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PHIT PD
Cartels, Child Soldiers and America's Street Gangs
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Former DEA Chief of International Operations Mike Vigil joins the show to discuss his powerful book Ursula: Child Soldier, a gripping story inspired by the real-life experiences of children caught in the crossfire of violence, revolution, and narcotics trafficking in Latin America.
In this episode, we explore the harrowing journey of child soldiers kidnapped by armed revolutionaries and forced to endure the brutal realities of captivity, survival, and life in captivity. Mike shares insights from his decades of experience combating international drug trafficking organizations and explains how cartels, guerrilla groups, and narco-terrorist organizations exploit vulnerable children to sustain their operations.
The conversation goes beyond the pages of Ursula as we examine the long-term effects of trauma, PTSD, and resilience among children exposed to violence. We discuss whether there are similarities between child soldiers in conflict zones and young people recruited into violent street gangs in the United States, and explore the importance of breaking cycles of violence.
We also connect the book’s themes to current events, including allegations involving a former CIA officer found in possession of millions of dollars, gold bars, and luxury items, raising important questions about corruption, money laundering, cartel influence, and the hidden financial networks that fuel organized crime around the world.
This is a compelling discussion about trauma, survival, resilience, corruption, gang recruitment, public safety, and the human cost of the international drug trade. Whether you’re a law enforcement professional, educator, parent, policymaker, or simply interested in understanding the forces that shape violence and recovery, this conversation offers powerful insights into one of the most important issues facing societies today.
🎯 Whether you're a first responder, military, or someone interested in becoming a law enforcement officer—this conversation will move you, challenge you, and inspire you.
👇 Drop a comment with your favorite takeaway, and remember to subscribe if you want more real conversations like this.
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A lot of these players are thirteen fourteen years lost. About forty percent of the it's not a hand code now forced into joining moves aligned and most cases and a very early game, which is really really uh private.
SPEAKER_01Welcome everybody. Thank you for tuning in. I'm your host, Juan Stefas, and this is Line Up with Vit PD. Today's topic, we're gonna explore child soldiers in South America and the similarities with children joining gangs here in America. To help us navigate through that topic, our guest is a former DEA chief of operations, and he's also an author. He wrote this book right here, Ursula, Child Soldier. Please help me welcome Mike Vigil to the show. Good morning, Mike.
SPEAKER_02Good morning. Uh it's uh it's really an honor to be on your program and thank you so much for inviting me.
SPEAKER_01Hey, uh, Mike, it's I know that you're super busy all the time. I mean, I I watch like maybe three or four different interviews every week that you're doing around the world. And I'm humbled that you're taking the time to be here with us today.
SPEAKER_02Uh it's an honor, always. And like I said, you know, great, great pleasure because I love your program.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Mike. Um, you know what? Let's just jump right in. Um, what inspired you to write this book?
SPEAKER_02I was assigned to Colombia for about three and a half years during the Heyday of Pablo Escoban, the Cali Cartel, and then at that time there were insurgent groups that operated in Colombia. I'm talking about the uh Revolutionary Armed Forces, better known by its acronym, the FARC, you know, the uh National Liberation Army, known by its acronym, the ELN, and we had the Popular Liberation Army, and these organizations were very large in scale. You know, they you know, they basically, you know, created a security situation for Colombia and its security forces. So I decided to write about uh, you know, the ELN, the uh National Liberation Army, because right now it's probably the most powerful insurgent group that is currently operating, because the FARC uh pretty much demobilized in 2016 after they reached an agreement with the government. There's still dissidents that are operating in the country, but they're not the most powerful group as we speak. And the other thing is that a lot of people don't uh know that I was uh basically a target of the Popular Liberation Army, and the CIA and the Colombian National Police had two independent sources that indicated that the Medan uh cartel under Pablo Escobar had paid them to kidnap me. And the they were following me, they were, you know, basically uh getting ready to do that when the ambassador, Lewis Tams, decided to close the office in Medellin, which I was in charge of at that time. And I argued against that because I thought it was important for me to stay and keep the office open in Medellin, because it was the most important office in Colombia at that time, you know, because that's where the Medellin uh cartel was based out of. But the ambassador was adamant because this was uh right after the marine uh uh barracks bombing in Beirut, which killed uh, you know, you know, in hundreds of you know U.S. Marines. So the U.S. State Department was very, very sensitive about you know the offices in foreign countries, you know, military bases. So I had to shut down the office in Medellin and take over the office in Barranquilla, which is on the Colombian North Coast, but at the same time I was still covering Medellin, and I would go there on a regular basis to meet with informants, with the Colombian National Police. So subversive groups in Colombia are very near and dear to my heart.
SPEAKER_01Wow, Mike. Um let me ask you a couple of follow-up questions to that. Um was uh this, when you were going through this, was this before or after uh Kiki was kidnapped and murdered?
SPEAKER_02I think before Kiki Kamarena was killed, because Kiki Kamarena, uh, as you recall, was kidnapped and uh and and tortured uh in February of 1985. So it was after, and I was already in Barranquilla when when that situation happened, which was uh very tragic to the entire agency.
SPEAKER_01Of course. Now, um also I wanted to ask another question. Um, did you have any close calls where um people were surveilling you and maybe close to kidnapping you?
SPEAKER_02I never saw them surveilling me, but I know, you know, uh again, you know, they had two independent sources, and they actually uh were reporting, you know, places that I would go have lunch, for example, you know, the route that I took. And I would try to vary my routes, you know. I was not uh one that was predictable, you know, my my actions were not predictable because at that time uh I really wasn't that worried about the uh subversive organizations, I was more uh concerned with the Medin Quartel, and I did have a close call with them one night because I lived in an area called El Poblado, and it was up on a mountain, and there were no street lights, it was very dark. So when I would travel that that route, I would always have my windows down to the car, and I would never have the radio turned on. And one night I was traveling on the on the road and I could hear a motorcycle directly behind the car. I couldn't see it because they didn't have their lights on. And, you know, I heard it, and the uh modus operandi of the Medellin Quartel was to use these sicarios, these hit men, on motorcycles. And they would follow the target, they could weave in, they were very maneuverable, and then you know, you know, do the hit and then leave. And so anyway, we I start weaving uh back and forth on the road, and when I got to my uh apartment complex, which had security, a motorcycle went by with two individuals, and the one in the in the back seat, you know, was cradling something, probably a machine gun, and he turns and and looks at me, and they keep going.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Now, Mike, at the time, were you uh allowed to carry a firearm in their country?
SPEAKER_02Yes, I was uh I I carried a uh a weapon, uh, you know, and thank God for the Colombian government, you know, even in Mexico, I used to carry a weapon, and they would allow us to carry weapons uh uh, you know, because you know, there was it was really dangerous, and to be there without a weapon uh was uh almost suicidal.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Now let's go back a little bit to the um the child soldiers. Can you tell us a little bit, uh, Mike, on how are they uh recruited into these armed groups?
SPEAKER_02Um these uh child soldiers are recruited in many ways. For example, you know, a lot of times they're kidnapped violently. And uh, you know, and then there's also intimidation threats, you know, against the families. You know, if you don't let your daughters or your sons come with us, you know, they'll threaten their lives, they'll threaten to kill them. And you know, they have no choice. And then they tell them if you report this to the police, we'll come back and kill all of you. So, you know, coercion, you know, these threats, and coercion really accounts for 40, 40 percent of the way that they you know take you know these child soldiers and incorporate them into these groups. A lot of these kids are you know 13, 14 years old. Some of them are as young as eight years old. And uh, you know, about 40% of the child soldiers are young girls. And in my book, I talk about Ursula who was kidnapped from from a village by the uh National Liberation Army, and that's what they do, they they take these children, uh, and uh, you know, and a lot of times these uh kids, you know, don't have a lot of opportunities. So, you know, they're taken, but you know, they're it's not that the kids volunteer, they're they're taken uh, you know, through kidnapping, through coercion, and and what have you. And a lot of times these children uh you know do different things. They act as cooks, you know, they act as uh frontline soldiers. And then the other thing too is that they use them to go out and collect intelligence. They call them abejitas, you know, the little bees, and they'll send them out to check on, you know, let's say Colombian military movements and then come back and uh report. And you know who's gonna, you know, really notice a cat out there, you know, in some place, you know, and so it it's uh a very good tactic of them to collect uh you know viable uh intelligence.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Um now, Mike, what is the uh connection between these revolutionary groups and the cartel?
SPEAKER_02Well, the revolutionary groups and the drug cartels intersect through traditional alliances, and these alliances are very fragile. You know, sometimes you know they they work together, and then you know, the next you know, the following week they're at war with one another, but they do have traditional alliances evolving, you know, from ideological conflict into profit-driven partnerships, and then they also trade the operational security. And I'll tell you that the revolutionary groups, these uh insurgent groups, uh, they started off basically providing protection to the cartels. They would provide protection to their cultivation sites, to their laboratories, to their airstrips. And then eventually the light went on, and they said, Well, you know, we can make a lot more money if we engage in the entire distribution uh drug network. And and uh so that they started to become cartels themselves, especially the FARC, and then the ELN. So, you know, they still you know have a working relationship with the ELN, but uh again, uh they work together, they they do um, you know, share drugs, they share weapons, uh, which they you know sometimes sell to one another. So it's a symbiotic relationship, if you will, between a lot of the cartels and a lot of the uh subversive groups.
SPEAKER_01Um now, can you tell us a little bit uh as far as once these children are kidnapped, um what do they go through in captivity?
SPEAKER_02What they go through in captivity is a lot of intimidation. They intimidate them, they put fear into them so that they don't try to escape. And the other thing is that they give them not a lot of training, but they do give them some training in terms of the use of weapons, they train them on military tactics, especially ambushes, and they participate in ambushing, for example, in Colombia, the National Police. They also uh ambush uh, you know, the the uh Army of Colombia, and uh they really engage in all of this, and now with uh the fact that you know these lightweight uh military weapons, uh, you know, like the uh AR-15s and what have you, are very light. You know, they're not heavy like remember the uh M1s and what have you, that you know, it were extremely heavy. Well, the weapons of today are very light, uh, and therefore a lot of these child soldiers, you know, go out and into uh combat, and most of them are killed during their first uh you know combat mission, which is very tragic. These uh children lose their childhood, they lose their lives in in most cases at a very early age, which is really, really uh tragic.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Mike, these kids experiencing this extreme trauma. How um is there any hope for them?
SPEAKER_02There's hope for them. Uh, you know, obviously they are going to have a lot of trauma. You know, they're probably gonna be suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, but you know, they can recover, and they're gonna need very strong social support from friends, from relatives, and then you know, they're gonna need, you know, special counseling, you know, people that are professional psychologists that can help them recover, but they're also gonna need a sense of safety and security. But the key there is professional care. They're gonna need a lot of it. Sometimes, you know, that will extend years. You know, we're not talking about a week or a month, it's gonna take years. And then the other thing is that, you know, the, you know, for example, Colombia needs to educate the public because the public many times shun these child soldiers when they're recovered because they look at them as killers, they look at them as individuals who have done atrocious things. So they shun them, and it's not their fault. You know, they they didn't voluntarily go into the hands of these uh insurgent groups. They were kidnapped or, you know, coerced into joining uh these ranks, but yes, they they can in fact recover.
SPEAKER_01Now, Mike, can you uh let's say one of these kids uh somehow uh escapes from captivity and makes it to the United States. What can law enforcement here that maybe encounters one of these children do for them to help them?
SPEAKER_02Well, the thing is that, you know, for example, law enforcement here have to understand that these uh children didn't do these acts voluntarily, they didn't join these groups voluntarily. So they need to treat them as victims, they need to be treated as victims and not as criminals. And the police, you know, have to refer them to a lot of these groups that provide assistance, you know, not only to child soldiers, but you know, to youth who join gangs or are coerced into joining gangs? Uh so they they need to be treated as victims, not as criminals.
SPEAKER_01Now, um what other while they're in captivity, these young soldiers, um what kind of uh violence are they exposed to besides uh obviously killing other people? Are they actually uh tortured themselves?
SPEAKER_02Not necessarily tortured, but uh you know they're they're beaten sometimes. You know, the the young girls that are, you know, basically kidnapped into the ranks are sexually abused by some of the commanders, and then sometimes they're forced into marrying members of the insurgent group. So they they go through a lot of abuse, uh, and you know their their cognitive skills when they're that young are not very well developed. But uh it it's uh it's a very tragic thing. And and to put it into perspective, you know, worldwide, you know, it's estimated that there's between 250,000 and 300,000 child soldiers. And uh this is a worldwide problem, and uh countries need to work together to basically resolve this because you know it's a horrible, horrible thing that kids have to go through.
SPEAKER_01Well, Mike, I think that um, you know, we're not exempt in America because to a certain extent we have gang members, street gang members that uh join gangs. And I want to ask you, are there any similarities between these child soldiers and the street gang members that we see in uh in the United States?
SPEAKER_02Uh that's a very good point, very good question. Because uh, you know, both groups, for example, child soldiers, and then, you know, uh, and you know, people in gangs originate from areas with high poverty, localized violence, and then broken local infrastructure. You know, they may come from uh broken families where the father abandons the family, the mother has to go work uh you know, literally almost 24 hours a day to be able to support the These kids. And then there's a you know a lack again of uh stable parent parental uh figures, you know, both uh individuals or both groups lack a viable path for basic means like food, shelter, safety. Then you have uh, you know, the their their need or a sense of belonging, and then that's when they join uh you know these gangs, and then both uh experience social rejection. So there's a lot of a lot of uh similarities between child soldiers and uh these young kids that join gangs here in the in the United States.
SPEAKER_01Now, Mike, you know, a lot of these young children, uh, they're vulnerable. You mentioned, you know, uh with some of these revolutionary groups, uh, some of these kids that are kidnapped are eight years old. And and you know, when you're really young, you're vulnerable to uh just accepting whatever's happening around you. And um, you know, what I want to ask you is um what what do you think about this thought that uh these groups, both gangs as well as the revolutionary groups, they normalize violence and therefore perpetuate uh violence on the streets?
SPEAKER_02Yes, it's um you know, they're taught at a very early age to kill, to use violence. And when you're in groups, you're you know, for example, gangs here in the United States, and then as a child soldier, you're taught violence. You live with violence almost every single day. So when that happens, it becomes normalized. And a lot of these kids are also, you know, for example, the child soldiers and in the gangs at a very early age, they they're taught to kill, to kill, you know, rival groups or rival gangs, and they go out there and they become executioners at 10 years of age. By the time they're 15, they they've killed numerous individuals and they become psychologically hardened to killing, but it does in fact become normalized because these groups engage in in wholesale uh violence.
SPEAKER_01So is it fair to say that um what we see in America with street gangs, it's a version, some kind of version of what uh you have seen with these revolutionary groups?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, there's a lot of similarities there. And the fact of the matter is that, you know, here in the United States, I've seen that, you know, gang members that are very, very young. Uh, you know, they're they're basically uh, you know, exposed to uh violence. And again, you know, they they start to suffer from depression at a very early age, you know, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and they're gonna have a very long recovery process, you know, to be uh able to come out of that uh darkness, if you will. And and uh so you know, we need to, you know, work with uh other groups. It's it's it's really not just a law enforcement problem, but you know, it's one that the schools have to get involved in, the church has to get involved in, and it has to be a community-oriented project to be able to bring these uh kids back into reality and then hopefully into a safe environment. But uh unfortunately, a lot of this too is driven by poverty on both sides of the border.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. That's uh an uphill battle, but we definitely, at least in law enforcement, we need to understand the uh mindset of what's happening and understand that we not only do should we engage in law enforcement, but we should also um get resources from social services that can maybe help these uh children.
SPEAKER_02Uh absolutely. You know, it's it's not just uh law enforcement where, okay, you know, we apprehended this uh individual, throw him in in uh jail uh or you know into some uh reformatory. Uh, you know, it it it it requires you know a humanitarian approach. We're talking about children, we're not talking about you know adult-hardened criminals, these are kids.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. And you know, you brought up something that I think is very important to highlight, which is that um oftentimes the uh parents may not necessarily be involved. And I think uh, at least in America, we need to ensure that kids have role models.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And, you know, again, you know, when they have uh, you know, uh come from uh broken homes, or let's say the the mother is the uh the only one who is the you know a single parent, you know, I think that communities need to, you know, ensure that there's uh you know, events, you know, activities that the kids can engage in, you know, like basketball games, baseball games, you know, activities that, you know, for example, keeping a high school gym or a junior high gym open, you know, during the, you know, during the afternoons or whatever after school where they can go and play and keep them away from the hands of the gangs. So there's many, many, many things that that we can do, but uh, you know, we need to have a coherent strategy to be able to accomplish that, and then you know, work with different organizations like UNICEF and and others that can provide uh assistance. And there's many community groups, but they need to work together and they have to have that strategy.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Um, I agree with you, Mike. Now, um, you know, if uh the cartel are benefiting from using uh the child soldiers in South America or other parts of the world, um, you know, I'm uh what are you seeing in the U.S. with the cart the same cartel groups using young gang members to uh be enforcers or carry out violent acts?
SPEAKER_02Well, they do that. They they actually do that because, for example, let's go to Mexico, and you know, the cartels there, the two most powerful ones are the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and they work with gangs here in the United States. Those are the people that primarily distribute the drugs. I know that under the current administration, they blame the migrants on bringing the drugs. There's some of them that do backpack, but it's uh illogical that a few backpackers are going to supply the demand and the consumption here in the United States. So at least 90% of all the drugs that entered America, you know, come through the US-Mexico border, and they come through the land, the legitimate land ports of entry. And who transports it across into the US? Primarily Americans. Who distributes it here? Primarily Americans, and I'm talking about gangs. And so there is uh a relationship between the cartels and the gangs here in the in the United States. And uh so they work very, very cohesively together.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, it only makes sense, Mike, because uh gang members know the people on the streets, the people that are criminals. And so if you're gonna distribute something that's um an illicit drug, you need that connection. So it only makes sense to me.
SPEAKER_02And that and and that that's very true. And then the other thing, too, that it benefits, for example, these organized crime uh drug syndicates to use young children. Why? Because if they're arrested, you know, they're not really most often they're not are not gonna be sentenced to prison. So, you know, they they you know, they can, you know, they can come out, you know, very quickly, even if if they do go through the judicial system, they're not gonna give them severe sentences like they would an adult. So it's beneficial to the cartels and to the gangs to use, you know, adolescents to to distribute drugs.
SPEAKER_01Well, Mike, if uh drugs are their one of their main sources of uh of uh making money, um how do they how do they um I mean violence is only a byproduct of uh protecting their financial interests. So uh what's the uh connection with uh some of these groups and the uh financial part for cartels?
SPEAKER_02Well, the cartels uh have evolved into other things. For example, in Mexico, the cartels now have penetrated the avocado industry. The avocado industry in Mexico is a $3.5 billion industry, and most of the avocados come from Michoacan, which now has many cartels, you know, basically fighting for control of that state, to include Sinaloa, to include Jalisco, uh new generation. And but you know, they produce almost uh two billion tons of avocado, and about 80% of the avocados that we consume here in the United States come from Mexico. Same thing with the lemon and lime industry, it's a multi-billion dollar industry. They also have penetrated the fishing industry, the theft of lumber, and then every year uh these cartels steal one billion dollars in petroleum from Pemex pipelines. They also deal with extortion, they deal in trafficking human beings, which is a multi-billion dollar industry. And many decades ago, the cartels generated about $35 billion a year. Now I would say that's uh at least between $150 and $200 billion because they keep diversifying. And I'll give you uh uh you know some of the issues with with uh money laundering. There's a lot of banks that have engaged with the cartels in laundering money or funneling money into other uh you know other countries. You'll remember BH, uh HSB, uh uh the uh the uh Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation. And the the Sinaloa Cartel was laundering a lot of money through HSBC. Uh and what they were doing is they were actually uh they had boxes where they would fill up with money that fit perfectly under the teller's window when they went to deposit it at EHBC. And uh the bank was eventually fined uh $1.9 billion in fines for uh you know their money laundering activities. Same thing with Wacobia, that is now part of uh Wells Fargo. They were laundering money and they had to pay a multi-billion dollar million dollar fine, but they also engage in trade-based uh money laundering, where you know the the dollars that they accrue here from drug sales, they'll go out and buy commodities like clothing, diamonds, gold, and they smuggle it into Mexico, and then they sell it there uh for an additional profit. So there's many ways. They also use shell corporations. Now they're using uh Chinese groups to launder money. You know, they they they uh you know launder it through uh China and then it comes back, for example, in the form of cryptocurrency. So there's many ways that they can do that, as well as uh, you know, these uh money exchange uh uh places in Mexico, you know, the Casas de Cambio, which sometimes are not regulated. So so they they're they're very adept at laundering money.
SPEAKER_01Now, Mike, you know, not only um do they use legitimate businesses, but sometimes they also get people to help with their organization and um you know making things easier for their business. Um can you share with us a little bit about that uh story with uh David Rush?
SPEAKER_02Yes, David Rush was a high-ranking CIA official, and he was working or was in charge of the CIA science and technology uh section. Uh he lied about his education, he lied about his background, and he stated that he had advanced degrees from you know some of these um, you know, uh education, you know, uh, you know, educational uh systems or you know, uh uh colleges, which he didn't, and then he was telling people that he was a top gun fighter pilot, which he wasn't. And it's uh actually amazing because the CIA does their own background investigations on people that they're gonna hire, and it's shocking to me that they missed this. They missed this, and you know, this was something uh very superficial to check. You know, all they had to do is go to the campus of these schools and say, did David Rush graduate from here? They would have said no. Uh, you know, they could have checked with the uh the uh military, they would have said no, no, he wasn't a fighter pilot, he was an information technician within the military. But what he did is he created a fictitious operation on paper, and then said that it would have to be compartmentalized, and he started to steal uh you know, through time, he stole 303 303 kilogram ingots of gold. Can you imagine? Wow you know, and then he had uh he also took two million dollars in cash. He also stole 35 luxury watches such as Rolex, and the FBI executed a search warrant at his house in Ashton, Virginia, and uh, you know, found uh the gold, found the watches, found the cash, and uh he's been arrested. Uh with you know, he's been hit held without uh bail or bond. Uh and uh, but this is the the most uh agree egregious uh financial crime ever committed within the CIA?
SPEAKER_01Wow. Um yeah, that's um I I didn't know the full story, Mike, but thank you for sharing that with us because uh that's been um in and out of the news, but not necessarily with a whole lot of details. Um any other examples of uh corruption within law enforcement uh working with the uh cartels?
SPEAKER_02Well, we had one. Uh uh we had an ancient by the name of Jose Irazari that you know started to work with uh you know Colombian cartels and you know helping launder money. Uh he he uh I think received millions of dollars uh in in you know bribes and what have you, payments. And that was probably one of the biggest uh corruption cases that we've had in uh the DEA. But you know, whenever you have uh access to a lot of money, you know, like for example, drug trafficking organizations, you're gonna have people that will succumb to that temptation. Uh, you know, for example, and and you're you're you're always gonna be offered a lot of money. I remember when I was in Barranquilla, you know, after the killing of uh Kiki Camarena, and I was uh tracking uh Juan Ramon Mata Bayesteros, who was a Honduran trafficker, probably one of the top five uh drug traffickers in the world, and he was the source of supply for the old Guadalajara cartel. And he worked very closely with uh the Menae Cartel. And uh so after Kiki Camarena was killed, to make a long story short, uh I, along with the Columbia National Police, uh, you know, uh arrested him in Cartagena. And I'm sitting in the room with him, you know, where he, you know, after he's been uh arrested, and he tells me, he says, uh, listen, he says, I know your DEA. He said, but I had nothing to do with the killing of uh your agent, nor did my compiler, referring to uh Miguel Ángel Félix Callardo, who was the leader at that time of the Guadalajara Quartel. And then he says, if you release me, you know, I'll give you $3.5 million and I can have it here in 20 minutes. I said, no deal. Uh, but uh, you know, and I would never do it because, you know, I consider myself an honest person, and I don't understand the psychology of people that succumb to that type of temptation. Because can you imagine getting up every morning thinking, when is the hammer gonna fall? Eventually it's gonna fall, and that type of mental trauma is not worth a hundred million dollars. You know, and going to prison, embarrassing your family, embarrassing yourself is not worth any amount of money in the world.
SPEAKER_01Amen. I 100% agree with you, Mike. Um, just switching gears a little bit, can you give us an update on Chapo? Because I heard something about he uh wants to go back to Mexico.
SPEAKER_02Well, Chapo Guzman wrote a letter to Claudia Scheinbaum, the current president of Mexico, requesting that she provide assistance in getting him back to Mexico. And he's been writing letters. Because he's currently being held at ADX Warren's Colorado, which is the most supermax penitentiary in the United States. It's the penitentiary that replaced Alcatraz. And that prison to me is worse than death itself because they have no interaction with the other prisoners. They have very little interaction with the prison gares. The cells are very small. They run about seven feet by 12 feet. And then some of the prison cells have little windows, like three inches by eight inches, where they can see outside, but they can't see enough to orient themselves as to where they're at so that they can engineer a potential escape. So they get in their cells, you know, 23 hours a day. They take them up by themselves to go do exercise in a highly contained area, and they they walk around for about an hour and then they take him back through their cells. So they're basically in isolation, which means sensory deprivation. So Chapo Guzmán is desperate to get out of there, but they're never gonna send him back to Mexico because he escaped from two prisons in Mexico. The first one was uh Puente Grande, which they started to call it the Puerta Grande, you know, the big door after his escape. And then he engineered a second, more spectacular escape from Altiplano, which is Mexico's more most secure penitentiary in the area of Mexico City, by having members of his organization uh build a mile-long tunnel. And that tunnel had a rail system with a motorcycle, it had electricity, it had ventilation, and believe it or not, they built this uh tunnel on the way into his cell, right into his shower cell, and then knocked out a chunk where he would barely fit through there, and he went down into the tunnel, got on the motorcycle, and he was gone. But, you know, he was captured again in Los Moches, Sinaloa.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Well, um, Mike, that just that reminds me of uh another question. I want to talk about, you know, these guys that are so innovative in uh their criminality, but there's a lot of rumors about the use of drones these days by uh cartel. Is can you uh kind of educate us on what their actual use of drones is?
SPEAKER_02Here's the thing is that uh uh CBP Customs and Border Protection reported that the final uh six months of 2024 that they had detected 60,000 drones, you know, be uh within a half mile of the US-Mexico border. But uh, you know, that caused a lot of hysteria. Uh, and they said, oh, you know, the drones are coming in mass with drugs. Uh no, they're not. Because through these drones, they they've only seized about 1,200 pounds of drugs, which is minuscule in comparison to seizing like 400, 500, uh thousand pounds of drugs, you know, on the Mexico borders, very small, but it created a lot of hysteria. And uh, you know, now you have New Mexico, you have Arizona wanting to pass laws against drones coming in and out of Mexico, and that's not gonna stop anything because you know, if they're coming from Mexico, you know, laws from here have no jurisdiction in Mexico. And the other thing is that the cartels also use them as weapons against security forces, against uh rival cartels, and what they do is they put explosives in these uh in these drones, and they drop the explosives. You know, they're not very uh efficient, but they have in fact killed rival gang members and and also uh members of the armed forces in in Mexico.
SPEAKER_01Well, Mike, thank you so much for uh setting the uh record straight on drones. Um I want to respect your time, Mike. Thank you for joining us. Uh is there anything else that you think uh our listeners can benefit from uh you sharing?
SPEAKER_02Well, the uh the thing is that uh I think it's very important for your listeners to, you know, you know, be aware of you know that the drug problem, the gang problem, you know, what's going on in the world with uh child soldiers. Uh, you know, and uh you know, there's not enough uh public awareness. You know, the media doesn't cover a lot of these things. Uh and I public awareness, as you well know, is you know, something that needs to be done to make people aware. And therefore, I I congratulate you and your program for bringing this public awareness, which is so valuable and so needed in this country and other countries. So um I I just uh hope that you know we can do something, you know, not only not only attacking other countries verbally, but you know, we need to do a better job here in the United States diminishing the demand and the consumption. Because as long as we have the demand and the consumption, if it's not the cartels uh in a country, it's gonna, you know, it's gonna migrate someplace else because you know, we're talking about a basic law of economics, you know, supply and demand. The other thing also is we need to do a better job in controlling the firearms that come from the United States into Latin America, Mexico. Uh, you know, we have over 80,000 registered gun dealers in this country. That's more than Burger King, McDonald's, Subway, and you know, combined all the franchises, and those weapons going, many of them go into the hands of the cartels. And the key question is why are we arming the people that we're supposed to be fighting? When you take a look at Latin America and the Caribbean, uh uh, that whole area comprises 8% of the world's total population. But because of US weapons, they commit, you know, 24% of the world's homicides.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Well, Mike, again, thank you so much for joining us. Um, you know what? Your expertise is unmatched, and thank you so much for sharing it with us.
SPEAKER_02Oh, my brother, my brother, you've got a hell of a lot of expertise yourself.
SPEAKER_01Well, unabraso muy grande and um juntarte con nosotros esta mañana. Muchas gracias. Muchas gracias, Mike. Hasta luego. Hasta luego. And for everybody watching, uh, thank you for tuning in. Please uh like, please subscribe, uh, share your thoughts. Um, stories like this are invaluable. Sometimes we uh only look at um what a victim looks like from what we've been told a victim looks like. It's very important to uh think about those children uh on both sides of the border. Uh sometimes they don't have a choice and they're exploited by uh the gang members, the cartel, and other groups. Um we're gonna end this episode with a prayer from our brother in Christ, our brother in law enforcement. Greg Adminson. Thank you for watching. God bless you.
SPEAKER_00We come before you with gratitude for the brave men and women who have answered the sacred call to protect and serve. You said in Romans 13, verse 4, that the one in authority is God's servant for your good. Lord, we thank you for every officer who stands the line. We thank you for every officer who runs toward the sound of danger when others run away. We thank you, God, for every officer who brings order out of chaos and who seeks justice with compassion. Father, as warriors in a fallen world, we draw our strength from you. Your Lord declares in Psalm 144, verse 1 Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for every battle. Train our hands, Lord, not only for the battles of the street, but for the battles within. Give us courage when fear whispers, give us patience when tempers rise. Grant us wisdom when decisions must be made in an instant. Lord, we ask for your divine protection over every officer in the field. Surround them with your angels as a shield, as you promised in Psalm 91, and let your peace guard their heart and mind in Christ Jesus. When they grow weary, remind them that those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles. Almighty God, you are our strength, you are our shield, you are our ever-present help in times of trouble. Father, when the day's work is done, bring them home safely. Restore their spirit, renew their joy, and remind them that they do not fight this battle alone. For you go before them, you go beside them, you are with them. In the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our commander and king. Amen.