Episode Description
Tune in here to this Tuesday's edition of the Brett Winterble Show!
We're joined by Brett Jensen to talk about the rising threat of organized crime and the evolving tactics used by international gangs in the Charlotte area. Brett shares highlights from his in-depth interview with U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson, who oversees the Western District of North Carolina. Ferguson revealed that roughly 70% of the gang-related crime they deal with involves groups from Central and South America, many of whom are becoming more sophisticated—eschewing tattoos and graffiti to avoid RICO charges. They also discussed international burglary crews flying into the U.S., robbing homes, and flying out the same day.
Even more alarming, Ferguson outlined how Chinese money laundering and synthetic drug trafficking—particularly fentanyl and even deadlier “nitazenes”—are impacting the region. With school starting soon, Brett emphasized the urgency of community awareness. He also teased major developments in local politics, including a new sheriff’s race contender and surprising GOP endorsements in North Mecklenburg.
Listen here for all of this and more on The Brett Winterble Show!
For more from Brett Winterble check out his YouTube channel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
News Talk eleven ten out of nine three WBT breaking.
Brett Jensen is joining us here on the program, and boy,
you had a tremendous get yesterday in your programming last night,
Brett Jensen. And one of the things that I thought
was particularly interesting, and I want you to kind of
flesh this out for the audience who may not have heard.
This is the the challenges that we're dealing with with
(00:41):
industrial grade criminality that is happening around our communities. Talk
a little bit about who you talk to and what
he gave you in terms of the insight to you know,
the imperativeness of the you know, being safe.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, you know, and it's you know, it's highly unusual.
And you know, we were I was afforded and we
as a station and listeners were afforded the rare opportunity
to get a little bit of a behind the scenes
look from a US attorney. And this was US Attorney
rus Ferguson, who's the US Attorney for Western North Carolina.
And you know, his boss is Pam Bondy, Like that's
(01:22):
his boss is Pam Bindy, And so you know, uh
so he's in charge of like the Department of the
doj here in North Carolina and specifically Charlotte. And you know,
I just I asked him about gangs, you know, because
we hear a lot of crime for the last three
years about youth, youth, youth and youth, and so I
was like, all right, So I asked him just about gangs.
(01:45):
I was like, is it prevalent, you know, because we
always hear about the crime of youth and how it's
getting younger, But is it prevalent with gangs? And he said, basically, look,
seventy percent of what they deal with is you know,
gangs are from excuse me, like Ecuador and Guatemala and Mexico.
(02:06):
And he said, gangs are very prevalent here. And he said,
gangs have gotten actually smarter, you know. And the reason,
he said, Brad, he goes, he said, before you know,
we could crime them or basically, you know, go after
like the Rico acts, sort of like what they do
with the mafia, he said. But what they've started doing
is he goes. If you notice gangs no longer do graffiti.
(02:29):
They know, the newer gang members no longer do graffiti
on walls or pavement or whatever like they used to
back in the day to announce their presence, he said,
And now most of the gang members they don't do
gang tattoos anymore. And the reason is it's sort of
like trying to prevent or like saying, hey, we're going
to make it harder for you to prosecute us under RICO.
(02:51):
And so you have to prove that a gang actually exists,
as opposed to us telling you, oh yes, MS thirteen
and you know, or very hang it in on the
walls or I've got MS thirteen on my knuckles or whatever.
Now it's it's gonna be much harder for you to
prove that there is actually a gang. But he said, yeah,
he goes that that is a big thing. And I
just thought it was fascinating because we don't hear much
(03:12):
about gangs in Charlotte, but he said he because yes,
seventy percent of them are south of the border. A.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
There is a very interesting not in a good way,
but in a very bad way. There is a very
interesting phenomenon that is that has come to the United States,
and that is you have people who are parts of
international gangs who come into the United States for the
purposes of robbing high end places, people's houses, in Los
(03:41):
Angeles or in California or New York or what have you,
and they they will fly in a on a day pass.
Basically they will do the robbery, they will take all
the stuff back and fly right back down into South America.
And that has been a phenomenon now for at least
two or three years. That's a really frightening thing because
you're not going to be able to catch them in
(04:03):
the act when they're doing these sorts of things, and
if God forbid, they use a weapon and kill somebody,
it's going to be much harder to try to interdict
them and to lock them up.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, and he was saying, look, he goes, that is
a high propensity of their resources are used to fight
the gangs and the situations to like what you're talking about,
and not just international. And I highly recommend that people
listening right now if you didn't hear the show last night,
because it was a full hour in studio with Russ
Ferguson the US Attorney, go to the WBT dot com
(04:36):
and listen to it because he talked about how also
Brett and I know you would find this fascinating because
I know you talk about China more than anyone else
in our station. And that they said, look, the money
laundering is huge through Chinese money laundering because maybe they're
trying to get like their children or something into America,
(04:56):
but they're only allowed to spend fifty thousand dollars per
Chinese law. But yet they're trying to get someone into Stanford,
which is you know, maybe eighty thousand or one hundred
thousand dollars a year. Right, he goes in money laundering
through fentanyl and drugs from China and they're tracing the
money all the way back to China. Because of that,
he goes, it's fat and you don't think about China
(05:17):
having an impact in Gastonia or Charlotte or wherever. And
he said, it's a huge money laundering effect coming in
from China straight into our area.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, that is absolutely a fact. And you know, nowadays,
you know, we've gotten used to understanding that ventanyl is
a horrible drug. Innocent people lose their lives every day,
you know, not realizing what they're consuming, et cetera. And
now we found out the Wall Street Journal and some
other organizations have done a big work on this, which
(05:50):
is there are drugs now that are stronger than ventanyl
that's out there in the system right now, and it's
stuff that people never never heard of. It's called an
ultra potent niazines that are mostly from China. They're easy
to smuggle and mix into heroin, recreational drugs and gray
market pharmaceuticals. And it is it is like by an
(06:14):
order of ten, you know, ten or twenty more dangerous
than fentanyl. And I can't even imagine what that's going
to look like in the next ten years unless we
get our unless we get a grip on it there,
Brett Well.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
And to your point, and you know, he said, Look,
with the cling closing of the borders north and south,
he goes, it has slowed down the influx of fentanyl
in America, no doubt, he said. But obviously they're finding
other ways, and you know, just things because you look,
I love my beer and wine and booze. But I've
never been like a big marijuana guy or anything like that.
(06:46):
It was never that in college. It just never it
just never felt to me. But what he said, but
what he did say last night, he goes, Bretty goes,
he goes, people think they're just buying a regular bag
of weed, he goes, and it's laced with fentanyl because
they go, Oh, if I get a much stronger high
for the same price, why wouldn't I go back? And
the people are smoking don't know that they're smoking fentanyl,
And he said, it goes. The next thing you know,
(07:08):
someone od's on it and they're dying from smoking weed.
And people don't realize why they're dying because you know,
they're like, Oh, I'm just smoking weed, Why should I
worry about fentanyl? He goes, But weed is laced with
fentanyl because the dealers want you to have a stronger
high so that you will go back and buy more
weed from them. And it's just it's amazing to hear
what Russ Ferguson was talking about in all of this
(07:29):
last night, And again I highly recommend that people go
back to the show and listen to it last night
from the website because it was just truly fascinating to
him break all this.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Down, especially with school getting underway at any minute. Here,
what do you got coming up on the show tonight?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
So we got a lot of things going on tonight.
We now have officially a third person saying that they're
going to run for sheriff of Mecklimbore County. And one
of these three is not Gary McFadden yet, so will
he make number four? And also because he hasn't announced yet.
And also the mech GP endorsed their candidates for the
(08:05):
you know, the town the townships and the city primaries,
and I'm going to talk about that because there is
there is a couple of very very interesting things going
on from the mech gup in the endorsements, especially in
North Mecklbark County.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Big stuff coming up tonight beginning at six. Thanks so
much for joining us here, Bret Jenson. We appreciate you,
always appreciate it. Buddy, Hey, you got it absolutely coming up.
Guess what, My good friend Bo Thompson joins us.