The Mexican Mafia in 2026 with special guest, Gabriel Morales

Join John Livia and renowned crime expert, Gabriel Morales as they discuss the inter-workings of the Mexican Mafia in 2026.

#crimestory #crimenews #mafia #mexicanmafia

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

All right. Uh series Outcasts. Uh, my host, I'm the host, John Livia. My guest is Gabe Morales from Gangsters, Cops, and Politicians, a return guest. What's up, Gabe? How you doing, man? All right, brother. How are you doing? I'm doing good. We actually had some really good content um, like I think a year or two ago. And then when you have a uh podcast called Gangsters, Cops and Politicians. You um, so if somebody have uh if you want to give a background, you also uh worked in some serious prisons before, right? As a as a um counselor and as a guard. Is that accurate?

unknown 0:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Yeah, yeah. I started off uh working at uh Folsom prison. Well, first of all, you know, before even my career, my professional career, you know, like you, I grew up around a lot of these guys, you know. I wasn't a gangster, my brother was. I had uncles that did time, my grandfather did time. So, you know, I I knew these um these kind of individuals, you know, that that lifestyle, the gangster lifestyle, and the drugs and all the stuff that comes with it, you know, the violence and all that. Um, and then I yeah, I was in the Marine Corps for four years in California, um, joined um uh Department of Corrections, California Department of Corrections, worked at Folsom Prison, which was the worst place in California at that time.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Um now you have the podcast Gangsters, Cops, and Politicians, and it revolves around exactly that all the uh prison gangs. It is uh is an amazing podcast because the details that you let out. I don't think any other podcast gets into the details of prison gangs like you do, because obviously you have inside awareness, um, and the the content you put out is just tremendous. And we've done content before. I came on your channel, I did a little bit about the Italian mafia, and you've been on my channel. I think this is the third or fourth time you've been on my channel because you really bring great content. It's it's fantastic. So if anybody, I'll put the link in the description. It's gangsters, cops, and politicians, and it's been blowing up, and you've been doing some other things too, right? Um, I believe that you were in some kind of interview documentary. Am I accurate?

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Well, I did some, yeah. Uh last year, uh just zoom in. Last year, I think it was last year, we maybe recorded the year before, but it came out last year uh on Vice TV, which is kind of like gang the Gangland series, very popular series. So yeah, we covered all groups. I was in about half a dozen episodes, I think they aired 10 or 12, but I was in almost half of those. Or they um, if I wasn't in them, some of them I got cut, but I was a big advisor to those and recommended, you know, speakers. You know, they they say, hey, you know, who who knows about this group? And I said, Oh, this let me call my buddy, you know, and yeah, yeah, I'm sure I talked to you and got you know, hooked them up. So I did a lot of that too. Um, and because like I said, I don't know everything about all gangs, but I know a little bit about most of them.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Um, so yeah, I was very, very proud of what I wanted to do today is I wanted to talk because I had you on once before, well, several times, but in one particular video we did together, we talked about the Mexican mafia, but the beginnings of it, and then of course we talk about the uh the movie with um uh Blood In and Blood Out, and then the other movie American Me. And uh I wanted you did a video about what's happening with the Mexican mafia today, and that's what I wanted to um establish. I I think a lot of people sleep on it, they kind of don't realize that it's still alive and active today, you know. I think people say, Oh, the Mexican mafia, that's the 1950s, that's the 1960s, or maybe the 70s with uh with Peg leg. But other than that, no, it's still alive and well today. So that's what I wanted to get into. But the the first question I have is is it is it something like they run the streets, or is it solely in prison, or is it kind of a combination of both? Because when I think Mexican mafia, I think prison gang. I don't think the streets as much as I think prison gang.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Yeah. Um so to answer your your question, John, uh, and of course there's you know, people have different opinions on it, but my personal opinion is yeah, they started off as a prison gang, they started off as DBI as we talked about before in the shows. They were all young kids, you know, um still in their teens, you know, and they really they saw the Italian mafia because in the late 50s the Italian mafia was in his heyday, right? That's right. Yeah, so I mean, they kind of a lot of people say kind of went downhill after that time period, but at that time, they could have picked any name, but they wanted to be just like the Italian mafia, and um they were structured a little different, so they didn't have the godfather, you know, and the consigliere and the underboss and the you know, the captains like that. Uh, they decided that everybody was gonna be equal rank in theory, but you're right. Uh Joe Morgan, who some people call Pegleg, um, he was the honorary godfather, but that was not official position. It was more a position when he did business with the Medskin drug cartels. If they said, Well, who's you know, who's running this group we're dealing with making this big deal with? They can say, hey, he's our guy, he's our point man, you know, he's our ambassador. So that's why they did that. But yeah, they they they have changed over the years since the 50s, just like the Italian mafia has. They um had changes of the guard, different people who had uh more juice than others that uh were very influential. And most of those now are dead. I'm trying to think if there's any left from the early days. I think they're all dead, you know, because they were even though they were teens in the 50s, that would make them old man now. That's right. Yeah, uh Rube Soto is probably the oldest one right now, surviving Metzgimoth member. I think he's in his 80s and he's confined to a wheelchair. And you know, just he's respected because he was not an original, but he was a very early one. And so he still they still kind of go to him as an advisor, kind of like thing, you know. He he's not as active as he was, he's out in the streets. He got a uh medical release, uh so uh from prison. Okay, so uh he he he's out there and they'll they'll they like to take their pictures around him, you know. Hey, this is the you know, this is the the he he was the guy, if yeah, not the guy now, and you say you know, I I knew him and you know here he is.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

But uh what is the structure like? Is there a structure in the in the Mexican mafia?

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Well, yes and no. So everybody in theory is supposed to be equal, and they call them carnals, uh brothers, brothers in English. So it's it's uh carnal is like a Chicano slang word, Mexican American slang word for brother. So so if you're a made guy, you're a carnal. They also later on call themselves Pili's because these guys would study Aztec in Mayan mythology, and uh Pili was a nobleman in the Aztec society, so it wasn't uh you know the emperor, but he was uh high class, and so they'll call themselves Pili's too, a lot of times. And then so underneath them you have an associate, which is a camarada, uh a comrade, you know, like an associate. And uh they also call them campo, which uh campo is uh nahua or aztec for southern man. So they they're very big into that, you know, the art and they put the tattoos on the Aztec, you know, uh tattoos on all the time and study, they even study the language, they speak in code, uh, because there are so many Spanish-speaking officers now, but there's not very many officers that know Nahua. I know a little bit because I studied in college, uh, Mesoamerican culture and art and language and stuff, but they're good. I mean, they study it day in and day out. Like some people read the Bible, they won't study that as their religion, right? Because a lot of these guys view themselves as modern-day Aztec warriors, you know, and so uh, I mean, it's they take on Aztec names, they'll usually have a street name from the street game game, they'll also take on a code name, which is often an Aztec name or Nahua name, and so so you have that, then underneath them are Serenos. So Sorenos are um something that evolved over the years. So if you're from Southern California since the late 70s, early 80s, you're considered a Soureño if you're in a Mexican American gang, a Chicago gang. So there's thousands of these gangs in Southern California. What happened was the Metzgic mafia, uh the members started hitting the streets in the 1970s with the changes of the laws. A lot of them started hitting the streets and they started committing murders. They have been committing murders since the late 50s in prison, but in the mid-70s, they started committing uh, or early 70s rather. Uh, they started committing a lot of murders on the street. And so they started taking over drug rehab programs, they started killing uh and taxing drug dealers, robbing them, or or tell them, you know, hey, you know, give us some money, or you know, we'll rip your stuff off, or we'll kill you, or whatever, or beat you, you know, whatever they decided to do with those individuals. So they became more sophisticated then. They went from the outside to the inside, excuse me, the other way around, from the inside to the outside controlling the streets. Um, and that went on like that for many years, and then the feds picked a lot of them up, so a lot of them were sent to the Bureau of Prisons where they formed kind of like another wing of the Mexican mafia. You have the California is the first wing, and then they kind of formed a second wing, the federal faction, the BLP. They don't always see it eye to eye, and even today there's there's problems with that sometimes. Where one guy, in fact, on one of my recent programs, somebody said, you know, that guy's not made. Well, the feds say he's made, the feds say he was a canal, he's a made member, and he may not be squat, he can go to California and he might you know be target practice, right? But in the feds, he had control or had the keys to a certain yard to that prison. He was a shot collar, that's it. He had guys working for him, so it is what it is. I mean, it it it I very seldom say, you know, this isn't true or this is true. Some of it, like I said, is a matter of opinion and place in different place at different time. Uh, so they like you said, so you had them in the state operating, you had them in the feds operating. What happened then in the feds? There was so much contention sometimes over whether the guy was made or not, or who's gonna run certain prisons that they created a commission, and all those commissioners were heavy, heavy guys. And so uh there's a three-man commission, and then they were like the ruling, they were like the law, decided this guy's good, this guy's not good, you know, this guy's no good, uh, this guy's in charge of this place. So that was the law there. You had the separate system in the California where at Pelican Bay, uh, they had a Mesa, they called it a Mesa, and it was a four-man council that decided who was gonna tax the streets, uh, as far as what territories, and they divvied it up. Um, this is something that occurred after the Emmy edict, which happened in the early 90s, and really, well, that's when the idea was formulated, uh, really didn't take place real big until Joe Morgan uh died. Um and I think he died in 94, uh, if I remember right. So by the mid-90s, by 95 or whatever, it was established on the streets, and they did Rico cases on them taking control of the streets even more than they did before. It was more organized. They call it the MA edict, and so they had different certain rules about uh what could happen, what couldn't. And uh they virtually shut down drug-by shootings amongst the different surrender gangs on the street, and a lot of people at this thought, oh, at the time thought that's a good thing, you know. They medicine mafia is helping you know reduce the violence. Well, they did it to make money, and they weren't doing it out of the goodness of their heart, you know what I'm saying? They're doing it so they could control these surrending gangs even more, and so that went on, and they created the MASA because there's arguments over that, and so where we have today, there's some people say there's still a Mesa, there's some people say there's still a commission. Um, I have an idea of who some of those individuals may be, but I won't go on record say that because I haven't seen it in black and white like I have before, especially when I was employed. Uh, now I don't get um confidential documents like I had privy to before, but I still keep you know a good uh eye and ear on things on the pulse on the way things are changing. And I talked to a lot of people, former convicts who just got out of the joint who know, um retired uh police officers and corrections officers who just investigated some of those cases, so no, so you know I've been out of the business for 10 years. I went back a few years ago as a lieutenant, but you know, I'm not right there in the units like I was when I was at Folsom prison, seeing this all all go down personally firsthand, putting the handcuffs on the guys involved. Right. But uh I I do do my homework, I try, like you, I know you do for your programs and do research, you know. And so I'm just not talking, you know, a bunch of masa, they call it, you know, just a bunch of a mess, a bunch of rumors, going off a bunch of rumors. Uh, I would say I stand by 90% of the stuff on my program. I've seen it in black and white, uh, or I have pictures of it, or there's court cases, and that other 10%, like I said, I will try to make it very clear this is my opinion, or people say, right, or I believe, because you always got people who are gonna come up in the comment section and say, Oh, that never happened, you know. They'll end up, you know, they'll say this guy was here, I was here with them, and you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Yeah, I do the same. If it's a rumor, I actually say the rumor is the or or the word on the street is I do I do the same thing because there are, you know, you I'm sure like you, you have sources, and people tell you, oh, you know, it's A, B, and C. And I go, Well, okay, the rumor is, you know, I do the same kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

When you think of the All you can do is make a consensus, right, John? I'll tell you, you know, yeah, take the information you have available and and come up with your own idea and say, hey, this may not be a hundred percent true or accurate, but this is what I heard or what I believe, and I wouldn't even be putting it out there if I didn't believe it was probably true, or at least there's a good likelihood it was true.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Right, yeah, no, a hundred percent. And I I actually, and I'm sure you do, I welcome the uh the comments. Um and and I and I I unlike other people read every single one of them. Yeah, I do too. And sometimes I have to like respectful, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

If they're real rude, I I I used to, you know, interact with them and you know, say, you know, I don't like it. Like some people, it's not even worth the time. I just block them, delete them. But yeah, no, you're right. Uh some people in my recent videos had some good points. Yeah, and you know, if you bring if you can bring up some logic or show me in black and white that something's not true, um, then yeah, I mean, I don't have no problem admitting I was wrong and cleaning, I'll clean it up on the next video.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I've I've I've uh and I've I've gotten names wrong and the same kind of thing where I came back and I said, Oh, you know, I've I've done the same kind of thing. But and and as far as like very few times will I delete something, unless it's something that's very, very, very rude. Um, I had a famous uh gangster on uh two years ago, uh John Elite, who was with the Gambino crime family. He was Albanian, but he he was considered a heavyweight because he was so violent during the 90s. But um, you know, he had unfortunately had a daughter that that overdosed and you know passed away, and somebody made a terrible comment and I immediately deleted it. You know, I had another person put somebody's address on my comments, you know, immediately deleted it, like things like that. I really monitor because that's just that's just not necessary.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

But in prison, in jail, John, we call those cell warriors. You know, out here they're called keyboard warriors. That's right. Yeah, some people I don't know why, but they're behind a keyboard, they get really brave, so they wouldn't probably tell you to your face to that other person, but yeah, they just like talk a lot of myself, you know, talk a lot of smack with because they can they can hide beyond the screen.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

No, 100%. And um, you know, it's it's unfortunate because people I don't, it's I don't want to stay on this topic, I want to go back to the Mexican mafia, but uh I I think it's something concerning that people don't understand consequences anymore, you know. Um it's it used to be that if you said something out of pocket, uh, there were gonna be consequences, and people knew a line where computers and laptops and keyboard and phones, there seems to be no no line, they don't care, and it's just it's just rude.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

But anyway, yeah, it's it's it's very disrespectful, but yeah, you're right. It's it you know, pros and cons. Technology is good in some you know ways. Uh this AI really scares me personally, you know, but it's also can be, I'm sure, can be useful sometimes, you know. But there's pros and cons to everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Right, right. So when you think of uh the Mexican mafia, what types of criminal activity you immediately think drugs were criminal activity? Do they get inventive like the Italians do? Or basically do they stick to what they know?

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Well, um there has been changes out there, you know, in the in the drug world. Uh fentanyl is real big now. Yeah, you know, so the drug cartels decided that you know heroin use was um uh a big moneymaker for them. Um people addicted to heroin, they need that fix every day, so it's like a guaranteed market there. But they also found that it was a little more bulky. And uh fentanyl, I understand, is I'm not a you know, biologist or scientist, but I've been told that it's like a hundred times more powerful than heroin. So you think you if you're more moving a hundred kilos of uh of chiva or or black tar heroin, Metzkin black tar heroin, you only have to move one key now of fentanyl for the same amount, you know what I mean? Uh uh of high. So uh and and there's people dying, you know, left and light, right? That's uh I've had family members that OD unfortunately got killed because they were used to shooting up heroin, but they didn't know that it was tainted with fentanyl. And it was too powerful. And they they they that was the end of that. Yeah, yeah. Um, so you got that. Um they um are constantly tapping into you know those markets, the drug cart, medicine drug cartels, you know, do that, they change. Uh methamphetamine is still uh you know, big drug out there. They call that white. When you're in prison, they say, you know, hey, you know, I want white, I want black. So methamphetamine is real big, but understand that fentanyl is uh starting to take over the the market. And then uh do you remember methadone clinics, John?

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

If a guy was, yeah, if the guy was kicking heroin, they used to put them on methanole. Well now they got uh a drug called suboxin. It wasn't around 10 years ago when I was working, but they give them suboxin now instead of methadone to wean them off of heroin. And what they'll do is they will uh during uh medical call, these guys will get this is the you know the government giving them free drugs basically. They'll put the suboxin in their cheek, put it way back there, and try to keep it from dissolving as much as possible, and then spit it out later and sell it. So that's a huge market now. Yeah, and so these guys will control whatever's out there, you know. If it's drugs, you know, gambling, uh, you know, the uh it may be on the inside, they're not controlling gambling partners, parlors in Vegas, like the Italian mafia did for a while, but they're controlling the gambling inside the joints, and then out in the streets, the Mexican mafia controls what they call casitas. Casitas are little uh places, little rooms could be room, uh anywhere from small room to large complexes where they'll have gambling go on, illegal gambling, they'll have they'll bring in prostitutes there, they'll they'll serve them alcohol even after hours, you know, at higher prices than than than you could get, but you know, after usually one or two, they won't serve anywhere else. Well, you go there four in the morning and get a drink if you want there. Right. Uh you can get any kind of drugs you want there. And so these are very uh very much illegal operations. So the the Metzgum Mafia will control those is a big just bust with uh the 18th Street gang in MacArthur Park, the old famous Don Donna Somersong. Yes, it's a huge, probably one of the biggest uh drug markets in Los Angeles. And so they were controlling that. Um they will uh you know they'll they'll kidnap, they still kidnap people, you know, for ransoms, extortions. Uh they will hit up the Metzgican mafia, will hit up uh, let's say a Mexican store um or restaurant and tell them, you know, hey, you know, you gotta kick down $500 a month or a thousand a month. That may not seem like much, but when they're in that neighborhood, they're doing that to a hundred different places. Yeah, right, right, right. That adds up. Yeah, and so the people can either uh pay up or they say, you know, first they usually they they send in some thugs, some local gangsters, to get real loud in the restaurant where nobody wants to go there and order anything, you know, just harass people, you know, grab free beers, that kind of thing, and you know, if they do anything, bash the guy with the head with it. I mean, they're they're pretty they're pretty brutal in the way they do it. And then though if that doesn't work, then they just burn the place down, you know. Same thing the Italian mafia used to do.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Yeah, but they but they but the Mexican mafia is still doing it today, though.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Oh, yeah, yeah. Those are some of the activities they're involved in. Uh they're they're still involved in robberies. Usually the robberies are of other dope dealers, and who's gonna report?

SPEAKER_00 22:00

it if you're a drug dealer you know right uh they know that there's a low likelihood that anybody's gonna say anything about it that's been their bread and butter since you know the since they started uh that's another big thing they're involved in um you name it you know the uh illegal uh fencing illegal goods i know in new york city i went to canal street once and i was like knockoff stuff yeah but way cheaper yeah not gonna lie i bought me my wife bought a few things like well that's like everybody does like like everybody um a fraction of the cost of what it costs to store that looks the same it's a knockoff yeah you know even had some fake labels sometimes that you know the roof oh yeah they do it all it's so common yeah it's so common over here it's unbelievable yeah so the same thing in LA you know they will um they'll extort the places they make uh dvds um uh some places still so they'll be yeah they'll make pirated copies of that and extort people for that or make the stores sell them that are you know off the the back of the truck they stole them or or made them uh fraudulently um they will they you you name it any kind of racket they can they'll try to make money off it uh prostitution is still real big um they will do that and um i i want to well i want to get to that because i watched your video and it's it's funny that you you mentioned that i watched your video and it seems as though i mean correct me if i'm wrong it seems as though the mexican mafia um uses um there's a lot of women that are active not a lot but there are they are women that are active in the mexican mafia where in the with the italians that's you that's frowned upon you don't really women in the Italian mafia is basically your wife your girl your side chick your girlfriend your mistress and prostitutes you really they really don't involve the women in the actual business where I've noticed in your videos yeah they do they have women that are operating uh within the the uh uh the the confines of Mexican mafia yeah well it was real it was bigger at one time it's still frowned upon but you know um you think about it you know who do you you know who should you trust more than your wife you know um maybe not so much girlfriends you know or or sisters but you know your wife if you can't trust them who can you trust so a lot of times these guys get locked up and they'd have the the wife running the drug business let's say the guy has you know 100 clients coming you know buying uh you know half a key you know uh uh a day from them whatever you know they don't want to lose that income and their wife may be dependent on it maybe he lives in a fairly nice house right right yeah she don't want to lose a home so he'll have her run it uh for him or via third party but she's still uh keeping tabs on it and then he'll talk on the phone to her so that was real big especially when um they were in going to jail for a short time period um was just a short term thing or when they're at Pelican Bay which happened from the uh the shoe programs were real big during the 1980s mid-1980s especially um up until about the year 2015 2016 when they started kicking them out of Pelican Bay and Corcoran and so during that time period yeah they had you know 23 hour lockdown no no face-to-face visits you know no conjugal visits uh like they couldn't generate general population um uh limited phone calls uh that kind of thing so yeah for for a while the women were doing a lot of that networking for them it is started to shift back to being frowned upon because a lot of the guys in the in these various in these gangs you know they're getting bossed around by women and especially in the Mexican culture I know it's it's probably the same in the Italian culture yeah it's it's a macho culture like I don't want to be bossed around by no woman so a lot of guys didn't like it they did it and uh it's real funny you listen to some of the phone calls because you hear this you know sweet talking little you know girl 100 pounds you know good looking a lot of them some of them not so much but you know uh talking a real like innocent voice and giving orders to these guys yeah and you can even hear them you because they can hardly hear them sometimes yeah are you sure it means you know sometimes they're speaking code sometimes we're supposed to whack them are you sure yeah yeah yeah yeah real low yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's the that's that's the word and everything right right right you know you know so you could tell there's confusion even a lot of these phone calls when you listen to them like why am I listening to this chick and it's you know you know and I don't like it at all but I'm gonna listen to her and bow down to her because because she's the big homies old lady also right I don't want to get hit myself I don't want to be next next one to get whacked so they did it but now since they've been let out of the uh the last 10 years it's kind of going back to the way it used to be where it's more the the shot collars giving the orders or their um their their associates people in their crew so yeah this it's it goes through changes you know yeah yeah I don't know if you saw did you watch Ozark did you watch that show Ozark no I haven't yeah it's a good show with uh uh Bateman Jason Bateman I forget his name but anyway the last the last season um the Mexican it's supposed to be involved with the Mexican drug cartel and the and the Mexican drug cartel he gets killed he gets killed and his uh I think I don't know if you remember if his wife or his sister takes over and I'm watching it going yeah okay that no way yeah yeah yeah yeah maybe an emergency case but yeah it's it's frowned upon yeah they they don't like it you know and same thing with the the Mexican drug cartels too you know sometimes they would use their their old ladies to uh you know do things like Chapo uh Guzman his his wife he's had a lot of them but his wife I understand was like a teenager she was a beauty queen was given to him by another drug lord so he'd be in good terms with Chapo gave him his daughter basically married him away yeah so he'd be good you know in good part of the part of the the the elite power move it's like it's like medieval times you have to marry into this family that's unbelievable and she was doing a lot of stuff for him yeah oh I can imagine speaking of Mexican drug cartels do they have a connect with the Mexican mafia in the United States or are they right are they rivals? Yes um the Metzg mafia and other gangs because there's a Texas Metzga mafia too and and other prison gangs in other states they're they're totally different group but uh yeah in California the Metzgamafia there um has had members who go down to Metzco and deal with the drug cartels there's a uh for your viewers if they haven't seen it seen it there's a channel called misled loyalty uh the guy's name's Robert Alvarez he was never a made Metzg mafia member he's an associate but he's from Sinaloa and was doing major moves with the cartels down there so that you know that's a good his channel is a good example if you listen to some of those stories on the relationship between the California Metzg Mafia and the Mezcan drug cartels they started doing it um with the uh Tijuana cartel well they've been doing a long time but Joe Morgan was going down there making deals with uh cartels even before they were even really known here in the States but they started doing it with the Tijuana cartel the Ariano Felix organization uh first uh bat marquez uh papay barone some of these guys are in my um some of my recent videos on my channel uh you could look them up for your viewers yeah the one name that um I watched your video which is again I can't uh I can't stress it enough go watch go check out his channel it's fantastic gangsters cops and politicians but the name that came up with the Tijuana cartel if I'm if I'm right was uh John Martinez they called him Crow and you said he set up a connection with the with the Tijuana cartel well yeah John Martinez is from Orange County um yeah he is uh is or was a Metzga Mafia member some people put that in question and I think he even he says yeah I'm I'm not denies it but you know it's like the Italian mafia they're you know they're not supposed to admit that they were right yeah yeah yeah I I played a video of a guy named uh um uh Weddle Sherman Leone who admits on camera he's a Metzgemoff member a lot of people that what the heck's this guy doing it's supposed to be against the rules but he was moving so much dope I think they gave him a pass right and everybody knows it he's kind of like he's got it all over I mean he's got emmy here black hand here I mean you know yeah no I'm not you know he'd kind of dumb saying that yeah yeah yeah but uh yeah so yeah crow crow has done odd deals down there um you know uh like I said bat marquez was an enforcer for the uh Tijuana cartel he was dissolving people in acid I was told yeah I I don't I wasn't there who is this now there uh uh we'll say uh bat marquez he's in the federal uh adx right now but he was doing uh yeah he was doing uh he was an enforcer he was doing executions for them down there and supposedly you know they want to get rid of the body I mean like make them literally they call them just make somebody disappear and they would put them in acid the whole body you know they usually torture them and try to get information out of them about you know different things but uh then they would cut them chop usually chop them up and then put them in uh that's a acid and they dissolve and there's nothing left but a gut at the end.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Yeah pretty gruesome but uh yeah so they dealt with the uh Tijuana cartel the Baja cartel the Cinol cartel they dealt with the Gulf cartel Sonora cartel um you you know you you you name it the Warz cartel they've dealt with all of them the uh the big cartel that's been in the news lately and you probably heard uh the number one guy was named uh the the new uh they call him gente nueva or the new generation cartel uh cartel jalisco nueva generación which means new generation jalisco cartel as opposed to the the previous one and uh you know they'll deal they'll deal with them they'll deal with uh whoever can provide the product right the there's a guy named I had a at New Folsom uh violence control unit named uh we knew him as Alejandro Tapia Fox but in the uh federal system he was known as uh uh under uh Jose Landa Rodriguez it's the same guy you know but he was doing major deals with the uh familia Michoacana which was another cartel was big one big uh really big at one time so yeah they wherever they can get the dope from I mean that's how they make the majority of their money is off the drugs and so then they will sell it to um sureños or if they find out that anybody's dealing drugs they came from the cartels like I said they'll either tax them or rip them off or you know they want a piece they want a piece of that action.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Yeah yeah yeah okay so I watched your video about the uh Mexican Mafia 2026 and I um have wrote down some names of shot callers that you mentioned um and I'd like to go down I have a handful of them I'd like to go down and see uh if you could give me a little bit of background and how active they are in the organization today.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

So obviously the first guy is uh and and forgive me if I don't pronounce the name right I'm not hispanic so give me some leeway um Michael Lerma uh Pomona Pomona Mike yes Pomona Mike's from 12th Street I know that uh neighborhood very good uh my wife's family lives right in the middle of them in Cherryville which is another old barrio and old gang there since uh at least World War II and yeah Pomona Mike was basically the the the head MA guy he was MA main in the 1980s so he'd been MA over 40 years wow um and became the number one guy in Pomona there's a couple people who challenged his throne but he was always able to get rid of them or people moved in there's a guy named Frankie Bueno who's an old MA guy and he was pushing his weight around but the Sweden just got tired of uh Frankie bossing them around so they went to Mike and uh Darrell Castrone they call him D uh from Ontario Black Angels and they got the okay to whack wow uh him see because you're supposed to uh if you have a problem with the Mexican mafia member in theory the only person who can get rid of them is another member it's just like Italian mafia right right right same kind of rules they they copied a lot of the rules from Italian mafia only a made guy is supposed to be able to give authority to whack another made guy right and usually they will confer with other members too to make sure you know that they're not next on the list. So that you know hey you know they'll they'll have meetings and phone calls and talk to people and they make a decision he's got to go. Wow and so uh yeah Mike Lermo was uh a major shot caller um he hadn't been on the streets of Pomona for years but he was uh ruling it the city and the gangs there from Pelican Bay and then he was indicted by the feds not too long ago on the Rico case he fought that for a long time he had a guy killed in the LA County Metro Detention Center while he's on federal trial who was uh got some drugs I understand and didn't didn't pay and refuse to pay because what happens is you know it's just like telling mafia you got to pay a certain amount on a certain date oh you don't make the payment it's doubled now right okay he didn't make that he didn't and now it's triple you know right and pretty soon they just say we're just gonna kill him we're not even gonna tell him he owns all this right right right right make an example out of other people who might might not want to pay is Pomona Mike still alive is he still active yes yes yes he is um he may still be at the LA Metro detention center because these guys try to drag it out as long as he can but he'll probably be headed to the ADX which is the most secure prison we have for the federal side anyways wow okay um the next one uh I believe is a woman Cheryl Costanda uh uh if I pronounce that right yeah Costaneda yeah yeah I really don't feel comfortable saying too much about her she's turned Christian now so yeah I don't you know no problem we'll skip it if if people change you know that's what we want right we we want people to change so if she's turning relief yeah I don't want to I think she feels bad enough about some of the things she's already done but if anyone look if anybody wants to look up that case you can look up the Mike Lerma case and Cheryl Castaneda who was his secretary um during uh a time period that he was operating okay we'll skip it we'll go to the next one um cricket jackson uh manuel larry cricket jackson yeah crickets from hazard which is uh a major gang they've had a lot of Metzg and Mafia members come out of there in fact his mentor was uh champ reynoso who's on the commission I talked about earlier for the feds so yeah he uh was schooled by champ and uh considered uh you know to be a favorite of champ uh reynoso one of the top guys in the federal system um probably probably the top guy like I said they didn't have a rank you know a ranking system but uh many people considered him to be the the number one guy in the feds for many years and so uh cricket um uh was in the feds he got out and um you know started doing his thing you know uh taking control of Hazard which like I said has had a lot of uh Metskomaffee members as well as dropouts over the years you can look that up too uh Robot Sala is a very famous um gang member from Hazard that my mentor Robert Mulcombrill dealt with uh directly he's a big drug dealer very close to Joe Morgan and in the in the heavyweights you know yes so yeah crickets cricket's from that area and yeah considered one of the top guys okay um uh we mentioned uh Crow Martinez John Crow Martinez um the next one I want the uh Jose Big Joe Costello okay uh okay is is it Costello or Ponce because I think he goes by both okay I don't know I think it's you know better than me yeah I'd have to see the picture yeah I'd have to almost see his picture no that's a that's the thing people used to say hey you know you do you know uh you know smiley what's smiley I know like 10 of them you know yeah yeah yeah yeah smiley from at least tell me his barrio if he told me his barrio I can probably narrow it down you know uh but I think you meant J uh I think you meant John Ponte who was uh from Orange County Alley Boys okay and he was real close to uh uh you know uh he was uh on good terms with uh Peter San Ojeda was was another one of the top guys ruled Orange County which is one of the bigger counties in now you know in California uh ruled it they called him the godfather of Orange County once again he was not he had no official rank but nobody else you know he it it would be like you know John Gotti you know yeah you know he's like yeah he was he was the ruler of that you know that area and nobody challenged him right right right um so he he'd be the the John Gotti of Orange County but they just didn't have a uh a rank you know he wasn't the uh the the number one guy uh but he he was uh definitely um a a big guy and uh Joe um Joe is uh he has a big MA on his big black hand on his neck you know when they have that they you you have to by the way for your viewers don't know to get that symbol and they took that also from the Italian mafia the black hand yes which was what they were first called and so they took that symbol and you cannot have that black hand on uh in California anyways um unless you are a Mexican mafia member they they will they will tell you cover that up or they'll cut it off or you know they'll whack you yeah it's on you know I've I've interviewed bikers same thing with the Hells Angels if you have a Hells Angels tattoo and you're not an angel they'll they'll literally skin you skin it off you you know um the idea that the idea that everybody's equal and there is no um uh boss has it you think that has served them or or or do you think that has been you know something that hurt them because with with the Italians it's it's uh they could hit them with a with a Rico case because it's organized crime immediately does that same thing happen with the Mexicans or do you think they benefit from it because there's no hierarchy if you will well yeah that's a great question and yeah um if you're gonna compare the two yeah uh definitely you know Cosa Nostra top down vertical Mexican mafia horizontal so there's pros pros and cons to that so yeah the the pros would be it's harder than to do a Rico case because even a lot of these guys don't know who's in charge sometimes right there's arguments like I said between the feds and the state who's in charge even within their organization sometimes there's power plays you know so um uh people may not know who's actually running things and they they they keep their circle small uh for that reason they know the feds are listening i mean they they know their their phones are being tapped all the time their letters are being read and that's I said that's why a lot of times they go through their their girlfriend or wife uh and get real close where the cameras can't see and stuff you know and and make little signs and they you know they already know they who knows them better than their wife you know right and what they're really saying you know just by their their actions or what they don't say right right you know just to pause you know hey somebody's you know so and so is saying that you know so and so's uh in trouble and if you don't say anything you know that's a yeah that's a yes that's an affirmative you know otherwise you say oh no no that guy's cool you know yeah yeah he's Gabe's cool you know yeah yeah well you know tell John don't worry about it don't whack you don't don't whack Gabe but but if he goes Gabe's dead that's it that's it just the signals yeah this yeah I mean you know it's so yeah so um so yeah it's uh to answer your question um I know it's kind of a long answer been been pros and cons to that so they um it it's harder to go after these guys and prove that you know they're a um a criminal organization and that they're organized so uh you know organized crime uh racketeering and corrupt organizations which was meant for organized crime uh at first and they use it for other groups and so it's a little harder um and they're a little disorganized because they don't have such a strict you know like military structure uh more combined structures so yeah it can go either way to their favor or against them wow and it's I tell you it is it's gotta be a very difficult life to lead uh you can't I mean I mean between the violence uh the drugs the PTSD as we spoke about before in and out of prison um getting other family members like your wife involved it it can't be I would I would think that it's more more cons than pros to be in that life I I I I I would only think the ends justify the means if if that makes sense. Yeah but yeah it doesn't end up good for a bare medium you know there's only so many people can be king of the hill and there's always you know 10 more you know waiting to knock them off right because yeah there's limited spots you know to to run these um neighborhoods and there's only so much you know you know money can go around the drugs go around um and so um yeah it's very competitive and yeah it usually doesn't end up well I have documented probably right now probably uh probably under 200 made members between the states and the pets made Metzgamaff members but I have probably 3,000 former associates or made members. Now out of those 200 members

SPEAKER_00 44:00

there's there's there's sometimes you know i i would say if i was gonna give a guesstimation uh probably 10 uh associates for every made member so let's let's up that to you know uh 200 made members you know uh 2000 associates very close associates who come out of us as we said so it's still that's you know 2200 you know basically in this organization that are that are operating within it to say like I said I have over 3,000 I have 10 times that amount that are former and a lot of those got killed wow you know or they dropped out because they were going to be get get killed or they OD'd um you know it yeah it doesn't end well for very many of them well you know all you could do is really hope for the best but uh you know since the beginning of time there's been you know some form of organized crime or gangs or so on so forth that's not going away anytime soon which is good for us because we could continue to do content but at the same time you know we kind of want to see um you know majority of people go in the right direction and and lead a healthy lifestyle but it's it's it's sometimes these guys are you know sometimes it's a decision and sometimes these guys are born into it it's it's it's not always cut and dry you know exactly well uh gabe it's always an honor to have you on um I respect your content your channel a lot it's a tremendous channel it's uh gangsters cops and politicians I know I'm repeating myself I sound like a broken record but I really want people to go and take a look at it because it is a tremendous uh content for um for uh prison gangs and organized crime and so on and so forth so much love and respect to you and uh we'll definitely do some more content soon because now that I'm back doing what people like I gotta give them what they want.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

All right just let me know brother thank you for having me on the show. Thank you sir I'll talk to you soon. All right take care