Locals near an Ethiopian church claim encroaching rebels aren't just waging a war agains the government--they've come to steal the legendary Ark of the Covenant, which has allegedly rested in this spot for more than 3,000 years. Members of the Chinese government have doubled down on their own brand of COVID conspiracy theories, accusing the US of creating the virus. International observers are in an uproar as Mexico exonerates a former high-level government official accused of multiple counts of massive smuggling offenses. All this and more in this week's Strange News.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. It's the top of the week,
which means it's time for strange news. We have outrage
(00:47):
in Mexico. We have conspiracy theories about COVID nineteen, but
not the kind you might expect and not from the
place you might assume. And in other news, someone may
have sto and the art of the Covenant, Yes, that
Ark of the Covenant, the same one referenced in both
the Bible and then later the Indiana Jones film franchise,
(01:10):
which are two weird bookends to put on that, I guess.
And if you're if you're a longtime listener of the
show or a viewer of the YouTube channel, you know
that we have attempted to find the location of the
Ark of the Covenant multiple times, and we thought we
narrowed it down at least if one really did exist,
where it probably was. And this story is bringing that
all home. Is that the is that the one where
(01:32):
the Nazis get melted, get their faces melted? Yeah, in
Indiana Jones, Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, not the art
got it, not not the Bible version, but that Indiana
Jones scene is based very loosely on some of the
warnings about the Biblical art, which is, you know, how
one should or should not gaze upon it. Uh, it
(01:55):
does turn out there and no Nazis in the Bible
right right right in the version and that most people use.
I would assume there might be there. There might be
a couple of independent interpretations, a remix version flooting around
the Hitler put forth, and there's always somebody writing a
Third Testament throughout history of one sort or another. Well,
(02:16):
if that's okay, then guys, let's start. Let's start with
that story. So so spoiler alert by way of backgrounds
what Matt's referring to, and he says, you know, we
tried to look for we looked for the Ark of
the Covenant several times, over the course of this show.
That is true, we were intensely interested in this, you know,
(02:39):
stuff they want you to know. Always loves hidden history
and historical mysteries. Uh. The Bible is full of those.
Or the stories, places, people, events, artifacts depicted in the
Bible are always of great interest to historians. Like we've
seen in other in other explorations of history, the world
(03:03):
eats the works of man. So it can be incredibly
difficult to verify things that happened in the eleventh century,
much much less things that happened back in the what
we call the bcase. So it's tough to figure out
where facts and and myths begin. But the arc of
(03:23):
the Covenant is a little bit, a little bit of
an exception. So basically, what it is is a gold
covered wooden chest and it's got a lid over it,
and according to the story, it contains the two actual
stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. And then you'll see
(03:46):
other Biblical sources saying it contains a pot of manna,
Aaron's rod, and so on. Uh. The weird thing that
we found was that for a very very long time,
there has been a group of people in Ethiopia who
claim to possess the actual genuine arc of the Covenant.
(04:13):
Keep in mind, Ethiopia itself has a storied ancient history
and and in our earlier works would dove into the
possibilities that it could be there, and one of the
things that we found, or something they believed to be
the art could be there. We should say important distinction.
One of the things we found is that the story
(04:34):
of the arc ending up in Ethiopia is true in
that there is a church that claims to possess it
and has for a long time. And Matt, I know
you'll recall it seemed that the keepers of the arc
were sincere. Uh. Their only rule is that why they
can't let anybody other than the priests view the arc,
(04:59):
but they will gladly describe it to you in detail consistently. Yeah. Absolutely, Again,
it's a point of contention because it feels like if
you truly did have the arc of some you know,
you may want to show that off for numerous reasons,
if not only two, in some way make money to
better secure that arc. But you know what, what we've
(05:22):
read and what we've seen over the years is that
one of the main reasons for not letting anyone, see
it is to kind of keep this air of mystery
about it because they if they did truly have it,
if they do truly have it, they want to protect it.
And it struck us, and it strikes me currently right
now as the one of the main reasons that it
(05:42):
feels like it might not be genuine, because it's almost
like you could tell the tale of what this glorious
arc looks like that you're keeping back here. It's just
behind you know, this wall. You can't you can't go
back there, but no, it's there and it's glorious, and
let me tell you all about it. Um it strikes
you as maybe not being genuine. It when something like
you know, the story that we're getting into today comes out,
(06:04):
it does make you feel like maybe there was something
back there. I think, I think, I think it's important
to to say to like, I mean, just in general,
holy relics or like physical objects that are associated with
religion are super powerful, you know, because it's almost like
you know, proof positive, like this is real. See, I
have this thing that like proves the existence of God,
(06:25):
or proves the existence of a particular you know, dogma,
like the shroud of Turin for example, which is like
this piece of cloth that supposedly was Jesus's burial, you know,
shroud or whatever. Things like that have a lot of
political power. True. True, And I like that you're differentiating
between political power and maybe supernatural power. Yeah. Absolutely, that's
(06:47):
exactly what I meant. Yes, reliquaries are hugely important because
for true believers, just a reliquary, for instance, is the
container of a body part of a saint. Uh So
those things hugely important for both of those reasons that
you just described, Nola. They may prove the physical existence
of that saint or holy figure. And then they also
(07:10):
are and I don't mean to sounds cold when I
say this, just historically look at it. It's great marketing.
It's a mark of prestige for the church or the
institution that has it. What makes us different from the
church in the next village over, Well, we have the
two thumb bones of you know, St. Martin on toast,
(07:31):
which is hopefully not a real saint. And I apologize
that is a real saint that I've offended anyone, But
yeah St Martin an toast patron saint of thumbs. We've
got his thumbs. Come to our church service. This problem
or this phenomenon is at its most extreme degree when
we're talking about something like the Art of the Covenant.
(07:54):
One of the explanations or rationales but behind not showing
this to the uninitiated, is that you will call in
the in biblical writing, the men of Beth Shemesh gazed
upon the art, and as punishment God Uh smoked seventy
of them or fifty thousand and seventy and some translations. Again,
(08:18):
there's all all this stuff happened a long time ago.
Can I say, I'm a huge fan of the tense
smote to smite one was smoked, But I also love
that it also applies to being like in love with somebody,
to be smitten, you know, it's it's a it's a
funny etymology there. So that's that's the reasoning. This's this
thing that's happened. A lot of folks in the West
(08:40):
aren't aware that to the true believers of this theory,
the mystery of the arc was solved long ago. But
fast forward, fast forward to the modern day. Ethiopia is
one of the oldest countries in the world that's been
(09:00):
extant from its inception to the modern day. It's It's
believed to have developed as a country all the way
back in nine eight b c. E. So Ethiopia was
around during the days of early Christianity. Ethiopia was around
when a lot of the events depicted in the Bible occurred.
(09:22):
I mean, not Genesis, but you get the gist of
what I'm saying, the genergists of what we're saying here.
So Oxom Ethiopia. The place is the Marimon Church, also
known as the Towado Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Twado Church,
and this location claims to be the home of the
(09:45):
biblical Arc of the Covenant. It was moved apparently to
the Chapel of the Tablet, which is adjacent to the
old church because get this, a divine heat from the
tablets within the arc had cracked the stones of the
previous storage facility. It was actually Emperor Holle Selassie's wife,
(10:10):
Empress Menen, who paid for the construction of the new chapel.
So this happened in recent history. But even more recently,
this holy site was under attack and the locals, just
to give you the headline here, the locals are convinced
that part of the motivation for the attack which killed
(10:33):
around seven hundred and fifty people, was to take possession
of the biblical art of the Covenant. This is per
the europe External Program with Africa UH and the Ethiopian
National Defense Force reported to them that the church had
been attacked and hundreds of people were hiding in the church.
(10:55):
They were brought out into the square and shot. You
can look at video showing the aftermath of the massacre.
The military has been fighting with anti communists in surrectionary
forces that control parts of the region. So we can't
(11:16):
we can't dismiss the enormous tragedy almost a thousand people
dying in this in this attack, But we also have
to ask ourselves why wasn't this reported UH more often
in the West awhere anywhere? Really, I cannot I cannot
find a publication that has any of the information there.
(11:40):
The most trustworthy news source is that it's from that
e p A dot b E, the europe External Program
with Africa, And it's just a it's like a one.
It's it's a tiny little sentence essentially that describes this thing. Yeah.
So the the e p A report is the most
(12:05):
credible source I could find here UH, and it does
prove that people were attacked by a force including eight tanks,
twenty buses, five heavy trucks. I mean people were hiding
in the church to survive, not for fun. But this
report does also specifically mentioned the local concern that the
(12:25):
ultimate goal of the attack was to remove the ARC
from its resting place. For the alleged ARC, we should say,
although I to the point about lack of western coverage,
my my thought was, could it be possible that people
were mentioning the Ark of the Covenant here as a
way to get more coverage from the west. Is that
(12:49):
what the aim was? I mean, I'm not accusing anybody
of trying to put their fingers on the pr scale here.
But as we were taking this apart, and again there
there's not a ton of reporting on this, especially not
in English. As we were taking this apart, we found
that there is an information war going on in Ethiopian Listeners,
(13:14):
please right in and let us know, let us know
your take on the ground, or you know, if you
know anybody in the region what what they think of this.
But because we've seen people saying that some folks are
welcoming this anti communism group that Tigray People's Liberation Front. Uh,
(13:36):
it seems like they're shifting opinions at times between the government,
between support for the government and support for the insurrectionists, which,
if you think about it, does have a certain type
of logic to it, because the insurrectionists or the tp
l F would be made of people from these regions often, right,
(13:59):
it's not outside forces what I'm saying. Also, there's a
tricky thing. I noticed the t gray group has been
called common anti communists, but then they've also been called communists,
and then one time there was a coalition with the government.
So now they're being called ethnic rebels. It's like the
story and the reporting keeps shifting. Everything about this story
(14:24):
is is tricky. But what do you guys think? Do
you think, Okay, first, do you think it's feasible that
violent groups would attack these kinds of institutions to sell
artifacts and you know, historical documents and stuff. I think
that's a hundred percent possible. I think it's a huge business.
(14:46):
I don't know, what do you guys think? Is it
too much trouble? I mean, fifty people dead, I don't know, man,
it feels like it would be worth it to sweep
that church. Right, if you're if you're if you have
a military convoy moving through the area, that church is
(15:06):
essentially on the on the way, Why would you not
sweep the church for some kind of as terrible as
it sounds, another way to fund the war effort, right, Um,
but I think that would be the only reason. Um.
There's a there's a story out of Reuter's that is
(15:27):
from last year, uh like late November, early early December,
and it's talking about some of the same types of missions.
Title is Ethiopian military operation in Tigray is complete. Prime
Minister says, that's the title of the Reuters article. And
it's describing similar things where many many thousands are believed
(15:51):
to have been killed throughout this campaign, um or since
two thousand eighteen, at least when the fighting we kind
of began, as well as you know, countless people fleeing
to Sudan in other countries, and it's describing, uh, you know,
some of the same things that we're hearing in this
latest report. It's feeling like and again it's weird for
(16:12):
me to trust Reuters, um, but I do trust Reuters,
you know more. I've found that the other story a
couple of places, but I do trust them in some
weird way, and maybe that is my own I don't know,
cognitive dissonance of some sort, but it's um. It's just
showing that this this is an early report that we're
telling you about today, and that may be one of
(16:34):
the reasons why we're not hearing more about it. You
know what, we could do an entire episode on the
illegal antiquities market. I think the most famous example in
the West is probably World War two. But don't don't
assume that that was just one uh, that that was
just some sort of historical one off. The war and
(16:56):
Iraq led to the looting of the music zems. Of note,
in that part of the world, there's a thriving international
art trade, partially for money laundering, which I think we've
I don't think it's controversial to say that at this point.
But my last question for you guys before we move on.
(17:16):
Could there be something through this story? Could there be
supernatural or not? Uh, some kind of artifact as old
as the art of the Covenant that I appreciate bringing
up Shroud of Turin because it's it's conclusively proven that
that is probably a myth. I think from the twelfth
or thirteen centuries when I guess. But the but maybe
(17:40):
is this arc the same thing or is it just
something like so much time has passed, it would be
amazing if it was just some other box or some
other container from around the same time, we would still
learn so much from it really quickly. Guys. Um, you know,
for the longest time, even back when I first started
(18:00):
hearing about Indiana Jones and the and the Raiders of
the Lost Arc, I always assumed that it was Noah's ark.
I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Why what how
come you can call a giant boat an arc, which
you can also call a gilded box an arc? Well,
I mean it both carry something significantly important if the
tails were true, right, yeah, But it's an arc specifically
(18:22):
like in a housing for important things? Or is it
just like a vessel of any kind and maybe just
like a more antiquated term. I'm assuming that's the answer,
but I don't really know. Well, it's uh, it's the
definitions are both the archaic archaic definitions are both a
(18:43):
chester box or a large flat bottom boat specifically, but
the one that's accepted often now is a vessel or
sanctuary that serves as protection against extinction, which could kind
of apply to the box as well. Oh that's good.
That's a good one. I like that definition. Uh fascinating. Okay,
well there you go. I feel like I've solved a personal,
(19:06):
uh mystery, even though as simple as a as a
google away. But yeah, fascinating story. Ben. So back to
my question that I just asked, is this a do
you think there could be something there? If there's a box?
Is it roughly the same age as we believe the
Ark of the Covenant to be? Is it? Is it
a hoax? Could it have some actual I don't know.
(19:29):
Something weird about it cracking foundations via heat from tablets?
Is it's possible for a heat source to crack a
stone foundation? But I feel like maybe just time could
account for that. I don't know for sure. I mean,
you know, historians and archaeologists have long kind of quibbled
(19:50):
over whether this thing could possibly exist. There's a great
article on National Geographics is why the Ark of the
Covenant is one of histories Enduring Mysteries by Richard A.
Love Scott Hoffman. And there's a really interesting quote from
National Geographic Society fellow Fred heibert Um, who believes the
this this quest to find this thing is ultimately uh
(20:12):
doomed to fail. He says, we're talking about things at
the crossroads between myth and reality. I think it's great
to have stories like that of the Ark of the Covenant,
but I do not believe as a field archaeologist that
we can use the scientific method to prove or disprove them. Yeah,
could you walk into the church and you go show
me the arc? And there you go? No, and you
(20:33):
go show me the arc? Yeah, I was gonna ask Matt,
what do you what do you think? It feels like
there's something in there? Right? And I know not to
be also to seven about it, but there's you know,
what's in the box. But that's the whole thing, Like,
how can you sure there might be a box or
an arc? But is it the box or the arc?
(20:55):
You know, that's the whole question. That's that's that's my
whole point. During your hand or question, I'm gonna go with,
there's nothing in that room and there's not a thing
in there. And it's a place, it's a place to worship,
it's like a or it's a person that they're saying
is the arc of that now, I'm just joking. I
have no idea. Nobody knows unless you've been in there.
(21:17):
And our call is for anyone who has been in
that room, tell us what you saw or if you
were just anywhere near that area when this went down,
what actually happened over the past couple of weeks there?
And uh, you know, if this were long form improv
we would end up saying it turns out the real
(21:38):
arc is the friends we made along the way. We're
using a bit of levity here, but of course, the
situation in Ethiopia is massively dangerous. It's unsustainable. It's been
under reported in our opinions. We would love to hear
once again from people on the ground or anyone who
knows someone on the ground. Stay safe out our folks.
(22:00):
We're gonna pause for word from our sponsor. We'll be
back with more strange news. And we are back with
another strange, uh kind of predictable news story, but still
weird about COVID nineteen. That old chestnut. Um, so you
(22:24):
know how we reported on COVID nineteen, Uh really before
things got crazy. Um. Not trying to pat ourselves on
the back or anything, but when it really was a
lot of mystery behind where this thing started. There were
a lot of theories. We didn't quite know how bad
it was going to get. But we've been following this
for quite a long time and living it for what
(22:45):
seems like an awful, awful long time. UM. And you know,
the Trump administration used rhetoric pretty effectively to kind of
hang the blame on China, which to the best of
our knowledge, you know, is accurate that this virus was
you know, did originate in China, potentially at this wet
(23:07):
market that we described in Wuhan, UM. But you know,
a lot of the language surrounding it was kind of
steeped in racism and mothering, and we don't have to
get into that. But China has has finally kind of
clapped back in their own sort of campaign of somewhat
misleading and unverifiable information um and also just kind of
(23:29):
trying to throw up a bit of a smoke screen
to to deflect some of the blame from themselves and
deflect it back at US as as a country. UM.
Some unsubstantiated claims coming from Chinese ficial Chinese government sources,
UH that the coronavirus may have actually not originated in
Wuhan at all, but from a US military lab in Maryland. UM.
(23:52):
And it is really starting to gain traction in the
Chinese media UM, which isn't surprising considering the right now
anti American sentiment is at a fever pitch in in China,
which is again surprising to no one considering some of
the divisive policies and rhetoric you know, out of the
(24:14):
previous administration. Uh. Not only are they making these claims,
they're also through their state media UM calling into question
the efficiency or the or the effectiveness rather of Fizer
Biontics vaccine after twenty three elderly people passed away, you know,
(24:35):
through the clinical trials. UM. So yeah, I mean, it's
it's it's it's again not super super surprising, but it's
it's it's interesting that it is gaining such momentum and
it doesn't seem to have very much steam in terms
of actual you know, citations of where you're getting this
information about, you know, this lab that it's supposedly originated in. Yeah,
(24:59):
it's interesting because this specifically says that the Fiser vaccine
is not only lacking in efficacy, but that it's killing
elderly people. Right. It's also fascinating to me because in
the early days of the outbreak, China was cracking down
hard on domestic narratives or statements that didn't fit the
(25:24):
story they wanted to tell, and they called those things
conspiracy theories, like like the various Chinese scientists who were
claiming there were problems with the story, or gosh, there
was one expert who themselves died of COVID nineteen and
they were saying that that the infection was much worse
(25:45):
than state media was allowing to be reported on air. Yeah,
I think, I think there's no question that they were
trying to muzzle folks that would get the word out.
It was almost like a Chernobyl type situation where it's like,
we know something bad is happening. We know, in likelihood
if we just did something about it or said something
about it sooner than later, the world might be able
(26:05):
to react more effectively. But we don't want a bad
look and be held responsible, so instead we're just gonna
like hush everyone up and and hope that it never
gets out, which of course it was going to get out.
So it just seems very counterintuitive, but that is the
kind of response that the Chinese government is known for
in terms of like muzzling dissidents and you know, keeping
(26:26):
information under wraps. UM really quickly that the name of
the base in question or the military lab is Fort
Dietrich in Maryland, UM, and the hashtag Americans Fort Dietrich
started trending UM because of the Community Youth League in
China started trending on Chinese social media wi Bo, where
(26:49):
it was viewed I think something in the neighborhood of
like two billion times uh. And state media started calling
on authority needs to investigate for Dietrich as a result
of this, so, you know, kind of the example of
them starting the hubbub themselves through the Community Youth League,
which is a state organization essentially or a state sponsored organization,
(27:14):
and then demanding that an investigation take place. The quote,
the official quote is if America respects the truth, then
please open up for Dietrich and make public more information
about the two dred or more bio labs outside of
the US, and please allow the w h O expert
group to go to the US to investigate the origins.
And that came from Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua chun Ying Um,
(27:38):
and that was her speaking to the Chinese state media,
which again, it's all kind of the same thing. It's
all the same organization every you know, all the hands
are all shaking each other and working in concert. So
it's hard to take some of these claims very seriously
because they're kind of essentially just creating sort of a
narrative that deflects blame from them. Um. And we know
(28:00):
that those origin stories are pretty well vetted, you know,
wouldn't you say, or am I overstating the case there?
I would say they're more well vetted than the the
narrative here from the Chinese side. I was not aware.
I had been looking at some of this stuff, but
I was not aware how far back their story goes
(28:23):
like they were. They were saying, uh, elements of the
Chinese media and government, we're saying this as far back
as May. That's a really good point. Then, yeah, well
they're specifically referencing, Uh, they're not just they didn't just
pick for Dietrich, you know, by throwing darts at a
at a map of the US. From what I'm understanding,
(28:44):
before they got to Fort Dietrich, they were looking for
a way to as you said, turn this blame on
the US. So it's like, what is our very verbose
version of we're rubber your glue. And the US said
(29:05):
much the same that you've said. They said that this
was a clear attempt at defection. In July t nineteen,
there was a shutdown of what are called bio safety
level three and level four types of work at us
A m R I I D. And that is the
Army's Biological Defense Laboratory. So that word is true. It
(29:27):
is a thing. It does study high level pathogens and infections,
buds like anthrax, things that can be weaponized for germ warfare,
biological warfare essentially. Well that's the thing. Now, it depends
on who you believe, because a spokesperson for the Army
Medical Research and Development Command said that U s A
m R I I D does not take part in
(29:49):
offensive research. But of course, why would you admit that
if you did, right, why would you be like, oh, yeah,
for the original name for this lab was Smallpox City.
Don't think they would do. So it's it's tough to
know what to believe. But I don't know. I don't
see support that it came from the US. And then
went to what was what what's the implication that was
(30:11):
transported surreptitiously to Wuhan and then deployed there? Is that
the idea? It's it's unclear. We have Matt please, yeah,
there there was. There are several narratives that have that
came out over you know, the last year or so,
and a lot of them had had to do with
the United States traveling a special envoy that traveled to
(30:33):
China and you know, then deployed it while they were there.
Then the virus spread in China to look like it
came from that area in Wuhan. Um. There are other
ones that former President Donald Trump, he would he and
many numerous others pointed to a very similar laboratory ian
(30:54):
Wuhan that remember we talked about this on a previous episode,
that is supposedly where the weapon version of this virus
was released. It's interesting to me. In this ap News
article they mentioned that, and the last sentence in this
article is in speaking on the Wuhan laboratory theory. There
here's the quote. While that theory has not been definitively
(31:16):
ruled out, many experts think it is unlikely, But isn't
that interesting that that's that's where the truth lies. Now
something has not been definitively ruled out, but most people
who know this stuff say it didn't happen. Well. But
but it's also like a pretty smart like if you're
gonna call into question, this narrative is a pretty good location.
(31:40):
This is already shrouded in some mystery. Like you said, Ben,
did they work with anthrax and ebola or didn't they? Uh,
there's we don't even know, you know, there's not even
So it's a really smart kind of way of you know,
doing a little bit of a switcheroo kind of situation
where people start to really question the truth if you
repeat it enough. Um, so you know, it's definitely a
(32:01):
tactic for sure, and we'll see if it actually you know,
has legs. But who is this for is my question?
Like it's for the Chinese people, right, it's too it's
to stir up anti American sentiment among Chinese citizens. It's
not like it's going to change anybody's mind over here
right now in the US. But that's I mean, that's
a very backburner demographic. This conversation is meant for people
(32:26):
in other regions of the world. Non NATO countries for instance.
It also gives some fuel to uh, it gives some
fuel to queue and on associated folks. Uh And and
it is like a lot of people don't understand this.
So the CDC does a lot of stuff, right. It's
also kind of a health inspector for some of these outfits.
(32:50):
And what happened here is that Fort Dietrich at high
level research, they failed some health inspection stuff, just like
a restaurant would, and a restaurant has to up its score.
So some stuff did go wrong there. But it's a
little bit of a leap to say that what went
wrong was also somehow necessarily means this group was in
(33:15):
secret creating uh COVID nineteen and then maybe based off
mirrors or something, and then shipping it worldwide like some
kind of uh evil version of FedEx. Uh. Yeah. But
then the t g I Fridays isn't handling infectious diseases
on a daily basis, So there their health their health
(33:38):
ratings a little less important than the the laboratory. But
you know what, but the analogy it does a million percent. Yeah,
I mean it's sort of like, you know, you have
to do a little bit of damage control. You have
to steer the narrative a little bit and you know,
do some some pr trickery, and that's absolutely what this is.
Um point totally taken down about this mainly being directed
(33:58):
to other regions. Also worth mentioning that this lab was
doing some of the earliest research with that kind of
questionable cocktail of medication known as randes vir, which I
believe has since kind of been debunked as as an
effective treatment for the coronavirus, but it was something that
was being pushed pretty heavily, especially by the Trump administration. Yeah,
(34:22):
so if you believe that, if you believe that there
are some dastardly ne'er do wells at Fort Dietrich that
are responsible for COVID I, then wouldn't it make sense
that they would also be some of the first people
working on I mean, I again, I have seen utopia
(34:47):
now and they wrote this thing in or whatever year sixteen,
whatever year was, they wrote this entire thing telling you,
telling you well, definitely worth watching and seeing how this
plays out in the bigger picture. But uh, certainly interesting
(35:07):
to see China kind of clapping back after quite quite
a long time of you know, doing things like calling
it the China virus and the Wuhan flew and the
Kung flew and all that stuff, which again lots of
racist undertones and mother ing. And it's to your point, Matt,
in previous episodes, words have power, you know. Um, And
(35:29):
even if this is sort of a a little bit
of trickery, I mean, you can't really blame them for
trying to deflect some of this, especially yeah, right at
the end here, can we admit that we, the three
of us, don't know where where this virus originated or
where where it started, right, I certainly don't, and and
(35:53):
there is so much conflicting information out there and intelligence
from various countries intelligence agencies, that it is difficult to know.
And and you know, part of the giant struggle that
humanity itself is faced throughout this is figuring out really
where it began and how we can prevent this from
happening again. Um, I would just say, questions remain, and
(36:15):
it's it's tough to be certain we can I would
be careful with I mean, this is why I've always
made that point about reading sources in language they use carefully.
The best we can say, now, the best anyone can
say publicly is that COVID nineteen stars code nineteen was
first identified in Wuhan. But be careful with that phrase,
(36:38):
because identified not the same thing as originating. We also,
you know, we're clearly misled by our own country as
to how early the virus was identified here. Oh yeah,
it's happening again with the new variants exactly right. So
I mean, I hate to, you know, be the one
(36:58):
suggesting don't trust anybody ever, but gosh, it's just that
we keep getting, you know, kind of fed a bill
of goods, you know, or sold a bill of goods.
You don't really get fed bills of guy as you could. Um.
But yeah, it definitely calls a lot of the stuff
into question and makes it hard to have a to
to really know, which I think is what leads to
(37:19):
so much conspiracy theories, theorizing and things like you and
on and all of that because you can't really know.
So why not just you know, go down the rabbit
hole and get weird with it? It's weird. I've had
some really interesting conversations with some folks who got out
of the Q and On belief system, and I've been
(37:40):
debating whether I'm going to make contact with some folks
who are doubling down. We'll see one in the coming days.
I think you're right. It's a tough situation. Well, it's
a sunk cost fallacy, isn't it. Yeah. Well, and you
know a little teaser. Uh, we're having a conversation about
that very topic on this week's Listen to Mail episode.
All right, And in that note, we are going to
(38:02):
take a quick word from our sponsor and we'll be
right back with more strange news. And we are back,
and we are coming to you with some news that is,
at least the article that we're using as our primary
(38:22):
source here is new. But it's an ongoing situation that's
been developing for goodness over a year, uh in Mexico,
and it's something that US authorities and intelligence agencies have
been dealing with for longer than that. So i'll just
read you the headline here. It's coming from the Guardian.
(38:44):
It is outrage after Mexico exonerates X defense minister in
drug case. Okay, so X defense minister in some kind
of drug case. Well, the person we are going to
be talking about today is General Salvador Sian Fuegos. He
(39:05):
was arrested in October of while he was in the
United States at the loss at a Los Angeles airport,
and he was he was essentially being accused of being
this person known as the Godfather with regards to some
(39:26):
drug cartel activity within Mexico. It's a really tangled web here,
but we're gonna try and get you, you know, walk
you through it as quickly as we can. So there's
another story that we're gonna refer to before we go
back to that original one. It's from a p It's
titled Mexico Clears General publishes US evidence against him. Okay.
(39:51):
So in this in this article, it describes exactly what
evidence the United States officials had against this general to Fuegos,
and it's essentially conversations between known associates of a cartel.
They're talking on blackberries and they were intercepted by the U.
(40:14):
S forces. And I'm going to read from this ap
article to get you up to speed here. Uh, there
were documents that the United States government released these. Uh.
These include intercepted text messages between the leader of the
H two cartel based in the Pacific Coast state of
Nayarite and a top aid who allegedly served as a
(40:36):
go between with this group, the H two Cartel, and
the General. This general was often referred to as the
Godfather and at one point as Salvador sin Fuego Cepeda.
There is one exchange where this person told his boss
that he had been picked up by men with short
military style haircuts and was taken to the Defense Department
(40:59):
headquarters in me Pico City for a meeting with quote
the Godfather. And this guy tells his boss that the
Godfather let him know, uh that you're we're gonna do
big things now. What we've done before was small time.
And he says that as long as the Godfather is here,
you will be free, that they will never carry out
(41:21):
strong operations or raids. And there's more to this, and
you can read all of it if you go to
that that article I mentioned there on the ap But
it appears that there there was some kind of evidence
that was taken up in uh, you know, eavesdropping on
communications that was pointing to this person called the Godfather.
(41:43):
And in one exchange they actually have a person mentioned
this this general, General Salvador Sian Fuegos as the Godfather.
So I guess they believed that all of this intelligence
you know, together meant that this guy was probably the
person they were looking for. So the US picked him
up in Los Angeles and they tried to essentially make
(42:08):
this uh, make this case stick and charge him with
some of these things. But it ended up not going
that way, and he was released back to UH to Mexico,
and then Mexico dropped all the charges. And that's what
this original article is all about. Um, how upset some
(42:29):
of the general public is at the thought that their government,
at the highest the most upper echelons of their government
could be working with drug cartels to ship money and
drugs and whatever else between you know, Mexico and Colombia,
Mexico and the United States and all these other countries,
(42:49):
and to do it with impunity, and then when one
of the top people gets caught, nothing happens to them
because they're above the law. Yeah. This is like just
just for comparison, and this is like the US Secretary
of Defense getting caught aiding and abetting domestic terrorism and
(43:10):
then not getting fired. It's like Canada catching the U
s Secretary of Defense helping terrorists, UH in a way
that affects Canada, they go against it, They drop the
charges and handed back to the U S. And the
U S says, well, you know we're done here. Yeah,
everything's fine. I was so excited that you made that
(43:32):
comparisons exactly what it is. Well, this is so there's
there's context here too that I don't want to lose.
One of the big pieces is from what I understand,
and correct me if I'm off base here, Matt, from
what I understand, the president of Mexico, obrah Door, was
(43:53):
super piste that the US didn't tell Mexican officials that
they were doing this investigation in the first place, which
goes to the larger concern. Now over Door was a
fan of the Trump administration. But that doesn't mean you
can't get riled up about stuff, right. So the thing
here that's fascinating is there is a a not insignificant
(44:16):
implication that the that the US government or factions thereof
may feel that the Mexican government is entirely compromised by cartel's.
I mean this is it's also not a crazy as
conspiracy theories go. It's not super crazy because cartels, you know,
make a lot of money and they have compromised multiple
(44:40):
police forces, multiple security forces. They control seventy of the
drugs coming into the US. They're not hard up for cash,
and they're not hard up for influence. No, no compunction
about brutal retaliation. Well, yeah, I can totally see that.
There's a flip side to it too, though that I
think we've we've thought about and discussed on this show before.
(45:03):
If the major actions that are being taken by Cartel's,
if they were just manufacturing drugs and trafficking drugs, then
you could save a lot of lives and a lot
of money by just allowing that action to take place.
That rather than having, you know, a military force that
(45:26):
is not trained to fight a drug war, but trained
to fight battles as a military. This is the point
that the general had made several times, like I'm leading,
I'm leading a war effort that we were not trained
to do. Is he was, he's very anti drug war. God,
I'm kind of getting off track here, But if you
allowed for those actions to take place, you could save
(45:49):
money and you could save lives. Um and by by
having this you know, war on drugs within Mexico, you
are in a way creating a lot the bloodshed. If
it were not for the in fighting between you know,
between different cartels where there's lots and lots of bloodshed
occurring there, where there's danger to citizens a lot of
(46:12):
the times because of that bloodshed. Uh, you do need
it does feel like you do need a protectionary protection
force essentially like a military to have these operations. God,
I kind of got lost in my thoughts there, but
but essentially it's just there's there's a case to be
made for allowing drug trafficking to occur to prevent violence,
(46:36):
but then that doesn't stop the effects of that the
drugs have on communities wherever they end up. Sure, yeah,
but those policies we should we should point out places
uh that have decriminalized or legalized various substances. Uh. Those
(46:56):
those policies are also implemented hand in hand with support
network policies, right like treatment centers, rehabs, stuff like that.
This it definitely feels like there's a political tent to
this story that I'm not fully aware of. Because for
(47:17):
anybody who's wondering how often does this happen, It's it's
pretty rare for the US law enforcement apparatus to drop
drug trafficking charges like this. This guy, the general, was
the highest military official in the land at one point
in the in the government of Mexico. And so there
(47:40):
are a lot of international observers who are saying that
this was a on the U S side, that this
was clearly a political decision to try to preserve the
overall relationship and cooperation between the two countries. But it's
strange because when Mexico dropped the charges, the latest news
(48:05):
is that the US is considering picking those charges back up.
So I wonder, I wonder what they're really fighting about. Right,
it does feel bigger, It really does feel bigger. And
there's another piece of that's been according to the end
of this AP News article, they are saying that Mexico's
Congress very recently passed a law which is going to
(48:28):
restrict US agents, like intelligence agents, from being within Mexico. So,
like I'm assuming reducing the number of operations that can
occur there and how they would handle that. And also
while they are in Mexico on their soil, they would
remove the diplomatic community that they would usually be given.
Uh And we've talked about before on the show about
(48:49):
what diplomatic community gives you We've recently talked about it
with Saudi Arabian citizens who are in the United States
and what that means. Diplomatic communities not quite as powerful
as being a Saudi Arabian citizen in the US almost
it's around there. Uh, it's definitely. The problem is when
(49:13):
comparing the two, the diplomatic immunity obeys laws. Uh. That's
that's the primary differentiation there between the treatment. But but
you're right, stuff you should know, by the way, has
a great episode on diplomatic community for anybody wants to
learn more. Uh, there's a solid argument in the case
of this type of law enforcement that some degree of
(49:36):
immunity is requisite to accomplish the job and the objectives.
But still, you know, it's the war on drugs. It's
a huge bag of badgers. It's made a ton of money. Uh,
it's made a ton of money for the people who
claim to be fighting against drugs. Right. I don't think
you I don't think that's a controversial claim here in
(50:00):
and Uncle Sam made billions off of the drug war,
and that is one of the that is one of
the factors that makes it easy to not trust the
official narrative because it's been proven false and intentionally misleading before.
I don't know, man, drugs just me so much money.
(50:24):
And you're right, Matt, if there were a situation where
things are decriminalized, if not recreationalized, then what we've seen
happen so far is that it's not the end of society.
It's just a different group of people making drug money.
Someone's always going to be making money off of drugs.
(50:45):
Someone will always be doing that. It doesn't matter what
buzz phrases we use. The big question is who likes this,
Who who benefits from the status quo as it stands now,
would benefit if the status quo change? And what kind
of favors did the general call in? What do you
(51:06):
think he made some phone calls, he had to write,
or he's got some dirt. I don't know. I'm I'm
sure um um if the the only thing here, Ben
is that this isn't the first time it's happened, um.
The previous the predecessor of san Fuegos was Genaro Garcia Luna,
(51:30):
who was arrested in Texas in December twenty nineteen on
charges of taking giant bribes from the Sonola cartel in
order to help them ship drugs into the US. So
it may just be a systemic thing or a position.
Once you get up to that position, you're kind of
the godfather. Okay, okay, kind of like if you're the president,
(51:53):
every plane you ride in is automatically Air Force one. Yeah,
kind of like that. I was not aware of their Luna. No,
what do you think about this report? Do you do
you agree there's something more to the story or do
you think it's just I don't know what's you take.
I mean, I'm kind of with you. It does feel
a little bit like something is being obscured here. I
(52:15):
have no idea what it is, but it's certainly another
one to watch. I would say, yeah, yeah. And and
just before you go thinking, oh, it's just weed or something, UM,
just give you what Seine Fougos was accused of. Uh.
He's accused of conspiring with HD cartel to smuggle thousands
of kilos, so thousands of kilos of cocaine, heroin, meth,
(52:36):
and marijuana into the U s. And that was from
two thousand twelve two thousand and eighteen while he was
Defense Secretary. Smuggling meth that's unusual. Usually that stuff made domestically.
That's that's interesting. And you can see, uh, you can
see video footage of some of the some of the
things being caught. I believe it's on that the al
(52:58):
Jazeer article that I looked at for this, it's called
Mexico x Defense minister arrested in US on drug charges.
Oh by the way, one thousand kilos for anybody in
the US is a little more than one ton. So
these are these are literal tons and tons of drugs. Yeah,
(53:18):
that's a lot of street doses right there. I can't imagine. God,
super interesting. Fine, Matt, Yeah, well, you know who who
cares if if the heads of government can can run
drugs the way we kind of think for a while,
I mean, that's what are you gonna do? Does check
(53:41):
out opium productions? To check out the poppy productions in Afghanistan?
Look a look at the dip under the Taliban and
then look at the rise later. Uh. Stuff they don't
want me to think about. So I can sleep at night,
not saying it's one one to one, solidly proven thing,
but heard from so many members of the military who
(54:04):
have told us, you know, we had to protect these
crops um. It's yeah, there's there's definitely more of the story,
and you know who really cares about it? I bet
this is a question I would ask towards the end, Matt,
I bet Salvador cares. What's he doing now? What's he
doing right now? Does he listen to the show? No,
he's chilling. He's retired though, right, so it's time. He's
(54:28):
good to go. He's no, he's he's reading something on
a porch somewhere. He was cleared of all all charges,
right January fourteenth, not too long ago as we record this.
Uh so he might still be celebrating. I can totally
imagine him just finding a yacht somewhere. Drug sub I'm sorry. Sorry.
(54:56):
His successor is currently in office, one Louis Gonzales, and
I wonder if he's been referred to as the godfather. Um,
I'm serious to your point about maybe every secretary becoming
a godfather automatically is interesting. I don't know. I doubt it.
(55:16):
I seriously doubt it. I think you had to earn
that place, you know, the general in the defense Minister
is a title, but earning godfather is probably something a
little different. Um. But it is weird. It is weird
to think that top cartel officials, god top cartel members
would be visiting with a defense minister. That's a that's
(55:39):
a tough pill to swallow. Yeah, all right, well that
I think that's enough for it for this, because if
if you have any information on this, hey, did you
work with the Godfather? You want to tell us a story,
we're here. You can talk to us unless it will
endanger you or us or anyone else. Don't don't talk it. No,
don't do it. I don't want to go down for this, dude. Um,
(56:03):
all right, so you can. You can find us on
social media. We're all over the place. Conspiracy stuff in
most places. Conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. Yeah. Great place
to tell us your tale would be to give us
a call at our toll free hotline, or you will
hear Ben's dulcet tones welcoming you to leave your own
personal three minute message uh slash story. Please let us
(56:27):
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(56:50):
If none of that quite uh smuggles your drugs across
the border, there's one other way you can always contact us.
Let us know your opinion on the biblical art of
the Covenant, let us know your opinion on under reporting
in Ethiopia. Let us know what you think about the
origins of what we're calling COVID nineteen. You can do
(57:14):
all that and more by sending us a simple email
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(57:39):
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. It's the top of the week,
which means it's time for strange news. We have outrage
(00:47):
in Mexico. We have conspiracy theories about COVID nineteen, but
not the kind you might expect and not from the
place you might assume. And in other news, someone may
have sto and the art of the Covenant, Yes, that
Ark of the Covenant, the same one referenced in both
the Bible and then later the Indiana Jones film franchise,
(01:10):
which are two weird bookends to put on that, I guess.
And if you're if you're a longtime listener of the
show or a viewer of the YouTube channel, you know
that we have attempted to find the location of the
Ark of the Covenant multiple times, and we thought we
narrowed it down at least if one really did exist,
where it probably was. And this story is bringing that
all home. Is that the is that the one where
(01:32):
the Nazis get melted, get their faces melted? Yeah, in
Indiana Jones, Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, not the art
got it, not not the Bible version, but that Indiana
Jones scene is based very loosely on some of the
warnings about the Biblical art, which is, you know, how
one should or should not gaze upon it. Uh, it
(01:55):
does turn out there and no Nazis in the Bible
right right right in the version and that most people use.
I would assume there might be there. There might be
a couple of independent interpretations, a remix version flooting around
the Hitler put forth, and there's always somebody writing a
Third Testament throughout history of one sort or another. Well,
(02:16):
if that's okay, then guys, let's start. Let's start with
that story. So so spoiler alert by way of backgrounds
what Matt's referring to, and he says, you know, we
tried to look for we looked for the Ark of
the Covenant several times, over the course of this show.
That is true, we were intensely interested in this, you know,
(02:39):
stuff they want you to know. Always loves hidden history
and historical mysteries. Uh. The Bible is full of those.
Or the stories, places, people, events, artifacts depicted in the
Bible are always of great interest to historians. Like we've
seen in other in other explorations of history, the world
(03:03):
eats the works of man. So it can be incredibly
difficult to verify things that happened in the eleventh century,
much much less things that happened back in the what
we call the bcase. So it's tough to figure out
where facts and and myths begin. But the arc of
(03:23):
the Covenant is a little bit, a little bit of
an exception. So basically, what it is is a gold
covered wooden chest and it's got a lid over it,
and according to the story, it contains the two actual
stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. And then you'll see
(03:46):
other Biblical sources saying it contains a pot of manna,
Aaron's rod, and so on. Uh. The weird thing that
we found was that for a very very long time,
there has been a group of people in Ethiopia who
claim to possess the actual genuine arc of the Covenant.
(04:13):
Keep in mind, Ethiopia itself has a storied ancient history
and and in our earlier works would dove into the
possibilities that it could be there, and one of the
things that we found, or something they believed to be
the art could be there. We should say important distinction.
One of the things we found is that the story
(04:34):
of the arc ending up in Ethiopia is true in
that there is a church that claims to possess it
and has for a long time. And Matt, I know
you'll recall it seemed that the keepers of the arc
were sincere. Uh. Their only rule is that why they
can't let anybody other than the priests view the arc,
(04:59):
but they will gladly describe it to you in detail consistently. Yeah. Absolutely, Again,
it's a point of contention because it feels like if
you truly did have the arc of some you know,
you may want to show that off for numerous reasons,
if not only two, in some way make money to
better secure that arc. But you know what, what we've
(05:22):
read and what we've seen over the years is that
one of the main reasons for not letting anyone, see
it is to kind of keep this air of mystery
about it because they if they did truly have it,
if they do truly have it, they want to protect it.
And it struck us, and it strikes me currently right
now as the one of the main reasons that it
(05:42):
feels like it might not be genuine, because it's almost
like you could tell the tale of what this glorious
arc looks like that you're keeping back here. It's just
behind you know, this wall. You can't you can't go
back there, but no, it's there and it's glorious, and
let me tell you all about it. Um it strikes
you as maybe not being genuine. It when something like
you know, the story that we're getting into today comes out,
(06:04):
it does make you feel like maybe there was something
back there. I think, I think, I think it's important
to to say to like, I mean, just in general,
holy relics or like physical objects that are associated with
religion are super powerful, you know, because it's almost like
you know, proof positive, like this is real. See, I
have this thing that like proves the existence of God,
(06:25):
or proves the existence of a particular you know, dogma,
like the shroud of Turin for example, which is like
this piece of cloth that supposedly was Jesus's burial, you know,
shroud or whatever. Things like that have a lot of
political power. True. True, And I like that you're differentiating
between political power and maybe supernatural power. Yeah. Absolutely, that's
(06:47):
exactly what I meant. Yes, reliquaries are hugely important because
for true believers, just a reliquary, for instance, is the
container of a body part of a saint. Uh So
those things hugely important for both of those reasons that
you just described, Nola. They may prove the physical existence
of that saint or holy figure. And then they also
(07:10):
are and I don't mean to sounds cold when I
say this, just historically look at it. It's great marketing.
It's a mark of prestige for the church or the
institution that has it. What makes us different from the
church in the next village over, Well, we have the
two thumb bones of you know, St. Martin on toast,
(07:31):
which is hopefully not a real saint. And I apologize
that is a real saint that I've offended anyone, But
yeah St Martin an toast patron saint of thumbs. We've
got his thumbs. Come to our church service. This problem
or this phenomenon is at its most extreme degree when
we're talking about something like the Art of the Covenant.
(07:54):
One of the explanations or rationales but behind not showing
this to the uninitiated, is that you will call in
the in biblical writing, the men of Beth Shemesh gazed
upon the art, and as punishment God Uh smoked seventy
of them or fifty thousand and seventy and some translations. Again,
(08:18):
there's all all this stuff happened a long time ago.
Can I say, I'm a huge fan of the tense
smote to smite one was smoked, But I also love
that it also applies to being like in love with somebody,
to be smitten, you know, it's it's a it's a
funny etymology there. So that's that's the reasoning. This's this
thing that's happened. A lot of folks in the West
(08:40):
aren't aware that to the true believers of this theory,
the mystery of the arc was solved long ago. But
fast forward, fast forward to the modern day. Ethiopia is
one of the oldest countries in the world that's been
(09:00):
extant from its inception to the modern day. It's It's
believed to have developed as a country all the way
back in nine eight b c. E. So Ethiopia was
around during the days of early Christianity. Ethiopia was around
when a lot of the events depicted in the Bible occurred.
(09:22):
I mean, not Genesis, but you get the gist of
what I'm saying, the genergists of what we're saying here.
So Oxom Ethiopia. The place is the Marimon Church, also
known as the Towado Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Twado Church,
and this location claims to be the home of the
(09:45):
biblical Arc of the Covenant. It was moved apparently to
the Chapel of the Tablet, which is adjacent to the
old church because get this, a divine heat from the
tablets within the arc had cracked the stones of the
previous storage facility. It was actually Emperor Holle Selassie's wife,
(10:10):
Empress Menen, who paid for the construction of the new chapel.
So this happened in recent history. But even more recently,
this holy site was under attack and the locals, just
to give you the headline here, the locals are convinced
that part of the motivation for the attack which killed
(10:33):
around seven hundred and fifty people, was to take possession
of the biblical art of the Covenant. This is per
the europe External Program with Africa UH and the Ethiopian
National Defense Force reported to them that the church had
been attacked and hundreds of people were hiding in the church.
(10:55):
They were brought out into the square and shot. You
can look at video showing the aftermath of the massacre.
The military has been fighting with anti communists in surrectionary
forces that control parts of the region. So we can't
(11:16):
we can't dismiss the enormous tragedy almost a thousand people
dying in this in this attack, But we also have
to ask ourselves why wasn't this reported UH more often
in the West awhere anywhere? Really, I cannot I cannot
find a publication that has any of the information there.
(11:40):
The most trustworthy news source is that it's from that
e p A dot b E, the europe External Program
with Africa, And it's just a it's like a one.
It's it's a tiny little sentence essentially that describes this thing. Yeah.
So the the e p A report is the most
(12:05):
credible source I could find here UH, and it does
prove that people were attacked by a force including eight tanks,
twenty buses, five heavy trucks. I mean people were hiding
in the church to survive, not for fun. But this
report does also specifically mentioned the local concern that the
(12:25):
ultimate goal of the attack was to remove the ARC
from its resting place. For the alleged ARC, we should say,
although I to the point about lack of western coverage,
my my thought was, could it be possible that people
were mentioning the Ark of the Covenant here as a
way to get more coverage from the west. Is that
(12:49):
what the aim was? I mean, I'm not accusing anybody
of trying to put their fingers on the pr scale here.
But as we were taking this apart, and again there
there's not a ton of reporting on this, especially not
in English. As we were taking this apart, we found
that there is an information war going on in Ethiopian Listeners,
(13:14):
please right in and let us know, let us know
your take on the ground, or you know, if you
know anybody in the region what what they think of this.
But because we've seen people saying that some folks are
welcoming this anti communism group that Tigray People's Liberation Front. Uh,
(13:36):
it seems like they're shifting opinions at times between the government,
between support for the government and support for the insurrectionists, which,
if you think about it, does have a certain type
of logic to it, because the insurrectionists or the tp
l F would be made of people from these regions often, right,
(13:59):
it's not outside forces what I'm saying. Also, there's a
tricky thing. I noticed the t gray group has been
called common anti communists, but then they've also been called communists,
and then one time there was a coalition with the government.
So now they're being called ethnic rebels. It's like the
story and the reporting keeps shifting. Everything about this story
(14:24):
is is tricky. But what do you guys think? Do
you think, Okay, first, do you think it's feasible that
violent groups would attack these kinds of institutions to sell
artifacts and you know, historical documents and stuff. I think
that's a hundred percent possible. I think it's a huge business.
(14:46):
I don't know, what do you guys think? Is it
too much trouble? I mean, fifty people dead, I don't know, man,
it feels like it would be worth it to sweep
that church. Right, if you're if you're if you have
a military convoy moving through the area, that church is
(15:06):
essentially on the on the way, Why would you not
sweep the church for some kind of as terrible as
it sounds, another way to fund the war effort, right, Um,
but I think that would be the only reason. Um.
There's a there's a story out of Reuter's that is
(15:27):
from last year, uh like late November, early early December,
and it's talking about some of the same types of missions.
Title is Ethiopian military operation in Tigray is complete. Prime
Minister says, that's the title of the Reuters article. And
it's describing similar things where many many thousands are believed
(15:51):
to have been killed throughout this campaign, um or since
two thousand eighteen, at least when the fighting we kind
of began, as well as you know, countless people fleeing
to Sudan in other countries, and it's describing, uh, you know,
some of the same things that we're hearing in this
latest report. It's feeling like and again it's weird for
(16:12):
me to trust Reuters, um, but I do trust Reuters,
you know more. I've found that the other story a
couple of places, but I do trust them in some
weird way, and maybe that is my own I don't know,
cognitive dissonance of some sort, but it's um. It's just
showing that this this is an early report that we're
telling you about today, and that may be one of
(16:34):
the reasons why we're not hearing more about it. You
know what, we could do an entire episode on the
illegal antiquities market. I think the most famous example in
the West is probably World War two. But don't don't
assume that that was just one uh, that that was
just some sort of historical one off. The war and
(16:56):
Iraq led to the looting of the music zems. Of note,
in that part of the world, there's a thriving international
art trade, partially for money laundering, which I think we've
I don't think it's controversial to say that at this point.
But my last question for you guys before we move on.
(17:16):
Could there be something through this story? Could there be
supernatural or not? Uh, some kind of artifact as old
as the art of the Covenant that I appreciate bringing
up Shroud of Turin because it's it's conclusively proven that
that is probably a myth. I think from the twelfth
or thirteen centuries when I guess. But the but maybe
(17:40):
is this arc the same thing or is it just
something like so much time has passed, it would be
amazing if it was just some other box or some
other container from around the same time, we would still
learn so much from it really quickly. Guys. Um, you know,
for the longest time, even back when I first started
(18:00):
hearing about Indiana Jones and the and the Raiders of
the Lost Arc, I always assumed that it was Noah's ark.
I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Why what how
come you can call a giant boat an arc, which
you can also call a gilded box an arc? Well,
I mean it both carry something significantly important if the
tails were true, right, yeah, But it's an arc specifically
(18:22):
like in a housing for important things? Or is it
just like a vessel of any kind and maybe just
like a more antiquated term. I'm assuming that's the answer,
but I don't really know. Well, it's uh, it's the
definitions are both the archaic archaic definitions are both a
(18:43):
chester box or a large flat bottom boat specifically, but
the one that's accepted often now is a vessel or
sanctuary that serves as protection against extinction, which could kind
of apply to the box as well. Oh that's good.
That's a good one. I like that definition. Uh fascinating. Okay,
well there you go. I feel like I've solved a personal,
(19:06):
uh mystery, even though as simple as a as a
google away. But yeah, fascinating story. Ben. So back to
my question that I just asked, is this a do
you think there could be something there? If there's a box?
Is it roughly the same age as we believe the
Ark of the Covenant to be? Is it? Is it
a hoax? Could it have some actual I don't know.
(19:29):
Something weird about it cracking foundations via heat from tablets?
Is it's possible for a heat source to crack a
stone foundation? But I feel like maybe just time could
account for that. I don't know for sure. I mean,
you know, historians and archaeologists have long kind of quibbled
(19:50):
over whether this thing could possibly exist. There's a great
article on National Geographics is why the Ark of the
Covenant is one of histories Enduring Mysteries by Richard A.
Love Scott Hoffman. And there's a really interesting quote from
National Geographic Society fellow Fred heibert Um, who believes the
this this quest to find this thing is ultimately uh
(20:12):
doomed to fail. He says, we're talking about things at
the crossroads between myth and reality. I think it's great
to have stories like that of the Ark of the Covenant,
but I do not believe as a field archaeologist that
we can use the scientific method to prove or disprove them. Yeah,
could you walk into the church and you go show
me the arc? And there you go? No, and you
(20:33):
go show me the arc? Yeah, I was gonna ask Matt,
what do you what do you think? It feels like
there's something in there? Right? And I know not to
be also to seven about it, but there's you know,
what's in the box. But that's the whole thing, Like,
how can you sure there might be a box or
an arc? But is it the box or the arc?
(20:55):
You know, that's the whole question. That's that's that's my
whole point. During your hand or question, I'm gonna go with,
there's nothing in that room and there's not a thing
in there. And it's a place, it's a place to worship,
it's like a or it's a person that they're saying
is the arc of that now, I'm just joking. I
have no idea. Nobody knows unless you've been in there.
(21:17):
And our call is for anyone who has been in
that room, tell us what you saw or if you
were just anywhere near that area when this went down,
what actually happened over the past couple of weeks there?
And uh, you know, if this were long form improv
we would end up saying it turns out the real
(21:38):
arc is the friends we made along the way. We're
using a bit of levity here, but of course, the
situation in Ethiopia is massively dangerous. It's unsustainable. It's been
under reported in our opinions. We would love to hear
once again from people on the ground or anyone who
knows someone on the ground. Stay safe out our folks.
(22:00):
We're gonna pause for word from our sponsor. We'll be
back with more strange news. And we are back with
another strange, uh kind of predictable news story, but still
weird about COVID nineteen. That old chestnut. Um, so you
(22:24):
know how we reported on COVID nineteen, Uh really before
things got crazy. Um. Not trying to pat ourselves on
the back or anything, but when it really was a
lot of mystery behind where this thing started. There were
a lot of theories. We didn't quite know how bad
it was going to get. But we've been following this
for quite a long time and living it for what
(22:45):
seems like an awful, awful long time. UM. And you know,
the Trump administration used rhetoric pretty effectively to kind of
hang the blame on China, which to the best of
our knowledge, you know, is accurate that this virus was
you know, did originate in China, potentially at this wet
(23:07):
market that we described in Wuhan, UM. But you know,
a lot of the language surrounding it was kind of
steeped in racism and mothering, and we don't have to
get into that. But China has has finally kind of
clapped back in their own sort of campaign of somewhat
misleading and unverifiable information um and also just kind of
(23:29):
trying to throw up a bit of a smoke screen
to to deflect some of the blame from themselves and
deflect it back at US as as a country. UM.
Some unsubstantiated claims coming from Chinese ficial Chinese government sources,
UH that the coronavirus may have actually not originated in
Wuhan at all, but from a US military lab in Maryland. UM.
(23:52):
And it is really starting to gain traction in the
Chinese media UM, which isn't surprising considering the right now
anti American sentiment is at a fever pitch in in China,
which is again surprising to no one considering some of
the divisive policies and rhetoric you know, out of the
(24:14):
previous administration. Uh. Not only are they making these claims,
they're also through their state media UM calling into question
the efficiency or the or the effectiveness rather of Fizer
Biontics vaccine after twenty three elderly people passed away, you know,
(24:35):
through the clinical trials. UM. So yeah, I mean, it's
it's it's it's again not super super surprising, but it's
it's it's interesting that it is gaining such momentum and
it doesn't seem to have very much steam in terms
of actual you know, citations of where you're getting this
information about, you know, this lab that it's supposedly originated in. Yeah,
(24:59):
it's interesting because this specifically says that the Fiser vaccine
is not only lacking in efficacy, but that it's killing
elderly people. Right. It's also fascinating to me because in
the early days of the outbreak, China was cracking down
hard on domestic narratives or statements that didn't fit the
(25:24):
story they wanted to tell, and they called those things
conspiracy theories, like like the various Chinese scientists who were
claiming there were problems with the story, or gosh, there
was one expert who themselves died of COVID nineteen and
they were saying that that the infection was much worse
(25:45):
than state media was allowing to be reported on air. Yeah,
I think, I think there's no question that they were
trying to muzzle folks that would get the word out.
It was almost like a Chernobyl type situation where it's like,
we know something bad is happening. We know, in likelihood
if we just did something about it or said something
about it sooner than later, the world might be able
(26:05):
to react more effectively. But we don't want a bad
look and be held responsible, so instead we're just gonna
like hush everyone up and and hope that it never
gets out, which of course it was going to get out.
So it just seems very counterintuitive, but that is the
kind of response that the Chinese government is known for
in terms of like muzzling dissidents and you know, keeping
(26:26):
information under wraps. UM really quickly that the name of
the base in question or the military lab is Fort
Dietrich in Maryland, UM, and the hashtag Americans Fort Dietrich
started trending UM because of the Community Youth League in
China started trending on Chinese social media wi Bo, where
(26:49):
it was viewed I think something in the neighborhood of
like two billion times uh. And state media started calling
on authority needs to investigate for Dietrich as a result
of this, so, you know, kind of the example of
them starting the hubbub themselves through the Community Youth League,
which is a state organization essentially or a state sponsored organization,
(27:14):
and then demanding that an investigation take place. The quote,
the official quote is if America respects the truth, then
please open up for Dietrich and make public more information
about the two dred or more bio labs outside of
the US, and please allow the w h O expert
group to go to the US to investigate the origins.
And that came from Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua chun Ying Um,
(27:38):
and that was her speaking to the Chinese state media,
which again, it's all kind of the same thing. It's
all the same organization every you know, all the hands
are all shaking each other and working in concert. So
it's hard to take some of these claims very seriously
because they're kind of essentially just creating sort of a
narrative that deflects blame from them. Um. And we know
(28:00):
that those origin stories are pretty well vetted, you know,
wouldn't you say, or am I overstating the case there?
I would say they're more well vetted than the the
narrative here from the Chinese side. I was not aware.
I had been looking at some of this stuff, but
I was not aware how far back their story goes
(28:23):
like they were. They were saying, uh, elements of the
Chinese media and government, we're saying this as far back
as May. That's a really good point. Then, yeah, well
they're specifically referencing, Uh, they're not just they didn't just
pick for Dietrich, you know, by throwing darts at a
at a map of the US. From what I'm understanding,
(28:44):
before they got to Fort Dietrich, they were looking for
a way to as you said, turn this blame on
the US. So it's like, what is our very verbose
version of we're rubber your glue. And the US said
(29:05):
much the same that you've said. They said that this
was a clear attempt at defection. In July t nineteen,
there was a shutdown of what are called bio safety
level three and level four types of work at us
A m R I I D. And that is the
Army's Biological Defense Laboratory. So that word is true. It
(29:27):
is a thing. It does study high level pathogens and infections,
buds like anthrax, things that can be weaponized for germ warfare,
biological warfare essentially. Well that's the thing. Now, it depends
on who you believe, because a spokesperson for the Army
Medical Research and Development Command said that U s A
m R I I D does not take part in
(29:49):
offensive research. But of course, why would you admit that
if you did, right, why would you be like, oh, yeah,
for the original name for this lab was Smallpox City.
Don't think they would do. So it's it's tough to
know what to believe. But I don't know. I don't
see support that it came from the US. And then
went to what was what what's the implication that was
(30:11):
transported surreptitiously to Wuhan and then deployed there? Is that
the idea? It's it's unclear. We have Matt please, yeah,
there there was. There are several narratives that have that
came out over you know, the last year or so,
and a lot of them had had to do with
the United States traveling a special envoy that traveled to
(30:33):
China and you know, then deployed it while they were there.
Then the virus spread in China to look like it
came from that area in Wuhan. Um. There are other
ones that former President Donald Trump, he would he and
many numerous others pointed to a very similar laboratory ian
(30:54):
Wuhan that remember we talked about this on a previous episode,
that is supposedly where the weapon version of this virus
was released. It's interesting to me. In this ap News
article they mentioned that, and the last sentence in this
article is in speaking on the Wuhan laboratory theory. There
here's the quote. While that theory has not been definitively
(31:16):
ruled out, many experts think it is unlikely, But isn't
that interesting that that's that's where the truth lies. Now
something has not been definitively ruled out, but most people
who know this stuff say it didn't happen. Well. But
but it's also like a pretty smart like if you're
gonna call into question, this narrative is a pretty good location.
(31:40):
This is already shrouded in some mystery. Like you said, Ben,
did they work with anthrax and ebola or didn't they? Uh,
there's we don't even know, you know, there's not even
So it's a really smart kind of way of you know,
doing a little bit of a switcheroo kind of situation
where people start to really question the truth if you
repeat it enough. Um, so you know, it's definitely a
(32:01):
tactic for sure, and we'll see if it actually you know,
has legs. But who is this for is my question?
Like it's for the Chinese people, right, it's too it's
to stir up anti American sentiment among Chinese citizens. It's
not like it's going to change anybody's mind over here
right now in the US. But that's I mean, that's
a very backburner demographic. This conversation is meant for people
(32:26):
in other regions of the world. Non NATO countries for instance.
It also gives some fuel to uh, it gives some
fuel to queue and on associated folks. Uh And and
it is like a lot of people don't understand this.
So the CDC does a lot of stuff, right. It's
also kind of a health inspector for some of these outfits.
(32:50):
And what happened here is that Fort Dietrich at high
level research, they failed some health inspection stuff, just like
a restaurant would, and a restaurant has to up its score.
So some stuff did go wrong there. But it's a
little bit of a leap to say that what went
wrong was also somehow necessarily means this group was in
(33:15):
secret creating uh COVID nineteen and then maybe based off
mirrors or something, and then shipping it worldwide like some
kind of uh evil version of FedEx. Uh. Yeah. But
then the t g I Fridays isn't handling infectious diseases
on a daily basis, So there their health their health
(33:38):
ratings a little less important than the the laboratory. But
you know what, but the analogy it does a million percent. Yeah,
I mean it's sort of like, you know, you have
to do a little bit of damage control. You have
to steer the narrative a little bit and you know,
do some some pr trickery, and that's absolutely what this is.
Um point totally taken down about this mainly being directed
(33:58):
to other regions. Also worth mentioning that this lab was
doing some of the earliest research with that kind of
questionable cocktail of medication known as randes vir, which I
believe has since kind of been debunked as as an
effective treatment for the coronavirus, but it was something that
was being pushed pretty heavily, especially by the Trump administration. Yeah,
(34:22):
so if you believe that, if you believe that there
are some dastardly ne'er do wells at Fort Dietrich that
are responsible for COVID I, then wouldn't it make sense
that they would also be some of the first people
working on I mean, I again, I have seen utopia
(34:47):
now and they wrote this thing in or whatever year sixteen,
whatever year was, they wrote this entire thing telling you,
telling you well, definitely worth watching and seeing how this
plays out in the bigger picture. But uh, certainly interesting
(35:07):
to see China kind of clapping back after quite quite
a long time of you know, doing things like calling
it the China virus and the Wuhan flew and the
Kung flew and all that stuff, which again lots of
racist undertones and mother ing. And it's to your point, Matt,
in previous episodes, words have power, you know. Um, And
(35:29):
even if this is sort of a a little bit
of trickery, I mean, you can't really blame them for
trying to deflect some of this, especially yeah, right at
the end here, can we admit that we, the three
of us, don't know where where this virus originated or
where where it started, right, I certainly don't, and and
(35:53):
there is so much conflicting information out there and intelligence
from various countries intelligence agencies, that it is difficult to know.
And and you know, part of the giant struggle that
humanity itself is faced throughout this is figuring out really
where it began and how we can prevent this from
happening again. Um, I would just say, questions remain, and
(36:15):
it's it's tough to be certain we can I would
be careful with I mean, this is why I've always
made that point about reading sources in language they use carefully.
The best we can say, now, the best anyone can
say publicly is that COVID nineteen stars code nineteen was
first identified in Wuhan. But be careful with that phrase,
(36:38):
because identified not the same thing as originating. We also,
you know, we're clearly misled by our own country as
to how early the virus was identified here. Oh yeah,
it's happening again with the new variants exactly right. So
I mean, I hate to, you know, be the one
(36:58):
suggesting don't trust anybody ever, but gosh, it's just that
we keep getting, you know, kind of fed a bill
of goods, you know, or sold a bill of goods.
You don't really get fed bills of guy as you could. Um.
But yeah, it definitely calls a lot of the stuff
into question and makes it hard to have a to
to really know, which I think is what leads to
(37:19):
so much conspiracy theories, theorizing and things like you and
on and all of that because you can't really know.
So why not just you know, go down the rabbit
hole and get weird with it? It's weird. I've had
some really interesting conversations with some folks who got out
of the Q and On belief system, and I've been
(37:40):
debating whether I'm going to make contact with some folks
who are doubling down. We'll see one in the coming days.
I think you're right. It's a tough situation. Well, it's
a sunk cost fallacy, isn't it. Yeah. Well, and you
know a little teaser. Uh, we're having a conversation about
that very topic on this week's Listen to Mail episode.
All right, And in that note, we are going to
(38:02):
take a quick word from our sponsor and we'll be
right back with more strange news. And we are back,
and we are coming to you with some news that is,
at least the article that we're using as our primary
(38:22):
source here is new. But it's an ongoing situation that's
been developing for goodness over a year, uh in Mexico,
and it's something that US authorities and intelligence agencies have
been dealing with for longer than that. So i'll just
read you the headline here. It's coming from the Guardian.
(38:44):
It is outrage after Mexico exonerates X defense minister in
drug case. Okay, so X defense minister in some kind
of drug case. Well, the person we are going to
be talking about today is General Salvador Sian Fuegos. He
(39:05):
was arrested in October of while he was in the
United States at the loss at a Los Angeles airport,
and he was he was essentially being accused of being
this person known as the Godfather with regards to some
(39:26):
drug cartel activity within Mexico. It's a really tangled web here,
but we're gonna try and get you, you know, walk
you through it as quickly as we can. So there's
another story that we're gonna refer to before we go
back to that original one. It's from a p It's
titled Mexico Clears General publishes US evidence against him. Okay.
(39:51):
So in this in this article, it describes exactly what
evidence the United States officials had against this general to Fuegos,
and it's essentially conversations between known associates of a cartel.
They're talking on blackberries and they were intercepted by the U.
(40:14):
S forces. And I'm going to read from this ap
article to get you up to speed here. Uh, there
were documents that the United States government released these. Uh.
These include intercepted text messages between the leader of the
H two cartel based in the Pacific Coast state of
Nayarite and a top aid who allegedly served as a
(40:36):
go between with this group, the H two Cartel, and
the General. This general was often referred to as the
Godfather and at one point as Salvador sin Fuego Cepeda.
There is one exchange where this person told his boss
that he had been picked up by men with short
military style haircuts and was taken to the Defense Department
(40:59):
headquarters in me Pico City for a meeting with quote
the Godfather. And this guy tells his boss that the
Godfather let him know, uh that you're we're gonna do
big things now. What we've done before was small time.
And he says that as long as the Godfather is here,
you will be free, that they will never carry out
(41:21):
strong operations or raids. And there's more to this, and
you can read all of it if you go to
that that article I mentioned there on the ap But
it appears that there there was some kind of evidence
that was taken up in uh, you know, eavesdropping on
communications that was pointing to this person called the Godfather.
(41:43):
And in one exchange they actually have a person mentioned
this this general, General Salvador Sian Fuegos as the Godfather.
So I guess they believed that all of this intelligence
you know, together meant that this guy was probably the
person they were looking for. So the US picked him
up in Los Angeles and they tried to essentially make
(42:08):
this uh, make this case stick and charge him with
some of these things. But it ended up not going
that way, and he was released back to UH to Mexico,
and then Mexico dropped all the charges. And that's what
this original article is all about. Um, how upset some
(42:29):
of the general public is at the thought that their government,
at the highest the most upper echelons of their government
could be working with drug cartels to ship money and
drugs and whatever else between you know, Mexico and Colombia,
Mexico and the United States and all these other countries,
(42:49):
and to do it with impunity, and then when one
of the top people gets caught, nothing happens to them
because they're above the law. Yeah. This is like just
just for comparison, and this is like the US Secretary
of Defense getting caught aiding and abetting domestic terrorism and
(43:10):
then not getting fired. It's like Canada catching the U
s Secretary of Defense helping terrorists, UH in a way
that affects Canada, they go against it, They drop the
charges and handed back to the U S. And the
U S says, well, you know we're done here. Yeah,
everything's fine. I was so excited that you made that
(43:32):
comparisons exactly what it is. Well, this is so there's
there's context here too that I don't want to lose.
One of the big pieces is from what I understand,
and correct me if I'm off base here, Matt, from
what I understand, the president of Mexico, obrah Door, was
(43:53):
super piste that the US didn't tell Mexican officials that
they were doing this investigation in the first place, which
goes to the larger concern. Now over Door was a
fan of the Trump administration. But that doesn't mean you
can't get riled up about stuff, right. So the thing
here that's fascinating is there is a a not insignificant
(44:16):
implication that the that the US government or factions thereof
may feel that the Mexican government is entirely compromised by cartel's.
I mean this is it's also not a crazy as
conspiracy theories go. It's not super crazy because cartels, you know,
make a lot of money and they have compromised multiple
(44:40):
police forces, multiple security forces. They control seventy of the
drugs coming into the US. They're not hard up for cash,
and they're not hard up for influence. No, no compunction
about brutal retaliation. Well, yeah, I can totally see that.
There's a flip side to it too, though that I
think we've we've thought about and discussed on this show before.
(45:03):
If the major actions that are being taken by Cartel's,
if they were just manufacturing drugs and trafficking drugs, then
you could save a lot of lives and a lot
of money by just allowing that action to take place.
That rather than having, you know, a military force that
(45:26):
is not trained to fight a drug war, but trained
to fight battles as a military. This is the point
that the general had made several times, like I'm leading,
I'm leading a war effort that we were not trained
to do. Is he was, he's very anti drug war. God,
I'm kind of getting off track here, But if you
allowed for those actions to take place, you could save
(45:49):
money and you could save lives. Um and by by
having this you know, war on drugs within Mexico, you
are in a way creating a lot the bloodshed. If
it were not for the in fighting between you know,
between different cartels where there's lots and lots of bloodshed
occurring there, where there's danger to citizens a lot of
(46:12):
the times because of that bloodshed. Uh, you do need
it does feel like you do need a protectionary protection
force essentially like a military to have these operations. God,
I kind of got lost in my thoughts there, but
but essentially it's just there's there's a case to be
made for allowing drug trafficking to occur to prevent violence,
(46:36):
but then that doesn't stop the effects of that the
drugs have on communities wherever they end up. Sure, yeah,
but those policies we should we should point out places
uh that have decriminalized or legalized various substances. Uh. Those
(46:56):
those policies are also implemented hand in hand with support
network policies, right like treatment centers, rehabs, stuff like that.
This it definitely feels like there's a political tent to
this story that I'm not fully aware of. Because for
(47:17):
anybody who's wondering how often does this happen, It's it's
pretty rare for the US law enforcement apparatus to drop
drug trafficking charges like this. This guy, the general, was
the highest military official in the land at one point
in the in the government of Mexico. And so there
(47:40):
are a lot of international observers who are saying that
this was a on the U S side, that this
was clearly a political decision to try to preserve the
overall relationship and cooperation between the two countries. But it's
strange because when Mexico dropped the charges, the latest news
(48:05):
is that the US is considering picking those charges back up.
So I wonder, I wonder what they're really fighting about. Right,
it does feel bigger, It really does feel bigger. And
there's another piece of that's been according to the end
of this AP News article, they are saying that Mexico's
Congress very recently passed a law which is going to
(48:28):
restrict US agents, like intelligence agents, from being within Mexico. So,
like I'm assuming reducing the number of operations that can
occur there and how they would handle that. And also
while they are in Mexico on their soil, they would
remove the diplomatic community that they would usually be given.
Uh And we've talked about before on the show about
(48:49):
what diplomatic community gives you We've recently talked about it
with Saudi Arabian citizens who are in the United States
and what that means. Diplomatic communities not quite as powerful
as being a Saudi Arabian citizen in the US almost
it's around there. Uh, it's definitely. The problem is when
(49:13):
comparing the two, the diplomatic immunity obeys laws. Uh. That's
that's the primary differentiation there between the treatment. But but
you're right, stuff you should know, by the way, has
a great episode on diplomatic community for anybody wants to
learn more. Uh, there's a solid argument in the case
of this type of law enforcement that some degree of
(49:36):
immunity is requisite to accomplish the job and the objectives.
But still, you know, it's the war on drugs. It's
a huge bag of badgers. It's made a ton of money. Uh,
it's made a ton of money for the people who
claim to be fighting against drugs. Right. I don't think
you I don't think that's a controversial claim here in
(50:00):
and Uncle Sam made billions off of the drug war,
and that is one of the that is one of
the factors that makes it easy to not trust the
official narrative because it's been proven false and intentionally misleading before.
I don't know, man, drugs just me so much money.
(50:24):
And you're right, Matt, if there were a situation where
things are decriminalized, if not recreationalized, then what we've seen
happen so far is that it's not the end of society.
It's just a different group of people making drug money.
Someone's always going to be making money off of drugs.
(50:45):
Someone will always be doing that. It doesn't matter what
buzz phrases we use. The big question is who likes this,
Who who benefits from the status quo as it stands now,
would benefit if the status quo change? And what kind
of favors did the general call in? What do you
(51:06):
think he made some phone calls, he had to write,
or he's got some dirt. I don't know. I'm I'm
sure um um if the the only thing here, Ben
is that this isn't the first time it's happened, um.
The previous the predecessor of san Fuegos was Genaro Garcia Luna,
(51:30):
who was arrested in Texas in December twenty nineteen on
charges of taking giant bribes from the Sonola cartel in
order to help them ship drugs into the US. So
it may just be a systemic thing or a position.
Once you get up to that position, you're kind of
the godfather. Okay, okay, kind of like if you're the president,
(51:53):
every plane you ride in is automatically Air Force one. Yeah,
kind of like that. I was not aware of their Luna. No,
what do you think about this report? Do you do
you agree there's something more to the story or do
you think it's just I don't know what's you take.
I mean, I'm kind of with you. It does feel
a little bit like something is being obscured here. I
(52:15):
have no idea what it is, but it's certainly another
one to watch. I would say, yeah, yeah. And and
just before you go thinking, oh, it's just weed or something, UM,
just give you what Seine Fougos was accused of. Uh.
He's accused of conspiring with HD cartel to smuggle thousands
of kilos, so thousands of kilos of cocaine, heroin, meth,
(52:36):
and marijuana into the U s. And that was from
two thousand twelve two thousand and eighteen while he was
Defense Secretary. Smuggling meth that's unusual. Usually that stuff made domestically.
That's that's interesting. And you can see, uh, you can
see video footage of some of the some of the
things being caught. I believe it's on that the al
(52:58):
Jazeer article that I looked at for this, it's called
Mexico x Defense minister arrested in US on drug charges.
Oh by the way, one thousand kilos for anybody in
the US is a little more than one ton. So
these are these are literal tons and tons of drugs. Yeah,
(53:18):
that's a lot of street doses right there. I can't imagine. God,
super interesting. Fine, Matt, Yeah, well, you know who who
cares if if the heads of government can can run
drugs the way we kind of think for a while,
I mean, that's what are you gonna do? Does check
(53:41):
out opium productions? To check out the poppy productions in Afghanistan?
Look a look at the dip under the Taliban and
then look at the rise later. Uh. Stuff they don't
want me to think about. So I can sleep at night,
not saying it's one one to one, solidly proven thing,
but heard from so many members of the military who
(54:04):
have told us, you know, we had to protect these
crops um. It's yeah, there's there's definitely more of the story,
and you know who really cares about it? I bet
this is a question I would ask towards the end, Matt,
I bet Salvador cares. What's he doing now? What's he
doing right now? Does he listen to the show? No,
he's chilling. He's retired though, right, so it's time. He's
(54:28):
good to go. He's no, he's he's reading something on
a porch somewhere. He was cleared of all all charges,
right January fourteenth, not too long ago as we record this.
Uh so he might still be celebrating. I can totally
imagine him just finding a yacht somewhere. Drug sub I'm sorry. Sorry.
(54:56):
His successor is currently in office, one Louis Gonzales, and
I wonder if he's been referred to as the godfather. Um,
I'm serious to your point about maybe every secretary becoming
a godfather automatically is interesting. I don't know. I doubt it.
(55:16):
I seriously doubt it. I think you had to earn
that place, you know, the general in the defense Minister
is a title, but earning godfather is probably something a
little different. Um. But it is weird. It is weird
to think that top cartel officials, god top cartel members
would be visiting with a defense minister. That's a that's
(55:39):
a tough pill to swallow. Yeah, all right, well that
I think that's enough for it for this, because if
if you have any information on this, hey, did you
work with the Godfather? You want to tell us a story,
we're here. You can talk to us unless it will
endanger you or us or anyone else. Don't don't talk it. No,
don't do it. I don't want to go down for this, dude. Um,
(56:03):
all right, so you can. You can find us on
social media. We're all over the place. Conspiracy stuff in
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(56:27):
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(56:50):
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(57:14):
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(57:39):
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