February 16, 2024 • 52 mins
Award-winning journalist and author Ioan Grillo brings us face-to-face with the consequences of US gun policies on our southern neighbor in a discussion about his book "Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels." As Grillo unfolds how arms trafficking fuels the fires of gang and cartel violence in Mexico, we come to understand the stark contrast between Mexico's strict gun laws and the ease of obtaining firearms in the US via Grillo's firsthand accounts, including his coverage of the El Chapo trial, and put a human face on the statistics of violence that currently plagues Mexico.
Join us as we discuss our shared responsibility in addressing gun violence that knows no borders, and how easy access to firearms in the US plays a role in not just international violence, but also increases in migration and the US drug market. Together we delve into the ethical quandaries faced by gun sellers, the formidable influence of organizations like the NRA, and what we can all be doing to keep ourselves (and our neighbors) safe.
Further reading:
America’s Complex Relationship With Guns (Pew Research Center)
Much of firearms traffic from the U.S. to Mexico happens illegally (NPR)
How American guns turned Mexico into a war zone (Los Angeles Times)
US-made guns are ripping Central America apart and driving migration north (the Guardian)
For more information on Brady, follow us on social media @Bradybuzz or visit our website at bradyunited.org.
Full transcripts and bibliographies of this episode are available at bradyunited.org/podcast.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255.
In a crisis? Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a Crisis Counselor 24/7.
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells for their long-standing legal support
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the legal disclaimer, where I tell you
that the views, thoughts andopinions shared on this podcast
belong solely to our guests andhosts, and not necessarily Brady
or Brady's affiliates.
Please note this podcastcontains discussions of violence
that some people may finddisturbing.
It's okay, we find itdisturbing too.
Hey, everybody, welcome back toanother episode of Red, blue
(00:45):
and Brady.
I'm one of your hosts, jj.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And I'm Kelly, your other host.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And today, kelly and I are bringing you a podcast
that has been in the works forquite a while, as we tackle a
massive issue impacting not justthe US but our neighbors to the
South.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, we're going to be talking about the ways in
which the US and our gunpolicies truly exacerbate and
contribute to violence in Mexico.
And super important becausethere's a lot of talk about it.
There's a lot of xenophobia,there's a lot of stereotype
thing, there's a lot ofmisinformation about this.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
To really dig into what that misinformation is and
where it came from, and with therealities out there.
We are sitting down with awardwinning journalist and author of
the book Blood Gun Money howAmerica Arms Gangs and Cartels,
mr Yohan Grillo.
Yohan was so kind to sit downwith us and really break down
the reality of what's happeningout there.
So if you've had anyconversations with anyone
(01:42):
recently about the border guns,drugs, this is a podcast that I
think you absolutely need tolisten to.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
My name is Yohan Grillo.
I'm a journalist based inMexico City, focused on
organized crime and drugs.
I've been here for 23 yearsdoing this and I'm author of a
trilogy of books on organizedcrime and drugs, the latest with
which is Blood Gun Money howAmerica Arms Guns and Cartels,
(02:13):
focusing on the gun traffickingfrom the United States to Mexico
and also from the United Statesto gangs and cartels all around
the world.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
And before we dig in, as you just mentioned, and to
the most recent part of thetrilogy, I'm wondering if you
could share for us how thisproject developed and maybe how
to end it all with Blood GunMoney.
How did that all happen?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, so from my early days in Mexico it didn't
originally come to Mexico, thinkI'm going to cover a crazy
crime war I arrived in Mexico in2000 and found out there's this
emerging new conflict whichwere basically involving drug
traffickers, organized crimenetworks, and in many cases it
became worse and bloodier thanthese old political conflicts of
(03:00):
the late 20th century.
As I covered this, it went frombeing, at the beginning, quite
romantic and exotic runningafter drug kingpins to really
covering a humanitarian disasterand seeing many things I
couldn't have imagined.
And from the beginning I couldsee this is a huge issue of
firearms trafficking from theUnited States.
(03:21):
Now I wrote stories about this,but for a while I didn't think
this was a whole book because Ithought, well, the United States
has the Second Amendment, whatcan we say?
And then I happened to go in2017 into a prison in Sierda
Juarez an interviewer prisonerwho was an active guns
trafficker from Dallas intoChihuahua, mexico, and he
(03:43):
described exactly how he wasdoing this.
And he described how he wasgoing to gun shows and buying
from private sellers and doingthis whole thing without
paperwork at all, and how he waspaying a cartel to move guns
through over the border, payinganother cartel to sell them,
exactly how this was working andI realized that it was actually
(04:04):
very interesting and there,actually, there's a lot of
Americans who are very pro gun,very pro.
Second amendment would actuallybe against this as well.
This is not like some politicalissue.
This is something you can find,should be finding a middle
ground on.
And why is it still happeningthat this amount of guns is
being trafficked?
(04:24):
And then the amounts reallybecame clear about the scale of
this, because it was more than200,000 firearms a year going to
Mexico, particularly to cartels, in the time that I've been in
Mexico.
We're talking about millions ofguns and the total body count in
Mexico just completely beingoff the charts.
(04:45):
I mean now, since 2000,december 2006, when there's a
military crackdown launchedagainst these cartels armed with
all these weapons, there's beenalmost 400,000 murders in
Mexico.
It's incredible.
Perhaps two thirds of themlinked to this conflict of
cartels against the securityforces.
So it's been quite incredibleto mention that this is actually
(05:05):
something that you can't be,something to write a book about
this and it's an issue, and thatmany of these issues on the war
on drugs are very hard to solve.
It's very hard to say how doyou stop American state and
drugs?
It's very hard to say.
How do you stop Mexican policeofficers and Mexican soldiers
being corrupt, but saying howcan we stop millions of guns
being sold to really violentcartels is something we should
(05:27):
be able to do something about.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
And you talked a lot about already, about sort of,
the broad scope of the issue ofguns crossing from the United
States to Mexico.
But you started the book sortof at a very personal level, and
you started it with the trialof Joaquin Guzman, or known as
El Chapo.
So why did you decide to startat that trial?
(05:49):
I?
Speaker 3 (05:50):
went to the trial in New York or some of the trial in
New York in early 2019.
And I think it was a verylandmark event.
El Chapo is maybe the mostfamous person from Latin America
this century.
It's kind of crazy to say.
Probably more Americans, if yousay if you heard of El Chapo,
would say yes compared to ifyou've heard of Lopez Elbrador,
(06:13):
the president of Mexico rightnow, or maybe as much as Che
Guevara was maybe the mostfamous Latin American of the
20th century Very famous, andthat trial particularly got a
huge amount of attention in theAmerican media.
It was a big show.
One of the reasons and peoplefrom TV networks told me this is
(06:34):
a trial, it was kind of toAmericans it was almost like
entertainment.
It didn't seem to be thisculturally divisive issue.
It was like we could go, wecould talk about El Chapo, this
crazy gangster.
We could talk about his beautyqueen wife, we could talk about
his lover, also as a protectedwitness, and all of these things
and it was almost like a funstory.
But for a lot of the Mexicanjournalists who were there they
(06:56):
were kind of a bit like this isnot really that fun.
We've seen this humanitariancatastrophe in our country over
the last few years and this is abit more of a serious thing
happening here and one of thethings was and it was very
interesting they mentioned andbought up a massive drug gun
running conspiracy at the trial,bought out all of these AK47s
and grenade launchers and thesekind of things and said these
(07:17):
are the weapons that are goingdown to the cartel and we've got
their thousands of them going.
We've got proof of this.
But they did not charge ElChapo with gun running, with
federal conspiracy to, becausewe're a federal crime of
trafficking guns and I realizedright, there was no federal
crime for trafficking guns atthe time.
(07:38):
It was this kind of weird legallow point.
Again, as I got into writingthis book it was like it's very
complicated to get into this.
A lot of people have done forlying on the form rather than
providing guns for a cartel,providing guns for a group which
is committing mass murder evenin cases where guns were used to
kill an American agent inMexico, jaime Zapata, and a guy
(08:03):
who helped supply those gunsvery, very blatant crime walked
in and bought 10 identical AK47sand only got probation for
lying on the form.
So I thought it was a very goodkind of jubbing off point to
kind of highlight that issue andalso because it's something for
the popular imagination, andalso it was kind of something
personally covering this for twodecades being in this court
(08:26):
with El Chapo, seeing this kindof very big historic moment
about this whole situation.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Well, I think, as you've just articulated and as
the book points out, it's sortof that there's loopholes within
loopholes within loopholes.
This is a very.
I think the average Americanwould think that the gun laws
are very simple and verystraightforward and once you've
been in the space for fiveminutes you go oh, my goodness.
No, this is actually verytangled and complicated and I
wonder, just before we go anyfurther, if you could explain
(08:52):
for our listeners maybe, thedifference between kind of
legally purchasing a firearm andattempting or bringing it into
Mexico or selling it to like aMexican citizen, versus
trafficking.
Like what is traffickingactually in this context?
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah.
So in Mexico you have oneofficial shop in the whole
country which sells guns andit's run by the military.
It's here in Mexico City, whereI am, and you can go there.
You go through various lines ofsecurity and to buy a gun you
have to give seven forms ofidentification, including a
(09:29):
record from the police to showyou you know you haven't got any
pending crimes or criminalrecord, a letter from your
employer.
So it's a pretty strict process.
But there are some, you know,still guns sold legally and
there is in fact a kind of rightto bear arms within the Mexican
Constitution, but it's prettyheavily overseen.
So a lot of people have guns inMexico or security guards, paid
(09:51):
security guards and that kindof thing.
At the same time there's thishuge iron river of guns coming
from the United States.
Now, you know, it's obviouslyvery easy to buy firearms in the
United States and the two mainmethods they're being brought to
take into Mexico are, I mean,sometimes okay, people buying
(10:11):
through straw buyers, sosomebody who's got a clean
record going and buying guns inthe shops or at the shows for
these criminal groups.
Now you could also be buying agun for yourself with a clean
record If you're taking it toMexico, you're already
committing a crime.
You can't take a gun intoMexico over a border and then
they've put signs up therebecause they look at the issue
(10:33):
of gun trafficking.
There's been some cases whereAmericans have legitimately
legitimately not known orforgotten and kind of driven
into Mexico with a couple ofguns in their truck and then
suddenly they're bringing gunsacross a border and then they're
arrested and they're thrown inprison.
It's like, well, I don't know,it's got some guns in my truck.
Can't drive over a bordercarrying firearms.
(10:55):
So you know you can't do thatnow, but what you know.
So, basically anybody crossingover the border but there's some
people just buy, you know,maybe taking a gun.
You might go to the UnitedStates and take a gun in for
yourself, for your personalprotection, but you're still
committing a crime becauseyou're not.
You can do that.
If you want to buy a gunimported to the United States,
you have to register that withthe Mexican military and go
(11:16):
through a long process to dothat.
But what we're really talkingabout is the trafficking of guns
to criminals is the main thing.
So you have the groupsacquiring these guns through
either straw purchasing orthrough using the private sale
loophole to get a large amountof guns with no paperwork.
(11:37):
They could also get gunsthrough, sometimes through
unsurrealized firearms, you knowghost guns or through theft as
well.
But the biggest things reallyright now are straw purchasing
and private sale loophole toacquire guns for the cartels.
(11:57):
Now they're acquiring these.
You know these very, very largenumbers often.
You know different ways.
Sometimes it can be somebodygoing shop to shop.
So they go you know one shop bya 50 caliber, you know Browning
go to the next shop, buy an AK,buy multiple AKs in certain
states, which is still very easyto do so, acquiring these guns
(12:20):
often in a series of places,having stash houses in the
United States and then takingthem to Mexico.
Now they're being taken toMexico either by fairly small
numbers.
So, for example, this one guy Iprofiled who I interviewed in
prison in Juarez, was takinglike 10 to 15 guns every weekend
(12:41):
.
It all adds up and it's quite asignificant profit for him as
an individual because he wasbuying them $6, $700 for a rifle
in Dallas and selling them forlike $2,200 in Mexico.
So you know you're adding, youknow you're doing 10 to 15 every
weekend and you can do this ona decent amount of money for
somebody who's, you know, innorthern Mexico, and sometimes
(13:03):
they're bigger amounts andthere's been trucks stopped with
170 firearms and a big trucksgoing down to Mexico with that
amount of guns in.
And it can be various amountsin between.
Somebody else I profiled who wasa smuggler, who was a US
citizen and he was working for acompany laying cable for
(13:25):
communications on both sides ofthe border and using a
government issued ID to smuggleguns into Mexico.
He said, I mean, he said that,like I asked him, you know why
he really did it, and he said,well, part of it was simply the
buzz, part of it I mean, it iswhat he said he said one of the
things you know, when he firstgot into it, one of the things
(13:45):
that he was very angry about twopack being killed and he was
like he felt like, oh, you know,I want to revenge on the world.
You know, it's kind of kind ofcrazy stuff in people's own
stories.
And one one thing was, you know, eventually, the money.
He's making the money as well,getting paid, paid for his
trafficking and giving otherinformation for the cartel and
obviously the book is about guns.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
It's also about drugs and the interplay between the
two and you know I'm wonderinghow drugs play into further kind
of contribute to the Iron River.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
So yeah, it's a very interesting interaction between
drugs and guns and you see, thiswith this issue of illegal gun
trafficking, is totally entwinedwith the illegal you know drug
drug trade.
It's talked about this beinglike two toxic kind of plants
entwined around each other.
(14:39):
So you know, I went toBaltimore, maryland, you know
close to where you are, and talkto some of the dealers.
They're selling drugs on thestreets, which also is kind of
crazy when you see that,compared to some of the kind of
armed conflict in Mexico withthe drug trafficking, it's
almost quite open drug sellingin the United States and there's
various reasons I've led tothat.
(15:00):
But people talk about how thefact people come to them with
guns and they would exchangeguns and drugs on the streets of
Baltimore.
If you look at these guntraffickers big organizations
like the CineLower Cartelthey're moving huge amounts of
drugs into United States andmoving guns back and using the
guns to violently defend amassive profit from the drug
(15:24):
trade.
If you go further south, towhere cocaine is produced in
Columbia, then you will see thisexchange as well, where,
because in Columbia the FARC,the leftist guerrilla army,
could produce a huge amount ofcocaine, but they want a lot of
guns so they could exchange thecocaine for guns.
Talk to one trafficker who wasin prison in North Carolina who
(15:46):
was flying cocaine from Columbia, from Venezuela, to Mexico and
they'd fly back with guns.
Now one thing is these peopleare businessmen, they're looking
for the profits and why fly anempty plane down to Columbia to
pick up cocaine?
So put things in it, gunsthey've got as tequila and
(16:06):
saddles and what other stuffthey want to stash in there.
So there's a constant interplaybetween firearms and drugs and
you really can't understand thetwo trades kind of without it,
just independently.
They're kind of so connected.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I'm glad that you highlight that, because even now
, where we're sitting, you know,there was the first Republican
debate and the issue of fentanyland cartels came up and there
was this idea of, well, we justneed to have some sort of
military engagement, and youtalked about the ways that
loopholes and gun laws are a bigpart of this.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Well, I mean, I think it's interesting.
I think this should be verymuch brought to attention during
this debate.
So the Republicans are bringingthis up.
Now I would say the Republicansare saying fentanyl is terrible
and it's killing huge amountsof Americans, and that's very
true.
I think there does need to be avery deep debate and action
taken and attempts taken to tryand stop the level of drug
overdose deaths in the UnitedStates right now.
(17:01):
I mean it's crazy.
I'm more than 100,000 overdosedeaths per year.
A lot of families are reallyhurting because of this.
That's very, very genuine hurt.
Now, it's also true that cartelsin Mexico are very, very
violent organizations who arecarrying out a humanitarian
catastrophe.
However, if they're then wrongin some quick, easy answer, you
(17:24):
can just bomb Mexico to solvethis.
But if these people are sayingthese are terrorist
organizations, if they're sayingthat, okay.
If you want to name them asterrorist organizations, that
means anyone involved in sendingthem guns is providing material
to a terrorist organization.
If they want to go down thatroad and there is an argument
you can't say well, there's alot of deaths here, but if
(17:45):
you're going to go down thatroad, it means that you're going
to have straw buyers,potentially gun shops, who could
be convicted on providingmaterial for terrorist
organizations.
Also, if you're going down thatroad of calling them terrorists
, you're saying that the peoplewho are fleeing that violence
and arriving at the US borderand asking for refuge, for
(18:08):
asylum from these are fleeingpeople named as terrorists by
the United States, whichstrengthens their case.
So it kind of actually opensand changes the scenario here.
But really, in answer back, Imean, okay, fair enough, if you
want to bring up, this is a bigissue about fentanyl deaths and
a big issue about violence.
So we've got to work that arenot providing them guns.
And, like I said, this issomething which I believe a
(18:30):
midway can be found in this bookand this research.
I also interviewed thepresident of the AR-15, owners
of America.
I interviewed a militia memberfrom Michigan.
I interviewed the president ofthe Alaska Machine Gun
Association and I asked themokay, are you in favor of guns
going to cartels, are you infavor of this guns?
(18:51):
And they were like no, no, no,I'm not into that, I know.
So even these people whorepresent quite a hard end of
this could say well, we're infavor of this.
So how come there can't bemovement on a very basic issue,
and there has been some changesince this first edition of the
book was published and since thelawsuit was made.
We've seen the bipartisancommunity's safer communities
(19:11):
acts, so we've seen thingshappening, but there needs to be
enforcement of this andactually people arrested for gun
trafficking and clamping downon gun trafficking the most
obvious cases.
How can it be that people arerequired?
You have single straw buyerswho are spending half a million
dollars and acquiring 750 gunsfor cartels.
(19:32):
How is that happening?
You might have better reducedthis to zero or you should
better reduce this substantially.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
There's so much there detailed in that, because and I
want to tease this out a littlebit further so when the guns
hit Mexico that are brought in,can you kind of explain to
listeners who may not befamiliar, kind of maybe they
know the words El Chapo andcartel but they don't quite know
what that is or how thatinteracts, and then how it's not
(19:58):
just guns in Mexico, right, theguns coming from the US to hit
Mexico are then going throughoutLatin America, which I know
from reading your book.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
But for folks who might not know.
Yeah, sure, so in Mexico we'veseen develop over a long period,
particularly over the last twodecades, the shift from drug
trafficking networks intoparamilitary organized crime and
this means where you havecriminal networks which also
(20:30):
have armed paramilitary wings.
And this has really been thelast two decades.
It didn't used to be like thisin Mexico.
You go back four or fivedecades and so suddenly you have
people would have seen what isin videos and photos of this but
like what are you gonna havegroups which literally look like
the guerrilla armies andthey're carrying out terror in
many communities in Mexico.
I mean, this is what reallywhat you've seen and what I've
(20:53):
been covering here the lastcouple of years has been this
weird hybrid between crime andwar and what that really means
on a personal level, again, totry and bring this home to
people, because it can be quitehard.
There's so much informationthat comes into our heads these
days, so really what that meansto people.
So just an example of one storyof a woman in Monterrey, mexico
(21:13):
, who was in her home one nightwhen with her two sons, one who
was 18 and one who was 15, her18 year old son was a philosophy
student.
Her 15 year old son was at highschool and suddenly in her
house, bam, the door breaks inand 15 guys come in who are like
AK-47s, ar-15, bulletproofvests, storm into our house and
(21:37):
that's what it's like if you'reliving these things happening.
They also then carry out crimesagainst regular members of the
community she was a schoolteacher, this woman.
So they storm into our home,they hold the pin the family
down and steal a bunch of stufffrom the house and then they say
to her which of your sons isthe eldest?
And she is so stunned hearingthis question because like what
(21:58):
do they wanna know that for?
She can't answer and her elderson obviously doesn't want the
younger brother taken.
So he raises his hand and saysit's me on the elder son and
they take him away.
The next day she gets a phonecall saying we've got your son.
Give us this amount of money inthis particular place, we'll
release him.
So she calls around relatives,she wants the money.
(22:18):
And what else can you do?
You're a mother in thatsituation.
What can you do?
She gets the money, she leavesit in a place.
The money is taken.
She calls back, the phone's offthe hook and bang and she's
searching and searching andnever finds her son.
One of the worst things aboutthat kind of crime, as well as,
obviously, just the fact thatyou're taking a life, is that
she has no closure.
She doesn't know where I say it.
(22:38):
I met her when I was actuallyreporting on 49 bodies that had
been dumped and she was like ismy son among these bodies?
And you get many cases likethis.
Is one single case.
You get multiple cases of thisof women who've been going
around looking for their sons inthese mass graves, some cases
(22:59):
after two, three, four, fiveyears, eventually finding some
kind of skeleton and using DNAtests to identify that is their
family member.
But absolutely horrific.
So what that means and whatthese kinds of guns and what
these cartels are really like onthe ground, and again, why a
series like Narcos can givecertain ideas, but it gives kind
(23:19):
of a glamorous side of this andreally the brutal reality of
what you see is pretty grim.
It's kind of the killing fieldsas well.
They move both from Mexico toother places and we've seen that
very specific case of guns thatwe know that were traced and
were smuggled into Mexico andthen appeared in Colombia.
So again, this thing of likewell, they'll fly it out to pick
(23:39):
up cocaine and take stuff down.
We also see a big traffickingroute through Florida where you
have boats, all these boatscoming in.
So you have boats go fromFlorida across Latin America and
the Caribbean.
So then we see guns going toJamaica in a massive way and
driving big violence in Jamaicato Haiti, to Honduras, to Brazil
(24:01):
and to so many of these places.
So we actually see not onlythat but, like the United States
having the largest retailfirearms market in the world and
allowing these guns very easilyto go out, affecting so many
countries, and it's kind ofhistoric case of violence which
is contributing to these recordnumbers of people arriving at
(24:21):
the border.
Now I've been on the borderrecently and you talk to people
from Jamaica who have fledviolence in Jamaica, haiti,
which is a crazy situation.
I've just just just right, youknow, yesterday in Mexico City I
went to the migrant shelter.
Yesterday there's people fromHaiti, Nicaragua, venezuela, all
these different countriesfleeing for various reasons, but
violence is certainly one ofthe top reasons that people are
(24:42):
fleeing their homes.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
First of all, thank you for you know, continuing to
bring us back home to the humantoll, because I think it is easy
sometimes with big numbers orif you've never been to a place,
to forget that people are humanbeings everywhere.
They love their familieseverywhere.
So thank you for that.
And we talked about sort of theimpact of loopholes around
(25:03):
straw purchases, for example, onpeople to get these guns and
then traffic them and then havethis violence.
And if someone might belistening and say, well, I don't
want there to be more gun laws,why won't?
That's Mexico's problem?
Why won't Mexico just deal withit?
Why won't Jamaica just dealwith it?
Why won't Haiti just deal withit?
What would you say to someonewho Reacts, thinking like well,
(25:27):
that's that their governmentneeds to deal with that.
What does that have to do withOur laws?
Like, I have the secondamendment right and I don't want
you coming for me that that'stheir government's fault.
Basically, yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
So I mean, first of all, a lot of this doesn't
necessarily doesn't need to benew laws, it's enforcing certain
laws on the books, but to likea lot of things, you need like
public pressure and prioritiesin terms of enforcing stuff.
So I mean, now they've got it,you know, in 2022 by parts and
safer communities act.
They've bought in some verygood things there about
(26:00):
increasing penalties for strawbuyers, about federal firearms
trafficking, but you need toenforce this.
So you see these ATF agents whoare in Phoenix and they say,
well, there's, there's 20 of usand there's Tens of thousands of
firearms being smuggled andthere's this, there's all the.
We simply can't do this.
So what are you givingpriorities to?
(26:20):
Fighting to try to combat andtry and go for people, arrest
people.
You have to have something tohave public pressure to try and
go after this and in terms ofyou know, so again.
Second, second amendment, mosta lot of.
There was one guy I profile inthe book and I've met again this
year, who was a confidentialinformant for the ATF, who was a
(26:41):
gun seller selling AR-15s, andhe realized he was selling them
in Arizona, in Tucson, and hewas like this is huge amount of
cartel trafficking happening?
Yeah, I don't want to do this.
I don't want to sell AR-15s toMexican cartels who are killing
people in Mexico.
I've got, I don't want to dothat.
And he tried to come in.
He became very disillusioned bywhat happened and he's still
very, very disillusioned by thefederal government in that case.
(27:04):
And we can look at some verybad cases which some people who
would look at.
So what about fast and furious?
Which is a case in which thefederal government watched 2000
firearms be trafficked tocartels in Mexico, including to
El Chapo, including to El Chapoorganization directly.
In fact, guns that were in ElChapo's house when he was
(27:25):
arrested with their and and addsuspicion went at the court case
they said well, you can't talkabout fast and furious during El
Chapo's trial.
We've kind of adds to this.
So I could understand totallyand sympathize with those
arguments.
Okay, what's the federalgovernment doing there?
That was a messed up case.
But again, this is good.
It's not against American,laura Biden, gun owners.
(27:45):
It's like you can try and stopthese very harsh crimes.
Now, if People are concernedabout things like gangs, gang
members, do you want Gang memberwho's in the house?
Sorry, gang member who is inthe United States without papers
, being able to go in with noidea and buy a bunch of firearms
(28:07):
.
I mean, do you want that ifyou're on that side?
But the second thing about likeAbsolutely look.
Mexico, haiti, these countriesneed to try and deal with this
threat of organized crime.
It's not up to America to doeverything for these countries.
They have to find ways inMexico.
People have to find here waysof dealing with organized crime.
But it's much harder to do thatwhen they're getting this
(28:30):
steady amount of guns.
So there's people here inMexico who say, well, we've got
to try and deal with organizedcrime.
We know we would.
This is a real threat.
We've got to have some kind ofeffective law enforcement.
We've got to try and protectour communities.
But don't sell these peoplelike all these firearms.
Make some basic efforts to kindof reduce that number and then
(28:50):
we can start.
Now you've seen situations wherethere was a first attempt to
arrest a criminal on Charges ofsmuggling drugs, including
fentanyl You've made it be oneof the biggest fentanyl produced
in Mexico and the first attemptto arrest him where they
originally sent in a hundredPolice and soldiers to arrest
him and got him and a bunch ofhis gunmen rose up.
(29:13):
Then they increased the numberto 350 and he very quickly has
700 to 800 gunmen fighting themand these are guys.
And these are guys firing 50cows, one of which blew a
soldier's leg off, firing theseguys from the United States.
So you know, it's just to say,well, we're trying to arrest the
biggest fentanyl producer inMexico, but he's got an army of
(29:33):
guys with guns in the UnitedStates defending him and a lot
of people losing their lives.
So the veg that they releasedhim.
They went and recaptured himthis January with three and a
half thousand soldiers, but alot of Mexican soldiers lost
their lives in that operation.
So so Mexican soldiers aredying attempting to try and stop
fentanyl arriving in the UnitedStates.
So it's like there's got to besome kind of mutual thing.
(29:55):
One of the fascinating thingsabout organized crimes we do
live in an interconnected world.
You do have drugs fromdifferent countries.
Now, specifically about thecase of Mexico and, I would say
overall, some of the ideas thatAmerica can kind of police the
world.
I can understand why there'skind of disillusionment with
that and a lot that doesn'treally work.
It's hard for America to tryand fix the problems of some, a
(30:18):
lot of faraway countries.
But with the specific case ofMexico, this is right on the US
doorstep and it's in the UnitedStates self-interest to have a
more stable Mexico.
You know you saw a case ofAmericans crossing the border
and being kidnapped and killedby cartels.
You've seen literal kind ofgunfights over the border.
(30:40):
You see refugees coming.
So it's actually a mutualinterest to have, at least
within this neighborhood, astable neighborhood, whatever
you could do for like farawaycountries around the world.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
I just the implications that are just so
far reaching, like just one onedomino falls in it and it all
kind of goes from there too.
I'm really curious.
The part of the book that Ifound the most compelling
actually was kind of as youmentioned at the beginning of
your response the folks whoworked either as manufacturers
or with the industry themselves,how they tried to separate
themselves both legally veryfirmly but then also kind of
(31:14):
Cognitively, from the effectsthat their gun cells were having
, whether it was someone who wasselling things, who you know at
a gun shop, who kind of there'sa guy coming in every weekend
to buy 15 guns at a time andhe's not asking questions to
kind of these big manufacturersor these big sellers.
And I'm wondering if there wasanything there that particularly
shocked you when you went downthat avenue in in your
(31:35):
interviews.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Yeah, I think it's very interesting with the issue
of firearms and these objects,and so I traced there's some
firearms from a murder scene inmexico right back to a factory
in romania, the cougir factoryin fund.
Was she making the guns and dothey?
How are they free about theseguns?
That they're using the ak-47sthat are used in complex?
Well, where's this?
This war?
It happens, and I'm just makingthis firearm.
(31:57):
And then I interviewed a guy inbulgaria who was a broke up and
he was, you know, very excitedby working in this industry.
He was flying around I'm,africa and the middle east and
sending them huge amounts offirearms.
And I said are you concerned ifyour guns end up with the
islamic state?
Do you sell them to SaudiArabia?
(32:19):
They end up being the islamicstate, you're concerned about
that?
And he said oh no, I'm okay,I'm protected because my sales
were approved by the BulgarianGovernment, which is approved by
the European Community, so I'mnot concerned about that.
And I said it Well, are you?
You're not concerned Legally,but are you concerned morally?
And he thought for one.
He said no.
(32:39):
So it was like this.
I think that's very true.
People are well kind ofseparate, you know, and as often
you can get that.
And that, I think, comes insome ways to part of the
substance of the lawsuit by theMexican government on on the us
Gun companies.
It's like the idea ofresponsibility you need to take
some responsibilities.
Well, it's not ourresponsibility, we're selling
(32:59):
firearms and so well, should youhave some responsibility for
this.
And then are you deliberatelymarketing these guns with images
that you're kind ofdeliberately Be selling them,
though, deliberately having inone case they had a firearm with
an image of Sapa, mexicanfreedom fighter, and then that
was used, actually, in themurder of a Mexican journalist.
So there was a very sadlyironic that you can have a gun
(33:24):
With an image of a Mexicanfreedom fighter used to clamp
down on Mexico's freedom ofspeech, but then it's mixed.
So, say, you get places likethis, people like this guy, mike
Detty, who was a confidentialinformant who works at gun
seller but was veryconscientious and didn't like
this idea of guns being sold.
I'm like, say, many gun shopowners and many people like
everyone's human beings, and ifyou really talk about this, most
of them are not Evil.
(33:45):
But it's like, how can yousimply make a system and it's
not asking for that much in thiscase.
Now some people are prettycynical and they're like, if
we've got like now and one ofthe worst things is the
percentages are probably noteven that big have gun sellers
and they'll sell Well in AK47and their markups like a hundred
dollars, 100 guns selling atthe base level is not a
(34:06):
massively profitable industrybecause there's so much
competition.
You have a lot of people whoare like vets, on on on military
pensions, so we're just gonnamake a bit of money by selling
guns for a hundred bucks.
You're gonna sell a gun, youknow, a thousand bucks for 10
guns to a cartel who can carryout mass murder and kill a
killer woman's 18 year old sonwho's a philosophy student, just
(34:26):
because an act gun was sold byyou.
You really want that whenyou're conscious.
You know the total sales toMexico.
Even if it is 200,000 firearmsa year going to Mexico, in terms
of the total sales it's notthat big.
In terms of the entire industry200,000 foreign, we've got
different companies Is it worthit for that amount of guns going
to some of the most violentcriminal organizations on the
(34:48):
planet?
So I think there's many thingsthat you can.
They should be able to find ameat away with this.
It should be a battle we canwin and I think there are people
in the industry Now.
A lot of them are very closed inthe industry.
They don't want to talk.
It's very hard to reach out tothese, to reach out to these
companies and make a kind ofclosed door thing, but you'd
(35:08):
hope that some midway could befound.
Now when we get to the NRAspecifically, they very much
built this idea of no compromise.
So now I think that idea isbased on two things.
One is the idea of we don'twant any kind of slippery slope
and this was said.
The idea of you're eating apacket of crisps, a packet of
potato chips.
You can't stop, you have one.
(35:29):
I was nice, I said I'm not.
That was used by the NRA as anexample, by one of the guys who
really specialized inorganization.
But also this idea of sellingthis kind of conflict, and the
NRA, as well as a very effectivelobbying group, have been this
idea of selling a lifestyle.
So the crusade is important tothem, but really for the
(35:51):
interests.
Again, the interests are a lotof gun owners.
It's like do you want to armcartels, do you want to arm
really violent gangs and can youcome to a halfway universal
background checks, simply suchas to stop them having this
loophole doing that that easily?
Things to try and come down onstraw buyers the idea, for
example, of multiple sales beingalerted to the ATF in border
(36:15):
states is now there.
Can you extend that back tomore states?
So quite small things.
You could think of being gunowners interests without getting
to the real bigger pictures,which is some of the things that
you debate there withoutgetting to the bigger pictures
of assault rifles or AR-15s andstuff.
You don't even need to getthere to make a huge impact on
this.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
And I feel like, unless someone lives deep, deep,
deep under a rock in the UnitedStates, there's so much talk
and rhetoric about Mexico andthe border and the border.
We all feel like we haveopinions on it one way or
another.
I've never even been to Mexico,so there's a lot of stuff in
the book that was surprising tome.
But I'm wondering whetherthings in your research that
(36:53):
were surprising to you evenliving there, or that you think
would surprise people, given allthe narratives that we hear.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
So I've been living in Mexico for 23 years.
I came here from the UK 23years ago and it's a country I
love very much and I've spentmost of my adult life here.
One of the things I say aboutthis in terms of the gun
violence and the violence hereis look, a lot of the news, it's
hard to get a nuancedperspective of this.
So one of the things thatsurprises people is that we're
(37:23):
actually in Mexico City.
They've actually done a lot ofwork to try and reduce the
violence here in Mexico City,and Mexico City has now a lower
murder rate than many US citiesper capita Now, not only lower
than some of the most violent UScities like Baltimore or New
Orleans, also lower than some ofthe mid-level US cities like
(37:45):
Houston and Dallas, and even now, more recently, lower than a
place Portland Oregon which hadan increase in gun violence.
So that's, I think, somethingwhich often people will find
surprising and this nuance.
Often people will ask aboutMexico.
How about can I go to Cancun,to the resort?
Now, many, many people visitMexico at a time and have great
(38:06):
times, and there's certainplaces in Mexico you can go to,
like Mexico City, like to thetourist resorts.
There are other places that arereally, really violent.
So that's one of the things, Ithink, which is kind of
surprising.
I think probably as well, likea sense that Mexico as well is
not a really backward country.
(38:28):
There was something recently aRepublican politician said are
they eating cat food out of tins?
Or something he said cat foodout of cans If it wasn't for us
it was kind of.
And one about Mexico is acomplex country, so it's a
country with over a trilliondollar economy.
It's a country with over aquarter of young people now
(38:49):
going to higher education, withpeople, with doctors and so on.
Some big, highly educatedMexico has been in many places
where you have the guys in skimasks, in AK-47s, have been to
the village of El Chapo in themountains and been through an
evangelical ceremony with hismother and sat there.
We have the armed men coming inTo tell you another story about
(39:11):
the kind of extreme side ofthis and one of the kind of very
concerning and why I thinkabout the conflict as well is
when you see the recruitment ofchildren, particularly young
boys, into the cartels and thereare a lot of women in there as
well, but a lot of young boys,particularly used for cannon
fodder, and there was one.
I mean, I've been here 23 yearsand some of the crazy thing now
(39:31):
is you see kids who were noteven born when I first started
carving this, who are now thehitmen and they're very young
and I've been to some of theseyouth prisons and talked to
young 13, 14, 15 year olds whohave committed multiple murders
and this kind of crazy thousandyards.
(39:52):
Stare, they can have.
But also there's so muchvictims and victimizers.
Because that age you'rerecruited by the ins and ins of
the cartel and what you have?
There's one story of a kid whowas known as Juan Pistolas and
(40:31):
it was one pistol translationand he began this kind of bit of
an endless photos of himcarrying the.
(41:29):
Seattle.
Join the cartel now and there'sa 40% chance you can be dead
within 10 years, but they stilldo it.
So, how you know, there'snothing offered better, better
parts in life than one thatleads to death.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Sort of in and that kind of awful, that sort of
feeling of like awfulinevitability that I could see
be present.
I'm gonna ask another sort ofdevil's advocate question on our
end, which is, you know if, ifthe US were to make these
reforms and kind of stem thetide of you know, or like kind
of damn, to continue using thatthe iron river analogy, but like
(42:06):
to kind of dam up the amount offirearms flowing into Into
Mexico, do you think that thatwould have a quick impact?
Or do you think you know thatthat would have an immediate
positive impact on the violencethat is happening within cart
with cartels?
Or do you think that therewould be another source that
would open up for for firearms?
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Yeah, sure.
So you know, first, this has tobe something which is seen a
little bit long-term or mediumterm we live.
I think one of the problems oftoday's age that we live in is
we're so Such stuff is suchshort-term.
I mean, we're all kind ofhooked on Social media, which is
like today's news this personsaid this and then they said
(42:43):
that in return, and we find itvery so.
We don't solve these kind ofbig problems, which is this has
been building up for two decadesor for more than that.
So I think anything we have tothink of a certain time here.
But, like you know, the otherthing is to think about, I think
like Pragmatic solutions tothis.
So people say, oh, you're nevergonna stop them getting guns,
so it's like we can't doanything, just give them guns,
(43:06):
rather than saying, okay, we'vegot to reduce the amount of
firearms they get and make firemore expensive One of the
problems as well with theabundance of firearms which
currently they get.
And then it is right nowthere's just not the basic
efforts being made to stop this.
So when you have this abundanceof firearms, so it's a question
of reducing it, now people say,well, okay, well, they're gonna
(43:27):
get guns from Russia or China,but they're much further away.
So you know, still like if youknow Russia providing China
running guns, it's more of achallenge.
You can try and you can try andthey gotta you know like
they've got a big amount onboats and so forth.
Now one big issue legitimatelybrought up by people hitting
back about this is you havecorruption the Mexican security
(43:48):
forces and you have firearmsbeing sold through corrupt
people the Mexican securityforces.
Now it does happen and you godown through Latin America and
you see this.
You see what appears to beabout a couple of thousand
firearms a year going missingfrom the Mexican security forces
, compared to a couple ofhundred thousand firearms a year
(44:08):
come from the United States.
If the Mexican soldiers wereselling all their guns to
cartels, they wouldn't have gunsthemselves.
They wouldn't be somewherewhere your guns was some of the
guys else, so it's pretty smallpercentage.
Now to get back to it About howlong term is this?
I mean, I think we've got tothink 10 years, 20 years and
again, those things are.
They're not that long away.
That's 10 years goes quickly.
(44:29):
I published my first book in2011 and I said 12 years ago and
when I published that and Ikind of naively thought then,
are these Come?
This is crazy and people aregonna realize this kind of whole
issue of of cartels and drugsand murders it's gonna stop.
And I was like, well, you know,talking to people saying, well,
we come back in 10 years timeand this will be like this
violence, be a thing of the past.
And 12 years later it's kind ofworse.
(44:50):
So 10 years go fast.
But you got to think aboutgenerations, about you know how
this happens, how it happens toour children, how I have
happened to growing up in thesesituations, to try and about
solutions.
But you have to have a Mexicangovernment and police forces
getting on top of the situation.
And again, I mean, you keep on.
If you turn that, if you reallyput a dam on the Iron River so
(45:15):
no more guns were coming,they've still got a bunch of
guns right now, but if they wantto get new guns, they gradually
, gradually become a degradedand weak.
As people get arrested and gunsget seized, they gradually kind
of lose strength.
If you could turn it right down, you gradually said, you know,
but there's at least a lot ofother things done as well.
They have to have preventionprograms, they have to have
better security forces or betterpolice forces admitting justice
(45:36):
.
But you know what's thealternative to do nothing and to
see this number of people dyingon both sides of the border.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Well, and even to that, if I mean, I'm presuming
if you're a listener to thispodcast and you've stuck around
this long, you care about people, so I feel like we don't have
to fight for the case of youshould care about a Mexican
citizen as much as an Americanone.
So I'm just gonna leapfrog overthat.
But your book also, even thoughdetails, if there's someone who
really is a firm America onlyperson they're like, and a lot
(46:03):
of times because of thatintersection of drugs and guns
and the back and Forselling,like a gun may be trafficked
from the US and into Mexico andthen back up again.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Well, yeah, I think one case which which a lot of
Americans were very concernedabout, a lot of people the
conservative side were veryconcerned about, was this gun
which was trafficked to a carthat a Mexican came back and was
used in the murder of BrianTerry, who was from the Bortak
elites kind of border patrolelite force and Killed.
(46:37):
Now, in that case that was onewhich had been watched by the
ATF under Fast and Furious.
So so, yeah, I mean so you hadthis operation where they
watched two thousand guns go tocartels.
One of the theories was likehere in Mexico is like oh, these
guns go to the scene a lot ofcar.
So so this is obviously showingthat the Mexican government and
the US government are workingto see a lot of car.
Tell, now, there are legitimatethings there, but I don't think
(46:59):
what that was in this case.
But anyway, the second thingwas here in Mexico people were
like America obviously wantsMexico to be violent, but they
said they deliberately settingguns to cartels and in the
United States by some of thehard line people was by the NRA
themselves like this wasdeliberately Plot to make the
American gun industry look bad,to try and take away assault
(47:20):
rifles and this is all by theObama administration.
That was kind of the idea.
Now I think all of those aremistaken looking at this and
that really it was First acompletely bot operation.
But it shows two things.
One, the huge amounts of gunsthat are going down, but also
how these kind of federaloperations play out and kind of
these are these idea of makingthese kind of big conspiracy
(47:40):
cases, which they failed on very, very badly.
And One of the sad things aboutit was that was in 2011.
It kind of put this issue oftrafficking guns to Mexico off
the agenda for a decade, and itwas in 2021 when the Mexican
government Filed this lawsuitabout gun companies.
That has been put back on theagenda and it's now on the
(48:02):
agenda in a big way.
So now's an opportunity to kindof really get to this.
The other thing is, I think, toreally much, very much, alive
this with the issues, and youknow it's very good that you're
looking into this issue.
I like this with the issues inthe United States.
The issues of gun victims orvictims of gun violence in the
(48:22):
United States and victims andviolence in Mexico or anywhere
is completely linked and You'vegot, you know children dying
from gun violence in the UnitedStates.
You know You've got all ofthese things happening there so
very much and there was, youknow, having efforts of this of
unifying and groups in Mexicokind of supporting these kind of
rights much for our lives andthese kind of things well, this
(48:43):
has been great and I feel likewe have we could talk for hours
an hour.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
This has been our dream since 2021, so we've had
time.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
This is the problem, yeah well, I guess the last word
, you know it's always try toget.
It's always good to try andhave a positive note and and
that can be difficult when yousee this kind of level of of
death.
And again, I mean these StoriesI've mentioned there are
thousands of them about.
(49:10):
You know people who sufferedhere amid the violence.
It is, and I think it will belooked back on as a historic
case of gun trafficking to avery violent situation I would
say a hybrid armed conflict inMexico.
We'll look back on this themillions of guns being
trafficked to a very, veryhorrific armed conflict, hybrid
(49:33):
armed conflict in Mexico and, atthe same time, as like, very
sad stories of many, manyAmericans dying from gun
violence but also dying fromdrug overdose in the United
States and a very, verylegitimate concerns about that.
But these are things which arenot impossible.
These are not impossible thingsto fix.
This is, you know.
You know Humans have sentpeople to the moon.
(49:56):
You know how easy is it, howdifficult is it to stop.
The most violent organizationson the planet have so many
firearms from these companiesand I think we are at a moment
now, a very crucial moment inthis, where there is Chances of
things changing and there ishope, so.
(50:18):
So I hope you know like fromthese Conversations, from this
moment, they won't be.
Look back is just a missedopportunity.
But you know the beginning ofchange and again in 10, 20 years
time looking back on this.
So well, things start to changeand now there's no longer
35,000 you know murders,relatives, every year in Mexico.
But it's a thing of the past.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
I appreciate that, ending on a hopeful note, and
thank you for all of your workbecause I know as part of our
work, kelly and I talked tovictims and survivors almost
every day and vicarious traumais real and it's a hard thing.
So I appreciate your work somuch.
And and where can folks findyou and your books and in your
current writing?
Speaker 3 (50:58):
Yeah, sure, so you can find my books on on Amazon
or wherever you buy your booksblood, gun money, how America
arms gangs and cartels.
I have a free newsletter youcan subscribe to you for free,
which you can find atwwwcrashoutmediacom.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you, hey, want to sharewith the podcast.
Listeners can now get in touchwith us here at red, blue and
Brady via phone or text message.
Simply call or text us at480744 3452 with your thoughts.
Questions concerns ideas, catpictures, whatever thanks for
(51:39):
listening.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
As always, brady's life-saving work in Congress,
the courts and communitiesacross the country is made
possible.
Thanks to you.
For more information on Bradyor how to get involved in the
fight against gun violence,please like and subscribe to the
podcast.
Get in touch with us at BradyUnited or on social at Brady
buzz.
Be brave and remember.
Take action, not sites.
(52:01):
You, you.
This is the legal disclaimer, where I tell you
that the views, thoughts andopinions shared on this podcast
belong solely to our guests andhosts, and not necessarily Brady
or Brady's affiliates.
Please note this podcastcontains discussions of violence
that some people may finddisturbing.
It's okay, we find itdisturbing too.
Hey, everybody, welcome back toanother episode of Red, blue
(00:45):
and Brady.
I'm one of your hosts, jj.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And I'm Kelly, your other host.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And today, kelly and I are bringing you a podcast
that has been in the works forquite a while, as we tackle a
massive issue impacting not justthe US but our neighbors to the
South.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, we're going to be talking about the ways in
which the US and our gunpolicies truly exacerbate and
contribute to violence in Mexico.
And super important becausethere's a lot of talk about it.
There's a lot of xenophobia,there's a lot of stereotype
thing, there's a lot ofmisinformation about this.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
To really dig into what that misinformation is and
where it came from, and with therealities out there.
We are sitting down with awardwinning journalist and author of
the book Blood Gun Money howAmerica Arms Gangs and Cartels,
mr Yohan Grillo.
Yohan was so kind to sit downwith us and really break down
the reality of what's happeningout there.
So if you've had anyconversations with anyone
(01:42):
recently about the border guns,drugs, this is a podcast that I
think you absolutely need tolisten to.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
My name is Yohan Grillo.
I'm a journalist based inMexico City, focused on
organized crime and drugs.
I've been here for 23 yearsdoing this and I'm author of a
trilogy of books on organizedcrime and drugs, the latest with
which is Blood Gun Money howAmerica Arms Guns and Cartels,
(02:13):
focusing on the gun traffickingfrom the United States to Mexico
and also from the United Statesto gangs and cartels all around
the world.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
And before we dig in, as you just mentioned, and to
the most recent part of thetrilogy, I'm wondering if you
could share for us how thisproject developed and maybe how
to end it all with Blood GunMoney.
How did that all happen?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, so from my early days in Mexico it didn't
originally come to Mexico, thinkI'm going to cover a crazy
crime war I arrived in Mexico in2000 and found out there's this
emerging new conflict whichwere basically involving drug
traffickers, organized crimenetworks, and in many cases it
became worse and bloodier thanthese old political conflicts of
(03:00):
the late 20th century.
As I covered this, it went frombeing, at the beginning, quite
romantic and exotic runningafter drug kingpins to really
covering a humanitarian disasterand seeing many things I
couldn't have imagined.
And from the beginning I couldsee this is a huge issue of
firearms trafficking from theUnited States.
(03:21):
Now I wrote stories about this,but for a while I didn't think
this was a whole book because Ithought, well, the United States
has the Second Amendment, whatcan we say?
And then I happened to go in2017 into a prison in Sierda
Juarez an interviewer prisonerwho was an active guns
trafficker from Dallas intoChihuahua, mexico, and he
(03:43):
described exactly how he wasdoing this.
And he described how he wasgoing to gun shows and buying
from private sellers and doingthis whole thing without
paperwork at all, and how he waspaying a cartel to move guns
through over the border, payinganother cartel to sell them,
exactly how this was working andI realized that it was actually
(04:04):
very interesting and there,actually, there's a lot of
Americans who are very pro gun,very pro.
Second amendment would actuallybe against this as well.
This is not like some politicalissue.
This is something you can find,should be finding a middle
ground on.
And why is it still happeningthat this amount of guns is
being trafficked?
(04:24):
And then the amounts reallybecame clear about the scale of
this, because it was more than200,000 firearms a year going to
Mexico, particularly to cartels, in the time that I've been in
Mexico.
We're talking about millions ofguns and the total body count in
Mexico just completely beingoff the charts.
(04:45):
I mean now, since 2000,december 2006, when there's a
military crackdown launchedagainst these cartels armed with
all these weapons, there's beenalmost 400,000 murders in
Mexico.
It's incredible.
Perhaps two thirds of themlinked to this conflict of
cartels against the securityforces.
So it's been quite incredibleto mention that this is actually
(05:05):
something that you can't be,something to write a book about
this and it's an issue, and thatmany of these issues on the war
on drugs are very hard to solve.
It's very hard to say how doyou stop American state and
drugs?
It's very hard to say.
How do you stop Mexican policeofficers and Mexican soldiers
being corrupt, but saying howcan we stop millions of guns
being sold to really violentcartels is something we should
(05:27):
be able to do something about.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
And you talked a lot about already, about sort of,
the broad scope of the issue ofguns crossing from the United
States to Mexico.
But you started the book sortof at a very personal level, and
you started it with the trialof Joaquin Guzman, or known as
El Chapo.
So why did you decide to startat that trial?
(05:49):
I?
Speaker 3 (05:50):
went to the trial in New York or some of the trial in
New York in early 2019.
And I think it was a verylandmark event.
El Chapo is maybe the mostfamous person from Latin America
this century.
It's kind of crazy to say.
Probably more Americans, if yousay if you heard of El Chapo,
would say yes compared to ifyou've heard of Lopez Elbrador,
(06:13):
the president of Mexico rightnow, or maybe as much as Che
Guevara was maybe the mostfamous Latin American of the
20th century Very famous, andthat trial particularly got a
huge amount of attention in theAmerican media.
It was a big show.
One of the reasons and peoplefrom TV networks told me this is
(06:34):
a trial, it was kind of toAmericans it was almost like
entertainment.
It didn't seem to be thisculturally divisive issue.
It was like we could go, wecould talk about El Chapo, this
crazy gangster.
We could talk about his beautyqueen wife, we could talk about
his lover, also as a protectedwitness, and all of these things
and it was almost like a funstory.
But for a lot of the Mexicanjournalists who were there they
(06:56):
were kind of a bit like this isnot really that fun.
We've seen this humanitariancatastrophe in our country over
the last few years and this is abit more of a serious thing
happening here and one of thethings was and it was very
interesting they mentioned andbought up a massive drug gun
running conspiracy at the trial,bought out all of these AK47s
and grenade launchers and thesekind of things and said these
(07:17):
are the weapons that are goingdown to the cartel and we've got
their thousands of them going.
We've got proof of this.
But they did not charge ElChapo with gun running, with
federal conspiracy to, becausewe're a federal crime of
trafficking guns and I realizedright, there was no federal
crime for trafficking guns atthe time.
(07:38):
It was this kind of weird legallow point.
Again, as I got into writingthis book it was like it's very
complicated to get into this.
A lot of people have done forlying on the form rather than
providing guns for a cartel,providing guns for a group which
is committing mass murder evenin cases where guns were used to
kill an American agent inMexico, jaime Zapata, and a guy
(08:03):
who helped supply those gunsvery, very blatant crime walked
in and bought 10 identical AK47sand only got probation for
lying on the form.
So I thought it was a very goodkind of jubbing off point to
kind of highlight that issue andalso because it's something for
the popular imagination, andalso it was kind of something
personally covering this for twodecades being in this court
(08:26):
with El Chapo, seeing this kindof very big historic moment
about this whole situation.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Well, I think, as you've just articulated and as
the book points out, it's sortof that there's loopholes within
loopholes within loopholes.
This is a very.
I think the average Americanwould think that the gun laws
are very simple and verystraightforward and once you've
been in the space for fiveminutes you go oh, my goodness.
No, this is actually verytangled and complicated and I
wonder, just before we go anyfurther, if you could explain
(08:52):
for our listeners maybe, thedifference between kind of
legally purchasing a firearm andattempting or bringing it into
Mexico or selling it to like aMexican citizen, versus
trafficking.
Like what is traffickingactually in this context?
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah.
So in Mexico you have oneofficial shop in the whole
country which sells guns andit's run by the military.
It's here in Mexico City, whereI am, and you can go there.
You go through various lines ofsecurity and to buy a gun you
have to give seven forms ofidentification, including a
(09:29):
record from the police to showyou you know you haven't got any
pending crimes or criminalrecord, a letter from your
employer.
So it's a pretty strict process.
But there are some, you know,still guns sold legally and
there is in fact a kind of rightto bear arms within the Mexican
Constitution, but it's prettyheavily overseen.
So a lot of people have guns inMexico or security guards, paid
(09:51):
security guards and that kindof thing.
At the same time there's thishuge iron river of guns coming
from the United States.
Now, you know, it's obviouslyvery easy to buy firearms in the
United States and the two mainmethods they're being brought to
take into Mexico are, I mean,sometimes okay, people buying
(10:11):
through straw buyers, sosomebody who's got a clean
record going and buying guns inthe shops or at the shows for
these criminal groups.
Now you could also be buying agun for yourself with a clean
record If you're taking it toMexico, you're already
committing a crime.
You can't take a gun intoMexico over a border and then
they've put signs up therebecause they look at the issue
(10:33):
of gun trafficking.
There's been some cases whereAmericans have legitimately
legitimately not known orforgotten and kind of driven
into Mexico with a couple ofguns in their truck and then
suddenly they're bringing gunsacross a border and then they're
arrested and they're thrown inprison.
It's like, well, I don't know,it's got some guns in my truck.
Can't drive over a bordercarrying firearms.
(10:55):
So you know you can't do thatnow, but what you know.
So, basically anybody crossingover the border but there's some
people just buy, you know,maybe taking a gun.
You might go to the UnitedStates and take a gun in for
yourself, for your personalprotection, but you're still
committing a crime becauseyou're not.
You can do that.
If you want to buy a gunimported to the United States,
you have to register that withthe Mexican military and go
(11:16):
through a long process to dothat.
But what we're really talkingabout is the trafficking of guns
to criminals is the main thing.
So you have the groupsacquiring these guns through
either straw purchasing orthrough using the private sale
loophole to get a large amountof guns with no paperwork.
(11:37):
They could also get gunsthrough, sometimes through
unsurrealized firearms, you knowghost guns or through theft as
well.
But the biggest things reallyright now are straw purchasing
and private sale loophole toacquire guns for the cartels.
(11:57):
Now they're acquiring these.
You know these very, very largenumbers often.
You know different ways.
Sometimes it can be somebodygoing shop to shop.
So they go you know one shop bya 50 caliber, you know Browning
go to the next shop, buy an AK,buy multiple AKs in certain
states, which is still very easyto do so, acquiring these guns
(12:20):
often in a series of places,having stash houses in the
United States and then takingthem to Mexico.
Now they're being taken toMexico either by fairly small
numbers.
So, for example, this one guy Iprofiled who I interviewed in
prison in Juarez, was takinglike 10 to 15 guns every weekend
(12:41):
.
It all adds up and it's quite asignificant profit for him as
an individual because he wasbuying them $6, $700 for a rifle
in Dallas and selling them forlike $2,200 in Mexico.
So you know you're adding, youknow you're doing 10 to 15 every
weekend and you can do this ona decent amount of money for
somebody who's, you know, innorthern Mexico, and sometimes
(13:03):
they're bigger amounts andthere's been trucks stopped with
170 firearms and a big trucksgoing down to Mexico with that
amount of guns in.
And it can be various amountsin between.
Somebody else I profiled who wasa smuggler, who was a US
citizen and he was working for acompany laying cable for
(13:25):
communications on both sides ofthe border and using a
government issued ID to smuggleguns into Mexico.
He said, I mean, he said that,like I asked him, you know why
he really did it, and he said,well, part of it was simply the
buzz, part of it I mean, it iswhat he said he said one of the
things you know, when he firstgot into it, one of the things
(13:45):
that he was very angry about twopack being killed and he was
like he felt like, oh, you know,I want to revenge on the world.
You know, it's kind of kind ofcrazy stuff in people's own
stories.
And one one thing was, you know, eventually, the money.
He's making the money as well,getting paid, paid for his
trafficking and giving otherinformation for the cartel and
obviously the book is about guns.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
It's also about drugs and the interplay between the
two and you know I'm wonderinghow drugs play into further kind
of contribute to the Iron River.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
So yeah, it's a very interesting interaction between
drugs and guns and you see, thiswith this issue of illegal gun
trafficking, is totally entwinedwith the illegal you know drug
drug trade.
It's talked about this beinglike two toxic kind of plants
entwined around each other.
(14:39):
So you know, I went toBaltimore, maryland, you know
close to where you are, and talkto some of the dealers.
They're selling drugs on thestreets, which also is kind of
crazy when you see that,compared to some of the kind of
armed conflict in Mexico withthe drug trafficking, it's
almost quite open drug sellingin the United States and there's
various reasons I've led tothat.
(15:00):
But people talk about how thefact people come to them with
guns and they would exchangeguns and drugs on the streets of
Baltimore.
If you look at these guntraffickers big organizations
like the CineLower Cartelthey're moving huge amounts of
drugs into United States andmoving guns back and using the
guns to violently defend amassive profit from the drug
(15:24):
trade.
If you go further south, towhere cocaine is produced in
Columbia, then you will see thisexchange as well, where,
because in Columbia the FARC,the leftist guerrilla army,
could produce a huge amount ofcocaine, but they want a lot of
guns so they could exchange thecocaine for guns.
Talk to one trafficker who wasin prison in North Carolina who
(15:46):
was flying cocaine from Columbia, from Venezuela, to Mexico and
they'd fly back with guns.
Now one thing is these peopleare businessmen, they're looking
for the profits and why fly anempty plane down to Columbia to
pick up cocaine?
So put things in it, gunsthey've got as tequila and
(16:06):
saddles and what other stuffthey want to stash in there.
So there's a constant interplaybetween firearms and drugs and
you really can't understand thetwo trades kind of without it,
just independently.
They're kind of so connected.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I'm glad that you highlight that, because even now
, where we're sitting, you know,there was the first Republican
debate and the issue of fentanyland cartels came up and there
was this idea of, well, we justneed to have some sort of
military engagement, and youtalked about the ways that
loopholes and gun laws are a bigpart of this.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Well, I mean, I think it's interesting.
I think this should be verymuch brought to attention during
this debate.
So the Republicans are bringingthis up.
Now I would say the Republicansare saying fentanyl is terrible
and it's killing huge amountsof Americans, and that's very
true.
I think there does need to be avery deep debate and action
taken and attempts taken to tryand stop the level of drug
overdose deaths in the UnitedStates right now.
(17:01):
I mean it's crazy.
I'm more than 100,000 overdosedeaths per year.
A lot of families are reallyhurting because of this.
That's very, very genuine hurt.
Now, it's also true that cartelsin Mexico are very, very
violent organizations who arecarrying out a humanitarian
catastrophe.
However, if they're then wrongin some quick, easy answer, you
(17:24):
can just bomb Mexico to solvethis.
But if these people are sayingthese are terrorist
organizations, if they're sayingthat, okay.
If you want to name them asterrorist organizations, that
means anyone involved in sendingthem guns is providing material
to a terrorist organization.
If they want to go down thatroad and there is an argument
you can't say well, there's alot of deaths here, but if
(17:45):
you're going to go down thatroad, it means that you're going
to have straw buyers,potentially gun shops, who could
be convicted on providingmaterial for terrorist
organizations.
Also, if you're going down thatroad of calling them terrorists
, you're saying that the peoplewho are fleeing that violence
and arriving at the US borderand asking for refuge, for
(18:08):
asylum from these are fleeingpeople named as terrorists by
the United States, whichstrengthens their case.
So it kind of actually opensand changes the scenario here.
But really, in answer back, Imean, okay, fair enough, if you
want to bring up, this is a bigissue about fentanyl deaths and
a big issue about violence.
So we've got to work that arenot providing them guns.
And, like I said, this issomething which I believe a
(18:30):
midway can be found in this bookand this research.
I also interviewed thepresident of the AR-15, owners
of America.
I interviewed a militia memberfrom Michigan.
I interviewed the president ofthe Alaska Machine Gun
Association and I asked themokay, are you in favor of guns
going to cartels, are you infavor of this guns?
(18:51):
And they were like no, no, no,I'm not into that, I know.
So even these people whorepresent quite a hard end of
this could say well, we're infavor of this.
So how come there can't bemovement on a very basic issue,
and there has been some changesince this first edition of the
book was published and since thelawsuit was made.
We've seen the bipartisancommunity's safer communities
(19:11):
acts, so we've seen thingshappening, but there needs to be
enforcement of this andactually people arrested for gun
trafficking and clamping downon gun trafficking the most
obvious cases.
How can it be that people arerequired?
You have single straw buyerswho are spending half a million
dollars and acquiring 750 gunsfor cartels.
(19:32):
How is that happening?
You might have better reducedthis to zero or you should
better reduce this substantially.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
There's so much there detailed in that, because and I
want to tease this out a littlebit further so when the guns
hit Mexico that are brought in,can you kind of explain to
listeners who may not befamiliar, kind of maybe they
know the words El Chapo andcartel but they don't quite know
what that is or how thatinteracts, and then how it's not
(19:58):
just guns in Mexico, right, theguns coming from the US to hit
Mexico are then going throughoutLatin America, which I know
from reading your book.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
But for folks who might not know.
Yeah, sure, so in Mexico we'veseen develop over a long period,
particularly over the last twodecades, the shift from drug
trafficking networks intoparamilitary organized crime and
this means where you havecriminal networks which also
(20:30):
have armed paramilitary wings.
And this has really been thelast two decades.
It didn't used to be like thisin Mexico.
You go back four or fivedecades and so suddenly you have
people would have seen what isin videos and photos of this but
like what are you gonna havegroups which literally look like
the guerrilla armies andthey're carrying out terror in
many communities in Mexico.
I mean, this is what reallywhat you've seen and what I've
(20:53):
been covering here the lastcouple of years has been this
weird hybrid between crime andwar and what that really means
on a personal level, again, totry and bring this home to
people, because it can be quitehard.
There's so much informationthat comes into our heads these
days, so really what that meansto people.
So just an example of one storyof a woman in Monterrey, mexico
(21:13):
, who was in her home one nightwhen with her two sons, one who
was 18 and one who was 15, her18 year old son was a philosophy
student.
Her 15 year old son was at highschool and suddenly in her
house, bam, the door breaks inand 15 guys come in who are like
AK-47s, ar-15, bulletproofvests, storm into our house and
(21:37):
that's what it's like if you'reliving these things happening.
They also then carry out crimesagainst regular members of the
community she was a schoolteacher, this woman.
So they storm into our home,they hold the pin the family
down and steal a bunch of stufffrom the house and then they say
to her which of your sons isthe eldest?
And she is so stunned hearingthis question because like what
(21:58):
do they wanna know that for?
She can't answer and her elderson obviously doesn't want the
younger brother taken.
So he raises his hand and saysit's me on the elder son and
they take him away.
The next day she gets a phonecall saying we've got your son.
Give us this amount of money inthis particular place, we'll
release him.
So she calls around relatives,she wants the money.
(22:18):
And what else can you do?
You're a mother in thatsituation.
What can you do?
She gets the money, she leavesit in a place.
The money is taken.
She calls back, the phone's offthe hook and bang and she's
searching and searching andnever finds her son.
One of the worst things aboutthat kind of crime, as well as,
obviously, just the fact thatyou're taking a life, is that
she has no closure.
She doesn't know where I say it.
(22:38):
I met her when I was actuallyreporting on 49 bodies that had
been dumped and she was like ismy son among these bodies?
And you get many cases likethis.
Is one single case.
You get multiple cases of thisof women who've been going
around looking for their sons inthese mass graves, some cases
(22:59):
after two, three, four, fiveyears, eventually finding some
kind of skeleton and using DNAtests to identify that is their
family member.
But absolutely horrific.
So what that means and whatthese kinds of guns and what
these cartels are really like onthe ground, and again, why a
series like Narcos can givecertain ideas, but it gives kind
(23:19):
of a glamorous side of this andreally the brutal reality of
what you see is pretty grim.
It's kind of the killing fieldsas well.
They move both from Mexico toother places and we've seen that
very specific case of guns thatwe know that were traced and
were smuggled into Mexico andthen appeared in Colombia.
So again, this thing of likewell, they'll fly it out to pick
(23:39):
up cocaine and take stuff down.
We also see a big traffickingroute through Florida where you
have boats, all these boatscoming in.
So you have boats go fromFlorida across Latin America and
the Caribbean.
So then we see guns going toJamaica in a massive way and
driving big violence in Jamaicato Haiti, to Honduras, to Brazil
(24:01):
and to so many of these places.
So we actually see not onlythat but, like the United States
having the largest retailfirearms market in the world and
allowing these guns very easilyto go out, affecting so many
countries, and it's kind ofhistoric case of violence which
is contributing to these recordnumbers of people arriving at
(24:21):
the border.
Now I've been on the borderrecently and you talk to people
from Jamaica who have fledviolence in Jamaica, haiti,
which is a crazy situation.
I've just just just right, youknow, yesterday in Mexico City I
went to the migrant shelter.
Yesterday there's people fromHaiti, Nicaragua, venezuela, all
these different countriesfleeing for various reasons, but
violence is certainly one ofthe top reasons that people are
(24:42):
fleeing their homes.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
First of all, thank you for you know, continuing to
bring us back home to the humantoll, because I think it is easy
sometimes with big numbers orif you've never been to a place,
to forget that people are humanbeings everywhere.
They love their familieseverywhere.
So thank you for that.
And we talked about sort of theimpact of loopholes around
(25:03):
straw purchases, for example, onpeople to get these guns and
then traffic them and then havethis violence.
And if someone might belistening and say, well, I don't
want there to be more gun laws,why won't?
That's Mexico's problem?
Why won't Mexico just deal withit?
Why won't Jamaica just dealwith it?
Why won't Haiti just deal withit?
What would you say to someonewho Reacts, thinking like well,
(25:27):
that's that their governmentneeds to deal with that.
What does that have to do withOur laws?
Like, I have the secondamendment right and I don't want
you coming for me that that'stheir government's fault.
Basically, yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
So I mean, first of all, a lot of this doesn't
necessarily doesn't need to benew laws, it's enforcing certain
laws on the books, but to likea lot of things, you need like
public pressure and prioritiesin terms of enforcing stuff.
So I mean, now they've got it,you know, in 2022 by parts and
safer communities act.
They've bought in some verygood things there about
(26:00):
increasing penalties for strawbuyers, about federal firearms
trafficking, but you need toenforce this.
So you see these ATF agents whoare in Phoenix and they say,
well, there's, there's 20 of usand there's Tens of thousands of
firearms being smuggled andthere's this, there's all the.
We simply can't do this.
So what are you givingpriorities to?
(26:20):
Fighting to try to combat andtry and go for people, arrest
people.
You have to have something tohave public pressure to try and
go after this and in terms ofyou know, so again.
Second, second amendment, mosta lot of.
There was one guy I profile inthe book and I've met again this
year, who was a confidentialinformant for the ATF, who was a
(26:41):
gun seller selling AR-15s, andhe realized he was selling them
in Arizona, in Tucson, and hewas like this is huge amount of
cartel trafficking happening?
Yeah, I don't want to do this.
I don't want to sell AR-15s toMexican cartels who are killing
people in Mexico.
I've got, I don't want to dothat.
And he tried to come in.
He became very disillusioned bywhat happened and he's still
very, very disillusioned by thefederal government in that case.
(27:04):
And we can look at some verybad cases which some people who
would look at.
So what about fast and furious?
Which is a case in which thefederal government watched 2000
firearms be trafficked tocartels in Mexico, including to
El Chapo, including to El Chapoorganization directly.
In fact, guns that were in ElChapo's house when he was
(27:25):
arrested with their and and addsuspicion went at the court case
they said well, you can't talkabout fast and furious during El
Chapo's trial.
We've kind of adds to this.
So I could understand totallyand sympathize with those
arguments.
Okay, what's the federalgovernment doing there?
That was a messed up case.
But again, this is good.
It's not against American,laura Biden, gun owners.
(27:45):
It's like you can try and stopthese very harsh crimes.
Now, if People are concernedabout things like gangs, gang
members, do you want Gang memberwho's in the house?
Sorry, gang member who is inthe United States without papers
, being able to go in with noidea and buy a bunch of firearms
(28:07):
.
I mean, do you want that ifyou're on that side?
But the second thing about likeAbsolutely look.
Mexico, haiti, these countriesneed to try and deal with this
threat of organized crime.
It's not up to America to doeverything for these countries.
They have to find ways inMexico.
People have to find here waysof dealing with organized crime.
But it's much harder to do thatwhen they're getting this
(28:30):
steady amount of guns.
So there's people here inMexico who say, well, we've got
to try and deal with organizedcrime.
We know we would.
This is a real threat.
We've got to have some kind ofeffective law enforcement.
We've got to try and protectour communities.
But don't sell these peoplelike all these firearms.
Make some basic efforts to kindof reduce that number and then
(28:50):
we can start.
Now you've seen situations wherethere was a first attempt to
arrest a criminal on Charges ofsmuggling drugs, including
fentanyl You've made it be oneof the biggest fentanyl produced
in Mexico and the first attemptto arrest him where they
originally sent in a hundredPolice and soldiers to arrest
him and got him and a bunch ofhis gunmen rose up.
(29:13):
Then they increased the numberto 350 and he very quickly has
700 to 800 gunmen fighting themand these are guys.
And these are guys firing 50cows, one of which blew a
soldier's leg off, firing theseguys from the United States.
So you know, it's just to say,well, we're trying to arrest the
biggest fentanyl producer inMexico, but he's got an army of
(29:33):
guys with guns in the UnitedStates defending him and a lot
of people losing their lives.
So the veg that they releasedhim.
They went and recaptured himthis January with three and a
half thousand soldiers, but alot of Mexican soldiers lost
their lives in that operation.
So so Mexican soldiers aredying attempting to try and stop
fentanyl arriving in the UnitedStates.
So it's like there's got to besome kind of mutual thing.
(29:55):
One of the fascinating thingsabout organized crimes we do
live in an interconnected world.
You do have drugs fromdifferent countries.
Now, specifically about thecase of Mexico and, I would say
overall, some of the ideas thatAmerica can kind of police the
world.
I can understand why there'skind of disillusionment with
that and a lot that doesn'treally work.
It's hard for America to tryand fix the problems of some, a
(30:18):
lot of faraway countries.
But with the specific case ofMexico, this is right on the US
doorstep and it's in the UnitedStates self-interest to have a
more stable Mexico.
You know you saw a case ofAmericans crossing the border
and being kidnapped and killedby cartels.
You've seen literal kind ofgunfights over the border.
(30:40):
You see refugees coming.
So it's actually a mutualinterest to have, at least
within this neighborhood, astable neighborhood, whatever
you could do for like farawaycountries around the world.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
I just the implications that are just so
far reaching, like just one onedomino falls in it and it all
kind of goes from there too.
I'm really curious.
The part of the book that Ifound the most compelling
actually was kind of as youmentioned at the beginning of
your response the folks whoworked either as manufacturers
or with the industry themselves,how they tried to separate
themselves both legally veryfirmly but then also kind of
(31:14):
Cognitively, from the effectsthat their gun cells were having
, whether it was someone who wasselling things, who you know at
a gun shop, who kind of there'sa guy coming in every weekend
to buy 15 guns at a time andhe's not asking questions to
kind of these big manufacturersor these big sellers.
And I'm wondering if there wasanything there that particularly
shocked you when you went downthat avenue in in your
(31:35):
interviews.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Yeah, I think it's very interesting with the issue
of firearms and these objects,and so I traced there's some
firearms from a murder scene inmexico right back to a factory
in romania, the cougir factoryin fund.
Was she making the guns and dothey?
How are they free about theseguns?
That they're using the ak-47sthat are used in complex?
Well, where's this?
This war?
It happens, and I'm just makingthis firearm.
(31:57):
And then I interviewed a guy inbulgaria who was a broke up and
he was, you know, very excitedby working in this industry.
He was flying around I'm,africa and the middle east and
sending them huge amounts offirearms.
And I said are you concerned ifyour guns end up with the
islamic state?
Do you sell them to SaudiArabia?
(32:19):
They end up being the islamicstate, you're concerned about
that?
And he said oh no, I'm okay,I'm protected because my sales
were approved by the BulgarianGovernment, which is approved by
the European Community, so I'mnot concerned about that.
And I said it Well, are you?
You're not concerned Legally,but are you concerned morally?
And he thought for one.
He said no.
(32:39):
So it was like this.
I think that's very true.
People are well kind ofseparate, you know, and as often
you can get that.
And that, I think, comes insome ways to part of the
substance of the lawsuit by theMexican government on on the us
Gun companies.
It's like the idea ofresponsibility you need to take
some responsibilities.
Well, it's not ourresponsibility, we're selling
(32:59):
firearms and so well, should youhave some responsibility for
this.
And then are you deliberatelymarketing these guns with images
that you're kind ofdeliberately Be selling them,
though, deliberately having inone case they had a firearm with
an image of Sapa, mexicanfreedom fighter, and then that
was used, actually, in themurder of a Mexican journalist.
So there was a very sadlyironic that you can have a gun
(33:24):
With an image of a Mexicanfreedom fighter used to clamp
down on Mexico's freedom ofspeech, but then it's mixed.
So, say, you get places likethis, people like this guy, mike
Detty, who was a confidentialinformant who works at gun
seller but was veryconscientious and didn't like
this idea of guns being sold.
I'm like, say, many gun shopowners and many people like
everyone's human beings, and ifyou really talk about this, most
of them are not Evil.
(33:45):
But it's like, how can yousimply make a system and it's
not asking for that much in thiscase.
Now some people are prettycynical and they're like, if
we've got like now and one ofthe worst things is the
percentages are probably noteven that big have gun sellers
and they'll sell Well in AK47and their markups like a hundred
dollars, 100 guns selling atthe base level is not a
(34:06):
massively profitable industrybecause there's so much
competition.
You have a lot of people whoare like vets, on on on military
pensions, so we're just gonnamake a bit of money by selling
guns for a hundred bucks.
You're gonna sell a gun, youknow, a thousand bucks for 10
guns to a cartel who can carryout mass murder and kill a
killer woman's 18 year old sonwho's a philosophy student, just
(34:26):
because an act gun was sold byyou.
You really want that whenyou're conscious.
You know the total sales toMexico.
Even if it is 200,000 firearmsa year going to Mexico, in terms
of the total sales it's notthat big.
In terms of the entire industry200,000 foreign, we've got
different companies Is it worthit for that amount of guns going
to some of the most violentcriminal organizations on the
(34:48):
planet?
So I think there's many thingsthat you can.
They should be able to find ameat away with this.
It should be a battle we canwin and I think there are people
in the industry Now.
A lot of them are very closed inthe industry.
They don't want to talk.
It's very hard to reach out tothese, to reach out to these
companies and make a kind ofclosed door thing, but you'd
(35:08):
hope that some midway could befound.
Now when we get to the NRAspecifically, they very much
built this idea of no compromise.
So now I think that idea isbased on two things.
One is the idea of we don'twant any kind of slippery slope
and this was said.
The idea of you're eating apacket of crisps, a packet of
potato chips.
You can't stop, you have one.
(35:29):
I was nice, I said I'm not.
That was used by the NRA as anexample, by one of the guys who
really specialized inorganization.
But also this idea of sellingthis kind of conflict, and the
NRA, as well as a very effectivelobbying group, have been this
idea of selling a lifestyle.
So the crusade is important tothem, but really for the
(35:51):
interests.
Again, the interests are a lotof gun owners.
It's like do you want to armcartels, do you want to arm
really violent gangs and can youcome to a halfway universal
background checks, simply suchas to stop them having this
loophole doing that that easily?
Things to try and come down onstraw buyers the idea, for
example, of multiple sales beingalerted to the ATF in border
(36:15):
states is now there.
Can you extend that back tomore states?
So quite small things.
You could think of being gunowners interests without getting
to the real bigger pictures,which is some of the things that
you debate there withoutgetting to the bigger pictures
of assault rifles or AR-15s andstuff.
You don't even need to getthere to make a huge impact on
this.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
And I feel like, unless someone lives deep, deep,
deep under a rock in the UnitedStates, there's so much talk
and rhetoric about Mexico andthe border and the border.
We all feel like we haveopinions on it one way or
another.
I've never even been to Mexico,so there's a lot of stuff in
the book that was surprising tome.
But I'm wondering whetherthings in your research that
(36:53):
were surprising to you evenliving there, or that you think
would surprise people, given allthe narratives that we hear.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
So I've been living in Mexico for 23 years.
I came here from the UK 23years ago and it's a country I
love very much and I've spentmost of my adult life here.
One of the things I say aboutthis in terms of the gun
violence and the violence hereis look, a lot of the news, it's
hard to get a nuancedperspective of this.
So one of the things thatsurprises people is that we're
(37:23):
actually in Mexico City.
They've actually done a lot ofwork to try and reduce the
violence here in Mexico City,and Mexico City has now a lower
murder rate than many US citiesper capita Now, not only lower
than some of the most violent UScities like Baltimore or New
Orleans, also lower than some ofthe mid-level US cities like
(37:45):
Houston and Dallas, and even now, more recently, lower than a
place Portland Oregon which hadan increase in gun violence.
So that's, I think, somethingwhich often people will find
surprising and this nuance.
Often people will ask aboutMexico.
How about can I go to Cancun,to the resort?
Now, many, many people visitMexico at a time and have great
(38:06):
times, and there's certainplaces in Mexico you can go to,
like Mexico City, like to thetourist resorts.
There are other places that arereally, really violent.
So that's one of the things, Ithink, which is kind of
surprising.
I think probably as well, likea sense that Mexico as well is
not a really backward country.
(38:28):
There was something recently aRepublican politician said are
they eating cat food out of tins?
Or something he said cat foodout of cans If it wasn't for us
it was kind of.
And one about Mexico is acomplex country, so it's a
country with over a trilliondollar economy.
It's a country with over aquarter of young people now
(38:49):
going to higher education, withpeople, with doctors and so on.
Some big, highly educatedMexico has been in many places
where you have the guys in skimasks, in AK-47s, have been to
the village of El Chapo in themountains and been through an
evangelical ceremony with hismother and sat there.
We have the armed men coming inTo tell you another story about
(39:11):
the kind of extreme side ofthis and one of the kind of very
concerning and why I thinkabout the conflict as well is
when you see the recruitment ofchildren, particularly young
boys, into the cartels and thereare a lot of women in there as
well, but a lot of young boys,particularly used for cannon
fodder, and there was one.
I mean, I've been here 23 yearsand some of the crazy thing now
(39:31):
is you see kids who were noteven born when I first started
carving this, who are now thehitmen and they're very young
and I've been to some of theseyouth prisons and talked to
young 13, 14, 15 year olds whohave committed multiple murders
and this kind of crazy thousandyards.
(39:52):
Stare, they can have.
But also there's so muchvictims and victimizers.
Because that age you'rerecruited by the ins and ins of
the cartel and what you have?
There's one story of a kid whowas known as Juan Pistolas and
(40:31):
it was one pistol translationand he began this kind of bit of
an endless photos of himcarrying the.
(41:29):
Seattle.
Join the cartel now and there'sa 40% chance you can be dead
within 10 years, but they stilldo it.
So, how you know, there'snothing offered better, better
parts in life than one thatleads to death.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Sort of in and that kind of awful, that sort of
feeling of like awfulinevitability that I could see
be present.
I'm gonna ask another sort ofdevil's advocate question on our
end, which is, you know if, ifthe US were to make these
reforms and kind of stem thetide of you know, or like kind
of damn, to continue using thatthe iron river analogy, but like
(42:06):
to kind of dam up the amount offirearms flowing into Into
Mexico, do you think that thatwould have a quick impact?
Or do you think you know thatthat would have an immediate
positive impact on the violencethat is happening within cart
with cartels?
Or do you think that therewould be another source that
would open up for for firearms?
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Yeah, sure.
So you know, first, this has tobe something which is seen a
little bit long-term or mediumterm we live.
I think one of the problems oftoday's age that we live in is
we're so Such stuff is suchshort-term.
I mean, we're all kind ofhooked on Social media, which is
like today's news this personsaid this and then they said
(42:43):
that in return, and we find itvery so.
We don't solve these kind ofbig problems, which is this has
been building up for two decadesor for more than that.
So I think anything we have tothink of a certain time here.
But, like you know, the otherthing is to think about, I think
like Pragmatic solutions tothis.
So people say, oh, you're nevergonna stop them getting guns,
so it's like we can't doanything, just give them guns,
(43:06):
rather than saying, okay, we'vegot to reduce the amount of
firearms they get and make firemore expensive One of the
problems as well with theabundance of firearms which
currently they get.
And then it is right nowthere's just not the basic
efforts being made to stop this.
So when you have this abundanceof firearms, so it's a question
of reducing it, now people say,well, okay, well, they're gonna
(43:27):
get guns from Russia or China,but they're much further away.
So you know, still like if youknow Russia providing China
running guns, it's more of achallenge.
You can try and you can try andthey gotta you know like
they've got a big amount onboats and so forth.
Now one big issue legitimatelybrought up by people hitting
back about this is you havecorruption the Mexican security
(43:48):
forces and you have firearmsbeing sold through corrupt
people the Mexican securityforces.
Now it does happen and you godown through Latin America and
you see this.
You see what appears to beabout a couple of thousand
firearms a year going missingfrom the Mexican security forces
, compared to a couple ofhundred thousand firearms a year
(44:08):
come from the United States.
If the Mexican soldiers wereselling all their guns to
cartels, they wouldn't have gunsthemselves.
They wouldn't be somewherewhere your guns was some of the
guys else, so it's pretty smallpercentage.
Now to get back to it About howlong term is this?
I mean, I think we've got tothink 10 years, 20 years and
again, those things are.
They're not that long away.
That's 10 years goes quickly.
(44:29):
I published my first book in2011 and I said 12 years ago and
when I published that and Ikind of naively thought then,
are these Come?
This is crazy and people aregonna realize this kind of whole
issue of of cartels and drugsand murders it's gonna stop.
And I was like, well, you know,talking to people saying, well,
we come back in 10 years timeand this will be like this
violence, be a thing of the past.
And 12 years later it's kind ofworse.
(44:50):
So 10 years go fast.
But you got to think aboutgenerations, about you know how
this happens, how it happens toour children, how I have
happened to growing up in thesesituations, to try and about
solutions.
But you have to have a Mexicangovernment and police forces
getting on top of the situation.
And again, I mean, you keep on.
If you turn that, if you reallyput a dam on the Iron River so
(45:15):
no more guns were coming,they've still got a bunch of
guns right now, but if they wantto get new guns, they gradually
, gradually become a degradedand weak.
As people get arrested and gunsget seized, they gradually kind
of lose strength.
If you could turn it right down, you gradually said, you know,
but there's at least a lot ofother things done as well.
They have to have preventionprograms, they have to have
better security forces or betterpolice forces admitting justice
(45:36):
.
But you know what's thealternative to do nothing and to
see this number of people dyingon both sides of the border.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Well, and even to that, if I mean, I'm presuming
if you're a listener to thispodcast and you've stuck around
this long, you care about people, so I feel like we don't have
to fight for the case of youshould care about a Mexican
citizen as much as an Americanone.
So I'm just gonna leapfrog overthat.
But your book also, even thoughdetails, if there's someone who
really is a firm America onlyperson they're like, and a lot
(46:03):
of times because of thatintersection of drugs and guns
and the back and Forselling,like a gun may be trafficked
from the US and into Mexico andthen back up again.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Well, yeah, I think one case which which a lot of
Americans were very concernedabout, a lot of people the
conservative side were veryconcerned about, was this gun
which was trafficked to a carthat a Mexican came back and was
used in the murder of BrianTerry, who was from the Bortak
elites kind of border patrolelite force and Killed.
(46:37):
Now, in that case that was onewhich had been watched by the
ATF under Fast and Furious.
So so, yeah, I mean so you hadthis operation where they
watched two thousand guns go tocartels.
One of the theories was likehere in Mexico is like oh, these
guns go to the scene a lot ofcar.
So so this is obviously showingthat the Mexican government and
the US government are workingto see a lot of car.
Tell, now, there are legitimatethings there, but I don't think
(46:59):
what that was in this case.
But anyway, the second thingwas here in Mexico people were
like America obviously wantsMexico to be violent, but they
said they deliberately settingguns to cartels and in the
United States by some of thehard line people was by the NRA
themselves like this wasdeliberately Plot to make the
American gun industry look bad,to try and take away assault
(47:20):
rifles and this is all by theObama administration.
That was kind of the idea.
Now I think all of those aremistaken looking at this and
that really it was First acompletely bot operation.
But it shows two things.
One, the huge amounts of gunsthat are going down, but also
how these kind of federaloperations play out and kind of
these are these idea of makingthese kind of big conspiracy
(47:40):
cases, which they failed on very, very badly.
And One of the sad things aboutit was that was in 2011.
It kind of put this issue oftrafficking guns to Mexico off
the agenda for a decade, and itwas in 2021 when the Mexican
government Filed this lawsuitabout gun companies.
That has been put back on theagenda and it's now on the
(48:02):
agenda in a big way.
So now's an opportunity to kindof really get to this.
The other thing is, I think, toreally much, very much, alive
this with the issues, and youknow it's very good that you're
looking into this issue.
I like this with the issues inthe United States.
The issues of gun victims orvictims of gun violence in the
(48:22):
United States and victims andviolence in Mexico or anywhere
is completely linked and You'vegot, you know children dying
from gun violence in the UnitedStates.
You know You've got all ofthese things happening there so
very much and there was, youknow, having efforts of this of
unifying and groups in Mexicokind of supporting these kind of
rights much for our lives andthese kind of things well, this
(48:43):
has been great and I feel likewe have we could talk for hours
an hour.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
This has been our dream since 2021, so we've had
time.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
This is the problem, yeah well, I guess the last word
, you know it's always try toget.
It's always good to try andhave a positive note and and
that can be difficult when yousee this kind of level of of
death.
And again, I mean these StoriesI've mentioned there are
thousands of them about.
(49:10):
You know people who sufferedhere amid the violence.
It is, and I think it will belooked back on as a historic
case of gun trafficking to avery violent situation I would
say a hybrid armed conflict inMexico.
We'll look back on this themillions of guns being
trafficked to a very, veryhorrific armed conflict, hybrid
(49:33):
armed conflict in Mexico and, atthe same time, as like, very
sad stories of many, manyAmericans dying from gun
violence but also dying fromdrug overdose in the United
States and a very, verylegitimate concerns about that.
But these are things which arenot impossible.
These are not impossible thingsto fix.
This is, you know.
You know Humans have sentpeople to the moon.
(49:56):
You know how easy is it, howdifficult is it to stop.
The most violent organizationson the planet have so many
firearms from these companiesand I think we are at a moment
now, a very crucial moment inthis, where there is Chances of
things changing and there ishope, so.
(50:18):
So I hope you know like fromthese Conversations, from this
moment, they won't be.
Look back is just a missedopportunity.
But you know the beginning ofchange and again in 10, 20 years
time looking back on this.
So well, things start to changeand now there's no longer
35,000 you know murders,relatives, every year in Mexico.
But it's a thing of the past.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
I appreciate that, ending on a hopeful note, and
thank you for all of your workbecause I know as part of our
work, kelly and I talked tovictims and survivors almost
every day and vicarious traumais real and it's a hard thing.
So I appreciate your work somuch.
And and where can folks findyou and your books and in your
current writing?
Speaker 3 (50:58):
Yeah, sure, so you can find my books on on Amazon
or wherever you buy your booksblood, gun money, how America
arms gangs and cartels.
I have a free newsletter youcan subscribe to you for free,
which you can find atwwwcrashoutmediacom.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you, hey, want to sharewith the podcast.
Listeners can now get in touchwith us here at red, blue and
Brady via phone or text message.
Simply call or text us at480744 3452 with your thoughts.
Questions concerns ideas, catpictures, whatever thanks for
(51:39):
listening.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
As always, brady's life-saving work in Congress,
the courts and communitiesacross the country is made
possible.
Thanks to you.
For more information on Bradyor how to get involved in the
fight against gun violence,please like and subscribe to the
podcast.
Get in touch with us at BradyUnited or on social at Brady
buzz.
Be brave and remember.
Take action, not sites.
(52:01):
You, you.
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