Hector Bravo UNHINGED
Official Hector Bravo Podcast
Hector Bravo UNHINGED
Bandits and Brothers: Life in the Border Patrol
Alex shares his remarkable 24-year career with the US Border Patrol, including his experiences with dangerous bandits, cartel operations, and cross-border cooperation with Mexican authorities. His journey from a young recruit to internal affairs special agent reveals the complex, often violent reality of America's border regions.
• Growing up in East Los Angeles and finding direction through law enforcement mentors
• The dangerous reality of "bandits" who prey on vulnerable migrants crossing the border
• Detailed insights into how cartels control "plazas" along the border, requiring payment from anyone crossing
• The untold story of Border Patrol Agent Robert Rosas' murder by a cartel crew
• Cross-border cooperation with Mexican authorities to capture fugitives wanted in both countries
• Perspective on border enforcement changes across five presidential administrations
• Transition to Internal Affairs and the challenges that led to early retirement
• Current work with Pacheco Advisory Group providing training on border operations and security tactics
Check out Alex's co-authored book "On the Line: Inside the U.S. Border Patrol" on Amazon and follow his work at pachecoadvisorygroup.com or on Instagram at pacheco_advisory_group.
hector. Bravo. Unhinged chaos is now in session. Welcome back to our channels, warriors. Today, another banger for you guys, this time 24 year career with the with the border patrol, us border patrol, I was gonna say california border patrol, but the border goes all the way. So 24 years of experience, with four years ending in internal affairs. Special agent, we have none other than alex. Alex. What up dude, what's up becker? Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it, bro. Thanks for coming through, bro. So 24 years is a long time man.
Speaker 2:24 years a long time, man, but it was, uh, it was a great career. You know I, yeah, started in 98 and I didn't know what I was going to be doing. Right, I didn't know. Have a direction in my life. You know I didn't want to go to college. You know I tried to play college football. Undersized lineman, you know, went the Juco route, Got hurt like man. What am I going to do? So I bounced around. You know I did bounced. I even started a partnership in a restaurant when I was young.
Speaker 1:bartended worked a lot of different jobs. Are you from San Diego? I'm from Los Angeles, you're from LA? Yeah so all of this stuff you were doing in LA, everything was in Los Angeles. Everything was in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I grew up on the east side of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley, a place called Bassett. If you're familiar with La Puente West, co. West cabina area, bassett is like a subdivision of la puente and that's kind of where I grew, not kind of that's exactly where I grew up. Um, didn't really know what I want to do and I had no idea that you know I'd be in a podcast or you know, talking about my life story. You know, 25, 30 years later, oh, that's the beauty of this man?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's a beauty, it's fantastic, but, yeah, I came into the Border Patrol not knowing what to expect. You know, honestly, assuming that man, I'm going to do a couple of years how old were you when you applied Twenty, twenty-three, twenty-four. I was twenty-four when I came on board and my process went really fast.
Speaker 1:I got hired quick. Where did you take the written examination? Like at a school or something, a hotel, where?
Speaker 2:did you take the written examination Like at a school or something, a hotel? No, in downtown Los Angeles. I was driving down with my girlfriend my wife now and we were coming to San Diego and we saw a billboard right for United States I'm sorry, us Customs special agent hiring. So I put in for the special agent test in downtown, took the test and then when I was there I saw a Border Patrol announcement. I was like what the hell is a border patrol right? And so I put in for it. I got hired in six months you haven't seen the movie.
Speaker 1:Uh, what is it? Born in the east, la, of course I saw the border patrol man they chase them over the hill.
Speaker 2:That's the only experience I had with the border, for I know nobody in it. You know, other than you know my, my abuelita, my grandma. When we were little she would, hey, come inside the meet. I was going to get you guys right.
Speaker 1:Right, but that's LA, though, because I'm used to it because I lived on border towns, so they're there.
Speaker 2:They were never. You don't see them in Los Angeles, correct, they didn't exist, right.
Speaker 1:So what was that was drawing you to it? Was it the uniform, the gun, the federal?
Speaker 2:job, job. You know what I was looking to get into law enforcement. I knew since I was a little kid I wanted to be a cop, right, you know, kids grow up playing cops and robbers. Yeah, they don't grow up playing. You know, banker and attorney Not that they're fantastic jobs and make a lot more than we do, yeah, yeah. But you know, I knew that's what I wanted to do. And you know what year was that? 94? Well, the alley riots were, I believe, 92. Yeah, I was 20 years old, um, so right around 92, 93, I said man where were you during?
Speaker 2:those riots at home. You know, I was at home. Uh, I was at home and a friend of mine, uh, was going to usc and I remember uh talking to her later and she had driven right past the intersection where they dragged um reginald denny, they hit him with a brick. Yeah, they hit him with a brick. Um, I can't remember the street, normandy and something, and maybe florence and normandy, and she had driven right past that while she was at school and I remember talking to her about it and I was like fuck man, that's fucking wild. I remember seeing the city's burn. Um, it was horrible. It was a terrible sight to see you know.
Speaker 1:So what was your mindset is like hey, I'm watching my city burn down. I would like to join law enforcement you know what?
Speaker 2:that's not the reason. Right, I did it. You know where I grew up. You know they're in bassett. We had alley county sheriffs. I know the homies, right, I had a bunch of gangsters that grew around me. Yeah, all guys from you know I'm not gonna mention the gang, I don't want to give them them props, but I'm there at the park where I'm, at, san Angelo Park, you see, all the homies are all smoking weed and doing their thing, right, and the cops would roll in and they'd see me. It's like what the fuck are you doing over here? Get away from those guys. A couple of guys that were cool in San Diego, pacheco. Don't go that route. Don't hang out with these dudes.
Speaker 2:I was in a troublesome kid, right, and then when I went to high school, a lot of my coaches were police officers, you know, and they were great mentors. One of them took me that's good, dude Dude. One of them took me on a ride-along and I was sold. There you go. He worked Alley County Sheriff's, he worked Century Station and I went out on a ride-along and I said this is what I want to do the rest of my life. It was adrenaline dumping and I was just sitting in the fucking car right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like I want to do this. This is what I want to fucking do that be a part of something bigger than myself. No, I'm glad you gave that portion of your life, man, because it's really a fine line what direction a man go.
Speaker 2:A young man goes either left or right, dude growing up, where I grew up, you know, I had a little kid. Name was johnny. You know we split the park together and I remember, uh, remember we got in a fight. We're like 10, 12 years old, yeah, we're gonna fight, stupid fight right, kicked him in the stomach, he falls down, he cries, you know stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And one of his it was like a brother or steel, he was like a veteran on, like old school veteran, and like the next day at the park hits me up. He's like, hey, you're the one that got in a fight with Johnny. I'm like, yeah, I thought he was going to kick my ass, right, and I think he just wanted to make sure that it wasn't some of the local homies. It was like a little kid, shit. So he was cool. But sadly I remember like a year or two later, I think the kid was like, I want to say, in eighth grade, ninth grade, he was killed in a drive-by. Damn, from my house, damn, you know. Another guy grew up with, you know his younger brother ended up doing a long stint shooting somebody.
Speaker 1:You know, I can't remember how many years 20 20 something, yeah, 20 something.
Speaker 2:Uh, another guy grew up with in my neighborhood a year older than me. Uh, we shared similar birthdays and we hang out. We were kids. Dude, he's been in and out of the penal system for as long as I can remember oh, it's real man. It's definitely real and's definitely real and yeah, you never know which path you're going to take. But I had great parents. There you go. Great childhood, Great, you know. Extended family Aunts, uncles, cousins.
Speaker 2:And great mentors that were coaches and you know I wasn't looking for mentors because I had my father, who was, you know, the most heroic person in my life. I didn. But those guys pointed me in a different direction, Like, hey, man, what about this? And I'm like you know what?
Speaker 1:I think it's something I want to do, and you know, you know, I think that's in us from tribal, from tribal. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like instilling guiding man in the right path. Yeah, and we need more of those people.
Speaker 2:Oh, bro, I didn't think we'd do this podcast, this type of mentorship Big time. You know, especially in you know, especially like in Latino neighborhoods growing up there's not a lot of I can't think of too many heroic law enforcement officers that that look like me. Growing up you had Ponch.
Speaker 1:Well, can they kind of move out of the you know, the hood or whatever they?
Speaker 2:kind of. But even on TV, you know, you had Ponch Rallo from CH, but he from chips, but he's kind of goofy, right, he wasn't like a superhero. And every time, every other time you see us on tv, you know, oh, he's a he's latino cop, but he's corrupt or he's crooked or you're like fuck you know, and you look, you look at like uh, you look at la pd, you look at alley county sheriff shit.
Speaker 2:You look at the border patrol. It's like 50, 60 percent first generation guys, latinos yeah, we're rolling deep bro, yeah, we're rolling deep, bro, yeah, we're rolling deep man, we're rolling deep for sure.
Speaker 1:So what did you end up joining? Was it because you mentioned customs and then Border Patrol? Which one?
Speaker 2:It's funny, I ended up joining the Border Patrol because they hired me quick, I think. Start to finish. Six months, bro, it was fast and I had been processing with other agencies for LAPD a year, year and a half. I wouldn't get past his part. Whatever the case may be right and it was a challenging time for hiring post-Rodney King era. But when I got on it was finally the Border Patrol and it's funny as I'm nearing the end of the graduations portion at the Border Patrol. Six months, five and a half, six months.
Speaker 1:The academy, the academy, yeah, where was? The location at charleston south carolina, was that your first time leaving california, first time leaving?
Speaker 2:california on an extended period and it was an eye-opener, bro. And was it humid? It was humid, it was hot. It was the first time I'd seen um, you know, growing up in socal all my friends were black, asian, white, latino. You don't look at different colors because you're in this environment, right? And it was weird, going out to like the city and you know there's the black portion of Charleston and there's a white portion of Charleston and that's it, you know, and they would intermingle. But it was weird to see these unofficial at least to me it would look like unofficial dividing lines, you know, and I get there and they're looking at me like oh, what is this guy like? It's weird like a brother with straight hair.
Speaker 1:What is he? You know, because everybody that I've interviewed to include my own experience is, when we get out of our element and experience like other ethnicities or stuff like that, it's like whoa, it's like an eye-opener it really is.
Speaker 2:It really is, but uh no it was a good experience and, at the end, how was the physical portion, physical training?
Speaker 1:I would imagine it's physically demanding dude it was demanding.
Speaker 2:You know, um, it's supposed to be the hardest federal law enforcement academy, partly because of the, the paramilitary type structure. Right, a lot of pt every day, uh, great pt instructors, and you have to learn a foreign language, that and the terrain that you guys operate. Yeah, I spoke spanish, so it was easy, but for, like my brothers that didn't speak spanish, yeah, they had to learn it before they graduated. You know, fluently or just okay, you have to learn it. That I taught post academy. So before you have to, you know, get out of the academy, go to the spanish and law test. Um, enough to communicate, understand the danger signal somebody's trying to kill you, somebody's trying to harm you and how to conduct some basic interview stuff. Put your hands up, don't move. What's your name?
Speaker 2:Manos arriba, manos arriba. What's your name? Where you come from, whatever the case may be, real basic stuff, almost like minimal conversational type of things, makes sense. Yeah, but you had to learn statutory, all the federal law and then immigration law, so it was kind of challenging. You know it was, but customs called me like two weeks before graduation. Hey, congratulations, you've been hired. Special agent, would you like to come on? I'm like fuck that right, I've already. I just finished the academy. I've been away from my for my family, been with my girlfriend. Man, I, I don't want to do this. Were you homesick? Oh, unbelievably, which I didn't think I'd be like it was. It was hard believe it or not first time moving away.
Speaker 2:You know, my family was very tight-knit, all the extended family, and I had my girlfriend, who's my wife now, and I. I was devastatingly homesick, which was which was weird. Like now I go away and I'm like, you know, were you questioning your decisions? I think, think initially, yeah, questioning my decisions. Like man, what the fuck am I doing here? You know, am I going to make it through this? But I knew I would, right, you know, one foot in front of the other and then afterwards, like now, I look back and I'm like man, I'd like to go back to Charleston.
Speaker 1:It was a good experience. You want to be stationed?
Speaker 2:at no um, in fact. Uh, when I got my mom got the letter, she opened it for me. She calls me at work, I'm bartending she's hey, mico, I think the board show hired you, but you're going to texas and I'm like I'm not even. I didn't even rush home. I was like fuck this, I'm not moving to texas, I'm not leaving california, right? So I get home, I open up the envelope and my initial look it says it said brownfield, brownfield, right, california. But I just saw like brown in my, for whatever reason, my brain registered like brownsville, texas. And I'm right. I put it down and I opened back up and I'm like brownfield, california. So I opened up the thomas guy. Remember the old thomas guy?
Speaker 2:yeah where the fuck is brownfield boom. I'm like, oh shit, san diego, california, yeah. And then I called him back and I said I'll take the job because I like San Diego.
Speaker 1:So I was just talking to somebody that said Brownfield, uh border patrol, and I confused it with Brownfield air airport. But no, they're saying more by El Campo and dozer.
Speaker 2:No, no no, you're, you're, you are right. The old Brownfield station the original was airport. Right at the base of the airport, okay, at the brownfield. Then they moved it further south, over Tanya. It's right on the border fence, in fact. Do you know where CBX is? You're familiar with it, give or take. There's a bridge that goes over. It's right on the other side of the TJ airport, okay, and they have that area and they also have the 94 checkpoint.
Speaker 1:I go shooting over there man Pink Gate, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saw your video. Yeah, I've gone shooting. That's a, it's cool.
Speaker 1:Old school place. It's cool. Yeah, it's a good place.
Speaker 2:Nice and open.
Speaker 1:So Brownfield Airport, that's where you was your initial duty station yeah Off of Britannia.
Speaker 2:It was near the border fence.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And showing up. You know what it was it was, but I'll say this the field training unit at least in my opinion, the field training unit at brownfield station was more challenging physically than the academy. Oh, I bet they kicked your ass. I bet we had an sf guy and uh, another another training officer, real skinny guy, and uh, their job was to take you on the mountain and smoke you and smoke you like I never spoke. That was their job, that was your job they would. They wanted you to touch every canyon, walk through every hit, every you know seismic sensor. And we worked all time out.
Speaker 1:So time is right across from donovan prison, right across from donovan prison, bro, I've, I've ran up that fucking mountain numerous times. Okay, so all the way up doghouse and all that all the way. There's this House and all that stuff, all the way to those little satellites up there.
Speaker 2:So those canyons that's Dog House up there. So those canyons, especially like Buttewig and Copper Canyon. These are those canyons where you drop down an hour, you're doubling it back up Hour down, two hours up, two hours down, four hours up. You know sagebrush, real thick vegetation. It's rough man and they kicked your ass. But it's for a reason because if you're down at the bottom of a canyon, hector, I need to know how to get to you an injured agent, an injured migrant, whatever the case may be right, you'll be able to get down to get to them and save them you know.
Speaker 1:So what was this portion, man? What was this portion? Like, uh, like a on the job training?
Speaker 2:no, you get out of the academy and you go to your, you report to your field training unit, your whole team goes and you get split up and they do like an area orientation because it's a massive area. I mean it is massive so you have to know the zones, you have to know the mountain, the mesa, all the different assignments before you get released onto your own. So you go from like a station training unit and then you get assigned to your shift and you have a field training?
Speaker 1:Yeah, your FTO training unit. And then you get assigned to your shift and you have a field training uh, yeah, your fto. How long is that, that initial portion of the gosh?
Speaker 2:of the orientation, I'm gonna say three months, fuck. I'm gonna say three months, damn. And then you do like another three months, because once you graduate from the well, would you have the old school broncos. The old school broncos, yeah, they even had a few blazers, right. Right, when I came in and, uh, we had some vietnam era scope trucks. You know these night vision trucks. So the new agents have no idea what I'm talking about, because they got like fancy scope trucks. Dude, we had this vietnam era scope truck that you have to sit in the back and move the scope with your feet. You're exposed to the elements and you have to move it, man, like a turret. You'd have to wear uh earphones or or head you know your ear protection, because it was so loud pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And you're sitting here looking through this crappy night vision uh screen as you're, as you're rotating around. So you have a driver, you know you drive yourself.
Speaker 1:So you drive and you scope at the same time, or you park it.
Speaker 2:No, you drive you park to, like the 56 scope site, specific scope sites. There were some areas like, uh, an area called the white cross yeah, a lot of bandit activity where, um, you'd have to have a white cross scope, which was permanent there all the time, and a backup, you said bandit activity.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I'm somewhat aware of what a bandit is, but could you like explain to the crowd what it? What are?
Speaker 2:I'll preface it with this Look, the border's a very violent place. There's an ebb and flow, right, depending on the times and generations and whatnot. It's always violent. Sometimes it's super violent, sometimes it's less violent, but it's always violent. There are groups of individuals out there that patrol the border looking to exploit, extort, kidnap migrants. They assault them, they sexually assault them. It's horrific. On which side of the border do they do this? On both sides of the border. Oh man, yeah, I supervised one of the teams and that's what we did. We investigated these types of bandit activities and it was horrific. I mean, it was absolutely horrific. If you're robbing and kidnapping the poorest of the poor, the poorest in the world, you're a piece of shit. I mean, you're a piece of shit anyway.
Speaker 1:But it was really bad.
Speaker 2:It's almost like my brain doesn't want to believe it, bro, but like I trust you and I know it's a thing there was believe it, bro, but, like I know, I trust you and I know it's a thing there was and I'm no longer in. But yeah, our bortech guys, our SWAT team, yeah, yeah, unbelievable, oh, they're fucking badass. They're fucking badass, right. Yeah, fuck you bortech guys, fucking badass. Um, they recently smoked a bandit on the us side of the border.
Speaker 1:Okay, within the last year. Okay, you're right. You're right, and I didn't read about that. You're right, it was like a sniper. I think it was a sniper the sniper canute him um.
Speaker 2:He was, you know, trying to try to rob him at a good point on the us. This was under the previous administration, when the border was was overran, right, right, um. So yeah, yeah, bandits out there, damn dude.
Speaker 1:That's so fucking wild, bro. I mean bandits. We have pirates in somalia, so I guess, yeah, still got that old school shit going. Yep, yep, for sure these bandits. How do they maneuver man Horses, dune buggies, quads, trucks?
Speaker 2:You know what? I've never seen them on horses. You got to understand, like with the Mexican cartels, right, yeah, if you cross the border, you got to pay plaza. Plaza is your toll, yeah, and if you don't pay your plaza, you don't pay your toll, you can't operate there. So the bandits will be out there partly as enforcers, especially if it's a narco area. Don't move aliens in my narc area because you're going to bring too much attention, right? So they'll be out there actively looking for individuals that didn't pay their toll.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this actively looking for individuals that didn't pay their toll. Let me ask you this Do the cartel I understand they own plazas or they control plazas, yeah Do they only control the point of entrance, meaning like where people walk in and out or drive in and out, or do they have like long lengths of the whole?
Speaker 2:entire fence. Well, you got to remember. The Border Patrol doesn't work at the ports of entry. You have from, like let's just say, otama, support of entry to tecate port of entry but what does the cartel consider?
Speaker 1:their plaza, the, the port of entry or the whole fucking?
Speaker 2:thing, the whole fucking thing you go out towards, like, uh, rumorosa, yeah, on your campo that's wide open, there's no, there's no port of entry. So they consider that, hey, this is my pl. They own that area because that's where they're going to bring in the special interest aliens, the high dollar migrants, the Chinese, the people from the third country nationals who you're charging India and shit, Dude, when I was in and this was when I was in.
Speaker 2:I think the average rate was like $65,000, $75,000 per. For Chinese it has to be over $100,000 per person. That's a lot of money and the cartel have a monopoly over that. They control it. Oh they, yeah. They control the human traffickers. They control the human smugglers. Everything you have to pay plaza.
Speaker 1:If you do anything illicit on the us mexico border, you got to pay plaza and I know this is kind of a dumb question, but what would happen if you go against them?
Speaker 2:they're gonna kill you right, and that's what the bandits are out there for. Okay, you know they have, you know they've killed agents on the US Army, have they? Oh, rosales, robert Rosas.
Speaker 1:Rosas Robert.
Speaker 2:Rosas 2008, 2009. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was murdered. And the interesting about that crew my crim squad, my criminal alien squad we were, you know, we did a lot of like special cases for for the patrol Right and one of the things that they'd asked us had tasked us with was hey, find out what's going on with this migrant kidnapping out in Campo Now there were other groups out there working the migrant kidnapping this wasn't my case, but we're out there responding and basically what this migrant kidnapping crew was doing was they would pretend to be smugglers and they'd say, hey, you know what, hector? You paid 10 grand to come across, we'll do it for five. We have, we have a special place to cross. Come out to the border. We walk out. We say, hey, there's bandits out here. Hey, hector, wait right here, I'll be right back, I'm gonna go check for bandits.
Speaker 2:Of course they come back, ball the clobbered up, and they would. They would do some extreme violence. They would fuck people up immediately, come back, knock you upside the head and say, all right, hector, call your family, tell them you made it to San Diego and to send them money now and if not, they'd start beating the crap out of you. They'd sexually assault the women. So, like if you imagine, like if you have a female family member that's crossing the border and you've already vouched to the smuggler, you're going to pay for her, and she sent you a video of her crying the guy's groping her sexually assaulting her.
Speaker 1:That's like a fucking nightmare, bro. What the fuck?
Speaker 2:are you going to do?
Speaker 2:I'm going to send the money immediately, right, yeah? And then what do they do? All this happens on the south side. They kick them north, they turn them into the border patrol and they tell hey, border patrol this. So this kidnapping crew had lost their night vision goggles and their boss was a murderous bastard. And he told them I'm going to kill you, guys, if you don't bring my night vision goggles back.
Speaker 2:Now there's much more to the story, but this will be a whole separate podcast. Right and again, not my case, but this is kind of what I know about it and they went and they targeted Robert. They set him up to burglarize his vehicle and he caught them in the act. And they went and they targeted Robert. They set him up to burglarize his vehicle and he caught them in the act. And they had a Mexican standoff and Robert was murdered. And this was, make no mistake about it. This was a cartel crew that was involved in narcotics trafficking and human trafficking, who murdered a border patrol agent on the US side of the border. And you would think this would be national news. You'd think there'd be fucking documentaries about it. Nada, bro, Nothing. And you would think this would be national news.
Speaker 1:You'd think there'd be fucking documentaries about it. Nada bro, nothing Bro. I'm like in shock right now that this story even came up, dude, because I believe he was a CO prior to becoming a border patrol agent.
Speaker 2:He was from the Valley. He was from El Centro. Yeah, he was from the Valley.
Speaker 1:yeah, so, like of course you know, it's a well-known small city and yeah, that mountains.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but, bro, I didn't even know that you knew about that situation or that we were going to talk about this. You know what? When we started talking about bandits, and you know when you?
Speaker 1:talk about bandits, so that was kidnapping. That's what transpired. That's what transpired, correct, fuck bro. So, like dude, that's not small, that's major. Now, major, exactly. So what kind of feedback was it from the border patrol?
Speaker 2:as an agency. Insofar as like the response to what happened.
Speaker 1:What was the response?
Speaker 2:It was all hands on deck, every agency that you can imagine, because they caught the killers. They caught every single one of them except the main leader, but as far as we know, they made him disappear. The cartels realized like what?
Speaker 1:the fuck did you do? But what happened?
Speaker 2:did you guys put more officer, more agents and you know they not only did they put more, more agents border they, they brought all the intel assets together, they you know we have a fantastic liaison program with mexico okay, we have a great relationship with them and you know they got them on board. And you know they they tracked them.
Speaker 2:It doesn't take long, huh? They found everybody, in fact, the former chief of police of Tijuana, a guy named Alejandro Larez, who's a good friend of mine he's like a brother to me and he's the one who caught the very last one of Tijuana. And the guy confessed on video as to everything happening. I've seen the video. It's horrific.
Speaker 1:Again, not my case, but every Border Patrol agent knows about this. Where did they get charged? At US? Us? Are they in US custody? Yeah, they're in US custody. Didn't even know that, dude. Yeah, they're in.
Speaker 2:US custody. Yeah, they got whatever. I think there was a minor that was there. Brian Terry was also killed. Brian Terry there's murdered out in Nogales, arizona I've worked out there and there's Rip Cruz out there.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, consider becoming a patron, where you will get first exclusive dibs on the video before it airs to the public and you'll get to ask the guests special questions that you have in mind. So that's also another way to support the channel. Thank you, guys. Appreciate all of you. Keep pushing forward. Make sure you hit that link in the description below Band.
Speaker 2:All of you keep pushing forward. Make sure you hit that link in description below. Bandit slash, rip, cruise and what they do is they. They rip off other, other, other drug smugglers.
Speaker 1:Bro, this is a whole nother entity that I really didn't know, dude.
Speaker 2:Oh man, it is, it's horrific. I mean, agents have been, have been ran over trying to lay out spike strips, you know taking spike strips, you know taking these guys out.
Speaker 1:I think there was another one that got hit in the head with a rock and killed up in like that area.
Speaker 2:Oh, the guys get hit in the head all the time. I can't recall if there was one hit in the head that was killed. I think there was um, but you know they've been shot, they've been ran over, um and all you know, over the over the border violence.
Speaker 2:You go out in a single man unit yeah, yeah, when I, yeah, when I was in, and I think that's still the case. It's such a massive area. It's like we're here in downtown San Diego, right, and all of a sudden you get a sign and let's just say downtown San Diego is zone one. All right, you got the north side, I got the south side, that's it. That's it, dude. That's sketchy, bro. And then you're out on foot and I'm telling you, your nearest backup sometimes is two hours away, depending on the person's level of conditioning too. You know, some guys might take them 10 minutes to get down to you, some might take 25. They'll get there, or what? If you're uphill, it's even worse. I've worked out in Arizona on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation, where it's a two, two and a half hour drive to the border be honest, bro, was there any time?
Speaker 1:well, I'm sure happened often. Where you were, you were out there and you're like man, this is eerie or this is sketchy oh, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It's a sketchy area. You know you're working pitch black at night by yourself. Um, you get a uh seismic. We have these seismic uh sensors all over the place. We call them bugs. One of the bugs goes off and canyon x. You know, you wait at the top of that canyon because you know that they're funneled in. They got to come out, this canyon, and I'm laying there by myself. Right, I'm hiding the bush. You know, one, two o'clock in the morning, pitch black, it's freezing cold. It's me, and at the time, with my beretta right, beretta 40 cal, I got no long arm. I'm sitting there and you can hear the whispers, you can hear these groups coming up.
Speaker 1:Oh, hell, no bro.
Speaker 2:You don't know if it's a group of migrants, you don't know if it's drug smugglers Well, san Diego has not that many drug smugglers, but, like in Arizona, you didn't know what the hell you were dealing with. Right, and it could be backpackers. And you're laying there and as you get closer you I mean, depending on the breeze you can smell, you know human sweat, you can, you can hear people talking and then you just pop, you just surprise them, oh, gather up here on the ground, and then you're hoping your partner's on the other side or you're, you're arresting, you know 20, 30 people by yourself that's like the wild west man dude.
Speaker 2:I've been out there with groups, I kid you, not in arizona, where they were in excess of 100 people no fucking way oh ask any border patrol agent that's worked in the late 90s, 2000s, even now.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, out in arizona, the to res. At a certain time period, two, three guys, you're taking down groups of 100. What were you doing in arizona? You had a duty change. No, so we get detailed a lot. Okay, so you get detailed a lot.
Speaker 2:So I started a brownfield station. That was my station for a very long time, um, but I had a unique career, like 17, more or less 17 of the 20 years I did with the border patrol. I was either on a task force or assigned to what we call an intel unit. So I was a plainclothes guy, right. But early on, you know, I got, uh, temporary detail to el centro galaxico. What were you doing in el centro galaxicoalexico? Again, so this was great. No, no, no, this was uniform. This is when I was in uniform. Yeah, they did this operation gatekeeper. Where they were. You know, we didn't have the manpower, there was no infrastructure. They were shutting down the border. So when we shut down San Diego, as best as we could. Douglas. Those are the six stations I've been to. Oh, and Tucson, which was my favorite.
Speaker 1:The ones you just stated in Arizona. Right now are they directly on the border, All of them. Those are all on the border right there.
Speaker 2:Well, casa Grande and Tucson Station are not on the border. Okay, you have to drive through the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation. Nogales on the border. Okay, douglas on the border. A Nogales on the border. Douglas on the border, ajo, not technically on the border, but it's so far south into the Indian Res I think we were, I want to say, 40 minutes from the border.
Speaker 1:So knowing what you know in your experience. It differs On this side of the border. San Diego differs from El Centro and Calexico. It differs from Nogales. What about on that side of the border, insofar as what the you're talking about terrain, you're talking about what culture or society in mexico? Like fuck I'm talking about, like tijuana tecate it, they're all different.
Speaker 2:They're all different. They're all different. You know um, the people, the, and you still have this border culture. Well, if you haven't lived on the border and we do, right, there's a true cross border culture. Half my friends live in tijuana and work here. They, they go back and forth. I spend a lot of time in tijuana uh, not as much as I used to, but, but I still go down there, right, and it's, it's just, it's it's. It's an experience unlike anywhere else, anywhere else, but we're a major metropolitan city sending with tijuana, you go to nogales, nogales, arizona and nogales, sonora are small cities. It's like putting like, maybe like san isidro or smaller, on the border right, surrounded by nothing. Uh, those, that's the one I can really speak to, because that's the one border station that I worked at, you know now I know when you get to juarez mexico.
Speaker 1:I've never fucking been there, but from what I've seen on the news, juarez seems to be off the hook.
Speaker 2:I've never well. I went to Juarez when I was little. My father and his family were originally from Juarez, but I have family in El Paso, but I haven't worked. I really don't know much about the Texas border because I never worked so. Arizona and this way. Arizona and this way.
Speaker 2:Texas border and this way arizona, this way texas border you got the rio grande right and you got south texas. You have it's just a whole different dynamic. So how would you? Um, how was your experience in in arizona different when I was in tucson? I just become a supervisor. I get sent out there in 45 days. In tucson, arizona, I learned more about being a Border Patrol agent and supervisor in 45 days than I did in like a year of being a Border Patrol agent in San Diego. It's like a crash course. It's nuts. Car chases every night, literally every, sometimes at least two a night. Right Car chases, massive groups. You know small ones, 20, big ones, a hundred. You came across narcotics, marijuana backpackers, not every night, but two or three nights. A lot of dope. Are they carrying a lot of dope? Oh, dude, anywhere from 200 to 2,000 pounds.
Speaker 2:Like bundles on their fucking back Bundles backpackers.
Speaker 2:There's this one place in Arizona called TB Ranch, there's Tres Bellotas Ranch, and it's right on the area where Nogales and Tucson meet. It's kind of like that no man's land, right. And they would come up this ridgeline, dead horse maybe, I can't remember the name of the ridgeline and it was this place called TB Ranch. And I remember laying in one night with a bunch of the San Diego agents right, we knew there was some dope coming through. They came in on horseback, they looked, knew there's some dope coming through. They came in on horseback. They look like mattresses on the back of the horses holy shit, dude. And we had to let them go. You know why? Why, if we're out there on detail, all we have is our little pea shooter, 40 cals. A couple guys had shotguns because there's not enough m4s to go around at the time. Right, yeah, and uh, two of the guys were armed and we had to let them go. Like, you just sit there, you're laying in and you're like, nope, it's not worth it.
Speaker 1:Oh, you hadn't let them go, meaning there was not a confrontation. There was not a confrontation.
Speaker 2:Now they got caught the next day. Right, Because once you're committed, you're committed.
Speaker 1:I'm not even knocking you, bro. That's strategy, bro, it's survival.
Speaker 2:Yo, it's strategy, Absolutely, absolutely, you know, hey, and a good. If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.
Speaker 1:Not only that, man. There's not enough dope in the world to equal a human life.
Speaker 2:No, not at all, not at all. They got caught because we knew they were committed to a certain point. Right, you got to check your ego and be smart, right. So you know what? Don't have that tombstone courage, correct, let them go, yeah.
Speaker 1:And if they don't get caught, you know, I get it, I totally get it, bro. Yeah, survival, exactly. You mentioned supervisor man, what is like the rank structure from like regular Border Patrol agent and then you move up to what's next.
Speaker 2:When I came in, obviously you have training and you have Border Patrol agent At the time we had senior patrol agents, okay. And then first line supervisor is like a sergeant for us Were you a sergeant? I was a sergeant rank and then lieutenant, which is for us is a field operation supervisor at the time I think they call them watch commanders now, but when I came in they were field operation supervisors and then you have the deputy patrol agent in charge, who's like the captain of the station, and then the patrol agent in charge, which is like the chief of a station, if you will. And then, of course, we have the, the management, uh, headquarter, element with assistant chiefs, deputy chiefs, as a sergeant, are you still in the field?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, as a lieutenant, are you in the?
Speaker 2:field. No, no, huh, no. I I didn't want, I did not want to promote past first liner. I, I am a true I would want to be in the ac row. I, I'm a true knuckle dragon mouth breather. I really am, and I loved it. I did the acting stuff for a couple times. I didn't like it.
Speaker 2:I'm not a desk guy, I'm not an admin guy, and there are guys that are really good at those positions. God bless them, because I don't want to do that. But once you go past first liner turning your gun, turning your badge, you don't need it. You're not going to arrest bad guys. You're not fighting the crime. You can do the job with a rolled up newspaper. I like being in the field, you know you ask any team. I supervise any team I was with. I was out there with the guys all the fucking time.
Speaker 1:From the beginning of the shift to the end of a 20-hour shift. I'm there with them. Know, I know you mentioned you did a lot of cross-border work. Yes, how did that?
Speaker 2:play, uh play out. So early on in my career, you know I I got detailed to uh our intelligence unit. Right, we had an intel unit and I was, I was doing interviews. You know I get spanish skills and I had a knack for for getting people to tell me. You know what I needed to tell them. I just I'm just nice to people, I talk to them hey, you want some water, you want a sandwich, you want whatever? Me tiran, no sopa. They tell me everything, bro. They tell me the whole.
Speaker 1:Were there tryouts or just kind of like hey, I know Alex is good at this, you know what I was already down there teaching post academy Spanish and law.
Speaker 2:I knew some people I put in obviously there's a process Correct, but there's also another process, right, you guys got to do it for formalities. Yeah, I kind of knew I was already going to be going there, right, and I got there and my career was never the same and what ended up? This is another thing that might blow you away a little bit, because it blew me away. So I'm answering the phone at the Border Intelligence Center, I'm just a phone guy, boom, doing intel, but answering, and I get a call from the Mexican Attorney General's office. They're here in downtown San Diego Say Alex, this is Miguel Mendez with PGR.
Speaker 2:Can you run this guy for me? Yeah, he's a previously deported, blah, blah, blah. Hey, can you go find him for me? And I'm like well, why do you want me to find him for you? He's got a murder warrant out of mexico. Fuck shit, all right, go out, do some surveillance, find where his vehicle's registered, to go out there. We see the guy, he's here without, uh, legal documentation, and uh, and we arrest the guy and I call up miguel and I go hey, dude, we got him. And he looks, he goes, you got him. I'm like, yeah, he was here undocumented. Where do you want me to turn him over. So we took him over to the old whiskey too, and he had a murder warrant out of jalisco.
Speaker 2:He's the first one I caught and that opened up this, this whole world of going after a few years from mexico. They were wanted for murder, kidnapping, major narcotics trafficking that were living in the united states illegally. That nobody was looking for, bro, there's no, there's no record of them in Interpol. There's no Red Notice, there's no NCIC shit. There's nothing like that. It was because I knew you and you knew me and you knew that I'd go out and hunt these guys down and that stayed with me through a big portion of my career. So what?
Speaker 1:holy shit, dude. What resources were you allowed to use? Could you use local PD? Could you use US Marshals? Didn't need them. Didn't need them. Now. What legal jurisdiction did you have chasing these guys down In the eyes of the United States.
Speaker 2:Think about this In the eyes of the United States, they're here as undocumented migrants. That's what we go after, for he doesn't have a legal right to be here. We'd arrest him in the eyesics. It's an administrative violation. We'd get him to do to sign what was called a voluntary return. Do you want to go back to mexico? Sign right here. I'll have you back in five minutes, bro. Get him to sign and he would walk back into mexico. Uh, there used to be this gate called whiskey too, right like this jurassic park type of gate, right, and we would turn him over and you'd have inami, which is mexican immigration, waiting.
Speaker 2:There was he in handcuffs while he was handcuffed, shackled, the shackle yep, walk him up to the gate, and that's where every migrant would go through at the time is he.
Speaker 1:Are our civilians able to see a handcuffed guy walking around, or you guys put a coat over him? No, they'd see a handcuffed guy walking around.
Speaker 2:A handcuffed guy and we usually did it undercover, at dark. There weren't a whole lot of people, you know, late at night, sometimes during the day. But what are you guys wearing? Civilians civvies. I got my badge, you know, and that was it. Two, three of us go drive and what are these?
Speaker 1:what are these suspects?
Speaker 2:demeanors, cool, defeated angry the great thing about it is I don't have to tell this guy he's wanted for murder, but he, he knows he's wanted for murder, but I didn't tell him. He thinks he's getting arrested for immigration violations. Oh okay, it's almost our version of a wall stop, holy shit, dude. Some of them knew. Some of them knew. They knew. I had one guy piss himself when he got there, when he saw the cops that came from him. Oh yeah, he threw his head in the ground like he was freaking out the.
Speaker 1:Mexicans are pulling him through the fence.
Speaker 2:Somebody may or may not have been pushing him through, but it was— Bro, that's gangster shit, that's like Wild Wild West shit. It was Wild Wild West. And you know what's funny, when we were doing it it happened so often that it didn't document it. We didn't document it, no, no. And so far as me, historically, thinking down the road, like people say, how many did you get pacheco? I'm like I have no idea. How many do you think in the teens? 14, 15 murders, that's a lot, it's a lot, that is a lot. One is a lot, it's a lot. Um, hands-on, of those 14 or 15, at least 10 here in southern california the other ones we coordinated their transfer from New York.
Speaker 2:We got an assassin in Sandusky Ohio, transferred him to the border and then turned him over, whether it be to TJPD, to the BEPOs, the state police or the feds or the military.
Speaker 1:Now, what habits or routines did they develop? I mean, did they all live lavishly, live poorly, hiding out no, I out no.
Speaker 2:I'll say this the reason we were able to catch the vast majority of these guys was the cops out there would do good field interviews and say you get stopped, hector, and you're with Joseph, joseph's the guy we're looking for. And you get stopped for a vehicle, stop, but Joseph's kind of hinky. So that cop decides on that vehicle. Stop. To sayctor, bravo, got a citation for speeding and joseph was in the car with him, right, and it's just a good fi. So to my, to my brothers in blue out there, do good fis the guy's hinky, write it up, because you never know. This fi from three, four years ago was the key. This is how I found this guy. He's rolling with hector joseph's not documented anywhere, but he's hector's homie. Let's follow hector. Wow, you know.
Speaker 2:So we were able to catch a lot of guys. You know we would do our deconfliction through text, we do our deconfliction through lecc or the nin at the time and nothing, none of these guys. There was like one guy. Um, you did mention the US Marshals. There was a couple of marshals that did help us, especially the coordination of the turnovers, or they also had some of the similar warrants. But you know we were able to go out. You know we had access to kind of do what we wanted.
Speaker 1:Now flip the script on me, because recently we had an inmate escape from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations by the name of Cesar Hernandez. He fled to Tijuana. Flipped the script. What does that look like? Same exact way. You contact contacts down there and say, hey, this is who we need. You know it all depends.
Speaker 2:You know, I worked in our foreign liaison unit for one year. I did liaison for most of my career but I was officially just doing liaison work for one year. So these pds, tjpd, the state police, the investigators, they'll have liaison guys and we have direct comms with them, and especially the border shots, a great liaison program, as does dea and, you know, hsi. They have people embedded at the consulates and whatnot. Um, and that's it. Hey, hector, I need, uh, I need you to help me find this guy. In fact, fact, I can't remember the guy's name.
Speaker 2:I helped him before he turned over a guy who murdered his grandmother and one other person I want to say I can't remember, but it was as simple as calling up TJPD, cero Once. Was the liaison guy Cero Once? Hey, cero Once. What happened? Hey, can you? This is the plate. I saw it crossed into Mexico two hours ago. Can you go find him Four or five hours later? Hey, bro, here's a picture of the plate. Is this the guy? Yep, and they got a picture of the guy in handcuff and they would drive him up to the border and turn him over. And you're like, dude, it's just a matter of networking and knowing the right people.
Speaker 1:How would you define that relationship? Is like I scratch your back, you scratch mine? Unnecessary evil a good thing? How would you define that relationship?
Speaker 2:sometimes there's quid pro quo. It depends on on who you're dealing with, um, I thought it was a fantastic relationship. Yeah, it's, it's um, the guys we worked with in the liaison unit and I'll use the former chief as an example alex uh, the guy's just trustworthy as they come. He really is. He's like this. This alex ladders is like he was like the aliet nes of mexico. I tell you they tried to kill him a couple of times. You know he was a chief. He's been dragged through the through the, through the dirt in the media. You know, talk, the guy's a fucking hero. He's a fucking hero and there's a lot of of mexican police officer heroes out there, but all we hear about is the bad shit. Why? Because it's 90 of it, right, but there are guys that do some heroic shit but they're just in a fucked up situation. You know, you and I work law enforcement. The worst thing that I can imagine happening, you know, in in my life is, you know, some other cop trying to hit on my wife.
Speaker 2:You know, not some cop telling some bad guy, hey, this oh yeah this is where alex and hector live, right, you know, um, go kill them. They're the guys that arrested you. Or hey, go do this. You know they're not going to get. Cops aren't going to give you up, right, because they're not embedded like that down there. Who do you trust?
Speaker 1:so let me ask you this you've seen a lot of mexican police officials be heroic, but is it worth it? Meaning, like you said, dude, like are they making a dent in the or are they ultimately gonna, you know, be be exterminated? Yeah, it's tough man. Is it like a fucking martyr?
Speaker 2:one-way mission. I, I, it could be. You know, I look at, I look at at the status of the state of Mexico right now in this way where? Go back to prohibition era. Al Capone, shit, chicago, corrupt mayors, corrupt politicians, corruption in the police force it's rampant, the fucking heroes. The hero back then was Al Capone. Everybody wanted to be Al Capone. They wanted to be at all these dinners, and I think a lot of that is still applicable in Mexico. Right, not everywhere, but a lot of it.
Speaker 2:Um, it's going to take a generational change. Look at us 50 60, you still have corruption. 70s, you have corruption. We have corruption now, but it's it's, it's for it's more like, you know, a guy kicked his ass too much. You know he, he used excessive force, whatever the case may be, um, do we have flat-out corrupt cops? Absolutely, because power corrupts. But we got to this point and it took generations. It's going to take generations of these heroic guys to keep saying you know what I got, to keep moving forward because I'm part of something bigger than myself. Right, you don't get paid, crap, bro. You don't get paid anything. The chief of chief of police in tijuana is making 35 40,000, $40,000 a year. No way, dude. Oh yeah, and that's the top dog. Officers are making $700, $800 a month. How many officers could you and I corrupt and we're not rich.
Speaker 1:The whole fucking task force. You and I split $350 a month.
Speaker 2:That's not even a car payment and we want this cop, you know working for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, either just look the other way or give us a call on the radio.
Speaker 2:The last homicide guy I turned over. He was a former TJ cop. He'd been living up in Southgate for about 10 years and the policia, they gave me the tip. They knew where he was. We arrested him and during his interview he talks about the corruption and the slippery slope, like hey, where he was. We arrested him. And during his interview he talks about the corruption and the slippery slope like hey man. Like he talks about all kinds. I have the video.
Speaker 2:He talks about all kinds of crazy stuff where he tried to get out of it and he had no internal affairs to report. He had no, no hr, nowhere to go. He talks about this guy named muletas that he stopped. Muletas was like a heavy hitter, an assassin, and they asked him hey, you ever come across Buletas? And he tells us in Spanish he goes nah, the only time I came across him, I stopped him by accident one time and he got out of the car and he bitch, slapped me and he gave me my life because I didn't know who he was. So can you imagine the biggest gangster in your prison walking up to you, whack, and you can't do shit about it? That's wild, that's fucking wild. But he's also the same guy that took. Have you familiar with the pozole, the pozole is the guy for the ranch that that turned bodies into pozole.
Speaker 2:You know this mexican stew caustic soda you um, when you said that, I thought about los palillos okay, and the palillos were turning turning people into pozole in the United States, in Chula Vista, right, but this guy was in charge of this region of Tijuana. He was like a sergeant and when they finally corrupted him, his job for six months was to escort bodies that were going to the pozole. Vans would show up, they'd pay him 500 bucks a van load and he would clear out the area and he would escort these vans up to the ranch. And he said he did it two to three times a week for six months. Oh my God, dude. Average of two bodies, sometimes up to five.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, bro. So in six months, how many bodies did this guy you?
Speaker 1:know what? Was he melting them in acid? He wasn't, no, but they were up going to the top to get melted and acid.
Speaker 2:What they have is they have these 55-gallon drums and they create this caustic substance with muriatic acid and boric acid and Lord knows what, and it melts the body into goop. It destroys bones To include bones Everything but the teeth. From what I recall Because I've seen some of, in fact, the Palillos dump bodies here by the Imperial Beach horse barns and I've seen the pictures from the investigators I know there and all there is is little tic tacs. It's a, it's a, it's a mash of human gunk, god, with a few teeth in there. How are you going to identify that person, can't? There's no identifying? There's no identifying that. And? And this ranch, the posalitos ranch, had thousands of bodies. Was this in tijuana? This was Tijuana. This was in Tijuana. Yeah, yeah, it was in.
Speaker 1:Tijuana. Oh, that's fucking foul bro. I've seen all those videos. It's wild Execution videos, Dude, I can't watch them anymore bro.
Speaker 2:It's horrific. I got enough fucked up shit in my head. I don't need more bad visuals.
Speaker 1:I mean, besides evil. I don't know if it's the dope that makes them do it, or I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know, but it's evil man.
Speaker 1:You mentioned all these murderers from Mexico. Who did these people murder in Mexico?
Speaker 2:You know some were. You know the couple of guys I got had murdered Mexican police officers. A couple of them had, you know, not a typical homicide. You know, guys, the first guy god had shot somebody out of a nightclub. It was a, you know, like a dv type of thing guy right here is why, fuck you, fuck you, boom. He smoked them and then he fled to the united states, you know, because he knows nobody's gonna be looking for him how does one flee to the united states, especially if you're an illegal?
Speaker 2:alien. When you come in illegally, you come in and document he jumped the fence.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you your freaking experience how, how easy or hard is it to illegally enter the United States of America?
Speaker 2:I think it depends on the time frame. Right now is the toughest time in US history to cross the border, right now, at this very moment. What?
Speaker 1:about a couple months back with my boy, biden.
Speaker 2:Oh, under your boy, biden, the border was wide open. You can just show up. It was border patrol agents were quitting in droves. It was a horrible time to be a border patrol agent to work on the border. The border was completely and utterly unsecured. I seen them Hakumba, hakumba. I have worked under four or five different administrations, including the previous. I'd never seen it as wide. It was embarrassing. Border patrol agents I knew were quitting. They were processing is what they turned into. They weren't allowed to work the border. Who were the presidents you worked under Obama? I worked under Clinton, obama, bush, bush and Biden.
Speaker 1:Biden and Trump and Trump, trump won.
Speaker 2:That's five Yep and even under Obama, the times were better.
Speaker 1:Okay, bro, now we're going to get into the juicy stuff. People love this. Five freaking presidents, right, mm-hmm? Did they all differ your experience working on the border?
Speaker 2:You know they all differed, but none of them were as extreme as under the Biden administration.
Speaker 1:From your opinion. What caused that extreme?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I really don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, where do you think it came from? Did it come from weak leadership within the Border Patrol that succumbed and bent the knee? Did it come from federal orders?
Speaker 2:What Obama? I'm sorry. What Biden did was he did not allow border patrol agents to do their job. But that's fine. What I'm saying is and let me finish like under the previous administrations, the laws are on the book to enforce the border, and those laws were basically taken away under the Biden administration. They weren't allowed to do their job. All Trump has done is saying hey, the book's open, go do your job. That's all it has changed.
Speaker 1:But the book was the book? Did the book remain during the Biden administration?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the book was still around, but they just weren't able to enforce the law because they had exploited this asylum and everybody was coming across claiming asylum. There is a valid reason for people to seek asylum, but everybody knew that you can just show up at the us border. I'm here seeking asylum, we're going to give you a phone. We're going to let you come into the united states. What year?
Speaker 1:did biden become into office? Because I like to try to connect the dots, bro, and see where america went wrong. 2020, right, remember, right after covid. 2020 is a lot of weird shit happened, man. Weird shit started happening in 2012 and on forward, but 2020 is when the assholes really tried to do a number on us as a country.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they really did, for sure, for sure man.
Speaker 2:You see, border patrol agents were quitting by the droves dude, they were quitting, retiring as soon as they possibly could because you weren't working. The border agents were quitting by the droves, dude, quitting retiring as soon as they possibly could because you weren't enforcing, you weren't working the border. They were literally processing, walking with people with open arms that we didn't know who they were, that had no legal right to be here. Claim asylum. And when you claim asylum, claim it at the first friendly country that you can claim it in, that's Mexico.
Speaker 2:Military age males. Yeah, you know it was. I've seen the border in a lot of different regions right All over the world and it was wide open. Here it was.
Speaker 1:it was a travesty, you know it was a travesty but now that's gone, it's fixed, it is gone, it is gone. But I want to. I mean, you're, you're the expert, bro, you're the expert in that field, man, would you? Can you foresee that repeating ever again in the history of the United States?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get a whole new administration, absolutely Somebody that wants to have an open border type mentality and allow people to flood in. And they came in. Hey, we came under the administration of President X, right? And now there's this mass what's the word I'm looking for, this, uh where a lot of people get their citizenship. I'm having a little bit of a senior moment here, but basically they're allowing everybody to come in no, not naturalization they did it under under reagan.
Speaker 2:Um, amnesty okay. So you let 30, 40 million people into the country, right, and all of a sudden you're given amnesty under president x's administration. Guess what, when you vote next, you're probably going to want to vote for president x because, oh okay, he gave you amnesty there you go, now you're not now. Now you're changing, you know you have a whole influx of 30 40 million people that are voting for do you agree on this next statement that I'm about to say, or or do you disagree?
Speaker 1:They utilized illegal aliens as a form to get more voters for them.
Speaker 2:I believe so. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. I believe that's what the Democratic Party did.
Speaker 1:And same with convicted felons and undocumented.
Speaker 2:Well, the convicted felons aren't going to be able to vote right, because even if they get their amnesty but the people that are able to naturalize and become US citizens are going to be able to vote, and I believe that was a big portion of it. I really do. I really do. We need to know who's coming into the country. We need to adopt Mexico's immigration laws. Give me Mexico's immigration laws. That's fucking wild bro you have to have a national ID to vote. You know it's very stringent.
Speaker 1:That's fucking wild, bro. It's very stringent. That's fucking wild, bro. Yeah, so now let's look at the other side of the coin. Trump comes in, and now I don't know what a border czar, what is a border czar, or whatever.
Speaker 2:You're talking about Tom Holman.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what is that position?
Speaker 2:He's just in charge of the border. The CBP director is Roddy Scott, who's the former chief fantastic leader. Tom Holman is our secretary of Homeland Security. Okay, and he's from what I've heard. I've never met the man. I've seen him on TV, he's a former border patrol agent and I've heard nothing but good things about him.
Speaker 1:So now they're doing these mass deportations as a result of the laxed laws with the previous administration. Yep, what's your take on that? I mean, you see it for what it is, I see it for what it is.
Speaker 2:I'm glad they're doing it. You have to. When I had my criminal aid squad, that's what we did. We went after previously deported aggravated felons and gangsters with guns. That was our focus. That's all we did, and it was easy. It was so easy, easy, but was it dangerous? Unbelievably dangerous, unbelievably dangerous. But we were averaging, I kid you, not two to three felony callers a week, that's a lot of felony callers. We were locking people up left and right. This was five guys, five guys, five of the hardest working brothers you've ever met. I mean, I love those guys. We're still tight to this day.
Speaker 1:What is your take on the mainstream media trying to give a heads up to these deportations? Oh, it's fucking bullshit, it's criminal.
Speaker 2:It's conspiracy to smuggle aliens To aid and abet To aid and abet 100%, yeah, 100% to aid in the bet 100, yeah, 100. I saw something today where they were potentially thinking about finally charging against some uh, some democrat politicians who push some ice agents. It's assault. I've seen that. Yeah, it's just. I haven't seen the video.
Speaker 1:I've seen it. They broke into an ice detention.
Speaker 2:But I read about it and I'm like this is ridiculous. This is absolutely ridiculous, right, you know?
Speaker 1:why we see eye to eye, bro. Absolutely, we do so. Now tell me about. I mean fuck dude, you were running and gunning through the mountains of Cali and Arizona. How did you end up in this Office of Internal Affairs position?
Speaker 2:Well, you know I had a, like I said I had a unique career. You know I go to Intel and then, you know, I get the opportunity to go to something called the smuggling interdiction group. So you know, I had a few mentors in the border patrol. One guy by the name of Donald McDermott, he passed, he passed, he was my, my, my border patrol mentor, and this guy had started this unit called the smuggling interdiction group. Right, the border was wide open. Um, not because we weren't doing our job, it's just we're getting overran, overran.
Speaker 2:Smugglers were ftys, wrong way drivers, bandit activity, you name it criminal aliens running fucking everywhere. And I was able to be brought onto that team and he, he goes. Hey, you know, he had this real thick new york accent. Hey, pacheco, you know I need you to do the fucking thing and come on and help me out. And and I went on there and it changed the entire trajectory of my career, of my life really. And so the criminal aid squad were running and gunning. But inevitably, when you're doing this stuff, you have corruption issues. You come across corruption within your own agency. One of my classmates, one of my classmates, a guy I know, I know well, I know his face. You know, previously when I'd see him, I'd give him a hug. We hung out at the academy. He's corrupt. Him and his brother were corrupt Border Patrol agents the Villarreal brothers, right they were smuggling aliens, brazilians Did they get
Speaker 2:sentenced. Oh yeah, well, they fled to Mexico. Somebody tipped them off. They fled to Mexico and they were down in Mexico for several years. For several years they were. I can't remember if they were extradited or if they turned themselves in or they were captured, I can't recall, but they ended up doing time here. I can't remember how much time I had another agent that was assigned to one of my squads. So when I had the criminal alien squad, we evolved into something called the border crime suppression team. It was my team of border patrol agents and a cbp officer and then it was 12 deputy sheriffs that were the srt. That's awesome, bro. Oh, they were fucking awesome. These srt guys. That were amazing. They've all moved on, either retired, moved on to very high ranking positions within the sheriff's department and they probably got better party favors like chemical agents oh, they had lethal you know we we were doing.
Speaker 2:We were doing a lot of warrants, kicking in doors with these guys left and right. Um, we're doing a lot of international control deliveries with them and it was, it was fantastic work, that was, that was a lot of fun. But, um, yeah, it was, it was, it was a good, very good time period to to be working with all those. But you'd ask me a question. I started talking about the different squads. Oh, how do I get into the internal affairs? So there was a guy that was assigned to my squad, recommended by a couple of senior leaders that I knew, my gosh, and he said this guy, his name is noel lopez. Hey, this guy is is a good guy. He's a little quirky, but bring him on immediately. Upon bringing him on, we knew something was up with this guy. He was, I want to say, corrupt, but he just there was something off and he ended up attempting to smuggle cocaine on duty with an undercover FBI agent in uniform.
Speaker 2:Fucking kidding me, bro, he did five or seven years in the pen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because the FBI investigate corrupt cops.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the FBI. You know what? When it comes to public corruption, they're fantastic.
Speaker 1:I give them that Probably half of them will corrupt themselves. But I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 2:But on the public corruption side, when I've done those cases with them, yeah, no, they're good at what they do.
Speaker 1:Public corruption. Yeah yeah, dude real quick before we jump on to more of the. I forgot to even touch on tunnels.
Speaker 2:You have any experience in tunnels or like, what's with the tunnels? Not really. You got otay mesa, not really. You know, I've been in one tunnel. I'm a little claustrophobic and I'm, yeah, kind of a big guy, so I'm gonna fit in these tiny ass tunnels, um, but we've worked a little bit of them, but I am not a tunnel guy so I I couldn't speak to them. Uh, now you talk to, you know, the tunnel task force guys. I know people that have been in them, I know about them. Are they common, common? Yeah, I can't tell you how often, okay, but I know, in Otay Mesa, it's the one region in the United States where they're all built. It's something about the water tables, something about the land there itself that it allows you to build tunnels.
Speaker 2:Chapo built that first super tunnel in the 80s, right, and I want to say the next 10, 15 tunnels were an offshoot of that. You've got this big super tunnel right. Boom, massive tunnel. We find it, we shut it down. The US remediates their portion of it. Mexico doesn't remediate, they don't fill it up with cement. They probably throw some chairs and bottles of dirt in there, right. And then what do the smugglers do? Do they use that existing wall. They build another tunnel, so you have to build one wall. See what I mean. They use it as a structure from that, but they build it right right up and it offshoots and they find that one they go to the other side believable dude.
Speaker 2:I remember seeing a graphic one time I think it was from national guard, and they showed like the the historical tunnels and they kind of mapped it out on a grid, the fucking highway down there. It looks like swiss cheese bro. I didn't even think about there. It looks like swiss cheese, bro, I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 1:It looks like swiss cheese. All you got to do is use that one wall.
Speaker 2:Already you have one wall, yeah now there have been other tunnels that have been separate from there in other regions, but that's easy, bro work smarter not harder that. Have come off that um. But no, I'm not a tunnel.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm not a tunnel guy so you get in this new um position. What are the duties of your? We're we talking about with SIG, with the Crim Squad, with I?
Speaker 2:Oh. So I went to OPR. So I did 20 years with the patrol. I did all these task forces I didn't want to promote.
Speaker 2:I was feeling a little unchallenged. I had literally done every task force. I either participated in every task force or I supervised the guy that had been in all the task forces available to us. I'm like man, what am I going to do? So I'd had some experience dealing with corruption, my classmate, the guys I talked about, the CBP guy on our team that resigned in lieu of type of thing, and I had been the subject of investigation and I had been a witness there. Because people make allegations, obviously I'm still here. Obviously I went to OPR and I vetted. So it was all bullshit, absolutely. But my buddy, john, was one of the ASACs over there and I knew a few of the other agents and at the time I thought they were very professional, I liked what they did and I took a gamble. I told my wife hey, I'm taking off for another four months. You know, you're okay with this It's,11, this special agent position, and I had to go to another academy at 46, 47 years old. Luckily it was a gentleman's academy, you said 1811.
Speaker 2:1811 is the category All special agents FBI, dea, us Marshals. I didn't know that. Atf, they're categorized as special agents. 1811. I didn't know that. It's a series. It's a federal series, right, kind of like I was in the military. But like, whatever your MOS is, you get these categories right. Border Patrol Agent 1896. Not criminal investigators. They can investigate, they can pursue cases, force, immigration law and whatnot, but not criminal investigators. Gentleman's Academy man, those are nice. It was nice. He started wrong. He said he'll do the mile and a half and PT and the DTAC. That was easy. You have to go through the whole thing. But there was no real time limit. At the Border Patrol you had to run your mile and a half. And under what? 11 minutes, 12 minutes, something like that. Right there, you just had to run a mile and a half right, which is 47. You can do it. I can go run a mile and a half like this right now.
Speaker 1:It's going to take me a while, but I'm going to get it done. Right, I'm going to get it done. Check.
Speaker 2:Completed. Yeah, get it done, and it was nice though. So I had to go through that and I told my wife I'm taking off, came back and the first year was good Good management. I liked it. Honestly, that the worst situation I've ever worked. I've worked with bad managers. I've been able to deal with them. It was horrific. It was I resigned because of that. It was you resigned. I will not resign. I retired early. I apologize, I misspoke. I retired early because of that.
Speaker 2:Just a good leader is going to look out for their troops. Number one a fucking good leader will look out for their troops over anything. You have a lot of individuals that get into certain leadership positions that their only desire is to move up the chain, fuck everybody else, burn people to the ground. I'm going to make myself look good and they don't care about the troops. Now, I had a couple. I'm not saying I had some good leaders there. I did have some good leaders Brian, john, a couple of guys that were like solid fucking guys that looked out for their troops and realized you know what the message from on top is? It's kind of bullshit, um, but you got to do it and I'd be like you know what I appreciate you. Speaking frankly, I'll hook you up, you know we'll. We'll work together because other guys, oh, we got to do it this way, you got to do it because I'm the boss. It's like really fuck you.
Speaker 1:And it's yeah, bro, it's uh, you can respect somebody being straight up with you 100, I've percent.
Speaker 2:I've had to ask my guys before and you've had to do it too. I tell my kids this Sometimes you got to eat a shit sandwich. Oh all the time and you can either smile and eat it Right, or you can be forced on your throat. Eat this, but you know what?
Speaker 1:It's a lot easier when it's disrespectful, bro. It's almost like they um, they try to um insult your intelligence by lying to you. Yeah, or, I've been constantly dwelling on this lately, bro, why, why?
Speaker 2:I despised, uh, corrupt management oh yeah, I've had some guys that were completely unqualified, had never done a job and and you look at them like dude. Have you ever fucking even arrested anybody?
Speaker 1:Well, let me ask you this Did you have needed to be a Border Patrol agent before you can reach that position?
Speaker 2:No, we had DEA guys. I think there was a former FBI guy there. We had CBP, border Patrol all different types of agencies.
Speaker 1:Now, these bad leaders that you're talking about, were they also incompetent?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes for sure. In my opinion they were Right. Yeah, Do as I say, not do as I do, you know, type of thing. It was just a really bad situation.
Speaker 1:But you lasted four years. Man Well, I got lucky, bro. Were you white buckling it? Oh, lucky where you're white.
Speaker 2:So oh yeah, for sure that first year was good. Management changed and you could see the writing on the wall. Guys they promoted were unqualified, had no field experience whatsoever. In fact, to this day I know that the troops don't respect them because I talked to these guys. Right and it's, it's a travesty. Um, they've had some good leaders. Don't get me wrong. I've had some great asacs there. Um, guys that came and left and luckily COVID hit.
Speaker 2:Covid hit when I was there and we all kind of were working from home for like a year and a half, teleworking, couldn't go out and physically interview people. How was that for you? It was very challenging at first because I wasn't used to working at home. I'm a people person. I need to connect with people, I need to talk. I'm a social person and person. I need to connect with people, I need to talk. You know I'm a, I'm a social person, and it was challenging. You know my kids were home. It was.
Speaker 2:It was tough at that time, um, and so was the time management that was. That was tough. Right, it was really hard. Now it's all I do is tell it works. So it's a lot easier for me. Um, so that was kind of hard at first, but it was a blessing in disguise to deal with any of the bullshit, right? Um then, as I start to come back right, I'm realizing, man, I, I gotta, I gotta get out of here, I gotta get, I gotta get the fuck out of here really quick, really bad. And um, I'm telling you, I had I had two, two decent cases there dealing with true corruption.
Speaker 2:The rest were you know wild goose chases some a lot a lot. A lot were wild goose chases, a lot were not something I would deem honorable, you know, just minor violations of policy that they want you to exploit. And I said this is not me, I don't want to do this, right, you give me a corrupt agent and you've done something fucking wrong. I'll go after you. I'll make sure you go to jail, right. But if you're doing some minor policy?
Speaker 1:What was the verbal direction you were given from the top?
Speaker 2:It wasn't necessarily verbal direction. I mean they wanted you to go invest, investigate the policy, exploit every lead. I can't, I can't dog them on that. I just didn't agree with with going after these guys on on some of these. I really didn't. I just I couldn't stomach it because it was so unbelievably minor, like this guy. There was a leadership issue at some point. This should have been addressed right. And it escalated to the point where these other leaders not in OPR, more in Border Patrol or CBP didn't know how to address it. Because you look at the history and it could have been rectified there. It could have been hey, hector, you fucked up on this. We need to address this right now, done, handle it Right. And they have to escalate and a lot of people would say, well, I don't want to deal with this, I'm just going to report it to Internal Affairs, and you deal with a bunch of bullshit cases.
Speaker 1:That's the problem with the public sector as opposed to the private sector. But yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But so luckily, towards the end I got detailed to INA, which is International Affairs for CBP, and I was able I had a lot of international experience, did and I was able. I had a lot of international experience that got did a lot of deployments down south and so I was overseeing Guatemala and Belize as a CBP country manager, which was really cool. I I love that part. But then you know, management starts coming back and you know, literally like making what I would consider threats, like hey, you're gonna lose your car, you're gonna lose this, you're not be covered under the office, we're gonna cut your pay, and I'm like you know what? This is bullshit. So I went back, I left that ina position with the complete intention of retiring, going back and saying I'm going to get there, I'm going to write it out until I get to retirement. And you know, a lot of guys wait till the end of the year to collect the additional money. You're right and whatnot. The day I turned 50 that pay period before I didn't tell anybody, I just submitted my paperwork. I told my wife I can't deal with this, I'm fucking done.
Speaker 2:If I was still in the patrol or I had good management, I'd still be working because I absolutely and unequivocally loved the. I had a fucking magical career great bosses. You know I had a couple of bad ones, but, yeah, good leaders, good bosses, the fucking troops are amazing, amazing teams. Um, you get a couple of bad ones, but good leaders, good bosses, the fucking troops are amazing, amazing teams. You get a couple of hiccups here and there along the road, but it's part of doing business, right? Yeah, and I may still be employed Now, knowing what I know. Now, I'm glad I left because private sector is a much bigger world, correct, but I think I've still been in. I really do.
Speaker 1:I loved it. I loved a lot of fucking, though, man, I miss it. There's, uh, your. Your experience is not unique in the sense that a lot of people hung it up before they wanted to because of the environment they were put in. Yeah, to include fucking. Include myself too.
Speaker 2:Exactly you're not, you're not alone. I, you know, I've listened to you, know to you speak and I'm like man, I you're speaking to the choir, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it happens a lot, holy shit, dude. So what is it you do now? Because you have the Pacheco Advisory Group.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Pacheco Advisory Group. You know I started off like you know. I had some experience doing Muay Thai and whatnot and defensive tactics, so I started teaching at local casinos, you know, not intending to start a business at all, Just something to do. When I retired, right yeah, and it kind of exploded. I do training, de-escalation tactics, police tactics for security officers, I do it at the Wild Animal Park, I do it at all these different casinos, the Hilton Hotel, trying to expand that. You know I teach any class you can imagine working in high risk environments, executive protection, de-escalation. Going down south to Central America, here shortly I'll be teaching the military down there on border operations, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:How do you?
Speaker 2:do border ops? How do you cut sign? How do you set up a drag? How do you interview people? How do you determine your threat in these specific regions? Because a lot of these people don't have to deal with that and they've never been exposed to it. So we've done it and we want to show them. Not that we know everything, but these are the best practices. This is what we've done and it's worked.
Speaker 1:Maybe it'll work for you. You're definitely qualified man to do that. You also wrote a book.
Speaker 2:I wrote a book called I co-authored it. Co-authored it, uh, on the line inside the us border patrol. You know I was. I was early on. You know I was, uh, I was training at ken shamrock's lion's den remember ken yeah what lines then? Temeculary, no, no, in chula vista off a third in anita. Yeah, I don't remember that I was in third. I remember uh what's his name?
Speaker 2:brandon vera. Brandon vera, I trained in his gym for a little bit. He had a great gym, great kickboxer man, great muay thai fighter, but you know I'm a.
Speaker 2:You know shamrock is right yeah so I, um, you know, I met him in one of my fights and, uh, I came to san diego, I started training there and I was one of the one of the main striking coaches there. I did a lot of sparring with him and some of the really ufc guys. Um, it was an eye-opener, it was a good experience, um, good place to be. And that's where I kind of realized, man, I got a knack for this teaching thing. I like it.
Speaker 1:Where can?
Speaker 2:people find your book. You can find the book on Amazon, amazon, amazon, on the line. It's Border Patrol.
Speaker 1:Now do you have a website for your.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can go to pachecoadvisorygroupcom and same for my instagram. Uh, pacheco advisory group. You can see all the great stuff we're doing the training, uh, the executive protection, consulting, all the capacity build, capacity building we're doing. So, yeah, come check us out. Thank you for the, for the plug hector, absolutely 100 man.
Speaker 1:Uh, any last closing words you want to say to the crowd bro, it's honor having you here, dude.
Speaker 2:Oh, you know what. Thank you for having me on To the men and women of the United States Border Patrol. Thank you for doing your job. I'm glad you're finally able to do what you're doing. You do an honorable profession and I applaud you. I miss it.
Speaker 2:Like you wouldn't believe I miss the adrenaline, but more than anything, I miss the brotherhood, especially with the patrol. This is freeree, the core that exists within the border patrol. Um, it's unlike anywhere I've ever been cool because you, you go places, you know, I work with people now in the private sector and be taught. Oh yeah, I was a board board for three years or five or seven years and you have this common experience, yeah, which is unique amongst, amongst law enforcement. Right, and I think that's the thing I I miss the most that brotherhood, yeah definitely dude, but again, dude, thank you for coming on, bro.
Speaker 1:There you guys have it, another banger for you guys. If you like what you saw, make sure you hit that subscribe button. Love you keep pushing forward. On the inch line hector's legend, engraved, living life raw, never been tamed From the hood to the pen. Truth entails pen. Hector Bravo, unhinged story never ends.
