and like I mentioned, you know, we, we had our backup internet set up for at least emergency communication. We had a starlink and then we had an extra cellular modem that we. Um, that we lended to our Airbnb guests. So we also, uh, were able to, um, allowed to, to stay for, for a couple nights more here because they also didn't want to get on the road, which, which is reasonable. Um, so we had backup bitter nets and we, you know, we had some, we, we went to get some food as well, just in case on, on Sunday, right. But, you know, right when we started hearing that shit was going down, uh, I went to the Pharmacia Guadalajara, which turned out to be like the last place open on Sunday. I stocked up on what, what I could that was healthy and that, you know, was shelf stable, which is always a good recommendation. I mean, when, if you're in the us, if you're in Mexico, if you're in anywhere, I, I honestly would be even more inclined to, you know, take, uh. Preparatory measures in places like the US because of a much higher, uh, likelihood of civil unrest than in somewhere like Mexico. To be honest, there's a lot more protests than civil unrest and things in the us So I got, I got a few hundred dollars of cash out just in case I would need cash if the systems were down for some reason. Um, I was able to get some, uh, bags of protein, some corn flakes, uh, some emergency medicines, like the basic, you know. Um, anti-diarrhea medicine

Speaker 2 15:48

also say we were, we were prepared for at least a few days. Yeah. We honestly thought, oh, this is gonna be like three or four days like this. That's what we were thinking. But kudos to Mexico. Kudos to the federal government and the state governments. Everything was cleared within 24 hours.

Speaker 16:03

Yeah, it's pretty impressive.

Speaker 2 16:04

Which is pretty impressive. And the United States, they can't even stop. Some unruly riots or protests, and they still have entire, in 24 hours, entire

Speaker 16:11

cities there that are,

Speaker 2 16:12

they still have entire, they're occupied cities that are having problems. So kudos 'cause we did not expect that at all. Um, I think both of us, generally, no matter what country we're in, we just expect incompetence from governments. Maybe we're jaded, we just expect it. Uh, but within on Monday morning. They had already announced that there were no narco blos anywhere in the country. I think, uh, by Sunday night had said, we've got it all under control. We're cleaning the roads. Um,

Speaker 16:41

yeah,

Speaker 2 16:41

things are already back open. Things are already back open As of, uh, today there is no more code red.

16:46

I

Speaker 16:46

think the schools

Speaker 2 16:46

might, might

Speaker 16:47

still be closed.

Speaker 2 16:48

Either they're opening

Speaker 16:49

today or, uh, they were opening today or tomorrow.

Speaker 2 16:51

Yeah, I know yesterday they still kept the schools closed, basically. So basically what happened was, like everything happened on Sunday, right? Where they. Took this guy out, Elcho. And if you don't know about Elcho, from what we've researched, this was like the number one wanted cartel leader. Not just in Mexico, not just in the United States, but in the entire world. Uh, this guy had operations in 39 different countries. So, uh, it was a big deal, but it was a very huge shock. Like no one expected this to happen. And the way that we found out what was going on is because we actually had our AC guy. Coming in from Guadalajara because we needed maintenance on our mini splits at the house. And then we were installing mini splits in the office and he sends us a WhatsApp and he's like, Hey, there's NS on the road. I gotta turn around. And we're like, what? And then suddenly, that's like the exact moment that the internet went down. Mm-hmm. For like everybody

Speaker 17:45

on the whole, the

Speaker 2 17:46

whole on the whole block, on the whole complex, all our internet went down. Uh, so we're like, what is happening? And then we started getting calls from people in Chapala, and then we started piecing things together. And then, uh, we found out that, hey, at one o'clock on Sunday, all businesses are closing. Everybody go home. It's a code red.

Speaker 18:04

Yeah. That's about the time where I, I was at the pharmacy.

Speaker 2 18:07

Yeah.

Speaker 18:08

And we were probably one of the last people to be able to buy stuff before they, I dunno if they shut it down right away, but they shut the doors and you had to, I guess, order through like a window.

Speaker 2 18:15

Yeah, and the pharmacy yesterday was open, but you had to like order through a window and it was very hush hush, whatever. So anyway, by Sunday night, a lot of governors were already saying, Hey, we're starting to get things under control. Um, with the narco blo Gales, it's starting to calm down. Uh, and then by Monday morning, the authorities made the announcement, Hey, there's no more narco lokos anywhere in the country. But we're still advising that everybody stay home. We're cleaning stuff up and then everything's going to reopen again on Tuesday. We're here, it's Tuesday, everything's reopening. Uh, on Tuesday, at least in the Lake Chapala area. We know of businesses, um, that were open as of yesterday, Monday. So basically what we saw from Joko Tope and what we saw from Chapala, the municipal governments, was that if you wanna open on Monday, you are more than allowed to open on Monday. Yeah, you don't have to. You're allowed to if you want to. But stay outta the way in terms of the road cleanups and the crews and all that kind of stuff. Just stay outta the way.

Speaker 19:13

That's, I wanna talk a little bit also about the sensationalism, especially in the, the news in the us. Um, CNN and even Fox News are posting videos that have already been confirmed false, like they're still streaming them and posting them today. Like, uh, people running, you know, around the airport, like there's a shooter in there, like all these other things. I dunno if I'm allowed to even say that on YouTube. They

Speaker 2 19:33

probably

Speaker 19:33

not. I don't like that. Um, but yeah, they, they, uh, YouTube, YouTube tends to heavily censor anything related to what we're talking about. So, hey, whatever. Um, but we got it to. You know, we gotta bring you guys the truth. So yeah, the, there, a lot of the news media in the US and other parts of the world are still like showing videos that were already confirmed false. Um, they're making it very sensationalistic.

Speaker 2 19:54

They're making it seem like Mexico is like this every day you've been in Mexico.

Speaker 19:58

Not only that, well, not only that, but they're saying, oh, Americans are all like trying to get out of the country now and they're trapped. It's like, nope, we still have people flying here. Um, to do, you know, appointments for their visas. We still have guests coming to the Airbnb. Uh, there's plenty of people right now flying to Puerto Vallarta. They've already clean. It's basically cleaned up there. There wasn't that much damage done other than a few stores. And like I said, some, some burning cars on the road because they were trying to block the roads.

Speaker 2 20:23

Many of the images that were coming out of Puerto Bayata have already been proven to be false.

Speaker 20:27

Well, most of them, most of gu to it. It was just a cartel throwing up, basically a tantrum. You know, after their, their top guy got caught and thinking that they could derail the government and also thinking that it would, it would work to instill, you know, fear in people of, of leaving their houses and everything else. Because historically that has worked in the past, like the government would essentially back down, um, if the cartel did things like that. And what they're finding is now, it's not really working. And what we're seeing is that they're likely also going into hiding or at least getting a lot, you know, lower profile. And that's another reason why we're not likely to see any attacks like this in the future. I think if, if I'm talking about, you know, just the intentionality here, they were getting, you know, too big for their bridges essentially. So these guys were, were getting, um, yeah, were just getting way, way too big for, for comfort and between the US intelligence and me, uh. Mexican military, they said, you know what, we have to, we have to take him out because is it the best thing in the world to be at war with a cartel? No, absolutely not. But it's better at least to, to have them lay lower or fragment. And fight each other than it is to have,

Speaker 2 21:34

yeah,

Speaker 21:35

a lot of concentration of power.

Speaker 2 21:36

We got an interesting comment. We heard what sounded like either bombs or gun blasts that went, I assume on for a few minutes, figuring it was the military practicing about a half hour before sunup around 6:30 AM on Sunday, which we thought on. Interesting that you bring that up. Yeah.

Speaker 21:53

Those are probably like Molotov cocktails that they were throwing in stores or something.

Speaker 2 21:56

Yeah. No, no, because she says this was before they even. I don't like, I'm not sure of the timeline. Oh, maybe all I know is that at like 11:00 AM which is when we found out everything chaos had already broken out.

Speaker 22:08

Yeah. But maybe they were already doing stuff on the streets

Speaker 2 22:10

and I don't know. What I found really interesting was like they must have coordinated with the governor of Jalisco and he must have known that this was happening because they already have extra troops here. They have extra law enforcement in Halco right now. He did the announcement last night. Nobody worry. We've got extra military from other states. Mm-hmm. In school. I mean, they cleaned up and blocked it down fast.

Speaker 22:31

Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:31

So it was a very coordinated effort. Um, but I think that,

Speaker 22:35

and they knew what was about to happen

Speaker 2 22:35

too, and they knew what was about to happen, but when they got

Speaker 22:37

that

Speaker 2 22:37

guy, but I will say like the general consensus is just like shock because nobody saw this coming.

Speaker 22:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:44

At all. Um, so that, I think that's the general consensus is just shock. Um, like what they did, what, like everyone was very surprised. That the Mexican government and the Mexican military even did this. A lot of people are trying to figure out why we'll leave that up to the experts. It's not for us to figure out. We just wanted to let you guys know like, we're safe. Our guests are safe. Uh, clients are safe friends and family that we know in the area are safe. Uh, we did see a couple of burnings of businesses, but a lot of times people on the internet were saying like, they're just torching everything. And no, that's not the case. So usually the way that it works from our understanding is what they do decide to. Uh, vandalize is very strategic. So for example, you have to, it's

Speaker 23:30

not like in the US

Speaker 2 23:30

literally, it's not like in the US where like a riot happens and literally everything's on fire and they can't get the city under control for weeks and they have to send in the National Guard. It wasn't like that at all. What happened here was they took out Elemental, which was like the top guy. They also took out the guy who did operations. For that entire cartel. And this was a cartel that wasn't just dangerous in Mexico, but one, some people think it's one of the most dangerous or organized crime organizations in the world, so they took out like seven of the top people. Basically, which also is very unusual. Usually they just capture them, but whatever. Um, um, and in the last few weeks they were beefing up security at Galleria Mall on Rafael San. Yeah, I, they've been planning this for a while, but it caught everybody by surprise. No one knew this was coming or that it was going to happen. And then I guess they had captured the guy, uh, but they tried to like break the guy free and then it turned his

Speaker 24:26

own people tried

Speaker 2 24:27

to his own people, tried to break him free, and then it turned into a shootout between. These guys and the Mexican military special operations forces, which are the ones who carried it out, and then they killed him and a bunch of other people while they were at it. And then that's when really they, the, the cartel people are started throwing a hissy fit. And then essentially what they do is that they will block roads. Um, and they will burn down businesses that are usually Oxo or like a bank, because those are the things that mess with logistics.

Speaker 25:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:00

Um, in the country. And then the entire, it's a show of force. It's show of force trying to make life,

Speaker 25:04

um. You know, more difficult so that the people will urge the government to basically leave them alone.

Speaker 2 25:09

Yeah. So, and then the idea entire point from our understanding is to try and stop the military or law enforcement from advancing on them. So that's why you saw, like in eight different states, they were blocking highways. And trying to block highways and things like that because they were trying to stop the law enforcement and the military from advancing on them, uh, during this operation. But yeah, like I said, in 24 hours, Mexico had it cleaned up and I was shocked. I was not expecting that, uh, personally, but the next morning they're like, Hey, all the, all the highways are open. All the airports are. I think the only airport that closed was Vallarta. Mm-hmm. Because Guadalajara was actually operating as normal the entire time he was listening to air traffic control

Speaker 25:54

on Sunday. Yeah. It was the airlines themselves that canceled some flights just as a precautionary measure, especially, uh, some, some American and Canadian airlines that happened. So they canceled flights and then a lot of them got rescheduled for like. Today. Um, I think they even had some flights yesterday as well, but they're rescheduling them for throughout the week. But flights are, are back. They're operational. They're, they're resuming. I mean, I can even look at, um, like the current, you know, if you, if you take a look at Flight Aware, I mean, this is what we were doing even on Sunday and they still had flights going in and out. But right now there's about six planes in the area of Guadalajara. Either taking off or landing like this particular moment. Um, so flight operations are completely resumed there. I believe this is Vita as well. There's a plane taking off. I don't know if they have inter international flights coming into VITA today or not.

Speaker 2 26:44

They said

Speaker 26:45

VTA

Speaker 2 26:45

was fully operational.

Speaker 26:47

Yeah. Okay. Here we go. Yeah, there's, there's one actually coming from Toronto. That's landing today. So it looks like even international flights have resumed, uh, actually into both airports as of today, or in a lot of cases, even as of yesterday. So it was really just like a. It was like a half day kind of thing where things are a little under control and they, they completely tapered it down and, and got it under control. Like, like we said, within 24 hours, it's already almost cleaned up, like including the wreckage and everything else. Um, this is not like a, Hey, you know, we're in grave danger. People are in danger. They're gonna start attacking civilians. Like that's just. News sensationalism that they're doing, and especially in the US because frankly, the US media does not want people thinking that Mexico is safe. They wanna sensationalize it as much as they can for ratings. And you know, we would also argue for other reasons as well.

Speaker 2 27:37

And by the way, one of our, uh, colleagues who's in Puerto Vata, she was, uh, live streaming the whole time. Well not live streaming. She was posting videos the whole time. Vata, we did hear kind of like conflicting reports of what was going on in Vallarta. We can tell you Lake Chip Paulo was pretty calm. There was a little bit of, um. Vandalism in HoCo.

Speaker 27:56

There was, yeah, there was

Speaker 2 27:57

one store and they blocked the road,

Speaker 27:58

I think one store in one bank

Speaker 2 27:59

at the time of your house. Yeah. And there was a little bit in Chapala and they blocked the road, which makes sense because those were main highways to Guadalajara. Um, so they had blocked those. Uh, other than that, everything was chill on the lake and we have friends, colleagues all over the lake. Who were, we were all checking in on everybody. They're like, nothing going on here in San Antonio. Nothing going on in Nah. But everybody was home, uh, basically to stay out of the way I was saying.

Speaker 28:25

Yeah.

Speaker 2 28:25

Uh, they had to do a code red to get everybody out of the way because there was, I mean, the military operation turned into. A cartel hissy fit, which, um, again, looks like the governments were prepared for. Uh, they knew that that was going happen.

Speaker 28:41

It's what, it's what happens. In fact, the same thing, I don't know if, I don't remember if this was, uh, because of specifically a hit on one of their people, but I know either last year or the year before that there was a similar incident where the cartel. You know, doing damage to property in Tijuana, I wasn't there, I was already in Guadalajara, but it was a similar kind of thing where like they, they, and even the, the government said, you know, stay in your houses today. And it was like a day or day and a half thing, and then everything returned completely back to normal. They're not taking prisoners. This is not. Uh, Al, Al-Qaeda. This is not,

Speaker 2 29:10

yeah. I equate it to a hurricane in Florida. I grew up in Florida where they have to tell everybody, Hey, this is the worst hurricane on the face of the earth, so that everybody stays home and stays out of the way, and then you don't have accidental deaths or collateral damage.

Speaker 29:24

Yeah,

Speaker 2 29:24

it was kind of like that where they were not going after. Civilians or tourists or any of that, do not believe that there's been one report of a civilian who got caught in the crossfire in alpa, which is where it really went down,

Speaker 29:37

where the operations

Speaker 2 29:38

happening. That's where, that's where the operation was happening. Um, that's where it really went down. But other than that, no civilians harmed other than obviously the anxiety and the, the fear.

Speaker 29:49

Yeah. I mean, we, we were, we were definitely, I wouldn't say we were panicking, but I was like. Hey, we, you know, let's make sure we just lock the doors. Let's make sure we have enough food. Like, we were definitely scared, right? 'cause we're like, okay, what the hell is going on? And there was very, you know, little access to information either. But that the reality of the situation. And so were our guests. I mean, they were a little frightened. In fact, they, they're Mexicans, but they had come from. From the us They're, they're living in the US now, and they were coming back here to vacation and, you know, not, not a super relaxing vacation when you can't really leave the house. Although we have a nice view, uh, as you can see. So maybe, maybe they did get to relax a little after all. I don't know. Um, but yeah, it's, it's more the, the fear, which is, you know, what, what they ultimately want. Um, of course they did instill a little bit of fear in people. But Mexicans are also very resilient people and stuff like this does happen. It's not a frequent thing. This is like a once in every maybe few years kind of thing. When the military does a big operation,

Speaker 2 30:45

I've people, I've seen people say, well, a lot of our Mexican friends have said they've never seen an operation this big

Speaker 30:49

because they don't

Speaker 2 30:50

usually

Speaker 30:50

go after

Speaker 2 30:50

because they don't usually do this.

Speaker 30:52

Yeah,

Speaker 2 30:52

right. The Mexican. So that's where people are like, what's going on? Because this is not like a typical thing. Uh, for the Mexican military or the Mexican government, uh, to do what they did on Sunday. So that's like the big question mark. Um, a lot of people have theories of like, well, there's a lot of foreign investment coming into Mexico. The economy's doing really well. Life is starting to get good in Mexico. The World Cup is in Mexico, um, in June. And that, you know, I guess there's incentive to start cleaning things up. Right? Um, and then, so that's the, that's the theory. Right now that everybody has, I'm

Speaker 31:28

sure that's a big part of it. Yeah,

Speaker 2 31:29

I'm sure it's a big part of it too, because, um. There's a lot of money, uh, in Mexico right now, and there's a lot of money coming to Mexico right now, and Mexico is trying to get on the world stage. And obviously, you know, the whole situation with the organized crime in Mexico, it's not a secret to anybody. Um, that is, that is a stain. And a lot of Mexicans, by the way, are like embarrassed when stuff like this happens. Um, to be clear because they're like, oh, here they go again. Like this one group of people in Mexico making us all look terrible or making it look like the entire country is a war zone when it's not. Or that Mexican people are okay with this stuff and they're not. Uh, so the Mexican people themselves, they hate. Uh, when stuff like this happens and then they hate it when, you know, a lot of the news or a, a lot of it turns into fake news or sensationalism, which is what we're seeing in a lot of, um, US and news, even in the,

Speaker 32:28

in the actual, like, so, you know, so-called legitimate, you know, news stations. Uh, yeah. Even there, it's not just social media. I mean,

Speaker 2 32:36

they're still replaying videos that have been debunked as fake

Speaker 32:39

Yep.

Speaker 2 32:39

On major news networks in the United States and Europe. Uh, so they hate it when that stuff happens because it puts a stain on Mexico. And Mexico is a wonderful country. The people are amazing. It's terrible that they have to deal with this. Um, you know, and there's, it, it's a country with so much to offer. Um, and Mexico is kind of like on this big precipice. Of change

Speaker 33:04

and being a, a global superpower

Speaker 2 33:06

and trying to position itself to be a global superpower. So, you know, that's probably incentive to start doing operations like this. I don't know. We're not in their brains. We have no idea. All that we're being told by our Mexican friends is, is if they've never seen anything like this. They've never seen the government or the military do anything like what they did on Sunday. Um,

Speaker 33:26

and I don't think they've seen blockades this either. Usually if there's a, a little blockade on the roads by, by these cartels or if there's, you know, uh, they're, they're burning a business or doing something like that, it's usually isolated to like a small, you know, either a town or a city. Like they, it has happened in Cancun before, but never in like the really touristy areas. They, they keep those safe. Um. And it's usually isolated. It's, it's a much bigger response. It's a response on the scale also because of the, the person that the government actually captured, which, like Amanda said, they never really do. One of the things that we've been getting asked a lot though is like, is Mexico still safe? Um, how do you feel about the safety here? My opinion is that this is from everything I've seen, and I've lived in Mexico for a total of almost six years now at different points in my life, and. I've never really felt particularly unsafe here. I mean, I'm trying to think of even an instance and I, I, I felt more unsafe, like, uh, at different, different points in time in like downtown San Jose, California or San Francisco, uh, or LA than I have ever in, in Mexico. Uh, and I'm, I'm like actually struggling to even find a time where I felt unsafe or threatened or anything of that nature. In general, like the people here, like Amanda said, they're very friendly. There is some of that organized crime, but that exists in the United States too. And the other thing that exists,

Speaker 2 34:50

this particular group was operating in 39 countries

Speaker 34:53

all over the world. Yeah. All

Speaker 2 34:54

over the world.

Speaker 34:55

And the other thing that exists in the US that you don't see here are the mass shootings and just like mass casualty events with a bunch of innocent people there. Like that doesn't happen here. It's, it's unheard of. Like when Mexicans hear stories about how, um, you know, children are. Are shot in schools in the US or how, uh, you know, there's like these, these crazy mass shootings and, and political assassinations and things like that. Even, they're like, wait, what? What do you, what do you mean? Um, 'cause that's not a common thing here. Yeah. I mean, the occasional governor or somebody does get taken out in Mexico. That happens occasionally, rarely. Right. Uh. But the, the mass shootings with massive casualties where it's just a bunch of innocent people involved.

Speaker 2 35:37

The only one I've heard of was like two weeks ago, no, two months ago at a soccer game. I forgot where in Mexico. But they were all involved in the cartel. It was a shootout between cartel security.

Speaker 35:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2 35:50

Um, so when you do hear about mass shootings like that, there's, you, there's elements of, uh, organized crime.

Speaker 35:56

It's, they're mainly going after each other.

Speaker 2 35:57

Yeah.

Speaker 35:58

But in the us like you don't know if you're going, God forbid you go into a movie theater and, and there's a guy there with, you know, unloading a machine gun. Like things like that don't happen here. So I generally do feel a lot more safe. The other thing, and, and I'm not saying that,

Speaker 2 36:11

I'm still shocked at how well coordinated the response was. Yeah. Shannon's saying we love it here. They are very competent and didn't need or want the USA in here. Um, they did share, it's came out that the, all the United States did was share some intelligence. That was it. But this was mostly the Mexican military that did it. I guess kudos to them.

Speaker 36:28

Yeah, me, Mexico has a very good military.

Speaker 2 36:30

Yeah.

Speaker 36:31

Well, it's just that up until now, they've not really wanted to use it. They've use it. They

Speaker 2 36:34

never done this. They've never

Speaker 36:34

not worried. Yeah. Also because it's, you know, it's, it's a very difficult, uh, battle situation. It's a difficult situation because the cartels here are so powerful. I mean, it, and maybe if when, and if we do a, a, a whole video on this, we can put in some footage. But if you just look at like. Some of the tanks and things that they have. I mean, you look at, uh, uh, at the cartel and their, um, their armored cars and military camo gear and RPGs and like, they, they don't use it again. They don't use this on people. Uh, when, when they do go battle, it's, it's basically with the either other cartels or

Speaker 2 37:10

with the

Speaker 37:10

government or territory, or with the government, but they, they've got. A, a literal, small army. So it's not like the government of Mexico could just move in and say, all right, we're just gonna wipe them out. Maybe in five years. Um, that's possible. But our theory is until the demand issue. Is fixed in the US and until people stop consuming illegal drugs in the US there's never really gonna be a permanent solution where there's no more cartel here. You the best we can hope for until then is perhaps that it's gonna be more fragmented. Uh, that there aren't, aren't gonna be such power strongholds well, where yeah, they're moving drugs into the us but there. Uh, doing it at, at a rate that is what we're seeing right now. There, there aren't, they aren't as violent as they're now in some places. Uh, there's not as much warring between, you know, between the different groups and also that they, uh, are not involved in a lot of these other businesses, which are arguably much worse. Oh, like extortion, rackets and human trafficking.

Speaker 2 38:08

Yeah.

Speaker 38:08

And

Speaker 2 38:08

so that's actually, that's actually an important part here that I forgot to mention. So basically what's come out is that not only. Was this a big, uh, blow to the management of this particular group of organized crime? But this is where the United States has been involved and Mexico as well, is that they've been sanctioning and shutting down businesses, uh, that they believe that this organized crime group was using, uh, in order in both countries, in both countries. In order to, um, launder money. Uh, so the, the way that it's being presented, it's like we took out basically the C-suite, uh, of this particular organized crime group. The guy has no successor, so what's probably gonna happen is the, the, the power. That they had is going to be basically broken up. Uh, and it's gonna go into smaller groups and things like that. Uh, at which point there is extra military right now in jco, which they announced last night. Um, they're like, code red lifted everybody. Go open your businesses. There's extra military and law enforcement everywhere. We haven't seen anything since Sunday. Everything's good. That's what they're telling us. So businesses are opening again and things, but they've also been taking a lot of big, um. Financial hits or financial blows.

Speaker 39:29

Yeah.

Speaker 2 39:29

And

Speaker 39:29

now that's part of the reason that the US declared them a terrorist organizations. Yeah. That they go, go after their finances and do I think that they're a terrorist organization? Sure. The difference though, between what I would say is maybe a pure, you know, terrorist organization, uh, like a lot of these groups that we're seeing in the Middle East, like Hamas, like Al-Qaeda, uh, is that. A lot of those groups are focused on instilling terror on the people, and that's their main goal versus the cartel is a business and that's their primary goal. Do they commit heinous acts and, and murders and, and, you know, civil unrest and terror? Occasionally, yes, they do. And you know, violence is part of the way that they. Enforce their own like rules of the game of their business. But that's not their primary purpose. They're not, they're not, their primary purpose is this, the primary purpose is money. It's not to instill a political ideology to go after a religion that they don't agree with, like a lot of these other groups. So do I think the designation is fair? I mean, sure, but I think that you have to look at everything with context and with a grain of salt and understand the nuance in it. Um, that these aren't just people that are, you know, going into tourist hotels and shooting them up. That's not a thing.

Speaker 2 40:35

Um, we're from Tampa, Florida, then two years in San Antonio, Texas. So if shit hit the fan in the US we could get out quickly to Mexico. I mean,

Speaker 40:46

yeah, I mean, you, you maybe could I, I know you mentioned, well, she's gonna hit the fan

Speaker 2 40:49

everywhere

Speaker 40:50

she mentioned she was, uh, she was in Zaban now. Yeah. I, I don't know if you're already living in. And, uh, in Mexico permanently, or you're just down here kind of part-time. But here's what I will say to people that think, um, you know, on the flip side of this, because there is a lot of, a lot of talk about how, how bad things are going in the us which is also my response to, um, to when people ask me, you know, is it safe in Mexico? Or, or do, do you still wanna live in Mexico? Yeah, absolutely. Because when you compare it to the economic instability, civil unrest, pro protests, riots, ice kidnappings, God knows what else is happening. There, uh, it's, it's, there's just a, I, I would say it's a much more unstable situation in the US but to, to address Shannon's point, yes and no. Yes. Maybe you'll be able to escape to Mexico when shit really hits the fan in the US and if, if you're not, you know, living here permanently already, or you don't have your, your residency already, um, that's okay. Yeah. She said she's never going back. Yeah, exactly. I'm assuming you have your temporary or permanent residence already, but for people that don't already have residence in Mexico and you do want a plan B, you wanna have that plan B before shit actually hits the fan in the US because guess who's gonna close their borders if things really go south? Well, they're already, no pun intended. Well, they're already

Speaker 2 42:03

doing, they're already doing it. 'cause remember you were supposed to travel this week. Mm-hmm. Um, for a conference in California. He canceled it, thank God. Um, but, but. They're already doing it. Like in the United States right now, I guess there's some sort of other government shutdown going on and they shut down, uh, TSA precheck and they shut down global entry. So they didn't have to do that because it doesn't take a lot of staff, uh, to have TSA precheck or Global entry if you don't know what global entry is. Uh, explain Global entry for those

Speaker 42:33

who

Speaker 2 42:33

do not know.

Speaker 42:33

Yeah. Global Entry is a program where you give them access to kind of your. More of your background, history, addresses, whatever. And then they,

Speaker 2 42:39

it's great for customs.

Speaker 42:40

Yeah, it's great for customs, although you do consent to a lot of, a lot of violations of privacy, arguably. Uh, but basically you, you're able to get approved, uh, as being a, you know, low threat person. Uh, that's a US citizen. And then you're able to go through the security and customs lines at, at land borders and, uh, airports and sometimes see seaports as well, a lot faster than the general population. So those programs are shut down. Um, that's a good point as well, Amanda, which is that the US is already, I mean, they're, they had. Talks about doing, doing away with dual citizenship. So you basically, if you're, if you're a US citizen and you have another passport and I gotta go soon, I got an appointment, you have a

Speaker 2 43:18

dentist appoint.

Speaker 43:19

Yeah. Um, but if you have two passports, you're gonna have to renounce one citizenship to, to stay a US citizen. Otherwise they're gonna strip you of that citizenship. They're, they're. Taking, uh, pulling back on some of the programs like that whenever they can, like during these government shutdowns to just make it more difficult for people to go overseas. But my initial point was actually about Mexico closing their borders.

Speaker 2 43:37

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 43:37

Like they're already making, uh, residency and, and moving here. More difficult if, if things were really as bad as a lot of these sensationalist media people say that, uh, they are. Then Mexico's requirements for residents would not be going up and up and up every year. Now, as a, as a retired individual, just one person needs almost $9,000 per month. I think actually a couple, they're asking for about $9,000 per month in pension just to be able to get permanent residents in Mexico. So if you, if you're not making almost six figures in retirement income or pension, or you don't have at least, uh, a little over a quarter of a million dollars us. In your bank account, then you're not even able to get permanent residency in Mexico. So that's a sign that it's actually becoming a much stronger and much more desirable country to move to. Which is why, not that it's

Speaker 2 44:29

going

Speaker 44:29

the other

Speaker 2 44:29

way around. Why? Yeah. Which is why some people think that now suddenly the government and the Mexican military. Did what they did

Speaker 44:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2 44:38

Uh, on Sunday, which again, most of our Mexican friends have said they've never done anything like this.

Speaker 44:43

Yeah. And I wanna circle back around

Speaker 2 44:44

Yeah.

Speaker 44:45

To what, what, what we were discussing with Shannon about like the, you know, hey, maybe my family or my friends or whoever else can just hop across the border to Mexico if things really go bad in the us. Mexico's gonna close their borders if that happens. Um, if it really gets that bad, they, they are able, just like the US has done to close the borders and say, you need a visa to come here. Um, you or you need to have residents or whatever. And the people that have residents are gonna be able to get in and everybody else is gonna be stuck in the us. I look at the US right now, like a big boiling frog situation and in that, and you can, you know, you can keep live streaming if you want. After I, after I bounce,

45:19

I

Speaker 2 45:19

gotta go.

Speaker 45:21

But if you look at the. The situation right now, it's really a boiling frog situation where it keeps getting more and more difficult to everybody except the, the top, you know, 1% of the top 1% in the us. Uh, and there's a lot of socialist policies that are, that are coming into play, especially in cities like New York and states like California. Uh, there's a lot of weird stuff happening and, you know, just like, just like you put the frog in the water and it doesn't realize that the water's boiling until the frog is dead. Well, unfortunately, that's the situation right now with the US and Western Europe. And Canada. Uh, and so I really encourage those of you that have been looking at getting your residence in Mexico, it is absolutely safe here and there's no better time to do it. Other than yesterday, right? So you can, you can book a call with us@entrepreneurexpat.com slash consult. We'll have links to that as well as to some other resources and free, free things goodies, uh, below this video here. You can check some of that out. Um, but I highly encourage you if you have been thinking about moving to Mexico, um, this is actually a sign of good things to come

Speaker 2 46:23

because they're actually

Speaker 46:25

doing something because they're so organized

Speaker 2 46:26

crime.

Speaker 46:26

So about they're doing something about organized crime. The government's taking action. I think it's gonna take a while. I think maybe in the next 4, 5, 6 years, things are gonna really start to, to become a little bit more controlled in that sense, especially as the US

Speaker 2 46:39

Yeah.

Speaker 46:39

I think is gonna have policies.

Speaker 2 46:40

A lot of Mexicans told us that too. Like obviously there's mixed feelings because it created a lot of chaos. But a lot of Mexicans also did tell us like, Hey, finally they're doing something finally. So that's another. Uh, opinion that, that we have heard. Um, and again, a lot of people just think it's because there's a lot of economic Mexico's improving as a country and they gotta get rid of. Some problems.

Speaker 47:05

Yeah.

Speaker 2 47:05

And it looks like they're trying to get rid of some problems. So Shannon, come out to Lake Chapala and come visit us at our office.

Speaker 47:12

Yep.

Speaker 2 47:12

Uh, since you are in and just do a day trip out to Lake Chip Paul. We'd be happy to meet you and connect with you. But we gotta go because Justin actually has a dentist appointment because everything's open again, uh, in our area. I gotta go, uh, cook and feed the rescue puppy. And, uh, we gotta go get some appointments for some of our clients, uh, consolute appointments and just get back to all the emails and dms and messages. We've gone in the last 24 hours. We just wanted to let you know we're safe. Everything's fine. Uh, so informative here in Millennia, we know there are drug lords live. We don't just go to their hood. Yeah, that's exactly the, you're

Speaker 47:49

not gonna go to to the ghetto if you're in la.

Speaker 2 47:52

Yeah,

Speaker 47:52

right? Yeah, it's the same, it's the same sort of thing,

Speaker 2 47:54

you know. So

Speaker 47:55

Jimmy says, it's so bad. Here in the US I'd rather take my chances in Mexico. Absolutely. And that's,

Speaker 2 48:00

I mean, Mexico got the chaos under control in 24 hours. Where

Speaker 48:03

have you seen that in the us

Speaker 2 48:04

And a lot of people, our Canadian friends was like, where? Have you seen that in the US and Canada in the last few years? That they get a city under control in 24 hours? Yeah, these guys got a whole country.

Speaker 48:13

So connect with us in

Speaker 2 48:14

24

Speaker 48:14

hours. Come visit our office. We're right here near Hako back, uh, at the base of Santos de Lago. There's a little plaza there. That's where you'll find our. Office. Uh, we'll have some more information about that soon. Come visit us. Um, come meet us in person. Stop by for a coffee. We can chat. Uh, book a call with us@entrepreneurexpat.com slash consult, or check out all the other free resources below this video. We'd love to chat more and help you with your journey, whether it's to Mexico or somewhere else. Uh, and yes, things are actually going to become. Better now, not worse. This is a sign of good things to come. Thanks so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you here, and we'll see y'all again very soon. Bye.