April 17, 2024 • 28 mins
In this episode, Sheriff Mike Bouchard discusses the rise of Chilean gang burglaries in Oakland County, Michigan. He explains that these transnational gang burglary crews are using the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) to enter the country and commit crimes. Sheriff Bouchard emphasizes the need to secure the border and reform the VWP to prevent these criminal activities. The conversation also touches on the prevalence of fentanyl in Michigan, the importance of securing firearms, and the need for resources to address sexual assault cases. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday, Wednesday, & Friday. For more info visit TudorDixonPodcast.com
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. I am excited today
because we have a sheriff from right here in the
beautiful state of Michigan, and he is such an amazing guy.
He gave me a lot of advice when I was
running for governor, and he has done great things for
the state of Michigan. He is the Oakland County Sheriff.
His name is Mike Bichard, and he oversees one of
(00:22):
the largest sheriff's offices in the nation. And I want
to get to everything that's going on and how we
can be fighting crime better and what he's seeing on
the ground. But first I want to give you a
quick update on how you can help out the folks
that are going through all of this in Israel right now.
It's been about six months since the brutal attack by Hamas,
(00:43):
but as you know, this is an ongoing war and
our brothers and sisters in Israel need our help. Is
in October, the attacks on Israel have only increased, especially
in the North. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
is on the ground now addressing all the needs as
they come in. And I just want you to know
that your life saving donation today can help provide a
(01:04):
bomb shelter in that area of Israel that needs it
the most. You have to understand when the siren goes off,
people only have fifteen seconds or less to get to safety.
Twenty people can fit inside of each one of these
mobile bomb shelters. They're constructed to withstand rocket attacks and
they meet the standards approved by the IDF. IFCJ has
(01:26):
helped renovate and install nearly three thousand bomb shelters. The
cost of one bomb shelter is fifteen thousand dollars and
the goal for April is five bomb shelters. We're asking
our listeners to give just fifty dollars. If three hundred
of you give just fifty dollars, will have a new
bomb shelter installed. And if you're able to increase that
(01:47):
and share your generosity and give five hundred or more,
your name will be included on a special plaque placed
on the bomb shelter to help make sure you visit
SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. That's one word, it's support IFCJ dot org.
Thank you, and now I want to bring you in.
Sheriff Bouchard, thank you so much for being here. With
(02:10):
us today, pleasure. You know, I've been watching what's going
on with these housebreak ins. I think we've all kind
of seen this across the country. We've really seen this
concern over what we think is Chilean gangs. And that's
why I wanted to have you on. I wanted you
to explain exactly what's going on. I think it's really
(02:30):
scary when you see this from the perspective of a homeowner. Gosh,
this could happen anywhere if it's happening in Oakland County.
So can you get into a little bit about what
you're seeing there.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, So we became aware of a spike in a
particular home burglary style a m as we call it
in our business method of operation in twenty three and
maybe in the very beginning of twenty two, just a
little bit of a sprinkle there, but in twenty three
it really ramped up dramatically, and by the end end
of twenty three, we were getting hammered multiple burglaries every week,
(03:05):
and we determined, through a lot of investigation and partnering
with our law enforcement partners and agencies across the country,
that this was what they call transnational gang burglary crews,
and for us, the ones that had been hitting us
so tremendously hard were Chilean gangs. And we knew that
(03:25):
for a fact ultimately because we actually had arrested seven
individuals and two different crews. One crew was focused on
high end home burglaries and the other was doing armed
robberies of jewelry stores. So they had done two robberies
of jewelry stores in Oakland County and were caught coming
out of the second one by the Violent Crime Task Force,
(03:47):
which is kind of a cooperative effort with the FBI
and state and local agencies that's housed right here on
my campus, and they caught them coming out of a
jewelry store robbery. The other crew had been caught actually
a different police agency, but our investigators were able to
piece together evidence and place them in numerous burglaries across
(04:08):
the state of Michigan, but a number of them right
here in Oakland County, and we got charges on them.
All seven were from Chile.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So if they are are they seeking asylum? Are they
just coming over here and sneaking? And how do you
know that? And what can be done about that?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So the way these transnational gangs are operating. There's two
kind of distinct methodologies. Ones they're calling the tourist burglars,
where they're using a lower scrutiny process called Visa Waiver
Program VWP. And through the VWP, they can apply online,
which gets a lot less scrutiny and kind of background vetting,
(04:50):
if you will, than a traditional visa, and once they
get here, they basically completely violate all conditions of the VWP,
and we don't even know for sure sometimes who they
are even when they apply and they.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Is that program specific to Chile or is that other
countries as well?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Well? It's specific to Chile in this case, as they're
the only country in South America that is able to
utilize the VWP as determined by our country. There are
other countries across the world that have VWP, but Chile's
the only one in South America. Columbia has applied to
get that same program as well, and so the ones
(05:29):
that we have caught all utilize that program. Immediately got
into the country, got fake identities, had been highly highly trained,
came equipped and skilled almost like a special ops team,
to then wow either trade, which was to attack either
homes or jewelry stores, and they were doing it with
great precision. They were at one point probably taking almost
(05:52):
a million a week out of Oakland County.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Now, when they go into these homes, is this an
operation where they know the people or not home or
has anyone ever been home when this has happened?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
So yes to both. They try to do it when
no one's home. But sometimes people have changed their pattern
their pattern of life, if you will, and they have
been home. Surprising the burglars who the Chileans typically have fled,
they seem to be non confrontational. The Colombian transnational gangs
(06:23):
that are hammering other areas have not been the same modality.
They're more than happy to be confrontational or even be armed.
So far the Chileans have fled. So they do a
lot of what we call pre ops surveillance where they
determine pattern of life, where they determine whether you're going
to be home or not, when you go out to dinner,
when you go on vacation, if you're a snowbird and
(06:46):
you head south, all of those things. They do it
in a variety of methodologies. Sometimes trail cam, sometimes tracker
on cars, sometimes drown you know, they use a variety
of things to determine best times to attack a home
and from where to attack it. They like homes that
back up to like woods or golf courses or something
(07:06):
that have kind of a less observed approach point. And
typically they come in through the back. Lots of times
they even go to the second story. They pop out
the window with a glass punch. They go through a
window or door, they don't open it, and they use
very sophisticated technology, almost electronic warfare, if you will, where
they jam signals. So if you have a wireless wow,
(07:29):
wireless alarm, wireless sensors, glass breaks, etc. They'll jam those
and your alarm system will never go off or communicate out.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
So then you can do video camera still work or
how does that work?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Only if you've got hard wired equipment. So wow, these
jammers can jam a variety of frequencies. The more expensive
wireless sometimes have the ability to rotate and look for
a way to get that signal through, but we've not
seen one that's successfully done that here.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Wow. So this program, this VISA program, My understanding is
that there has been a congressman I believe, who is
called to stop this visa program. Is that correct.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
A number of people have called to have it stopped,
and it's still ongoing obviously, you know. And the point
of it is this, if they just stop the BWP
program for Chili, they can still come and visit. They
have to get a traditional visa and that comes with
a higher level of scrutiny in different conditions. So it
doesn't stop people that are legitimately coming here to visit.
(08:35):
It just makes sure that this program, which is highly
abused and it's actually termed you can google it. They're tourists, burglars, tourists, criminals, tourist,
transnational gangs that are coming here with the intent of
violating the country on a variety of levels. And like
I said, it's all across the country. The last intelligence
(08:55):
estimate that I saw, just the Chilean gangs alone, which
are typically to six people, are over one hundred teams
in operation right now in America.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Oh my word. Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll
continue next on the Tutor Dixon podcast. So you are
actually working nationwide. You've seen this in other states as well.
It's not just Michigan.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yes, yeah, I tuned into it very quickly when I
saw the trend and connected with my national and federal partners,
and actually then I took it a step further. I
created a task force right here in southeast Michigan with
three counties, local, state, and federal agencies who all willingly
jumped on board to help combat this together. Because we
(09:40):
know that they're moving. You know, they'll hit an area
for three four days, maybe a week or so, and
then onto another community, could be Ohio, Indiana. I know
they've been hammering Arizona lately. We know California is getting hammered, Virginia,
New York. They're all across the country, Florida.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
So you feel like you do have the support of
state and federal behind us.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Well qualified, you know, the state and federal worker bees,
the state certainly, yes, the federal agencies, the agents and
the folks, they all want to very much help and
be involved and stop it. But the policy level, the
policy makers higher up in Washington haven't done anything to
help or stop.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So what do you think the answer is to getting
these these gangs out? I mean, is it just an
arrest and deport or no?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
It's the ultimate answer. I mean, we're you know, literally
putting our finger in the dyke trying to stop a flood.
The ultimate answer is to stop it where it's coming from.
And it's coming two ways. It's either violating the VWP,
the visa waiver program, or it's coming illegally across the
southern border. Those are the two modalities. So obviously securing
the border and moving back to a traditional visa are
(10:57):
the ways to stem the tide. Well, the other thing, ultimately,
we're going to have to work with our partners, the
international partners in those countries and our international agencies to
figure out where these people are being so highly trained.
I mean basically it's like operating a terrorist training camp
in a different country to get them ready to come
here and commit crime in our country. And so obviously
(11:21):
they're being trained very well somewhere where, and how can
we put a stop to that? Collectively?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Where are they staying when they come? Do you have
any idea? Are they being sponsored by people? Are they
staying in hotels?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
It's kind of a mix, but it's very trangent, So
sometimes it's hotels, sometimes it's the Airbnb. We know because
of COVID, a lot of apartment complexes changed all of
their application to an online so they use false ID,
they do applications to an apartment, and they get it
as they run it for a period of time, they
(11:55):
use it for as long as they want to be
in that area, they abandon that idea and they move on.
You know, it can be in a variety of places
because they are so very trangent.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
You mentioned seeing this in twenty two and twenty three.
Is this new from those years or have you seen
this in the past.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
It was new to us a little bit, as I said,
just and really didn't come on our radar in twenty two.
By twenty three we were really getting a ramp up
and a spike, and you know, I did a deep
dive and started contacting our partners. I'm head of government
affairs for major County Sheriffs of America, so I reached
out to some of the other big sheriff's office in
(12:32):
the country and found out, you know, we have a problem,
and this is what's going on, and this is where
it's coming from, and this is what we needed to
be prepared for and to start engaging.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Well, we have another problem, and that is fentanyl. And
I'm just seeing all this discussion right now about China
wanting to continue to ship fentanyl and getting money from
the United States to continue to produce more fentyl. There
was a big fentanyl bust in Detroit just a couple
of weeks ago. I actually was when I was campaigning.
(13:07):
I came through your crime lab, which is one of
the only crime labs in the state and I believe
the largest crime lab in the state of Michigan. And
I have to say it was a moment that was
very surreal to me because you see this on TV
and they show you, you know, these big blocks of drugs.
But when we were in your crime lab, one of
the analysts brought out She's like, well, this is what
(13:29):
I'm looking at today, And it was strange to me
because it was like a brick, and she said it
was fentanyl and it had the Jeep logo that was
pressed into this brick. Why is it like that? Why
are we seeing that?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
So, you know, everybody does branding, including drug dealers, so
they come up with their own logos, their own branding
to kind of get their own street recognition, so people
would seek out their particular brand, if you will. What
we're seeing is the fentanyl because of China China has
actual factories that are producing the precursors and the chemicals
(14:07):
for fentanyl, synthetic ventanyl and other kinds of drug activity
that comes out of China and then flows into America
in a variety of ways, including illegal shipping, but probably
most most of it's coming across the southern border or
other ways. And it's now got to such a point
where fentanyl is so incredibly cheap and the distribution of
(14:28):
it is so wide and broad that you almost have
no idea what you're getting fentanyl in because it's being
used as an additive or a kicker, and almost everything,
even marijuana, if you purchase marijuana on the street, it
could be laced with fentanyl these days. And so my
suggestion is to folks that you know marijuana is legal
in Michigan, go to a licensed, inspected, and regulated marijuana
(14:50):
dispensary if you're going to smoke or use marijuana, because
if you buy it in the street, you have no
idea if it's laced with fentanyl, and fentanyl if it depends,
and the strength of that particular synthetic or whatever you're getting,
even the head of a pin can kill you. And
so we're seeing it put into counterfeit pills, Like a
kid may think they're going to buy an adderall or
(15:12):
a valume to get ready for finals or something like that,
and they're getting a counterfeit pill that they have pill
presses and it looks like the pill you think you want,
but it's got fentanyl in it, and one pill can kill.
And we're actually holding a town hall to better educate
the community on that tonight, to focus on helping people
understand how prevalent this is, how far spread it is,
(15:35):
that it's everywhere. I mean, my daughter played soccer with
a lot of people, and of that people that's my
work phone. Of those people that she played soccer with,
three of them have already perished from an overdose. So
the path to addiction and the path to overdose and
death comes in a variety of ways, including sports injuries,
(15:58):
which is what happened with those three younger girls, that
they had sports injuries and when the pain meds ran out,
they went to the street to get something of equivalent.
Then they ended up dying.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
And so that is so common. I mean, I've heard
so many of these stories of parents who children in
their late teens and twenties who had exactly what you're saying,
who had an injury in high school, ended up getting
some sort of prescription medication and then when it ran out,
it's just so easy to have somebody say this is
a purposet or this is that, or this is something safe,
(16:30):
and you purchase it, and then they find their own
they find their own child in their room dead right.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
And some of those parents are going to speak at
our town hall and to go back to the crime lab.
In our crime lab, I asked them at one point
to do kind of just an anecdotal what are you
seeing today in terms of what you're testing, And that
included like cocaine, heroin, other kinds of drugs. In eighty
percent of what they tested there was a fentanyl component. So,
(16:59):
like I said, dumped into so many different things and
you have no idea. Obviously, there's no quality control or
inspection for what you're buying on the street, and they
don't care if you live or die because there's another
customer around the corner.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I think that there is such a feeling of safety
around marijuana these days, and it was something that a
lot of sheriffs across the state of Michigan said to me, well,
we've got the licensed growers, and then we have this
black market, and the black market has grown, but you know,
we're not really going after it right now. But that
(17:35):
was they at that point. They weren't saying, well, there's
ventanyl in the black market. But the interesting thing to
me is that also when I would meet with growers,
they would say, oh, we're under such scrutiny. They come
into our grow operation every week and we have all
of these tests that we have to turn in. I
think that's important for people to know though, that these
(17:57):
people who are legally selling marijuana have to go through
the state and the state has to make sure that
this does not have anything outside of marijuana, it doesn't
have these danger drugs. When you are in a state
that where marijuana is legal, if you are buying it
on the black market, you are in grave danger one
hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Well, it also undercuts those people that are paying the
taxes and the regulatory fees to do it right. And
we've seen in other states, including California, where the Cartela
has moved in heavily into the marijuana trade inside the
state of California because they can undercut the prices and
they use their you know, very violent tactics to go
(18:39):
after the share of the market. And so you've seen
California try to react to that. And you know, we
need to have very tough laws about people that are
operating the black market and legitimate businesses that are legal,
because it completely undermines both the legal business and the
safety of that business. If you don't you know, as
you said, I've said, you have no idea what you're
(19:02):
getting from these black market folks because they don't care
about that safety, they don't have the inspections in the
regulatory process, and you have no idea of whatsoever of
whether it's got adulterated components like phenyl, whether it's got dust,
mites or mold, all of the things that could dramatically
affect your health.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. I like that you're doing a
town hall on this stuff, and I'm wondering if this
is something that as a state we need to do
more education on it. There's a couple of things that
I want to talk about education on this is one,
and I love that you're doing this town hall. The
(19:43):
other one, there's a new law that passed that is,
if you have an unsecured gun and a child gets
a hold of it and something happens, you are held
accountable and that's a crime. I am totally in I
am in complete support of securing your weapon. Whether or
not that's a law, I think that it needs to be.
(20:05):
People need to be educated on. Do you feel like
people in the state of Michigan this just happened again
last week where grandparents had an unsecured gun and a
little child ended up dying because they got a hold
of the gun. Do you feel like there's been enough
education in these areas when it comes to the safety
of marijuana or this particular law.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah. I mean we try to do the safety instructions
and education process and to do a lot of that outreach,
and we have for a long time. I started giving
out gunlocks probably fifteen years ago maybe or more for
free and tried to do education on that. I mean,
if you're a gun owner, you've got to be a
(20:47):
responsible gun owner. That's a no brainer. I mean I
was a police officer for almost the vast majority of
my kid's life, so I always had weapons. But I
also treated them with respect and made sure when the
kids as were little, they were secured and properly out
of their reach. And then as they grew older, I
taught them weapon safety. I taught them how to respect
(21:09):
that weapon, how to treat it as if it's loaded
at all times. And then even then I didn't leave
it for them to get curious about until they were
the age where I'm confident they were well trained. And
ultimately I've got a active duty military son and a
police officer, so I guess they learned pretty well. So
you know, that's a process that it was a responsible
(21:32):
adult and a respon responsible weapon holder. You should do
so US teaching that is important in US sharing that information.
I mean, you think it's common sense, but common sense
seems to be very uncommon.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I think you think it is common sense, but all
of these things, I think education is always a good
thing to make sure that people know and people are aware.
And oftentimes I do think that there are situations where
a grandparent doesn't think that kids will be over you know,
they just don't think about it anymore because their kids
are older. And even you know, we had someone on
(22:07):
the podcast who their son went to a friend's house,
and it didn't strike me until I saw their story
out there about the friend going over the son going
to a friend's house, and I thought, gosh, do I
then go to the parents of all of my kid's
friends and say, hey, do you have a weapon? And
do you have it secured? And it's a conversation I
hadn't thought about before, But I think that as I've
(22:28):
been educated on this, even though I don't have a
gun in the house, it's made me think about, well,
who else do I know that might well one.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Hundred percent, And that's an education process with you and
your kids. So I used to have that conversation when
I had young kids. Look, if you go to a
house and somebody pulls out a weapon, you leave, walk
out of the house and leave. I will come get
you anywhere, no questions asked, because it's not that that
kid is intending to get anyone hurt. But I saw
(22:57):
very personally a tragedy. It happened less than a mile
from my house, where three or four kids were in
a house and they found a weapon and they were
looking at it and touching it, and it discharged and
it shot this young girl and she was permanently paralyzed
for the rest of her life, and that, you know,
struck very close to my home. And so then I
had that conversation with my kids as they were beginning
(23:19):
to visit other kids' homes. Look, you know, you know
what a weapon looks like. You've seen me come home
with one. I've trained you on them. But that doesn't
mean anyone else has an idea of what they can
do or how it can happen. And so if they
pull out a firearm and they want to start looking
at it or playing with it, leave, don't engage them
in conversations or try to teach them. Not your job.
(23:41):
Your job is to leave and get out of that situation.
So you have to have second layer conversations with your
kids about what to do if they find themselves in
unsafe situations. And that's just not firearms, that's you know.
I had that conversation with my kids about if they
are driving somewhere to a party and the drive were
of their car started drinking, don't rely on them for
(24:03):
a drive home again. Call me or someone, no questions asked,
will come get you. You know, what do you do
when you find yourself in these situations. Those are conversations
parents have to have in advance. But sometimes parents are
so busy and they don't live in the world I
live in where I see tragedy every day, So they
may not think about these things. And that's why these
(24:24):
educational outreaches and these town halls are important for them
to go. Oh my gosh, I never thought about that.
I got to sit down with my son or daughter
and talk to them about this, that or the other.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, these are great PSAs because I mean, life is busy.
Sometimes we don't think about that one other thing I
want to hit before I let you go. In Michigan,
we are in the top five for rapes per capita.
You are the rape kits generally go to your lab.
But you have told me in the past that if
(24:56):
there were more resources in the state of Michigan to
go so after these people, then you think we could
even reduce that number of rapes in the state. What
do you think it would take to protect women and
put more safeguards around women in the state.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, I think that. You know, that's an important topic
to have resources put behind what you find is a problem.
And for me, you know, I have seen sexual assault
is one of the big problems. Going back early in
my career, I worked on the Oakin County child killer
as a very very young police officer, and later the
Oakan County rapist, and it's part of what drove me
(25:34):
in my short stint in politics when I was a
state senator to write the Sex Offender Registry Act, then
to be very involved in victim rights legislation, because there
are so many things that could and should be done
for the victims of these crimes that I didn't see
being done, and to this day, I still don't see
some of the attention to that. That's part of why
(25:56):
I started a DNA crime lab here so that we
could give a quicker turnaround. You know, the state police
do a great job, but again they're under resource, like
everybody in public safety, and we had submitted a DNA
sample to the state and waited almost thirteen months on
one case to get the results, and in the meantime
there were two more victims. And so that's when I
(26:18):
decided that I was going to try to hold that
destiny in our own hands, to help our victims have
a quicker turnaround, and to prioritize things as we needed
in house, and so we started our own DNA lab
and have. Now we're a bit backloged, but it's certainly
not those kinds of timelines. But if we had more resources,
(26:39):
I think we would be backloged.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I think it's one of those things that people don't
think about when we talk about defunding the police and
taking resources away, that you are actually preventing crimes from happening,
because those labs, that those resources, they show you who
it is and who's going to do it again. And
that's something that I think is critical for us as
we move forward as a country and certainly as a state,
(27:01):
that we say we've got to get away from this
mindset that we take money away from the people who
protect us, because I really feel like that is the
number one fundamental of government. You want a government that
provides public safety, and I can't think of anything more
important than making sure that predators who are out there
are stopped before they can hurt another person.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
One hundred percent. We're investigating a criminal sexual conduct last night,
and we now believe at least two or three other
victims of young age from the same perpetrator. You'll find
typically a perpetrator once they become comfortable in whatever they're
doing begins to accelerate.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
We appreciate everything that you do every day. Thank you
so much. You're always out there talking about it too.
And these PSAs tell us when you are going to
have the town.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Hall, well, town hall on Fentanyls actually tonight and then
tonight next month, we plan on doing town hall on
high and burglaries and home safety. And we're going to
do that in conjunction with the realtors because last time
realtors are in homes and they're concerned too.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Wonderful. All right, well, we will keep our audience posted
of when you're doing that, and we appreciate everything you do.
Sheriff Mike Bouchard from Oakland County, Michigan, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Thank you, thanks for having.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Me absolutely and thank you all for joining us on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For this episode and others, go
to Tutor Dixon podcast dot com. You can subscribe right there,
or head over to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts and join us next time.
Have a blessed day,
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. I am excited today
because we have a sheriff from right here in the
beautiful state of Michigan, and he is such an amazing guy.
He gave me a lot of advice when I was
running for governor, and he has done great things for
the state of Michigan. He is the Oakland County Sheriff.
His name is Mike Bichard, and he oversees one of
(00:22):
the largest sheriff's offices in the nation. And I want
to get to everything that's going on and how we
can be fighting crime better and what he's seeing on
the ground. But first I want to give you a
quick update on how you can help out the folks
that are going through all of this in Israel right now.
It's been about six months since the brutal attack by Hamas,
(00:43):
but as you know, this is an ongoing war and
our brothers and sisters in Israel need our help. Is
in October, the attacks on Israel have only increased, especially
in the North. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
is on the ground now addressing all the needs as
they come in. And I just want you to know
that your life saving donation today can help provide a
(01:04):
bomb shelter in that area of Israel that needs it
the most. You have to understand when the siren goes off,
people only have fifteen seconds or less to get to safety.
Twenty people can fit inside of each one of these
mobile bomb shelters. They're constructed to withstand rocket attacks and
they meet the standards approved by the IDF. IFCJ has
(01:26):
helped renovate and install nearly three thousand bomb shelters. The
cost of one bomb shelter is fifteen thousand dollars and
the goal for April is five bomb shelters. We're asking
our listeners to give just fifty dollars. If three hundred
of you give just fifty dollars, will have a new
bomb shelter installed. And if you're able to increase that
(01:47):
and share your generosity and give five hundred or more,
your name will be included on a special plaque placed
on the bomb shelter to help make sure you visit
SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. That's one word, it's support IFCJ dot org.
Thank you, and now I want to bring you in.
Sheriff Bouchard, thank you so much for being here. With
(02:10):
us today, pleasure. You know, I've been watching what's going
on with these housebreak ins. I think we've all kind
of seen this across the country. We've really seen this
concern over what we think is Chilean gangs. And that's
why I wanted to have you on. I wanted you
to explain exactly what's going on. I think it's really
(02:30):
scary when you see this from the perspective of a homeowner. Gosh,
this could happen anywhere if it's happening in Oakland County.
So can you get into a little bit about what
you're seeing there.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, So we became aware of a spike in a
particular home burglary style a m as we call it
in our business method of operation in twenty three and
maybe in the very beginning of twenty two, just a
little bit of a sprinkle there, but in twenty three
it really ramped up dramatically, and by the end end
of twenty three, we were getting hammered multiple burglaries every week,
(03:05):
and we determined, through a lot of investigation and partnering
with our law enforcement partners and agencies across the country,
that this was what they call transnational gang burglary crews,
and for us, the ones that had been hitting us
so tremendously hard were Chilean gangs. And we knew that
(03:25):
for a fact ultimately because we actually had arrested seven
individuals and two different crews. One crew was focused on
high end home burglaries and the other was doing armed
robberies of jewelry stores. So they had done two robberies
of jewelry stores in Oakland County and were caught coming
out of the second one by the Violent Crime Task Force,
(03:47):
which is kind of a cooperative effort with the FBI
and state and local agencies that's housed right here on
my campus, and they caught them coming out of a
jewelry store robbery. The other crew had been caught actually
a different police agency, but our investigators were able to
piece together evidence and place them in numerous burglaries across
(04:08):
the state of Michigan, but a number of them right
here in Oakland County, and we got charges on them.
All seven were from Chile.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So if they are are they seeking asylum? Are they
just coming over here and sneaking? And how do you
know that? And what can be done about that?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So the way these transnational gangs are operating. There's two
kind of distinct methodologies. Ones they're calling the tourist burglars,
where they're using a lower scrutiny process called Visa Waiver
Program VWP. And through the VWP, they can apply online,
which gets a lot less scrutiny and kind of background vetting,
(04:50):
if you will, than a traditional visa, and once they
get here, they basically completely violate all conditions of the VWP,
and we don't even know for sure sometimes who they
are even when they apply and they.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Is that program specific to Chile or is that other
countries as well?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Well? It's specific to Chile in this case, as they're
the only country in South America that is able to
utilize the VWP as determined by our country. There are
other countries across the world that have VWP, but Chile's
the only one in South America. Columbia has applied to
get that same program as well, and so the ones
(05:29):
that we have caught all utilize that program. Immediately got
into the country, got fake identities, had been highly highly trained,
came equipped and skilled almost like a special ops team,
to then wow either trade, which was to attack either
homes or jewelry stores, and they were doing it with
great precision. They were at one point probably taking almost
(05:52):
a million a week out of Oakland County.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Now, when they go into these homes, is this an
operation where they know the people or not home or
has anyone ever been home when this has happened?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
So yes to both. They try to do it when
no one's home. But sometimes people have changed their pattern
their pattern of life, if you will, and they have
been home. Surprising the burglars who the Chileans typically have fled,
they seem to be non confrontational. The Colombian transnational gangs
(06:23):
that are hammering other areas have not been the same modality.
They're more than happy to be confrontational or even be armed.
So far the Chileans have fled. So they do a
lot of what we call pre ops surveillance where they
determine pattern of life, where they determine whether you're going
to be home or not, when you go out to dinner,
when you go on vacation, if you're a snowbird and
(06:46):
you head south, all of those things. They do it
in a variety of methodologies. Sometimes trail cam, sometimes tracker
on cars, sometimes drown you know, they use a variety
of things to determine best times to attack a home
and from where to attack it. They like homes that
back up to like woods or golf courses or something
(07:06):
that have kind of a less observed approach point. And
typically they come in through the back. Lots of times
they even go to the second story. They pop out
the window with a glass punch. They go through a
window or door, they don't open it, and they use
very sophisticated technology, almost electronic warfare, if you will, where
they jam signals. So if you have a wireless wow,
(07:29):
wireless alarm, wireless sensors, glass breaks, etc. They'll jam those
and your alarm system will never go off or communicate out.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
So then you can do video camera still work or
how does that work?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Only if you've got hard wired equipment. So wow, these
jammers can jam a variety of frequencies. The more expensive
wireless sometimes have the ability to rotate and look for
a way to get that signal through, but we've not
seen one that's successfully done that here.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Wow. So this program, this VISA program, My understanding is
that there has been a congressman I believe, who is
called to stop this visa program. Is that correct.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
A number of people have called to have it stopped,
and it's still ongoing obviously, you know. And the point
of it is this, if they just stop the BWP
program for Chili, they can still come and visit. They
have to get a traditional visa and that comes with
a higher level of scrutiny in different conditions. So it
doesn't stop people that are legitimately coming here to visit.
(08:35):
It just makes sure that this program, which is highly
abused and it's actually termed you can google it. They're tourists, burglars, tourists, criminals, tourist,
transnational gangs that are coming here with the intent of
violating the country on a variety of levels. And like
I said, it's all across the country. The last intelligence
(08:55):
estimate that I saw, just the Chilean gangs alone, which
are typically to six people, are over one hundred teams
in operation right now in America.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Oh my word. Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll
continue next on the Tutor Dixon podcast. So you are
actually working nationwide. You've seen this in other states as well.
It's not just Michigan.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yes, yeah, I tuned into it very quickly when I
saw the trend and connected with my national and federal partners,
and actually then I took it a step further. I
created a task force right here in southeast Michigan with
three counties, local, state, and federal agencies who all willingly
jumped on board to help combat this together. Because we
(09:40):
know that they're moving. You know, they'll hit an area
for three four days, maybe a week or so, and
then onto another community, could be Ohio, Indiana. I know
they've been hammering Arizona lately. We know California is getting hammered, Virginia,
New York. They're all across the country, Florida.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
So you feel like you do have the support of
state and federal behind us.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Well qualified, you know, the state and federal worker bees,
the state certainly, yes, the federal agencies, the agents and
the folks, they all want to very much help and
be involved and stop it. But the policy level, the
policy makers higher up in Washington haven't done anything to
help or stop.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So what do you think the answer is to getting
these these gangs out? I mean, is it just an
arrest and deport or no?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
It's the ultimate answer. I mean, we're you know, literally
putting our finger in the dyke trying to stop a flood.
The ultimate answer is to stop it where it's coming from.
And it's coming two ways. It's either violating the VWP,
the visa waiver program, or it's coming illegally across the
southern border. Those are the two modalities. So obviously securing
the border and moving back to a traditional visa are
(10:57):
the ways to stem the tide. Well, the other thing, ultimately,
we're going to have to work with our partners, the
international partners in those countries and our international agencies to
figure out where these people are being so highly trained.
I mean basically it's like operating a terrorist training camp
in a different country to get them ready to come
here and commit crime in our country. And so obviously
(11:21):
they're being trained very well somewhere where, and how can
we put a stop to that? Collectively?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Where are they staying when they come? Do you have
any idea? Are they being sponsored by people? Are they
staying in hotels?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
It's kind of a mix, but it's very trangent, So
sometimes it's hotels, sometimes it's the Airbnb. We know because
of COVID, a lot of apartment complexes changed all of
their application to an online so they use false ID,
they do applications to an apartment, and they get it
as they run it for a period of time, they
(11:55):
use it for as long as they want to be
in that area, they abandon that idea and they move on.
You know, it can be in a variety of places
because they are so very trangent.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
You mentioned seeing this in twenty two and twenty three.
Is this new from those years or have you seen
this in the past.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
It was new to us a little bit, as I said,
just and really didn't come on our radar in twenty two.
By twenty three we were really getting a ramp up
and a spike, and you know, I did a deep
dive and started contacting our partners. I'm head of government
affairs for major County Sheriffs of America, so I reached
out to some of the other big sheriff's office in
(12:32):
the country and found out, you know, we have a problem,
and this is what's going on, and this is where
it's coming from, and this is what we needed to
be prepared for and to start engaging.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Well, we have another problem, and that is fentanyl. And
I'm just seeing all this discussion right now about China
wanting to continue to ship fentanyl and getting money from
the United States to continue to produce more fentyl. There
was a big fentanyl bust in Detroit just a couple
of weeks ago. I actually was when I was campaigning.
(13:07):
I came through your crime lab, which is one of
the only crime labs in the state and I believe
the largest crime lab in the state of Michigan. And
I have to say it was a moment that was
very surreal to me because you see this on TV
and they show you, you know, these big blocks of drugs.
But when we were in your crime lab, one of
the analysts brought out She's like, well, this is what
(13:29):
I'm looking at today, And it was strange to me
because it was like a brick, and she said it
was fentanyl and it had the Jeep logo that was
pressed into this brick. Why is it like that? Why
are we seeing that?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
So, you know, everybody does branding, including drug dealers, so
they come up with their own logos, their own branding
to kind of get their own street recognition, so people
would seek out their particular brand, if you will. What
we're seeing is the fentanyl because of China China has
actual factories that are producing the precursors and the chemicals
(14:07):
for fentanyl, synthetic ventanyl and other kinds of drug activity
that comes out of China and then flows into America
in a variety of ways, including illegal shipping, but probably
most most of it's coming across the southern border or
other ways. And it's now got to such a point
where fentanyl is so incredibly cheap and the distribution of
(14:28):
it is so wide and broad that you almost have
no idea what you're getting fentanyl in because it's being
used as an additive or a kicker, and almost everything,
even marijuana, if you purchase marijuana on the street, it
could be laced with fentanyl these days. And so my
suggestion is to folks that you know marijuana is legal
in Michigan, go to a licensed, inspected, and regulated marijuana
(14:50):
dispensary if you're going to smoke or use marijuana, because
if you buy it in the street, you have no
idea if it's laced with fentanyl, and fentanyl if it depends,
and the strength of that particular synthetic or whatever you're getting,
even the head of a pin can kill you. And
so we're seeing it put into counterfeit pills, Like a
kid may think they're going to buy an adderall or
(15:12):
a valume to get ready for finals or something like that,
and they're getting a counterfeit pill that they have pill
presses and it looks like the pill you think you want,
but it's got fentanyl in it, and one pill can kill.
And we're actually holding a town hall to better educate
the community on that tonight, to focus on helping people
understand how prevalent this is, how far spread it is,
(15:35):
that it's everywhere. I mean, my daughter played soccer with
a lot of people, and of that people that's my
work phone. Of those people that she played soccer with,
three of them have already perished from an overdose. So
the path to addiction and the path to overdose and
death comes in a variety of ways, including sports injuries,
(15:58):
which is what happened with those three younger girls, that
they had sports injuries and when the pain meds ran out,
they went to the street to get something of equivalent.
Then they ended up dying.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
And so that is so common. I mean, I've heard
so many of these stories of parents who children in
their late teens and twenties who had exactly what you're saying,
who had an injury in high school, ended up getting
some sort of prescription medication and then when it ran out,
it's just so easy to have somebody say this is
a purposet or this is that, or this is something safe,
(16:30):
and you purchase it, and then they find their own
they find their own child in their room dead right.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
And some of those parents are going to speak at
our town hall and to go back to the crime lab.
In our crime lab, I asked them at one point
to do kind of just an anecdotal what are you
seeing today in terms of what you're testing, And that
included like cocaine, heroin, other kinds of drugs. In eighty
percent of what they tested there was a fentanyl component. So,
(16:59):
like I said, dumped into so many different things and
you have no idea. Obviously, there's no quality control or
inspection for what you're buying on the street, and they
don't care if you live or die because there's another
customer around the corner.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I think that there is such a feeling of safety
around marijuana these days, and it was something that a
lot of sheriffs across the state of Michigan said to me, well,
we've got the licensed growers, and then we have this
black market, and the black market has grown, but you know,
we're not really going after it right now. But that
(17:35):
was they at that point. They weren't saying, well, there's
ventanyl in the black market. But the interesting thing to
me is that also when I would meet with growers,
they would say, oh, we're under such scrutiny. They come
into our grow operation every week and we have all
of these tests that we have to turn in. I
think that's important for people to know though, that these
(17:57):
people who are legally selling marijuana have to go through
the state and the state has to make sure that
this does not have anything outside of marijuana, it doesn't
have these danger drugs. When you are in a state
that where marijuana is legal, if you are buying it
on the black market, you are in grave danger one
hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Well, it also undercuts those people that are paying the
taxes and the regulatory fees to do it right. And
we've seen in other states, including California, where the Cartela
has moved in heavily into the marijuana trade inside the
state of California because they can undercut the prices and
they use their you know, very violent tactics to go
(18:39):
after the share of the market. And so you've seen
California try to react to that. And you know, we
need to have very tough laws about people that are
operating the black market and legitimate businesses that are legal,
because it completely undermines both the legal business and the
safety of that business. If you don't you know, as
you said, I've said, you have no idea what you're
(19:02):
getting from these black market folks because they don't care
about that safety, they don't have the inspections in the
regulatory process, and you have no idea of whatsoever of
whether it's got adulterated components like phenyl, whether it's got dust,
mites or mold, all of the things that could dramatically
affect your health.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. I like that you're doing a
town hall on this stuff, and I'm wondering if this
is something that as a state we need to do
more education on it. There's a couple of things that
I want to talk about education on this is one,
and I love that you're doing this town hall. The
(19:43):
other one, there's a new law that passed that is,
if you have an unsecured gun and a child gets
a hold of it and something happens, you are held
accountable and that's a crime. I am totally in I
am in complete support of securing your weapon. Whether or
not that's a law, I think that it needs to be.
(20:05):
People need to be educated on. Do you feel like
people in the state of Michigan this just happened again
last week where grandparents had an unsecured gun and a
little child ended up dying because they got a hold
of the gun. Do you feel like there's been enough
education in these areas when it comes to the safety
of marijuana or this particular law.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah. I mean we try to do the safety instructions
and education process and to do a lot of that outreach,
and we have for a long time. I started giving
out gunlocks probably fifteen years ago maybe or more for
free and tried to do education on that. I mean,
if you're a gun owner, you've got to be a
(20:47):
responsible gun owner. That's a no brainer. I mean I
was a police officer for almost the vast majority of
my kid's life, so I always had weapons. But I
also treated them with respect and made sure when the
kids as were little, they were secured and properly out
of their reach. And then as they grew older, I
taught them weapon safety. I taught them how to respect
(21:09):
that weapon, how to treat it as if it's loaded
at all times. And then even then I didn't leave
it for them to get curious about until they were
the age where I'm confident they were well trained. And
ultimately I've got a active duty military son and a
police officer, so I guess they learned pretty well. So
you know, that's a process that it was a responsible
(21:32):
adult and a respon responsible weapon holder. You should do
so US teaching that is important in US sharing that information.
I mean, you think it's common sense, but common sense
seems to be very uncommon.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I think you think it is common sense, but all
of these things, I think education is always a good
thing to make sure that people know and people are aware.
And oftentimes I do think that there are situations where
a grandparent doesn't think that kids will be over you know,
they just don't think about it anymore because their kids
are older. And even you know, we had someone on
(22:07):
the podcast who their son went to a friend's house,
and it didn't strike me until I saw their story
out there about the friend going over the son going
to a friend's house, and I thought, gosh, do I
then go to the parents of all of my kid's
friends and say, hey, do you have a weapon? And
do you have it secured? And it's a conversation I
hadn't thought about before, But I think that as I've
(22:28):
been educated on this, even though I don't have a
gun in the house, it's made me think about, well,
who else do I know that might well one.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Hundred percent, And that's an education process with you and
your kids. So I used to have that conversation when
I had young kids. Look, if you go to a
house and somebody pulls out a weapon, you leave, walk
out of the house and leave. I will come get
you anywhere, no questions asked, because it's not that that
kid is intending to get anyone hurt. But I saw
(22:57):
very personally a tragedy. It happened less than a mile
from my house, where three or four kids were in
a house and they found a weapon and they were
looking at it and touching it, and it discharged and
it shot this young girl and she was permanently paralyzed
for the rest of her life, and that, you know,
struck very close to my home. And so then I
had that conversation with my kids as they were beginning
(23:19):
to visit other kids' homes. Look, you know, you know
what a weapon looks like. You've seen me come home
with one. I've trained you on them. But that doesn't
mean anyone else has an idea of what they can
do or how it can happen. And so if they
pull out a firearm and they want to start looking
at it or playing with it, leave, don't engage them
in conversations or try to teach them. Not your job.
(23:41):
Your job is to leave and get out of that situation.
So you have to have second layer conversations with your
kids about what to do if they find themselves in
unsafe situations. And that's just not firearms, that's you know.
I had that conversation with my kids about if they
are driving somewhere to a party and the drive were
of their car started drinking, don't rely on them for
(24:03):
a drive home again. Call me or someone, no questions asked,
will come get you. You know, what do you do
when you find yourself in these situations. Those are conversations
parents have to have in advance. But sometimes parents are
so busy and they don't live in the world I
live in where I see tragedy every day, So they
may not think about these things. And that's why these
(24:24):
educational outreaches and these town halls are important for them
to go. Oh my gosh, I never thought about that.
I got to sit down with my son or daughter
and talk to them about this, that or the other.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, these are great PSAs because I mean, life is busy.
Sometimes we don't think about that one other thing I
want to hit before I let you go. In Michigan,
we are in the top five for rapes per capita.
You are the rape kits generally go to your lab.
But you have told me in the past that if
(24:56):
there were more resources in the state of Michigan to
go so after these people, then you think we could
even reduce that number of rapes in the state. What
do you think it would take to protect women and
put more safeguards around women in the state.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, I think that. You know, that's an important topic
to have resources put behind what you find is a problem.
And for me, you know, I have seen sexual assault
is one of the big problems. Going back early in
my career, I worked on the Oakin County child killer
as a very very young police officer, and later the
Oakan County rapist, and it's part of what drove me
(25:34):
in my short stint in politics when I was a
state senator to write the Sex Offender Registry Act, then
to be very involved in victim rights legislation, because there
are so many things that could and should be done
for the victims of these crimes that I didn't see
being done, and to this day, I still don't see
some of the attention to that. That's part of why
(25:56):
I started a DNA crime lab here so that we
could give a quicker turnaround. You know, the state police
do a great job, but again they're under resource, like
everybody in public safety, and we had submitted a DNA
sample to the state and waited almost thirteen months on
one case to get the results, and in the meantime
there were two more victims. And so that's when I
(26:18):
decided that I was going to try to hold that
destiny in our own hands, to help our victims have
a quicker turnaround, and to prioritize things as we needed
in house, and so we started our own DNA lab
and have. Now we're a bit backloged, but it's certainly
not those kinds of timelines. But if we had more resources,
(26:39):
I think we would be backloged.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I think it's one of those things that people don't
think about when we talk about defunding the police and
taking resources away, that you are actually preventing crimes from happening,
because those labs, that those resources, they show you who
it is and who's going to do it again. And
that's something that I think is critical for us as
we move forward as a country and certainly as a state,
(27:01):
that we say we've got to get away from this
mindset that we take money away from the people who
protect us, because I really feel like that is the
number one fundamental of government. You want a government that
provides public safety, and I can't think of anything more
important than making sure that predators who are out there
are stopped before they can hurt another person.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
One hundred percent. We're investigating a criminal sexual conduct last night,
and we now believe at least two or three other
victims of young age from the same perpetrator. You'll find
typically a perpetrator once they become comfortable in whatever they're
doing begins to accelerate.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
We appreciate everything that you do every day. Thank you
so much. You're always out there talking about it too.
And these PSAs tell us when you are going to
have the town.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Hall, well, town hall on Fentanyls actually tonight and then
tonight next month, we plan on doing town hall on
high and burglaries and home safety. And we're going to
do that in conjunction with the realtors because last time
realtors are in homes and they're concerned too.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Wonderful. All right, well, we will keep our audience posted
of when you're doing that, and we appreciate everything you do.
Sheriff Mike Bouchard from Oakland County, Michigan, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Thank you, thanks for having.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Me absolutely and thank you all for joining us on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For this episode and others, go
to Tutor Dixon podcast dot com. You can subscribe right there,
or head over to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts and join us next time.
Have a blessed day,
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.