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June 21, 2025 74 mins

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Alex shares his remarkable 24-year career with the US Border Patrol, including his experiences with dangerous bandits, cartel operations, and cross-border cooperation with Mexican authorities. His journey from a young recruit to internal affairs special agent reveals the complex, often violent reality of America's border regions.

• Growing up in East Los Angeles and finding direction through law enforcement mentors
• The dangerous reality of "bandits" who prey on vulnerable migrants crossing the border
• Detailed insights into how cartels control "plazas" along the border, requiring payment from anyone crossing
• The untold story of Border Patrol Agent Robert Rosas' murder by a cartel crew
• Cross-border cooperation with Mexican authorities to capture fugitives wanted in both countries
• Perspective on border enforcement changes across five presidential administrations
• Transition to Internal Affairs and the challenges that led to early retirement
• Current work with Pacheco Advisory Group providing training on border operations and security tactics

Check out Alex's co-authored book "On the Line: Inside the U.S. Border Patrol" on Amazon and follow his work at pachecoadvisorygroup.com or on Instagram at pacheco_advisory_group.


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Speaker 1 (00:01):
hector.
Bravo.
Unhinged chaos is now insession.
Welcome back to our channels,warriors.
Today, another banger for youguys, this time 24 year career
with the with the border patrol,us border patrol, I was gonna

(00:22):
say california border patrol,but the border goes all the way.
So 24 years of experience, withfour years ending in internal
affairs.
Special agent, we have noneother than alex.
Alex.
What up dude, what's up becker?
Thanks for having me on.
Appreciate it, bro.
Thanks for coming through, bro.
So 24 years is a long time man.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
24 years a long time, man, but it was, uh, it was a
great career.
You know I, yeah, started in 98and I didn't know what I was
going to be doing.
Right, I didn't know.
Have a direction in my life.
You know I didn't want to go tocollege.
You know I tried to playcollege football.
Undersized lineman, you know,went the Juco route, Got hurt
like man.
What am I going to do?
So I bounced around.
You know I did bounced.

(01:06):
I even started a partnership ina restaurant when I was young.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
bartended worked a lot of different jobs.
Are you from San Diego?
I'm from Los Angeles, you'refrom LA?
Yeah so all of this stuff youwere doing in LA, everything was
in Los Angeles.
Everything was in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, I grew up on the east side of Los Angeles in
the San Gabriel Valley, a placecalled Bassett.
If you're familiar with LaPuente West, co.
West cabina area, bassett islike a subdivision of la puente
and that's kind of where I grew,not kind of that's exactly
where I grew up.
Um, didn't really know what Iwant to do and I had no idea
that you know I'd be in apodcast or you know, talking
about my life story.

(01:35):
You know, 25, 30 years later,oh, that's the beauty of this
man?
yeah, it's a beauty, it'sfantastic, but, yeah, I came
into the Border Patrol notknowing what to expect.
You know, honestly, assumingthat man, I'm going to do a
couple of years how old were youwhen you applied Twenty,
twenty-three, twenty-four.
I was twenty-four when I cameon board and my process went

(01:58):
really fast.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
I got hired quick.
Where did you take the writtenexamination?
Like at a school or something,a hotel, where?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
did you take the written examination Like at a
school or something, a hotel?
No, in downtown Los Angeles.
I was driving down with mygirlfriend my wife now and we
were coming to San Diego and wesaw a billboard right for United
States I'm sorry, us Customsspecial agent hiring.
So I put in for the specialagent test in downtown, took the
test and then when I was thereI saw a Border Patrol
announcement.

(02:24):
I was like what the hell is aborder patrol right?
And so I put in for it.
I got hired in six months youhaven't seen the movie.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Uh, what is it?
Born in the east, la, of courseI saw the border patrol man
they chase them over the hill.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
That's the only experience I had with the border
, for I know nobody in it.
You know, other than you knowmy, my abuelita, my grandma.
When we were little she would,hey, come inside the meet.
I was going to get you guysright.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Right, but that's LA, though, because I'm used to it
because I lived on border towns,so they're there.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
They were never.
You don't see them in LosAngeles, correct, they didn't
exist, right.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
So what was that was drawing you to it?
Was it the uniform, the gun,the federal?

Speaker 2 (02:59):
job, job.
You know what I was looking toget into law enforcement.
I knew since I was a little kidI wanted to be a cop, right,
you know, kids grow up playingcops and robbers.
Yeah, they don't grow upplaying.
You know, banker and attorneyNot that they're fantastic jobs
and make a lot more than we do,yeah, yeah.
But you know, I knew that'swhat I wanted to do.

(03:20):
And you know what year was that?
94?
Well, the alley riots were, Ibelieve, 92.
Yeah, I was 20 years old, um,so right around 92, 93, I said
man where were you during?
those riots at home.
You know, I was at home.
Uh, I was at home and a friendof mine, uh, was going to usc
and I remember uh talking to herlater and she had driven right

(03:40):
past the intersection where theydragged um reginald denny, they
hit him with a brick.
Yeah, they hit him with a brick.
Um, I can't remember the street, normandy and something, and
maybe florence and normandy, andshe had driven right past that
while she was at school and Iremember talking to her about it
and I was like fuck man, that'sfucking wild.
I remember seeing the city'sburn.
Um, it was horrible.

(04:01):
It was a terrible sight to seeyou know.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
So what was your mindset is like hey, I'm
watching my city burn down.
I would like to join lawenforcement you know what?

Speaker 2 (04:09):
that's not the reason .
Right, I did it.
You know where I grew up.
You know they're in bassett.
We had alley county sheriffs.
I know the homies, right, I hada bunch of gangsters that grew
around me.
Yeah, all guys from you knowI'm not gonna mention the gang,
I don't want to give them themprops, but I'm there at the park
where I'm, at, san Angelo Park,you see, all the homies are all
smoking weed and doing theirthing, right, and the cops would
roll in and they'd see me.

(04:30):
It's like what the fuck are youdoing over here?
Get away from those guys.
A couple of guys that were coolin San Diego, pacheco.
Don't go that route.
Don't hang out with these dudes.
I was in a troublesome kid,right, and then when I went to
high school, a lot of my coacheswere police officers, you know,
and they were great mentors.
One of them took me that's good, dude Dude.

(04:51):
One of them took me on aride-along and I was sold.
There you go.
He worked Alley CountySheriff's, he worked Century
Station and I went out on aride-along and I said this is
what I want to do the rest of mylife.
It was adrenaline dumping and Iwas just sitting in the fucking
car right.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, I was like I want to do this.
This is what I want to fuckingdo that be a part of something
bigger than myself.
No, I'm glad you gave thatportion of your life, man,
because it's really a fine linewhat direction a man go.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
A young man goes either left or right, dude
growing up, where I grew up, youknow, I had a little kid.
Name was johnny.
You know we split the parktogether and I remember, uh,
remember we got in a fight.
We're like 10, 12 years old,yeah, we're gonna fight, stupid
fight right, kicked him in thestomach, he falls down, he cries
, you know stuff like that.
And one of his it was like abrother or steel, he was like a

(05:36):
veteran on, like old schoolveteran, and like the next day
at the park hits me up.
He's like, hey, you're the onethat got in a fight with Johnny.
I'm like, yeah, I thought hewas going to kick my ass, right,
and I think he just wanted tomake sure that it wasn't some of
the local homies.
It was like a little kid, shit.
So he was cool.
But sadly I remember like ayear or two later, I think the
kid was like, I want to say, ineighth grade, ninth grade, he

(05:57):
was killed in a drive-by.
Damn, from my house, damn, youknow.
Another guy grew up with, youknow his younger brother ended
up doing a long stint shootingsomebody.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
You know, I can't remember how many years 20 20
something, yeah, 20 something.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Uh, another guy grew up with in my neighborhood a
year older than me.
Uh, we shared similar birthdaysand we hang out.
We were kids.
Dude, he's been in and out ofthe penal system for as long as
I can remember oh, it's real man.
It's definitely real and'sdefinitely real and yeah, you
never know which path you'regoing to take.
But I had great parents.
There you go.
Great childhood, Great, youknow.
Extended family Aunts, uncles,cousins.

(06:32):
And great mentors that werecoaches and you know I wasn't
looking for mentors because Ihad my father, who was, you know
, the most heroic person in mylife.
I didn.
But those guys pointed me in adifferent direction, Like, hey,
man, what about this?
And I'm like you know what?

Speaker 1 (06:45):
I think it's something I want to do, and you
know, you know, I think that'sin us from tribal, from tribal.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Like instilling guiding man in the right path.
Yeah, and we need more of thosepeople.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Oh, bro, I didn't think we'd do this podcast, this
type of mentorship Big time.
You know, especially in youknow, especially like in Latino
neighborhoods growing up there'snot a lot of I can't think of
too many heroic law enforcementofficers that that look like me.
Growing up you had Ponch.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Well, can they kind of move out of the you know, the
hood or whatever they?

Speaker 2 (07:17):
kind of.
But even on TV, you know, youhad Ponch Rallo from CH, but he
from chips, but he's kind ofgoofy, right, he wasn't like a
superhero.
And every time, every othertime you see us on tv, you know,
oh, he's a he's latino cop, buthe's corrupt or he's crooked or
you're like fuck you know, andyou look, you look at like uh,
you look at la pd, you look atalley county sheriff shit.

(07:37):
You look at the border patrol.
It's like 50, 60 percent firstgeneration guys, latinos yeah,
we're rolling deep bro, yeah,we're rolling deep, bro, yeah,
we're rolling deep man, we'rerolling deep for sure.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
So what did you end up joining?
Was it because you mentionedcustoms and then Border Patrol?
Which one?

Speaker 2 (07:53):
It's funny, I ended up joining the Border Patrol
because they hired me quick, Ithink.
Start to finish.
Six months, bro, it was fastand I had been processing with
other agencies for LAPD a year,year and a half.
I wouldn't get past his part.
Whatever the case may be rightand it was a challenging time
for hiring post-Rodney King era.
But when I got on it wasfinally the Border Patrol and

(08:16):
it's funny as I'm nearing theend of the graduations portion
at the Border Patrol.
Six months, five and a half,six months.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
The academy, the academy, yeah, where was?
The location at charlestonsouth carolina, was that your
first time leaving california,first time leaving?

Speaker 2 (08:29):
california on an extended period and it was an
eye-opener, bro.
And was it humid?
It was humid, it was hot.
It was the first time I'd seenum, you know, growing up in
socal all my friends were black,asian, white, latino.
You don't look at differentcolors because you're in this
environment, right?
And it was weird, going out tolike the city and you know

(08:51):
there's the black portion ofCharleston and there's a white
portion of Charleston and that'sit, you know, and they would
intermingle.
But it was weird to see theseunofficial at least to me it
would look like unofficialdividing lines, you know, and I
get there and they're looking atme like oh, what is this guy
like?
It's weird like a brother withstraight hair.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
What is he?
You know, because everybodythat I've interviewed to include
my own experience is, when weget out of our element and
experience like otherethnicities or stuff like that,
it's like whoa, it's like aneye-opener it really is.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
It really is, but uh no it was a good experience and,
at the end, how was thephysical portion, physical
training?

Speaker 1 (09:27):
I would imagine it's physically demanding dude it was
demanding.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
You know, um, it's supposed to be the hardest
federal law enforcement academy,partly because of the, the
paramilitary type structure.
Right, a lot of pt every day,uh, great pt instructors, and
you have to learn a foreignlanguage, that and the terrain
that you guys operate.
Yeah, I spoke spanish, so itwas easy, but for, like my
brothers that didn't speakspanish, yeah, they had to learn
it before they graduated.

(09:50):
You know, fluently or just okay, you have to learn it.
That I taught post academy.
So before you have to, you know, get out of the academy, go to
the spanish and law test.
Um, enough to communicate,understand the danger signal
somebody's trying to kill you,somebody's trying to harm you
and how to conduct some basicinterview stuff.
Put your hands up, don't move.
What's your name?
Manos arriba, manos arriba.

(10:12):
What's your name?
Where you come from, whateverthe case may be, real basic
stuff, almost like minimalconversational type of things,
makes sense.
Yeah, but you had to learnstatutory, all the federal law
and then immigration law, so itwas kind of challenging.
You know it was, but customscalled me like two weeks before
graduation.
Hey, congratulations, you'vebeen hired.
Special agent, would you liketo come on?

(10:34):
I'm like fuck that right, I'vealready.
I just finished the academy.
I've been away from my for myfamily, been with my girlfriend.
Man, I, I don't want to do this.
Were you homesick?
Oh, unbelievably, which Ididn't think I'd be like it was.
It was hard believe it or notfirst time moving away.
You know, my family was verytight-knit, all the extended
family, and I had my girlfriend,who's my wife now, and I.

(10:55):
I was devastatingly homesick,which was which was weird.
Like now I go away and I'm like, you know, were you questioning
your decisions?
I think, think initially, yeah,questioning my decisions.
Like man, what the fuck am Idoing here?
You know, am I going to make itthrough this?
But I knew I would, right, youknow, one foot in front of the
other and then afterwards, likenow, I look back and I'm like

(11:18):
man, I'd like to go back toCharleston.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
It was a good experience.
You want to be stationed?

Speaker 2 (11:21):
at no um, in fact.
Uh, when I got my mom got theletter, she opened it for me.
She calls me at work, I'mbartending she's hey, mico, I
think the board show hired you,but you're going to texas and
I'm like I'm not even.
I didn't even rush home.
I was like fuck this, I'm notmoving to texas, I'm not leaving
california, right?
So I get home, I open up theenvelope and my initial look it
says it said brownfield,brownfield, right, california.

(11:45):
But I just saw like brown in my, for whatever reason, my brain
registered like brownsville,texas.
And I'm right.
I put it down and I opened backup and I'm like brownfield,
california.
So I opened up the thomas guy.
Remember the old thomas guy?
yeah where the fuck isbrownfield boom.
I'm like, oh shit, san diego,california, yeah.
And then I called him back andI said I'll take the job because
I like San Diego.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
So I was just talking to somebody that said
Brownfield, uh border patrol,and I confused it with
Brownfield air airport.
But no, they're saying more byEl Campo and dozer.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
No, no no, you're, you're, you are right.
The old Brownfield station theoriginal was airport.
Right at the base of theairport, okay, at the brownfield
.
Then they moved it furthersouth, over Tanya.
It's right on the border fence,in fact.
Do you know where CBX is?
You're familiar with it, giveor take.
There's a bridge that goes over.
It's right on the other side ofthe TJ airport, okay, and they

(12:35):
have that area and they alsohave the 94 checkpoint.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
I go shooting over there man Pink Gate, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah, I saw your video.
Yeah, I've gone shooting.
That's a, it's cool.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Old school place.
It's cool.
Yeah, it's a good place.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Nice and open.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
So Brownfield Airport , that's where you was your
initial duty station yeah Off ofBritannia.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
It was near the border fence.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
And showing up.
You know what it was it was,but I'll say this the field
training unit at least in myopinion, the field training unit
at brownfield station was morechallenging physically than the
academy.
Oh, I bet they kicked your ass.
I bet we had an sf guy and uh,another another training officer
, real skinny guy, and uh, theirjob was to take you on the
mountain and smoke you and smokeyou like I never spoke.
That was their job, that wasyour job they would.

(13:25):
They wanted you to touch everycanyon, walk through every hit,
every you know seismic sensor.
And we worked all time out.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
So time is right across from donovan prison,
right across from donovan prison, bro, I've, I've ran up that
fucking mountain numerous times.
Okay, so all the way updoghouse and all that all the
way.
There's this House and all thatstuff, all the way to those
little satellites up there.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
So those canyons that's Dog House up there.
So those canyons, especiallylike Buttewig and Copper Canyon.
These are those canyons whereyou drop down an hour, you're
doubling it back up Hour down,two hours up, two hours down,
four hours up.
You know sagebrush, real thickvegetation.
It's rough man and they kickedyour ass.

(14:06):
But it's for a reason becauseif you're down at the bottom of
a canyon, hector, I need to knowhow to get to you an injured
agent, an injured migrant,whatever the case may be right,
you'll be able to get down toget to them and save them you
know.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
So what was this portion, man?
What was this portion?
Like, uh, like a on the jobtraining?

Speaker 2 (14:20):
no, you get out of the academy and you go to your,
you report to your fieldtraining unit, your whole team
goes and you get split up andthey do like an area orientation
because it's a massive area.
I mean it is massive so youhave to know the zones, you have
to know the mountain, the mesa,all the different assignments
before you get released ontoyour own.
So you go from like a stationtraining unit and then you get

(14:41):
assigned to your shift and youhave a field training?

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, your FTO training unit.
And then you get assigned toyour shift and you have a field
training uh, yeah, your fto.
How long is that, that initialportion of the gosh?

Speaker 2 (14:49):
of the orientation, I'm gonna say three months, fuck
.
I'm gonna say three months,damn.
And then you do like anotherthree months, because once you
graduate from the well, wouldyou have the old school broncos.
The old school broncos, yeah,they even had a few blazers,
right.
Right, when I came in and, uh,we had some vietnam era scope
trucks.
You know these night visiontrucks.
So the new agents have no ideawhat I'm talking about, because

(15:12):
they got like fancy scope trucks.
Dude, we had this vietnam erascope truck that you have to sit
in the back and move the scopewith your feet.
You're exposed to the elementsand you have to move it, man,
like a turret.
You'd have to wear uh earphonesor or head you know your ear
protection, because it was soloud pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.
And you're sitting here lookingthrough this crappy night

(15:32):
vision uh screen as you're, asyou're rotating around.
So you have a driver, you knowyou drive yourself.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
So you drive and you scope at the same time, or you
park it.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
No, you drive you park to, like the 56 scope site,
specific scope sites.
There were some areas like, uh,an area called the white cross
yeah, a lot of bandit activitywhere, um, you'd have to have a
white cross scope, which waspermanent there all the time,
and a backup, you said banditactivity.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Oh yeah, I'm somewhat aware of what a bandit is, but
could you like explain to thecrowd what it?
What are?

Speaker 2 (16:04):
I'll preface it with this Look, the border's a very
violent place.
There's an ebb and flow, right,depending on the times and
generations and whatnot.
It's always violent.
Sometimes it's super violent,sometimes it's less violent, but
it's always violent.
There are groups of individualsout there that patrol the
border looking to exploit,extort, kidnap migrants.

(16:27):
They assault them, theysexually assault them.
It's horrific.
On which side of the border dothey do this?
On both sides of the border.
Oh man, yeah, I supervised oneof the teams and that's what we
did.
We investigated these types ofbandit activities and it was
horrific.
I mean, it was absolutelyhorrific.

(16:47):
If you're robbing andkidnapping the poorest of the
poor, the poorest in the world,you're a piece of shit.
I mean, you're a piece of shitanyway.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
But it was really bad .

Speaker 2 (16:58):
It's almost like my brain doesn't want to believe it
, bro, but like I trust you andI know it's a thing there was
believe it, bro, but, like Iknow, I trust you and I know
it's a thing there was and I'mno longer in.
But yeah, our bortech guys, ourSWAT team, yeah, yeah,
unbelievable, oh, they'refucking badass.
They're fucking badass, right.
Yeah, fuck you bortech guys,fucking badass.
Um, they recently smoked abandit on the us side of the
border.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Okay, within the last year.
Okay, you're right.
You're right, and I didn't readabout that.
You're right, it was like asniper.
I think it was a sniper thesniper canute him um.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
He was, you know, trying to try to rob him at a
good point on the us.
This was under the previousadministration, when the border
was was overran, right, right,um.
So yeah, yeah, bandits outthere, damn dude.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
That's so fucking wild, bro.
I mean bandits.
We have pirates in somalia, soI guess, yeah, still got that
old school shit going.
Yep, yep, for sure thesebandits.
How do they maneuver man Horses, dune buggies, quads, trucks?

Speaker 2 (17:48):
You know what?
I've never seen them on horses.
You got to understand, likewith the Mexican cartels, right,
yeah, if you cross the border,you got to pay plaza.
Plaza is your toll, yeah, andif you don't pay your plaza, you
don't pay your toll, you can'toperate there.
So the bandits will be outthere partly as enforcers,

(18:11):
especially if it's a narco area.
Don't move aliens in my narcarea because you're going to
bring too much attention, right?
So they'll be out thereactively looking for individuals
that didn't pay their toll.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
Let me ask you this actively looking for individuals
that didn't pay their toll.
Let me ask you this Do thecartel I understand they own
plazas or they control plazas,yeah Do they only control the
point of entrance, meaning likewhere people walk in and out or
drive in and out, or do theyhave like long lengths of the
whole?

Speaker 2 (18:41):
entire fence.
Well, you got to remember.
The Border Patrol doesn't workat the ports of entry.
You have from, like let's justsay, otama, support of entry to
tecate port of entry but whatdoes the cartel consider?

Speaker 1 (18:51):
their plaza, the, the port of entry or the whole
fucking?

Speaker 2 (18:54):
thing, the whole fucking thing you go out towards
, like, uh, rumorosa, yeah, onyour campo that's wide open,
there's no, there's no port ofentry.
So they consider that, hey,this is my pl.
They own that area becausethat's where they're going to
bring in the special interestaliens, the high dollar migrants
, the Chinese, the people fromthe third country nationals who
you're charging India and shit,Dude, when I was in and this was
when I was in.

(19:15):
I think the average rate waslike $65,000, $75,000 per.
For Chinese it has to be over$100,000 per person.
That's a lot of money and thecartel have a monopoly over that
.
They control it.
Oh they, yeah.
They control the humantraffickers.
They control the humansmugglers.
Everything you have to payplaza.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
If you do anything illicit on the us mexico border,
you got to pay plaza and I knowthis is kind of a dumb question
, but what would happen if yougo against them?

Speaker 2 (19:41):
they're gonna kill you right, and that's what the
bandits are out there for.
Okay, you know they have, youknow they've killed agents on
the US Army, have they?
Oh, rosales, robert Rosas.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Rosas Robert.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Rosas 2008, 2009.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he wasmurdered.
And the interesting about thatcrew my crim squad, my criminal
alien squad we were, you know,we did a lot of like special
cases for for the patrol Rightand one of the things that
they'd asked us had tasked uswith was hey, find out what's
going on with this migrantkidnapping out in Campo Now

(20:13):
there were other groups outthere working the migrant
kidnapping this wasn't my case,but we're out there responding
and basically what this migrantkidnapping crew was doing was
they would pretend to besmugglers and they'd say, hey,
you know what, hector?
You paid 10 grand to comeacross, we'll do it for five.
We have, we have a specialplace to cross.
Come out to the border.
We walk out.
We say, hey, there's banditsout here.
Hey, hector, wait right here,I'll be right back, I'm gonna go

(20:34):
check for bandits.
Of course they come back, ballthe clobbered up, and they would
.
They would do some extremeviolence.
They would fuck people upimmediately, come back, knock
you upside the head and say, allright, hector, call your family
, tell them you made it to SanDiego and to send them money now
and if not, they'd startbeating the crap out of you.
They'd sexually assault thewomen.

(20:54):
So, like if you imagine, likeif you have a female family
member that's crossing theborder and you've already
vouched to the smuggler, you'regoing to pay for her, and she
sent you a video of her cryingthe guy's groping her sexually
assaulting her.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
That's like a fucking nightmare, bro.
What the fuck?

Speaker 2 (21:07):
are you going to do?
I'm going to send the moneyimmediately, right, yeah?
And then what do they do?
All this happens on the southside.
They kick them north, they turnthem into the border patrol and
they tell hey, border patrolthis.
So this kidnapping crew hadlost their night vision goggles

(21:27):
and their boss was a murderousbastard.
And he told them I'm going tokill you, guys, if you don't
bring my night vision gogglesback.
Now there's much more to thestory, but this will be a whole
separate podcast.
Right and again, not my case,but this is kind of what I know
about it and they went and theytargeted Robert.
They set him up to burglarizehis vehicle and he caught them
in the act.
And they went and they targetedRobert.
They set him up to burglarizehis vehicle and he caught them
in the act.
And they had a Mexican standoffand Robert was murdered.

(21:49):
And this was, make no mistakeabout it.
This was a cartel crew that wasinvolved in narcotics
trafficking and humantrafficking, who murdered a
border patrol agent on the USside of the border.
And you would think this wouldbe national news.
You'd think there'd be fuckingdocumentaries about it.
Nada, bro, Nothing.
And you would think this wouldbe national news.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
You'd think there'd be fucking documentaries about
it.
Nada bro, nothing Bro.
I'm like in shock right nowthat this story even came up,
dude, because I believe he was aCO prior to becoming a border
patrol agent.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
He was from the Valley.
He was from El Centro.
Yeah, he was from the Valley.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
yeah, so, like of course you know, it's a
well-known small city and yeah,that mountains.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, but, bro, I didn't even know that you knew
about that situation or that wewere going to talk about this.
You know what?
When we started talking aboutbandits, and you know when you?

Speaker 1 (22:30):
talk about bandits, so that was kidnapping.
That's what transpired.
That's what transpired, correct, fuck bro.
So, like dude, that's not small, that's major.
Now, major, exactly.
So what kind of feedback was itfrom the border patrol?

Speaker 2 (22:44):
as an agency.
Insofar as like the response towhat happened.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
What was the response ?

Speaker 2 (22:49):
It was all hands on deck, every agency that you can
imagine, because they caught thekillers.
They caught every single one ofthem except the main leader,
but as far as we know, they madehim disappear.
The cartels realized like what?

Speaker 1 (23:04):
the fuck did you do?
But what happened?

Speaker 2 (23:06):
did you guys put more officer, more agents and you
know they not only did they putmore, more agents border they,
they brought all the intelassets together, they you know
we have a fantastic liaisonprogram with mexico okay, we
have a great relationship withthem and you know they got them
on board.
And you know they they trackedthem.
It doesn't take long, huh?
They found everybody, in fact,the former chief of police of

(23:27):
Tijuana, a guy named AlejandroLarez, who's a good friend of
mine he's like a brother to meand he's the one who caught the
very last one of Tijuana.
And the guy confessed on videoas to everything happening.
I've seen the video.
It's horrific.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
Again, not my case, but every Border Patrol agent
knows about this.
Where did they get charged?
At US?
Us?
Are they in US custody?
Yeah, they're in US custody.
Didn't even know that, dude.
Yeah, they're in.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
US custody.
Yeah, they got whatever.
I think there was a minor thatwas there.
Brian Terry was also killed.
Brian Terry there's murderedout in Nogales, arizona I've
worked out there and there's RipCruz out there.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
Hey guys, consider becoming a patron, where you
will get first exclusive dibs onthe video before it airs to the
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So that's also another way tosupport the channel.
Thank you, guys.
Appreciate all of you.
Keep pushing forward.
Make sure you hit that link inthe description below Band.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
All of you keep pushing forward.
Make sure you hit that link indescription below.
Bandit slash, rip, cruise andwhat they do is they.
They rip off other, other,other drug smugglers.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
Bro, this is a whole nother entity that I really
didn't know, dude.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
Oh man, it is, it's horrific.
I mean, agents have been, havebeen ran over trying to lay out
spike strips, you know takingspike strips, you know taking
these guys out.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
I think there was another one that got hit in the
head with a rock and killed upin like that area.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Oh, the guys get hit in the head all the time.
I can't recall if there was onehit in the head that was killed
.
I think there was um, but youknow they've been shot, they've
been ran over, um and all youknow, over the over the border
violence.
You go out in a single man unityeah, yeah, when I, yeah, when I
was in, and I think that'sstill the case.
It's such a massive area.
It's like we're here indowntown San Diego, right, and

(25:10):
all of a sudden you get a signand let's just say downtown San
Diego is zone one.
All right, you got the northside, I got the south side,
that's it.
That's it, dude.
That's sketchy, bro.
And then you're out on foot andI'm telling you, your nearest
backup sometimes is two hoursaway, depending on the person's
level of conditioning too.
You know, some guys might takethem 10 minutes to get down to

(25:31):
you, some might take 25.
They'll get there, or what?
If you're uphill, it's evenworse.
I've worked out in Arizona onthe Tohono O'odham Indian
Reservation, where it's a two,two and a half hour drive to the
border be honest, bro, wasthere any time?

Speaker 1 (25:48):
well, I'm sure happened often.
Where you were, you were outthere and you're like man, this
is eerie or this is sketchy oh,yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
It's a sketchy area.
You know you're working pitchblack at night by yourself.
Um, you get a uh seismic.
We have these seismic uhsensors all over the place.
We call them bugs.
One of the bugs goes off andcanyon x.
You know, you wait at the topof that canyon because you know
that they're funneled in.
They got to come out, thiscanyon, and I'm laying there by
myself.
Right, I'm hiding the bush.

(26:14):
You know, one, two o'clock inthe morning, pitch black, it's
freezing cold.
It's me, and at the time, withmy beretta right, beretta 40 cal
, I got no long arm.
I'm sitting there and you canhear the whispers, you can hear
these groups coming up.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
Oh, hell, no bro.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
You don't know if it's a group of migrants, you
don't know if it's drugsmugglers Well, san Diego has
not that many drug smugglers,but, like in Arizona, you didn't
know what the hell you weredealing with.
Right, and it could bebackpackers.
And you're laying there and asyou get closer you I mean,
depending on the breeze you cansmell, you know human sweat, you
can, you can hear peopletalking and then you just pop,

(26:49):
you just surprise them, oh,gather up here on the ground,
and then you're hoping yourpartner's on the other side or
you're, you're arresting, youknow 20, 30 people by yourself
that's like the wild west mandude.
I've been out there with groups,I kid you, not in arizona,
where they were in excess of 100people no fucking way oh ask
any border patrol agent that'sworked in the late 90s, 2000s,
even now.

(27:10):
Oh yeah, out in arizona, the tores.
At a certain time period, two,three guys, you're taking down
groups of 100.
What were you doing in arizona?
You had a duty change.
No, so we get detailed a lot.
Okay, so you get detailed a lot.
So I started a brownfieldstation.
That was my station for a verylong time, um, but I had a
unique career, like 17, more orless 17 of the 20 years I did

(27:30):
with the border patrol.
I was either on a task force orassigned to what we call an
intel unit.
So I was a plainclothes guy,right.
But early on, you know, I got,uh, temporary detail to el
centro galaxico.
What were you doing in elcentro galaxicoalexico?
Again, so this was great.
No, no, no, this was uniform.
This is when I was in uniform.
Yeah, they did this operationgatekeeper.
Where they were.
You know, we didn't have themanpower, there was no

(27:51):
infrastructure.
They were shutting down theborder.
So when we shut down San Diego,as best as we could.
Douglas.
Those are the six stations I'vebeen to.
Oh, and Tucson, which was myfavorite.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
The ones you just stated in Arizona.
Right now are they directly onthe border, All of them.
Those are all on the borderright there.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Well, casa Grande and Tucson Station are not on the
border.
Okay, you have to drive throughthe Tohono O'odham Indian
Reservation.
Nogales on the border.
Okay, douglas on the border.
A Nogales on the border.
Douglas on the border, ajo, nottechnically on the border, but
it's so far south into theIndian Res I think we were, I
want to say, 40 minutes from theborder.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
So knowing what you know in your experience.
It differs On this side of theborder.
San Diego differs from ElCentro and Calexico.
It differs from Nogales.
What about on that side of theborder, insofar as what the
you're talking about terrain,you're talking about what
culture or society in mexico?
Like fuck I'm talking about,like tijuana tecate it, they're

(29:03):
all different.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
They're all different .
They're all different.
You know um, the people, the,and you still have this border
culture.
Well, if you haven't lived onthe border and we do, right,
there's a true cross borderculture.
Half my friends live in tijuanaand work here.
They, they go back and forth.
I spend a lot of time intijuana uh, not as much as I
used to, but, but I still godown there, right, and it's,
it's just, it's it's.

(29:24):
It's an experience unlikeanywhere else, anywhere else,
but we're a major metropolitancity sending with tijuana, you
go to nogales, nogales, arizonaand nogales, sonora are small
cities.
It's like putting like, maybelike san isidro or smaller, on
the border right, surrounded bynothing.
Uh, those, that's the one I canreally speak to, because that's

(29:46):
the one border station that Iworked at, you know now I know
when you get to juarez mexico.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
I've never fucking been there, but from what I've
seen on the news, juarez seemsto be off the hook.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
I've never well.
I went to Juarez when I waslittle.
My father and his family wereoriginally from Juarez, but I
have family in El Paso, but Ihaven't worked.
I really don't know much aboutthe Texas border because I never
worked so.
Arizona and this way.
Arizona and this way.

(30:20):
Texas border and this wayarizona, this way texas border
you got the rio grande right andyou got south texas.
You have it's just a wholedifferent dynamic.
So how would you?
Um, how was your experience inin arizona different when I was
in tucson?
I just become a supervisor.
I get sent out there in 45 days.
In tucson, arizona, I learnedmore about being a Border Patrol
agent and supervisor in 45 daysthan I did in like a year of
being a Border Patrol agent inSan Diego.
It's like a crash course.
It's nuts.

(30:41):
Car chases every night,literally every, sometimes at
least two a night.
Right Car chases, massivegroups.
You know small ones, 20, bigones, a hundred.
You came across narcotics,marijuana backpackers, not every
night, but two or three nights.
A lot of dope.
Are they carrying a lot of dope?
Oh, dude, anywhere from 200 to2,000 pounds.

(31:02):
Like bundles on their fuckingback Bundles backpackers.
There's this one place inArizona called TB Ranch, there's
Tres Bellotas Ranch, and it'sright on the area where Nogales
and Tucson meet.
It's kind of like that no man'sland, right.
And they would come up thisridgeline, dead horse maybe, I

(31:24):
can't remember the name of theridgeline and it was this place
called TB Ranch.
And I remember laying in onenight with a bunch of the San
Diego agents right, we knewthere was some dope coming
through.
They came in on horseback, theylooked, knew there's some dope
coming through.
They came in on horseback.
They look like mattresses onthe back of the horses holy shit
, dude.
And we had to let them go.
You know why?
Why, if we're out there ondetail, all we have is our
little pea shooter, 40 cals.
A couple guys had shotgunsbecause there's not enough m4s
to go around at the time.
Right, yeah, and uh, two of theguys were armed and we had to

(31:47):
let them go.
Like, you just sit there,you're laying in and you're like
, nope, it's not worth it.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Oh, you hadn't let them go, meaning there was not a
confrontation.
There was not a confrontation.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
Now they got caught the next day.
Right, Because once you'recommitted, you're committed.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
I'm not even knocking you, bro.
That's strategy, bro, it'ssurvival.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yo, it's strategy, Absolutely, absolutely, you know
, hey, and a good.
If you find yourself in a fairfight, your tactics suck.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
Not only that, man.
There's not enough dope in theworld to equal a human life.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
No, not at all, not at all.
They got caught because we knewthey were committed to a
certain point.
Right, you got to check yourego and be smart, right.
So you know what?
Don't have that tombstonecourage, correct, let them go,
yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
And if they don't get caught, you know, I get it, I
totally get it, bro.
Yeah, survival, exactly.
You mentioned supervisor man,what is like the rank structure
from like regular Border Patrolagent and then you move up to
what's next.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
When I came in, obviously you have training and
you have Border Patrol agent Atthe time we had senior patrol
agents, okay.
And then first line supervisoris like a sergeant for us Were
you a sergeant?
I was a sergeant rank and thenlieutenant, which is for us is a

(32:58):
field operation supervisor atthe time I think they call them
watch commanders now, but when Icame in they were field
operation supervisors and thenyou have the deputy patrol agent
in charge, who's like thecaptain of the station, and then
the patrol agent in charge,which is like the chief of a
station, if you will.
And then, of course, we havethe, the management, uh,
headquarter, element withassistant chiefs, deputy chiefs,

(33:19):
as a sergeant, are you still inthe field?

Speaker 1 (33:22):
oh yeah, as a lieutenant, are you in the?

Speaker 2 (33:23):
field.
No, no, huh, no.
I I didn't want, I did not wantto promote past first liner.
I, I am a true I would want tobe in the ac row.
I, I'm a true knuckle dragonmouth breather.
I really am, and I loved it.
I did the acting stuff for acouple times.
I didn't like it.
I'm not a desk guy, I'm not anadmin guy, and there are guys

(33:44):
that are really good at thosepositions.
God bless them, because I don'twant to do that.
But once you go past firstliner turning your gun, turning
your badge, you don't need it.
You're not going to arrest badguys.
You're not fighting the crime.
You can do the job with arolled up newspaper.
I like being in the field, youknow you ask any team.
I supervise any team I was with.
I was out there with the guysall the fucking time.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
From the beginning of the shift to the end of a
20-hour shift.
I'm there with them.
Know, I know you mentioned youdid a lot of cross-border work.
Yes, how did that?

Speaker 2 (34:16):
play, uh play out.
So early on in my career, youknow I I got detailed to uh our
intelligence unit.
Right, we had an intel unit andI was, I was doing interviews.
You know I get spanish skillsand I had a knack for for
getting people to tell me.
You know what I needed to tellthem.
I just I'm just nice to people,I talk to them hey, you want
some water, you want a sandwich,you want whatever?

(34:37):
Me tiran, no sopa.
They tell me everything, bro.
They tell me the whole.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
Were there tryouts or just kind of like hey, I know
Alex is good at this, you knowwhat I was already down there
teaching post academy Spanishand law.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
I knew some people I put in obviously there's a
process Correct, but there'salso another process, right, you
guys got to do it forformalities.
Yeah, I kind of knew I wasalready going to be going there,
right, and I got there and mycareer was never the same and
what ended up?
This is another thing thatmight blow you away a little bit

(35:06):
, because it blew me away.
So I'm answering the phone atthe Border Intelligence Center,
I'm just a phone guy, boom,doing intel, but answering, and
I get a call from the MexicanAttorney General's office.
They're here in downtown SanDiego Say Alex, this is Miguel
Mendez with PGR.
Can you run this guy for me?
Yeah, he's a previouslydeported, blah, blah, blah.
Hey, can you go find him for me?
And I'm like well, why do youwant me to find him for you?

(35:34):
He's got a murder warrant outof mexico.
Fuck shit, all right, go out,do some surveillance, find where
his vehicle's registered, to goout there.
We see the guy, he's herewithout, uh, legal documentation
, and uh, and we arrest the guyand I call up miguel and I go
hey, dude, we got him.
And he looks, he goes, you gothim.
I'm like, yeah, he was hereundocumented.
Where do you want me to turnhim over.
So we took him over to the oldwhiskey too, and he had a murder
warrant out of jalisco.
He's the first one I caught andthat opened up this, this whole

(35:58):
world of going after a few yearsfrom mexico.
They were wanted for murder,kidnapping, major narcotics
trafficking that were living inthe united states illegally.
That nobody was looking for,bro, there's no, there's no
record of them in Interpol.
There's no Red Notice, there'sno NCIC shit.
There's nothing like that.
It was because I knew you andyou knew me and you knew that

(36:20):
I'd go out and hunt these guysdown and that stayed with me
through a big portion of mycareer.
So what?

Speaker 1 (36:26):
holy shit, dude.
What resources were you allowedto use?
Could you use local PD?
Could you use US Marshals?
Didn't need them.
Didn't need them.
Now.
What legal jurisdiction did youhave chasing these guys down In
the eyes of the United States.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Think about this In the eyes of the United States,
they're here as undocumentedmigrants.
That's what we go after, for hedoesn't have a legal right to
be here.
We'd arrest him in the eyesics.
It's an administrativeviolation.
We'd get him to do to sign whatwas called a voluntary return.
Do you want to go back tomexico?
Sign right here.
I'll have you back in fiveminutes, bro.

(37:02):
Get him to sign and he wouldwalk back into mexico.
Uh, there used to be this gatecalled whiskey too, right like
this jurassic park type of gate,right, and we would turn him
over and you'd have inami, whichis mexican immigration, waiting
.
There was he in handcuffs whilehe was handcuffed, shackled, the
shackle yep, walk him up to thegate, and that's where every

(37:23):
migrant would go through at thetime is he.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Are our civilians able to see a handcuffed guy
walking around, or you guys puta coat over him?
No, they'd see a handcuffed guywalking around.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
A handcuffed guy and we usually did it undercover, at
dark.
There weren't a whole lot ofpeople, you know, late at night,
sometimes during the day.
But what are you guys wearing?
Civilians civvies.
I got my badge, you know, andthat was it.
Two, three of us go drive andwhat are these?

Speaker 1 (37:42):
what are these suspects?

Speaker 2 (37:43):
demeanors, cool, defeated angry the great thing
about it is I don't have to tellthis guy he's wanted for murder
, but he, he knows he's wantedfor murder, but I didn't tell
him.
He thinks he's getting arrestedfor immigration violations.
Oh okay, it's almost ourversion of a wall stop, holy
shit, dude.
Some of them knew.
Some of them knew.
They knew.
I had one guy piss himself whenhe got there, when he saw the

(38:07):
cops that came from him.
Oh yeah, he threw his head inthe ground like he was freaking
out the.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Mexicans are pulling him through the fence.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Somebody may or may not have been pushing him
through, but it was— Bro, that'sgangster shit, that's like Wild
Wild West shit.
It was Wild Wild West.
And you know what's funny, whenwe were doing it it happened so
often that it didn't documentit.
We didn't document it, no, no.
And so far as me, historically,thinking down the road, like
people say, how many did you getpacheco?

(38:35):
I'm like I have no idea.
How many do you think in theteens?
14, 15 murders, that's a lot,it's a lot, that is a lot.
One is a lot, it's a lot.
Um, hands-on, of those 14 or 15, at least 10 here in southern
california the other ones wecoordinated their transfer from
New York.
We got an assassin in SanduskyOhio, transferred him to the

(38:58):
border and then turned him over,whether it be to TJPD, to the
BEPOs, the state police or thefeds or the military.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Now, what habits or routines did they develop?
I mean, did they all livelavishly, live poorly, hiding
out no, I out no.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
I'll say this the reason we were able to catch the
vast majority of these guys wasthe cops out there would do
good field interviews and sayyou get stopped, hector, and
you're with Joseph, joseph's theguy we're looking for.
And you get stopped for avehicle, stop, but Joseph's kind
of hinky.
So that cop decides on thatvehicle.
Stop.
To sayctor, bravo, got acitation for speeding and joseph

(39:38):
was in the car with him, right,and it's just a good fi.
So to my, to my brothers inblue out there, do good fis the
guy's hinky, write it up,because you never know.
This fi from three, four yearsago was the key.
This is how I found this guy.
He's rolling with hectorjoseph's not documented anywhere
, but he's hector's homie.
Let's follow hector.

(39:58):
Wow, you know.
So we were able to catch a lotof guys.
You know we would do ourdeconfliction through text, we
do our deconfliction throughlecc or the nin at the time and
nothing, none of these guys.
There was like one guy.
Um, you did mention the USMarshals.
There was a couple of marshalsthat did help us, especially the
coordination of the turnovers,or they also had some of the

(40:20):
similar warrants.
But you know we were able to goout.
You know we had access to kindof do what we wanted.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Now flip the script on me, because recently we had
an inmate escape from theCalifornia Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitationsby the name of Cesar Hernandez.
He fled to Tijuana.
Flipped the script.
What does that look like?
Same exact way.
You contact contacts down thereand say, hey, this is who we
need.
You know it all depends.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
You know, I worked in our foreign liaison unit for
one year.
I did liaison for most of mycareer but I was officially just
doing liaison work for one year.
So these pds, tjpd, the statepolice, the investigators,
they'll have liaison guys and wehave direct comms with them,
and especially the border shots,a great liaison program, as
does dea and, you know, hsi.

(41:05):
They have people embedded atthe consulates and whatnot.
Um, and that's it.
Hey, hector, I need, uh, I needyou to help me find this guy.
In fact, fact, I can't rememberthe guy's name.
I helped him before he turnedover a guy who murdered his
grandmother and one other personI want to say I can't remember,
but it was as simple as callingup TJPD, cero Once.
Was the liaison guy Cero Once?

(41:27):
Hey, cero Once.
What happened?
Hey, can you?
This is the plate.
I saw it crossed into Mexicotwo hours ago.
Can you go find him Four orfive hours later?
Hey, bro, here's a picture ofthe plate.
Is this the guy?
Yep, and they got a picture ofthe guy in handcuff and they
would drive him up to the borderand turn him over.
And you're like, dude, it'sjust a matter of networking and

(41:47):
knowing the right people.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
How would you define that relationship?
Is like I scratch your back,you scratch mine?
Unnecessary evil a good thing?
How would you define thatrelationship?

Speaker 2 (42:00):
sometimes there's quid pro quo.
It depends on on who you'redealing with, um, I thought it
was a fantastic relationship.
Yeah, it's, it's um, the guyswe worked with in the liaison
unit and I'll use the formerchief as an example alex uh, the
guy's just trustworthy as theycome.
He really is.
He's like this.
This alex ladders is like hewas like the aliet nes of mexico

(42:21):
.
I tell you they tried to killhim a couple of times.
You know he was a chief.
He's been dragged through thethrough the, through the dirt in
the media.
You know, talk, the guy's afucking hero.
He's a fucking hero and there'sa lot of of mexican police
officer heroes out there, butall we hear about is the bad
shit.
Why?
Because it's 90 of it, right,but there are guys that do some
heroic shit but they're just ina fucked up situation.

(42:44):
You know, you and I work lawenforcement.
The worst thing that I canimagine happening, you know, in
in my life is, you know, someother cop trying to hit on my
wife.
You know, not some cop tellingsome bad guy, hey, this oh yeah
this is where alex and hectorlive, right, you know, um, go
kill them.
They're the guys that arrestedyou.
Or hey, go do this.
You know they're not going toget.
Cops aren't going to give youup, right, because they're not

(43:05):
embedded like that down there.
Who do you trust?

Speaker 1 (43:08):
so let me ask you this you've seen a lot of
mexican police officials beheroic, but is it worth it?
Meaning, like you said, dude,like are they making a dent in
the or are they ultimately gonna, you know, be be exterminated?
Yeah, it's tough man.
Is it like a fucking martyr?

Speaker 2 (43:27):
one-way mission.
I, I, it could be.
You know, I look at, I look atat the status of the state of
Mexico right now in this waywhere?
Go back to prohibition era.
Al Capone, shit, chicago,corrupt mayors, corrupt
politicians, corruption in thepolice force it's rampant, the
fucking heroes.
The hero back then was AlCapone.

(43:47):
Everybody wanted to be AlCapone.
They wanted to be at all thesedinners, and I think a lot of
that is still applicable inMexico.
Right, not everywhere, but alot of it.
Um, it's going to take agenerational change.
Look at us 50 60, you stillhave corruption.
70s, you have corruption.
We have corruption now, butit's it's, it's for it's more
like, you know, a guy kicked hisass too much.
You know he, he used excessiveforce, whatever the case may be,

(44:09):
um, do we have flat-out corruptcops?
Absolutely, because powercorrupts.
But we got to this point and ittook generations.
It's going to take generationsof these heroic guys to keep
saying you know what I got, tokeep moving forward because I'm
part of something bigger thanmyself.
Right, you don't get paid, crap, bro.
You don't get paid anything.
The chief of chief of police intijuana is making 35 40,000,

(44:32):
$40,000 a year.
No way, dude.
Oh yeah, and that's the top dog.
Officers are making $700, $800a month.
How many officers could you andI corrupt and we're not rich.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
The whole fucking task force.
You and I split $350 a month.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
That's not even a car payment and we want this cop,
you know working for us.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Yeah, either just look the other way or give us a
call on the radio.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
The last homicide guy I turned over.
He was a former TJ cop.
He'd been living up inSouthgate for about 10 years and
the policia, they gave me thetip.
They knew where he was.
We arrested him and during hisinterview he talks about the
corruption and the slipperyslope, like hey, where he was.
We arrested him.
And during his interview hetalks about the corruption and
the slippery slope like hey man.
Like he talks about all kinds.
I have the video.
He talks about all kinds ofcrazy stuff where he tried to

(45:18):
get out of it and he had nointernal affairs to report.
He had no, no hr, nowhere to go.
He talks about this guy namedmuletas that he stopped.
Muletas was like a heavy hitter, an assassin, and they asked
him hey, you ever come acrossBuletas?
And he tells us in Spanish hegoes nah, the only time I came
across him, I stopped him byaccident one time and he got out
of the car and he bitch,slapped me and he gave me my

(45:42):
life because I didn't know whohe was.
So can you imagine the biggestgangster in your prison walking
up to you, whack, and you can'tdo shit about it?
That's wild, that's fuckingwild.
But he's also the same guy thattook.
Have you familiar with thepozole, the pozole is the guy
for the ranch that that turnedbodies into pozole.
You know this mexican stewcaustic soda you um, when you

(46:06):
said that, I thought about lospalillos okay, and the palillos
were turning turning people intopozole in the United States, in
Chula Vista, right, but thisguy was in charge of this region
of Tijuana.
He was like a sergeant and whenthey finally corrupted him, his
job for six months was toescort bodies that were going to

(46:27):
the pozole.
Vans would show up, they'd payhim 500 bucks a van load and he
would clear out the area and hewould escort these vans up to
the ranch.
And he said he did it two tothree times a week for six
months.
Oh my God, dude.
Average of two bodies,sometimes up to five.
Oh my God, bro.
So in six months, how manybodies did this guy you?

Speaker 1 (46:45):
know what?
Was he melting them in acid?
He wasn't, no, but they were upgoing to the top to get melted
and acid.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
What they have is they have these 55-gallon drums
and they create this causticsubstance with muriatic acid and
boric acid and Lord knows what,and it melts the body into goop
.
It destroys bones To includebones Everything but the teeth.
From what I recall Because I'veseen some of, in fact, the
Palillos dump bodies here by theImperial Beach horse barns and

(47:18):
I've seen the pictures from theinvestigators I know there and
all there is is little tic tacs.
It's a, it's a, it's a mash ofhuman gunk, god, with a few
teeth in there.
How are you going to identifythat person, can't?
There's no identifying?
There's no identifying that.
And?
And this ranch, the posalitosranch, had thousands of bodies.
Was this in tijuana?
This was Tijuana.
This was in Tijuana.
Yeah, yeah, it was in.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
Tijuana.
Oh, that's fucking foul bro.
I've seen all those videos.
It's wild Execution videos,Dude, I can't watch them anymore
bro.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
It's horrific.
I got enough fucked up shit inmy head.
I don't need more bad visuals.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
I mean, besides evil.
I don't know if it's the dopethat makes them do it, or I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
I don't know, but it's evil man.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
You mentioned all these murderers from Mexico.
Who did these people murder inMexico?

Speaker 2 (48:02):
You know some were.
You know the couple of guys Igot had murdered Mexican police
officers.
A couple of them had, you know,not a typical homicide.
You know, guys, the first guygod had shot somebody out of a
nightclub.
It was a, you know, like a dvtype of thing guy right here is
why, fuck you, fuck you, boom.
He smoked them and then he fledto the united states, you know,
because he knows nobody's gonnabe looking for him how does one

(48:24):
flee to the united states,especially if you're an illegal?
alien.
When you come in illegally, youcome in and document he jumped
the fence.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
Let me ask you your freaking experience how, how
easy or hard is it to illegallyenter the United States of
America?

Speaker 2 (48:38):
I think it depends on the time frame.
Right now is the toughest timein US history to cross the
border, right now, at this verymoment.
What?

Speaker 1 (48:43):
about a couple months back with my boy, biden.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Oh, under your boy, biden, the border was wide open.
You can just show up.
It was border patrol agentswere quitting in droves.
It was a horrible time to be aborder patrol agent to work on
the border.
The border was completely andutterly unsecured.
I seen them Hakumba, hakumba.
I have worked under four orfive different administrations,
including the previous.
I'd never seen it as wide.

(49:07):
It was embarrassing.
Border patrol agents I knewwere quitting.
They were processing is whatthey turned into.
They weren't allowed to workthe border.
Who were the presidents youworked under Obama?
I worked under Clinton, obama,bush, bush and Biden.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
Biden and Trump and Trump, trump won.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
That's five Yep and even under Obama, the times were
better.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
Okay, bro, now we're going to get into the juicy
stuff.
People love this.
Five freaking presidents, right, mm-hmm?
Did they all differ yourexperience working on the border
?

Speaker 2 (49:45):
You know they all differed, but none of them were
as extreme as under the Bidenadministration.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
From your opinion.
What caused that extreme?

Speaker 2 (49:55):
I don't know, I really don't know.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
Well, where do you think it came from?
Did it come from weakleadership within the Border
Patrol that succumbed and bentthe knee?
Did it come from federal orders?

Speaker 2 (50:08):
What Obama?
I'm sorry.
What Biden did was he did notallow border patrol agents to do
their job.
But that's fine.
What I'm saying is and let mefinish like under the previous
administrations, the laws are onthe book to enforce the border,
and those laws were basicallytaken away under the Biden
administration.
They weren't allowed to dotheir job.
All Trump has done is sayinghey, the book's open, go do your

(50:28):
job.
That's all it has changed.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
But the book was the book?
Did the book remain during theBiden administration?

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Yeah, the book was still around, but they just
weren't able to enforce the lawbecause they had exploited this
asylum and everybody was comingacross claiming asylum.
There is a valid reason forpeople to seek asylum, but
everybody knew that you can justshow up at the us border.
I'm here seeking asylum, we'regoing to give you a phone.
We're going to let you comeinto the united states.

(50:59):
What year?

Speaker 1 (50:59):
did biden become into office?
Because I like to try toconnect the dots, bro, and see
where america went wrong.
2020, right, remember, rightafter covid.
2020 is a lot of weird shithappened, man.
Weird shit started happening in2012 and on forward, but 2020
is when the assholes reallytried to do a number on us as a
country.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Yeah, they really did , for sure, for sure man.
You see, border patrol agentswere quitting by the droves dude
, they were quitting, retiringas soon as they possibly could
because you weren't working.
The border agents were quittingby the droves, dude, quitting
retiring as soon as theypossibly could because you
weren't enforcing, you weren'tworking the border.
They were literally processing,walking with people with open
arms that we didn't know whothey were, that had no legal
right to be here.
Claim asylum.

(51:39):
And when you claim asylum,claim it at the first friendly
country that you can claim it in, that's Mexico.
Military age males.
Yeah, you know it was.
I've seen the border in a lotof different regions right All
over the world and it was wideopen.
Here it was.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
it was a travesty, you know it was a travesty but
now that's gone, it's fixed, itis gone, it is gone.
But I want to.
I mean, you're, you're theexpert, bro, you're the expert
in that field, man, would you?
Can you foresee that repeatingever again in the history of the
United States?

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yeah, you get a whole new administration, absolutely
Somebody that wants to have anopen border type mentality and
allow people to flood in.
And they came in.
Hey, we came under theadministration of President X,
right?
And now there's this masswhat's the word I'm looking for,
this, uh where a lot of peopleget their citizenship.
I'm having a little bit of asenior moment here, but

(52:35):
basically they're allowingeverybody to come in no, not
naturalization they did it underunder reagan.
Um, amnesty okay.
So you let 30, 40 millionpeople into the country, right,
and all of a sudden you're givenamnesty under president x's
administration.
Guess what, when you vote next,you're probably going to want
to vote for president x because,oh okay, he gave you amnesty
there you go, now you're not now.

(52:56):
Now you're changing, you knowyou have a whole influx of 30 40
million people that are votingfor do you agree on this next
statement that I'm about to say,or or do you disagree?

Speaker 1 (53:08):
They utilized illegal aliens as a form to get more
voters for them.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
I believe so.
A hundred percent, a hundredpercent.
I believe that's what theDemocratic Party did.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
And same with convicted felons and
undocumented.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
Well, the convicted felons aren't going to be able
to vote right, because even ifthey get their amnesty but the
people that are able tonaturalize and become US
citizens are going to be able tovote, and I believe that was a
big portion of it.
I really do.
I really do.
We need to know who's cominginto the country.
We need to adopt Mexico'simmigration laws.
Give me Mexico's immigrationlaws.
That's fucking wild bro youhave to have a national ID to

(53:42):
vote.
You know it's very stringent.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
That's fucking wild, bro.
It's very stringent.
That's fucking wild, bro.
Yeah, so now let's look at theother side of the coin.
Trump comes in, and now I don'tknow what a border czar, what
is a border czar, or whatever.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
You're talking about Tom Holman.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
Yeah, what is that position?

Speaker 2 (54:01):
He's just in charge of the border.
The CBP director is Roddy Scott, who's the former chief
fantastic leader.
Tom Holman is our secretary ofHomeland Security.
Okay, and he's from what I'veheard.
I've never met the man.
I've seen him on TV, he's aformer border patrol agent and
I've heard nothing but goodthings about him.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
So now they're doing these mass deportations as a
result of the laxed laws withthe previous administration.
Yep, what's your take on that?
I mean, you see it for what itis, I see it for what it is.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
I'm glad they're doing it.
You have to.
When I had my criminal aidsquad, that's what we did.
We went after previouslydeported aggravated felons and
gangsters with guns.
That was our focus.
That's all we did, and it waseasy.
It was so easy, easy, but wasit dangerous?
Unbelievably dangerous,unbelievably dangerous.

(54:57):
But we were averaging, I kidyou, not two to three felony
callers a week, that's a lot offelony callers.
We were locking people up leftand right.
This was five guys, five guys,five of the hardest working
brothers you've ever met.
I mean, I love those guys.
We're still tight to this day.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
What is your take on the mainstream media trying to
give a heads up to thesedeportations?
Oh, it's fucking bullshit, it'scriminal.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
It's conspiracy to smuggle aliens To aid and abet
To aid and abet 100%, yeah, 100%to aid in the bet 100, yeah,
100.
I saw something today wherethey were potentially thinking
about finally charging againstsome uh, some democrat
politicians who push some iceagents.
It's assault.
I've seen that.
Yeah, it's just.
I haven't seen the video.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
I've seen it.
They broke into an icedetention.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
But I read about it and I'm like this is ridiculous.
This is absolutely ridiculous,right, you know?

Speaker 1 (55:48):
why we see eye to eye , bro.
Absolutely, we do so.
Now tell me about.
I mean fuck dude, you wererunning and gunning through the
mountains of Cali and Arizona.
How did you end up in thisOffice of Internal Affairs
position?

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Well, you know I had a, like I said I had a unique
career.
You know I go to Intel and then, you know, I get the
opportunity to go to somethingcalled the smuggling
interdiction group.
So you know, I had a fewmentors in the border patrol.
One guy by the name of DonaldMcDermott, he passed, he passed,
he was my, my, my border patrolmentor, and this guy had
started this unit called thesmuggling interdiction group.

(56:24):
Right, the border was wide open.
Um, not because we weren'tdoing our job, it's just we're
getting overran, overran.
Smugglers were ftys, wrong waydrivers, bandit activity, you
name it criminal aliens runningfucking everywhere.
And I was able to be broughtonto that team and he, he goes.
Hey, you know, he had this realthick new york accent.
Hey, pacheco, you know I needyou to do the fucking thing and

(56:46):
come on and help me out.
And and I went on there and itchanged the entire trajectory of
my career, of my life really.
And so the criminal aid squadwere running and gunning.
But inevitably, when you'redoing this stuff, you have
corruption issues.
You come across corruptionwithin your own agency.
One of my classmates, one of myclassmates, a guy I know, I
know well, I know his face.

(57:06):
You know, previously when I'dsee him, I'd give him a hug.
We hung out at the academy.
He's corrupt.
Him and his brother werecorrupt Border Patrol agents the
Villarreal brothers, right theywere smuggling aliens,
brazilians Did they getsentenced.
Oh yeah, well, they fled toMexico.
Somebody tipped them off.
They fled to Mexico and theywere down in Mexico for several
years.
For several years they were.

(57:30):
I can't remember if they wereextradited or if they turned
themselves in or they werecaptured, I can't recall, but
they ended up doing time here.
I can't remember how much timeI had another agent that was
assigned to one of my squads.
So when I had the criminalalien squad, we evolved into
something called the bordercrime suppression team.
It was my team of border patrolagents and a cbp officer and

(57:51):
then it was 12 deputy sheriffsthat were the srt.
That's awesome, bro.
Oh, they were fucking awesome.
These srt guys.
That were amazing.
They've all moved on, eitherretired, moved on to very high
ranking positions within thesheriff's department and they
probably got better party favorslike chemical agents oh, they
had lethal you know we we weredoing.
We were doing a lot of warrants,kicking in doors with these
guys left and right.

(58:11):
Um, we're doing a lot ofinternational control deliveries
with them and it was, it wasfantastic work, that was, that
was a lot of fun.
But, um, yeah, it was, it was,it was a good, very good time
period to to be working with allthose.
But you'd ask me a question.
I started talking about thedifferent squads.
Oh, how do I get into theinternal affairs?
So there was a guy that wasassigned to my squad,

(58:31):
recommended by a couple ofsenior leaders that I knew, my
gosh, and he said this guy, hisname is noel lopez.
Hey, this guy is is a good guy.
He's a little quirky, but bringhim on immediately.
Upon bringing him on, we knewsomething was up with this guy.
He was, I want to say, corrupt,but he just there was something
off and he ended up attemptingto smuggle cocaine on duty with

(58:54):
an undercover FBI agent inuniform.
Fucking kidding me, bro, he didfive or seven years in the pen.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
Yeah, because the FBI investigate corrupt cops.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
Yeah, the FBI.
You know what?
When it comes to publiccorruption, they're fantastic.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
I give them that Probably half of them will
corrupt themselves.
But I hear what you're saying.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
But on the public corruption side, when I've done
those cases with them, yeah, no,they're good at what they do.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Public corruption.
Yeah yeah, dude real quickbefore we jump on to more of the
.
I forgot to even touch ontunnels.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
You have any experience in tunnels or like,
what's with the tunnels?
Not really.
You got otay mesa, not really.
You know, I've been in onetunnel.
I'm a little claustrophobic andI'm, yeah, kind of a big guy,
so I'm gonna fit in these tinyass tunnels, um, but we've
worked a little bit of them, butI am not a tunnel guy so I I
couldn't speak to them.
Uh, now you talk to, you know,the tunnel task force guys.
I know people that have been inthem, I know about them.
Are they common, common?
Yeah, I can't tell you howoften, okay, but I know, in Otay

(59:51):
Mesa, it's the one region inthe United States where they're
all built.
It's something about the watertables, something about the land
there itself that it allows youto build tunnels.
Chapo built that first supertunnel in the 80s, right, and I
want to say the next 10, 15tunnels were an offshoot of that
.
You've got this big supertunnel right.
Boom, massive tunnel.

(01:00:12):
We find it, we shut it down.
The US remediates their portionof it.
Mexico doesn't remediate, theydon't fill it up with cement.
They probably throw some chairsand bottles of dirt in there,
right.
And then what do the smugglersdo?
Do they use that existing wall.
They build another tunnel, soyou have to build one wall.
See what I mean.
They use it as a structure fromthat, but they build it right

(01:00:32):
right up and it offshoots andthey find that one they go to
the other side believable dude.
I remember seeing a graphic onetime I think it was from
national guard, and they showedlike the the historical tunnels
and they kind of mapped it outon a grid, the fucking highway
down there.
It looks like swiss cheese bro.
I didn't even think about there.
It looks like swiss cheese, bro, I didn't even think about that
.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
It looks like swiss cheese.
All you got to do is use thatone wall.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
Already you have one wall, yeah now there have been
other tunnels that have beenseparate from there in other
regions, but that's easy, browork smarter not harder that.
Have come off that um.
But no, I'm not a tunnel.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Okay, I'm not a tunnel guy so you get in this
new um position.
What are the duties of your?
We're we talking about with SIG, with the Crim Squad, with I?

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Oh.
So I went to OPR.
So I did 20 years with thepatrol.
I did all these task forces Ididn't want to promote.
I was feeling a littleunchallenged.
I had literally done every taskforce.
I either participated in everytask force or I supervised the
guy that had been in all thetask forces available to us.
I'm like man, what am I goingto do?
So I'd had some experiencedealing with corruption, my

(01:01:32):
classmate, the guys I talkedabout, the CBP guy on our team
that resigned in lieu of type ofthing, and I had been the
subject of investigation and Ihad been a witness there.
Because people make allegations, obviously I'm still here.
Obviously I went to OPR and Ivetted.
So it was all bullshit,absolutely.
But my buddy, john, was one ofthe ASACs over there and I knew
a few of the other agents and atthe time I thought they were

(01:01:54):
very professional, I liked whatthey did and I took a gamble.
I told my wife hey, I'm takingoff for another four months.
You know, you're okay with thisIt's,11, this special agent
position, and I had to go toanother academy at 46, 47 years
old.
Luckily it was a gentleman'sacademy, you said 1811.

(01:02:15):
1811 is the category All specialagents FBI, dea, us Marshals.
I didn't know that.
Atf, they're categorized asspecial agents.
1811.
I didn't know that.
It's a series.
It's a federal series, right,kind of like I was in the
military.
But like, whatever your MOS is,you get these categories right.
Border Patrol Agent 1896.
Not criminal investigators.

(01:02:35):
They can investigate, they canpursue cases, force, immigration
law and whatnot, but notcriminal investigators.
Gentleman's Academy man, thoseare nice.
It was nice.
He started wrong.
He said he'll do the mile and ahalf and PT and the DTAC.
That was easy.
You have to go through thewhole thing.
But there was no real timelimit.
At the Border Patrol you had torun your mile and a half.

(01:02:55):
And under what?
11 minutes, 12 minutes,something like that.
Right there, you just had torun a mile and a half right,
which is 47.
You can do it.
I can go run a mile and a halflike this right now.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
It's going to take me a while, but I'm going to get
it done.
Right, I'm going to get it done.
Check.

Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
Completed.
Yeah, get it done, and it wasnice though.
So I had to go through that andI told my wife I'm taking off,
came back and the first year wasgood Good management.
I liked it.
Honestly, that the worstsituation I've ever worked.
I've worked with bad managers.
I've been able to deal withthem.
It was horrific.

(01:03:29):
It was I resigned because ofthat.
It was you resigned.
I will not resign.
I retired early.
I apologize, I misspoke.
I retired early because of that.
Just a good leader is going tolook out for their troops.
Number one a fucking goodleader will look out for their
troops over anything.
You have a lot of individualsthat get into certain leadership
positions that their onlydesire is to move up the chain,

(01:03:52):
fuck everybody else, burn peopleto the ground.
I'm going to make myself lookgood and they don't care about
the troops.
Now, I had a couple.
I'm not saying I had some goodleaders there.
I did have some good leadersBrian, john, a couple of guys
that were like solid fuckingguys that looked out for their
troops and realized you knowwhat the message from on top is?
It's kind of bullshit, um, butyou got to do it and I'd be like
you know what I appreciate you.

(01:04:13):
Speaking frankly, I'll hook youup, you know we'll.
We'll work together becauseother guys, oh, we got to do it
this way, you got to do itbecause I'm the boss.
It's like really fuck you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
And it's yeah, bro, it's uh, you can respect
somebody being straight up withyou 100, I've percent.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
I've had to ask my guys before and you've had to do
it too.
I tell my kids this Sometimesyou got to eat a shit sandwich.
Oh all the time and you caneither smile and eat it Right,
or you can be forced on yourthroat.
Eat this, but you know what?

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
It's a lot easier when it's disrespectful, bro.
It's almost like they um, theytry to um insult your
intelligence by lying to you.
Yeah, or, I've been constantlydwelling on this lately, bro,
why, why?

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
I despised, uh, corrupt management oh yeah, I've
had some guys that werecompletely unqualified, had
never done a job and and youlook at them like dude.
Have you ever fucking evenarrested anybody?

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Well, let me ask you this Did you have needed to be a
Border Patrol agent before youcan reach that position?

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
No, we had DEA guys.
I think there was a former FBIguy there.
We had CBP, border Patrol alldifferent types of agencies.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
Now, these bad leaders that you're talking
about, were they alsoincompetent?

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Yes, yes for sure.
In my opinion they were Right.
Yeah, Do as I say, not do as Ido, you know, type of thing.
It was just a really badsituation.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
But you lasted four years.
Man Well, I got lucky, bro.
Were you white buckling it?
Oh, lucky where you're white.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
So oh yeah, for sure that first year was good.
Management changed and youcould see the writing on the
wall.
Guys they promoted wereunqualified, had no field
experience whatsoever.
In fact, to this day I knowthat the troops don't respect
them because I talked to theseguys.
Right and it's, it's a travesty.
Um, they've had some goodleaders.
Don't get me wrong.
I've had some great asacs there.

(01:06:05):
Um, guys that came and left andluckily COVID hit.
Covid hit when I was there andwe all kind of were working from
home for like a year and a half, teleworking, couldn't go out
and physically interview people.
How was that for you?
It was very challenging atfirst because I wasn't used to
working at home.
I'm a people person.
I need to connect with people,I need to talk.

(01:06:25):
I'm a social person and person.
I need to connect with people,I need to talk.
You know I'm a, I'm a socialperson, and it was challenging.
You know my kids were home.
It was.
It was tough at that time, um,and so was the time management
that was.
That was tough.
Right, it was really hard.
Now it's all I do is tell itworks.
So it's a lot easier for me.
Um, so that was kind of hard atfirst, but it was a blessing in
disguise to deal with any ofthe bullshit, right?
Um then, as I start to comeback right, I'm realizing, man,

(01:06:48):
I, I gotta, I gotta get out ofhere, I gotta get, I gotta get
the fuck out of here reallyquick, really bad.
And um, I'm telling you, I hadI had two, two decent cases
there dealing with truecorruption.
The rest were you know wildgoose chases some a lot a lot.
A lot were wild goose chases, alot were not something I would
deem honorable, you know, justminor violations of policy that

(01:07:11):
they want you to exploit.
And I said this is not me, Idon't want to do this, right,
you give me a corrupt agent andyou've done something fucking
wrong.
I'll go after you.
I'll make sure you go to jail,right.
But if you're doing some minorpolicy?

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
What was the verbal direction you were given from
the top?

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
It wasn't necessarily verbal direction.
I mean they wanted you to goinvest, investigate the policy,
exploit every lead.
I can't, I can't dog them onthat.
I just didn't agree with withgoing after these guys on on
some of these.
I really didn't.
I just I couldn't stomach itbecause it was so unbelievably
minor, like this guy.
There was a leadership issue atsome point.
This should have been addressedright.
And it escalated to the pointwhere these other leaders not in

(01:07:51):
OPR, more in Border Patrol orCBP didn't know how to address
it.
Because you look at the historyand it could have been
rectified there.
It could have been hey, hector,you fucked up on this.
We need to address this rightnow, done, handle it Right.
And they have to escalate and alot of people would say, well,
I don't want to deal with this,I'm just going to report it to
Internal Affairs, and you dealwith a bunch of bullshit cases.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
That's the problem with the public sector as
opposed to the private sector.
But yeah, 100%.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
Yeah.
But so luckily, towards the endI got detailed to INA, which is
International Affairs for CBP,and I was able I had a lot of
international experience, didand I was able.
I had a lot of internationalexperience that got did a lot of
deployments down south and so Iwas overseeing Guatemala and
Belize as a CBP country manager,which was really cool.
I I love that part.
But then you know, managementstarts coming back and you know,

(01:08:38):
literally like making what Iwould consider threats, like hey
, you're gonna lose your car,you're gonna lose this, you're
not be covered under the office,we're gonna cut your pay, and
I'm like you know what?
This is bullshit.
So I went back, I left that inaposition with the complete
intention of retiring, goingback and saying I'm going to get
there, I'm going to write itout until I get to retirement.

(01:08:59):
And you know, a lot of guyswait till the end of the year to
collect the additional money.
You're right and whatnot.
The day I turned 50 that payperiod before I didn't tell
anybody, I just submitted mypaperwork.
I told my wife I can't dealwith this, I'm fucking done.
If I was still in the patrol orI had good management, I'd still
be working because I absolutelyand unequivocally loved the.

(01:09:21):
I had a fucking magical careergreat bosses.
You know I had a couple of badones, but, yeah, good leaders,
good bosses, the fucking troopsare amazing, amazing teams.
Um, you get a couple of badones, but good leaders, good
bosses, the fucking troops areamazing, amazing teams.
You get a couple of hiccupshere and there along the road,
but it's part of doing business,right?
Yeah, and I may still beemployed Now, knowing what I
know.
Now, I'm glad I left becauseprivate sector is a much bigger

(01:09:41):
world, correct, but I think I'vestill been in.
I really do.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
I loved it.
I loved a lot of fucking,though, man, I miss it.
There's, uh, your.
Your experience is not uniquein the sense that a lot of
people hung it up before theywanted to because of the
environment they were put in.
Yeah, to include fucking.
Include myself too.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
Exactly you're not, you're not alone.
I, you know, I've listened toyou, know to you speak and I'm
like man, I you're speaking tothe choir, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
Yeah, it happens a lot, holy shit, dude.
So what is it you do now?
Because you have the PachecoAdvisory Group.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
Yeah, Pacheco Advisory Group.
You know I started off like youknow.
I had some experience doingMuay Thai and whatnot and
defensive tactics, so I startedteaching at local casinos, you
know, not intending to start abusiness at all, Just something
to do.
When I retired, right yeah, andit kind of exploded.
I do training, de-escalationtactics, police tactics for

(01:10:32):
security officers, I do it atthe Wild Animal Park, I do it at
all these different casinos,the Hilton Hotel, trying to
expand that.
You know I teach any class youcan imagine working in high risk
environments, executiveprotection, de-escalation.
Going down south to CentralAmerica, here shortly I'll be
teaching the military down thereon border operations, that's

(01:10:55):
awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
How do you?

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
do border ops?
How do you cut sign?
How do you set up a drag?
How do you interview people?
How do you determine yourthreat in these specific regions
?
Because a lot of these peopledon't have to deal with that and
they've never been exposed toit.
So we've done it and we want toshow them.
Not that we know everything,but these are the best practices
.
This is what we've done andit's worked.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
Maybe it'll work for you.
You're definitely qualified manto do that.
You also wrote a book.

Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
I wrote a book called I co-authored it.
Co-authored it, uh, on the lineinside the us border patrol.
You know I was.
I was early on.
You know I was, uh, I wastraining at ken shamrock's
lion's den remember ken yeahwhat lines then?
Temeculary, no, no, in chulavista off a third in anita.
Yeah, I don't remember that Iwas in third.
I remember uh what's his name?
brandon vera.

(01:11:42):
Brandon vera, I trained in hisgym for a little bit.
He had a great gym, greatkickboxer man, great muay thai
fighter, but you know I'm a.
You know shamrock is right yeahso I, um, you know, I met him in
one of my fights and, uh, Icame to san diego, I started
training there and I was one ofthe one of the main striking
coaches there.
I did a lot of sparring withhim and some of the really ufc
guys.

(01:12:03):
Um, it was an eye-opener, itwas a good experience, um, good
place to be.
And that's where I kind ofrealized, man, I got a knack for
this teaching thing.
I like it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
Where can?

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
people find your book .
You can find the book on Amazon, amazon, amazon, on the line.
It's Border Patrol.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
Now do you have a website for your.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
Yeah, you can go to pachecoadvisorygroupcom and same
for my instagram.
Uh, pacheco advisory group.
You can see all the great stuffwe're doing the training, uh,
the executive protection,consulting, all the capacity
build, capacity building we'redoing.
So, yeah, come check us out.
Thank you for the, for the plughector, absolutely 100 man.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
Uh, any last closing words you want to say to the
crowd bro, it's honor having youhere, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
Oh, you know what.
Thank you for having me on Tothe men and women of the United
States Border Patrol.
Thank you for doing your job.
I'm glad you're finally able todo what you're doing.
You do an honorable professionand I applaud you.
I miss it.
Like you wouldn't believe I missthe adrenaline, but more than
anything, I miss the brotherhood, especially with the patrol.
This is freeree, the core thatexists within the border patrol.

(01:13:07):
Um, it's unlike anywhere I'veever been cool because you, you
go places, you know, I work withpeople now in the private
sector and be taught.
Oh yeah, I was a board boardfor three years or five or seven
years and you have this commonexperience, yeah, which is
unique amongst, amongst lawenforcement.
Right, and I think that's thething I I miss the most that
brotherhood, yeah definitelydude, but again, dude, thank you

(01:13:29):
for coming on, bro.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):
There you guys have it, another banger for you guys.
If you like what you saw, makesure you hit that subscribe
button.
Love you keep pushing forward.
On the inch line hector'slegend, engraved, living life
raw, never been tamed From thehood to the pen.

(01:13:52):
Truth entails pen.
Hector Bravo, unhinged storynever ends.
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