May 29, 2026 • 28 mins
he cartels control up to 45% of Mexico, infiltrate every level of government, and operate in more than 100 countries worldwide.
My guest, former Mexican diplomat and veteran narcotics investigator Victor Galarza, explains why the reality is far worse than most Americans realize.
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Dinesh D'Souza is an author and filmmaker. A graduate of Dartmouth College, he was a senior domestic policy analyst in the Reagan administration. He also served as a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
He is the author of many bestselling books, including "Illiberal Education," "What's So Great About Christianity," "America: Imagine a World Without Her," "The Roots of Obama's Rage," "Death of a Nation," and "United States of Socialism."
His documentary films "2016: Obama's America," "America," "Hillary's America," "Death of a Nation," and "Trump Card" are among the highest-grossing political documentaries of all time. He and his wife Debbie are also executive producers of the acclaimed feature film "Infidel."
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
I'm really happy to have a guest who is an
expert on the Mexican cartels and their influence also in
the United States. I'm talking to Victor Galarza. He's been
in law enforcement since twenty eleven. He's a decorated detective
sergeant supervisor of the Narcotics Division unit in the Southwest
(00:38):
region of Colorado. He's been credited with some of the
largest narcotics investigations. He's also currently vice president for Colorado
Drug Investigators Association. A former Mexican diplomat in the US,
Victor Galarza has been He's had experience in the Mexican Navy.
The Mexican Army also investigated a number of cartels, going
(01:02):
way back to the Guadalajara Cartel, but also more recently
the Lasztas Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, and others. Victor, what
a pleasure. Thank you for joining me. Let me begin
by asking you about the cartels. President Trump said recently
(01:23):
that you know, he was talking about Claudia Scheinbaum, and
he goes, well, she's a very nice lady, but he goes,
but she doesn't run Mexico. The cartels run Mexico and
This is, of course an.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Idea many of us have.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
The cartels are kind of a state within a state.
Is that an accurate description of the cartels? How powerful
are they really?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
That is absolutely correct. The Mexican transnational criminal organization, some
of which have being classified now as foreign terrorist organizations,
are without doubt the number one criminal threat to the
United States in certain parts of Mexico, anywhere between thirty
five to forty five percent of the entire national country.
(02:06):
They controlled that area, and they control it from military,
they control it from state and local governments, and they
have influence all the way to the top. That will
be correct.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
So this is a very striking thing you just said,
and it actually reminds me of something that I heard
from the Salvadoran president Bukele. He said, you know, hey,
if you go to Europe, he goes, there's crime over there.
But you can't say that the criminal organizations control the
south of France or that they control Rome. They don't
actually control territory. They operate within territory. But I think
(02:43):
what you're saying is that in Mexico, and perhaps this
is true in other parts of Latin and South America
as well, you have these cartels that actually control whole
regions of the country.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
That is correct. They operate under as system called the
plan a system. The word plus in Spanish is jurisdiction,
and they control these areas within punity. That would be correct.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Can you explain how this comes to be?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
And I say that because again coming back to something
Bouquele said which struck me. He said, look, who's more
powerful the national government or some criminal syndicate. He goes,
national government has an army, it has a navy, it
has an air force. He goes, the national government is
obviously more powerful. And therefore, if the cartels are running
(03:35):
parts of the country, or maybe even all of the country,
that has to be because the government is letting them
do it, or because they have somehow infiltrated the government.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So is that what's happened in Mexico.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
You can describe a Mexican government that's incredibly powerful. They
have a very capable army, they have a very capable navy. However,
the question is do they want to operate against these
groups that control local government, state government, and influenced all
the way to the top. Some years ago, I have
a good friend of which I'm not going to mention
(04:11):
his name a colonel in the Mexican Navy. And when
I go over and I ask him, how come we
are not done with this fight against these groups? And
very simply what he answered, word for word is they
don't let us talking about the Mexican federal government due
to the influences that these foreign terrorist organizations. And let's
(04:33):
be very clear, I don't like using the word cartel.
They are in fact foreign terrorist organizations that have now
cost the life of over four hundred and sixty thousand Mexicans,
let alone the one hundred and sixty thousand Americans that
have been killed due to the overdose of very legal
narcotics being brought into the United States.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And is the main weapon that these terrorist organizations terrorist cartels?
Is their main weapon bribery or is it fear? In
other words, what is the most powerful mechanism that they
use to have influence within the Mexican government. Is it
(05:15):
that they're paying people off or is it that the
government officials are scared of them?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I guess it all depends on which organization you're talking
about today. Let's let's or let's talk about instance. We
just saw the killing of elementa the leader of this group,
and I can tell you that as we speak right now,
there's a new leader that just took over that organization.
That organization was known to have in their pockets local
(05:44):
state and even national military law enforcement and members of
the military in their pockets. So were they willing to
throw money at what they call their problem, their influence,
their political ability to influence these areas, Yes, they would
throw money to it. But if we talk about another group,
Cartel Noste, which is a splinter group from the old
(06:07):
Cetas Cartel Cetas Cartel no longer exists. Now you have
two branches. One is Cartel, the fourth largest most powerful
criminal organization in Mexico. They're a little more well not
a little more, they are definitely more vicious, more violent,
and they would throw bullets plommeo instead of plata silver
(06:30):
to the problem.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Would it be accurate to say that Mexican citizens pretty
much throughout the country are aware of this problem and
operate with a certain level of fear by recognizing that
it's a problem that can at any time kind of
(06:51):
come to their front door. In other words, somebody could
be kidnapped, or somebody could be caught in the crossfire.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
How serious is this a.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Problem in the ordinary fabric of Mexican life?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
And again, it all depends on the region that you're
talking about. Again, it's between thirty five and forty five
percent of these national territory that these organizations control. In
some of these places they act as narco populists. They
provide food, they provide healthcare, they provide during COVID nineteen,
they provided all the necessary areams that the Mexican government
(07:26):
is not providing to the people that resided in those
specific areas. In some places they call him Los Baliantes
the brave ones, because they're narco populous. They act on
behalf of the people of that specific area. But if
you go to other areas of conflict, let's say Sinaloa,
let's say Noble Leon, Tamaulipas, around the border area now
(07:49):
in Sonora, you have areas where, yes, it is a
place where people are terrified of what could happen at
any moment in time.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
You know, Victor, when you talked about these narco populists,
in some ways, it reminds me of a group like Hamas,
because at some level you have organizations, terrorist organizations, that.
In Hamasa's case, of course they were able to win
an election in the early two thousands in Gaza.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
But of course you also have terrorist groups like.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
ISIS which do beheading this kind of exhibitionist violence. They
use tunnels, for example, to hide hostages, and I understand
that tunneling is also one of the ways in which
some of these cartels are able to borrow their way
into the United States. Can you talk about the eerie similarities.
(08:45):
I mean, maybe it's not surprising to you because you
see the cartels as terrorist organizations, so maybe it's not
such a big surprise that they resemble the terrorist strategies
that we identify with them.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
At least that's correct. In fact, two, just when Elmento died,
they took over twenty different well not took over, but
there was twenty different states of the national territory that
were influenced with that violence. February twenty second to February
twenty six, twenty states of the entire nation were engulfed
(09:21):
in fire, just due to the fact that the leader
had been killed. We go back to twenty and nineteen,
during an event called El Kuliakanaso, the fight for the
city of Kuliacan. The city is three hundred and fifty
thousand people strong, a very rich city, very influential city,
the capital city of the state of Sinaloa. When the
(09:43):
son of a Chapeul Guzman, Oviedio Guzman, was temporarily detained,
the armies and I say again, the armies of La Chapizza,
which is the faction of Lochapitos. Los Chapitos is the
leaders of the group that splinter from the Sinaloa cartel.
The entire group is known as Lachapizza. The leadership is
(10:06):
known as Los Chiapitos. They were able to initiate a
takeover of the entire capital city, blocking roadways, taking over
the local prison, taking kidnapping, went into a military base,
a Mexican federal military base, and kidnapped federal families, law
enforcement and military officers, and threatened the Mexican government, if
(10:31):
you do not release Obilio Guzman, we will start killing.
At that point in time, the Mexican President Amlo Andres
Manuel Lopez Rador said you are powerful enough, off ware,
we will release him. And that was that they released him.
That's how powerful these groups are. Yes they do have armies,
and yes they affiliated with a multiple all of their
(10:53):
criminal organizations, not just in Mexico, not just in the
United States, not just in Canada, but throughout the entire world.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
There is a view in America that the cartel's main
commodity is drugs, and that somehow if drugs were legalized
in the United States, this would create a kind of
market for drugs, the government would regulate it, and some
of this drug violence would abate or maybe even go away.
(11:28):
My instinct is that is the wrong way to think
about this, and that the cartels are into, first of all,
a lot of other things besides drugs. Can you elaborate
why drug legalization is perhaps not a solution to this problem.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Well, that's the reason why I don't like to call
them cartels. The definition of cartel is a conglamortive individuals
that come together to with their various expertises, to keep
control of one product, a monopoly. And at that point
in time when a cartel was first named or created
in Mexico, that was the al Jada Carta. Yes, there
were experts at the production manufacturing at the beginning of marijuana.
(12:08):
Eventually they got into the game with cocaine. Nowadays, these
organizations are more have expanded their business models. Not only
are they doing drug trafficking, but they do motor vehicle theft,
They do train robberies, they do the theft of wildlife,
the trafficking of wildlife. Not too long ago in Mexico,
(12:31):
I'm not going to say exactly where, but I was
offered to purchase a Mexican brown and dangered ego for
twenty five thousand dollars. They go after certain fish plotters,
which they send them over to China through the Vancouver
Port in Canada and eventually bring the precursors of crystal
meth and fetamine and fentanyl into Mexico to produce what
(12:53):
we know here in the US as the demand of fentanyl.
They do child pornography. Mexico's one of the largest producers
of child exploitation material in the entire planet. They do
human trafficking, obviously organ trafficking. Nowadays, now that the US
border has been almost completely secured I'm not going to
(13:14):
say completely secured, but secured at the southern border, they
have to change that business model. So instead of focusing
on illegal immigration and human smuggling, now a specific group,
the Cartelacon new duration cartels. Now they're having young women
(13:35):
from Latin America who are pregnant. They bring into their organization,
they keep control of them. They force labor by sea section.
The females do the ladies do not survive the sea section.
They take the child and they sell it in the
block market for eighteen hundred dollars. They will do anything
and everything to make a buck. So no, these are
(13:55):
not drug cartels. These are foreign terrorist organistas that operate
now in over one hundred countries around the world.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Talk about the cartel operations, and you understand, I'm using
cartel very much now in the way that you mean
just using the term. And you've talked about how they're
involved in Alaska, they're involved in Italy. So these are
very much international crime organizations. Talk about the influence in
(14:29):
the United States. Now, I'm assuming that in the Biden years,
with the border being a lot more porous, these people
had a much easier time of it.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Isn't that right?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
I mean, they had an essentially free conveyance across the border.
And now I think you said a moment ago it's
more restricted. But who's to say that they don't already
have a considerable presence in the United States.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
That would be correct. We estimate that there's about one
hundred seventy five thousand flag flying members of various different
criminal groups which we call foreign terrorist organizations and or
transnational criminal groups. Some of them, yes, they will be
operating right here in the United States, while in Mexico
they have a system that we now know as the
(15:18):
plus A system. That system does not work in the
United States. Give you an example the city of Albuquerque,
City of Albuquerque, which is not too far away from me,
that's called a hub of distribution, in which various members
of various criminal groups from Mexico have said station and
there they do the multiple different criminal enterprises that they're
(15:44):
involved in, including human trafficking, motor vehicle theft, train robbery,
yes right here in the United States. It just happened
in Flagstaff, Arizona, just last year. Motor vehicle theftfs I mentioned,
and yes, drug trafficking, drug trafficking which includes the very
popular substance which is crystal methin fetamine, crystal meth and fetamine.
(16:05):
In this case, what I'm holding right here is about
a pound of crystal method fetamine. This is just examples
of various investigations that we had. This today is one
hundred percent pure crystal methn fetamine. That is the risk
that we're facing today, one of the risks. The other
one would be a great example fentanyl, the fentanyl pills
(16:28):
which are out there, the fake oxycotton fentanyl pills. How
we know that the border is being secured and how
we know that this is working. Back in twenty nineteen,
I can make a telephone conversation, an undercover telephone conversation,
to various individuals in the city of al Kaque, and
I can order one of these pills for twenty five cents.
(16:52):
Twenty five cents a pill. Now the prices are going
up right now as we speak. If I were to
buy in book these pills, and this is just an example,
if I were to buy, let's say a thousand of
these little devils, these little pills that can kill a
human with no problem. Now it's costing me about a
dollar in fifty cents to two dollars. So the rise
(17:15):
and price tells us that that border is actually working,
that securing of the border is working. However, we still
don't need to do quite a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
What do you think Victor is the way to tackle
this immense problem that seems to have its headquarters in
parts of Mexico, but its tentacles reach all over the place.
Is it the case at the end that you have
to strike at the root of the problem and that
(17:45):
trying to tackle it in its subsidiaries is not going
to work? Or do you need a kind of battle
at all levels in which you, on the one hand,
need to tackle the problem in the United States.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Trump is somehow employed.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
That there may be a way to even strike at
the cartels in Mexico. I'm assuming that this would have
to be some kind of a joint operation with the
Mexican government. Do you foresee any of this even happening.
I mean, this problem has been with us for a while.
I would expect it's gotten worse. It's clearly not going
to be all that easy to root out. If Trump
(18:21):
were to call you right now and say, tell me
the first three things I need to do, what would
those be?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Continue the influence against the Mexican federal government by implementing
those terrorists, that's number one. For the last thirteen years
that I've been teaching about the subject, I have always said,
go to the cash cow of the Mexican government, which
that would be Pemis Petoleu's Mexicanos, Mexican Petroleum, Mexican Petroleum.
(18:50):
One way in the fight done by the mex and
themselves against these criminal groups also focus on the corruption,
the corruption from the very top to the very bottom.
And lastly, I would say, we need to secure our
well number three, we need to secure our border. Even more.
(19:13):
There is not only the southern border to Mexico to
the United States, but also the incredibly poorest border with
Canada and the United States, which these organizations have learned
to use as well.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
In past years, my wife and I have gone to Cabo,
we've gone to Puntameda, which is near Port of Iyarta,
and usually there is a sense of being in a
very safe environment. But when we talk to people, like
someone who works at a hotel and we say, hey,
is there a cartel influence here? They go, oh, yes,
(19:45):
this most certainly is. It almost appears that for tourists,
for the most part, the cartels keep a sort of
a low profile. And maybe that's because the cartels invest
in these hotels. I'm not really sure. I mean, is
it safe for Americans to go to Mexico or should
Americans stay away.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I give you another perfect example. Myself took the wife
to a beautiful city is called San Miguel the Agende,
beautiful place. It's on the list of places that you
must go in your lifetime in the travel magazine. The
reason I wanted to go there is to prove self
censoring by these organizations, by the local and state government
(20:28):
stay self censored.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
San Miguel the Agenda is a very beautiful colonial city
in which there's a lot of American and Canadian expats uh.
And my purpose of going there was to prove that
cj regnition was operating in that city. During my research.
During that time, I was able to come across a
(20:52):
get up by a get up by a sabindo of
at this pon time methanphetamine uh in the in the
bendle of methane. I mean it was stamped right there,
ho and Mexico made in Mexico CJNG with the name
of the city there is. The theory is that if
you do not put the information out there, it will
(21:14):
not harm tourism, which is a great economy for Mexico.
Obviously right now as we speak, due to the terroriffs
that have been placed again from the United States onto
Mexico and because of a drought. This is the first
time in fifteen years that Mexican agriculture has not made
it into the top four of their economies. Right now,
(21:35):
we have manufacturing, PETROLUS, Mexicanos, Pemex oil, tourism. Those are
the big three at this point. So they don't want
to influence obviously their tourism. There are certain areas like
I said that, yes, you could travel, but you have
to be very safe and you have to be very aware.
But can at any moment in time can that change?
(21:56):
Someone like us can go this is Chicago, beautiful city
to win the city, perfect place, but what's around the
corner violence? So it all depends on where you travel
at one specific time. Do I suggest Americans travel right
now to Mexico as we speak. No, And that's another
(22:18):
thing I've been starting to talk about the Mexican Actually,
the Mexican government will be hosting the World Soccer in
the city capital city of Guadalajaa, in the capital city
of Mexico. Would there be a risk for people to
go there and attend these games? Yes, there would be.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
I mean, it seems to me, Victor, that there is
an added dimension to this, because now if I go
to Chicago, I'm in the wrong neighborhood. I've got to
look over my shoulder. I've got to be very careful.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
But on the other.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Hand, I at least have reasonable confidence. I mean, the
cops may be incompetent, maybe they avoid certain neighborhoods, but
I don't have to worry that the cops are in
it with the gangs, whereas it seems like in Mexico
a bigger worry is. I mean, on the one hand,
you have to worry about the bad guys, but on
the other hand, you have to worry that the good
(23:10):
guys may be in with the bad guys.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Right, absolutely, yes, there is a state of Champas the
secretary of security for the state, he was the number
one criminal mastermind of the group La Barada that was
under the leadership of CJNG. So yes, there might be
a rogue police elements. Absolutely yes.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Well, Victor, I want to thank you for the work
you've been doing to educate not just citizens but law
enforcement officials and dealing with a problem that requires a
lot of knowledge as well as a lot of expertise
I've been talking to Victor Galarza.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Victor, thank you very much for joining me.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Be safe.
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I'm really happy to have a guest who is an
expert on the Mexican cartels and their influence also in
the United States. I'm talking to Victor Galarza. He's been
in law enforcement since twenty eleven. He's a decorated detective
sergeant supervisor of the Narcotics Division unit in the Southwest
(00:38):
region of Colorado. He's been credited with some of the
largest narcotics investigations. He's also currently vice president for Colorado
Drug Investigators Association. A former Mexican diplomat in the US,
Victor Galarza has been He's had experience in the Mexican Navy.
The Mexican Army also investigated a number of cartels, going
(01:02):
way back to the Guadalajara Cartel, but also more recently
the Lasztas Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, and others. Victor, what
a pleasure. Thank you for joining me. Let me begin
by asking you about the cartels. President Trump said recently
(01:23):
that you know, he was talking about Claudia Scheinbaum, and
he goes, well, she's a very nice lady, but he goes,
but she doesn't run Mexico. The cartels run Mexico and
This is, of course an.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Idea many of us have.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
The cartels are kind of a state within a state.
Is that an accurate description of the cartels? How powerful
are they really?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
That is absolutely correct. The Mexican transnational criminal organization, some
of which have being classified now as foreign terrorist organizations,
are without doubt the number one criminal threat to the
United States in certain parts of Mexico, anywhere between thirty
five to forty five percent of the entire national country.
(02:06):
They controlled that area, and they control it from military,
they control it from state and local governments, and they
have influence all the way to the top. That will
be correct.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
So this is a very striking thing you just said,
and it actually reminds me of something that I heard
from the Salvadoran president Bukele. He said, you know, hey,
if you go to Europe, he goes, there's crime over there.
But you can't say that the criminal organizations control the
south of France or that they control Rome. They don't
actually control territory. They operate within territory. But I think
(02:43):
what you're saying is that in Mexico, and perhaps this
is true in other parts of Latin and South America
as well, you have these cartels that actually control whole
regions of the country.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
That is correct. They operate under as system called the
plan a system. The word plus in Spanish is jurisdiction,
and they control these areas within punity. That would be correct.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Can you explain how this comes to be?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
And I say that because again coming back to something
Bouquele said which struck me. He said, look, who's more
powerful the national government or some criminal syndicate. He goes,
national government has an army, it has a navy, it
has an air force. He goes, the national government is
obviously more powerful. And therefore, if the cartels are running
(03:35):
parts of the country, or maybe even all of the country,
that has to be because the government is letting them
do it, or because they have somehow infiltrated the government.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So is that what's happened in Mexico.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
You can describe a Mexican government that's incredibly powerful. They
have a very capable army, they have a very capable navy. However,
the question is do they want to operate against these
groups that control local government, state government, and influenced all
the way to the top. Some years ago, I have
a good friend of which I'm not going to mention
(04:11):
his name a colonel in the Mexican Navy. And when
I go over and I ask him, how come we
are not done with this fight against these groups? And
very simply what he answered, word for word is they
don't let us talking about the Mexican federal government due
to the influences that these foreign terrorist organizations. And let's
(04:33):
be very clear, I don't like using the word cartel.
They are in fact foreign terrorist organizations that have now
cost the life of over four hundred and sixty thousand Mexicans,
let alone the one hundred and sixty thousand Americans that
have been killed due to the overdose of very legal
narcotics being brought into the United States.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And is the main weapon that these terrorist organizations terrorist cartels?
Is their main weapon bribery or is it fear? In
other words, what is the most powerful mechanism that they
use to have influence within the Mexican government. Is it
(05:15):
that they're paying people off or is it that the
government officials are scared of them?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I guess it all depends on which organization you're talking
about today. Let's let's or let's talk about instance. We
just saw the killing of elementa the leader of this group,
and I can tell you that as we speak right now,
there's a new leader that just took over that organization.
That organization was known to have in their pockets local
(05:44):
state and even national military law enforcement and members of
the military in their pockets. So were they willing to
throw money at what they call their problem, their influence,
their political ability to influence these areas, Yes, they would
throw money to it. But if we talk about another group,
Cartel Noste, which is a splinter group from the old
(06:07):
Cetas Cartel Cetas Cartel no longer exists. Now you have
two branches. One is Cartel, the fourth largest most powerful
criminal organization in Mexico. They're a little more well not
a little more, they are definitely more vicious, more violent,
and they would throw bullets plommeo instead of plata silver
(06:30):
to the problem.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Would it be accurate to say that Mexican citizens pretty
much throughout the country are aware of this problem and
operate with a certain level of fear by recognizing that
it's a problem that can at any time kind of
(06:51):
come to their front door. In other words, somebody could
be kidnapped, or somebody could be caught in the crossfire.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
How serious is this a.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Problem in the ordinary fabric of Mexican life?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
And again, it all depends on the region that you're
talking about. Again, it's between thirty five and forty five
percent of these national territory that these organizations control. In
some of these places they act as narco populists. They
provide food, they provide healthcare, they provide during COVID nineteen,
they provided all the necessary areams that the Mexican government
(07:26):
is not providing to the people that resided in those
specific areas. In some places they call him Los Baliantes
the brave ones, because they're narco populous. They act on
behalf of the people of that specific area. But if
you go to other areas of conflict, let's say Sinaloa,
let's say Noble Leon, Tamaulipas, around the border area now
(07:49):
in Sonora, you have areas where, yes, it is a
place where people are terrified of what could happen at
any moment in time.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
You know, Victor, when you talked about these narco populists,
in some ways, it reminds me of a group like Hamas,
because at some level you have organizations, terrorist organizations, that.
In Hamasa's case, of course they were able to win
an election in the early two thousands in Gaza.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
But of course you also have terrorist groups like.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
ISIS which do beheading this kind of exhibitionist violence. They
use tunnels, for example, to hide hostages, and I understand
that tunneling is also one of the ways in which
some of these cartels are able to borrow their way
into the United States. Can you talk about the eerie similarities.
(08:45):
I mean, maybe it's not surprising to you because you
see the cartels as terrorist organizations, so maybe it's not
such a big surprise that they resemble the terrorist strategies
that we identify with them.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
At least that's correct. In fact, two, just when Elmento died,
they took over twenty different well not took over, but
there was twenty different states of the national territory that
were influenced with that violence. February twenty second to February
twenty six, twenty states of the entire nation were engulfed
(09:21):
in fire, just due to the fact that the leader
had been killed. We go back to twenty and nineteen,
during an event called El Kuliakanaso, the fight for the
city of Kuliacan. The city is three hundred and fifty
thousand people strong, a very rich city, very influential city,
the capital city of the state of Sinaloa. When the
(09:43):
son of a Chapeul Guzman, Oviedio Guzman, was temporarily detained,
the armies and I say again, the armies of La Chapizza,
which is the faction of Lochapitos. Los Chapitos is the
leaders of the group that splinter from the Sinaloa cartel.
The entire group is known as Lachapizza. The leadership is
(10:06):
known as Los Chiapitos. They were able to initiate a
takeover of the entire capital city, blocking roadways, taking over
the local prison, taking kidnapping, went into a military base,
a Mexican federal military base, and kidnapped federal families, law
enforcement and military officers, and threatened the Mexican government, if
(10:31):
you do not release Obilio Guzman, we will start killing.
At that point in time, the Mexican President Amlo Andres
Manuel Lopez Rador said you are powerful enough, off ware,
we will release him. And that was that they released him.
That's how powerful these groups are. Yes they do have armies,
and yes they affiliated with a multiple all of their
(10:53):
criminal organizations, not just in Mexico, not just in the
United States, not just in Canada, but throughout the entire world.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
There is a view in America that the cartel's main
commodity is drugs, and that somehow if drugs were legalized
in the United States, this would create a kind of
market for drugs, the government would regulate it, and some
of this drug violence would abate or maybe even go away.
(11:28):
My instinct is that is the wrong way to think
about this, and that the cartels are into, first of all,
a lot of other things besides drugs. Can you elaborate
why drug legalization is perhaps not a solution to this problem.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Well, that's the reason why I don't like to call
them cartels. The definition of cartel is a conglamortive individuals
that come together to with their various expertises, to keep
control of one product, a monopoly. And at that point
in time when a cartel was first named or created
in Mexico, that was the al Jada Carta. Yes, there
were experts at the production manufacturing at the beginning of marijuana.
(12:08):
Eventually they got into the game with cocaine. Nowadays, these
organizations are more have expanded their business models. Not only
are they doing drug trafficking, but they do motor vehicle theft,
They do train robberies, they do the theft of wildlife,
the trafficking of wildlife. Not too long ago in Mexico,
(12:31):
I'm not going to say exactly where, but I was
offered to purchase a Mexican brown and dangered ego for
twenty five thousand dollars. They go after certain fish plotters,
which they send them over to China through the Vancouver
Port in Canada and eventually bring the precursors of crystal
meth and fetamine and fentanyl into Mexico to produce what
(12:53):
we know here in the US as the demand of fentanyl.
They do child pornography. Mexico's one of the largest producers
of child exploitation material in the entire planet. They do
human trafficking, obviously organ trafficking. Nowadays, now that the US
border has been almost completely secured I'm not going to
(13:14):
say completely secured, but secured at the southern border, they
have to change that business model. So instead of focusing
on illegal immigration and human smuggling, now a specific group,
the Cartelacon new duration cartels. Now they're having young women
(13:35):
from Latin America who are pregnant. They bring into their organization,
they keep control of them. They force labor by sea section.
The females do the ladies do not survive the sea section.
They take the child and they sell it in the
block market for eighteen hundred dollars. They will do anything
and everything to make a buck. So no, these are
(13:55):
not drug cartels. These are foreign terrorist organistas that operate
now in over one hundred countries around the world.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Talk about the cartel operations, and you understand, I'm using
cartel very much now in the way that you mean
just using the term. And you've talked about how they're
involved in Alaska, they're involved in Italy. So these are
very much international crime organizations. Talk about the influence in
(14:29):
the United States. Now, I'm assuming that in the Biden years,
with the border being a lot more porous, these people
had a much easier time of it.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Isn't that right?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
I mean, they had an essentially free conveyance across the border.
And now I think you said a moment ago it's
more restricted. But who's to say that they don't already
have a considerable presence in the United States.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
That would be correct. We estimate that there's about one
hundred seventy five thousand flag flying members of various different
criminal groups which we call foreign terrorist organizations and or
transnational criminal groups. Some of them, yes, they will be
operating right here in the United States, while in Mexico
they have a system that we now know as the
(15:18):
plus A system. That system does not work in the
United States. Give you an example the city of Albuquerque,
City of Albuquerque, which is not too far away from me,
that's called a hub of distribution, in which various members
of various criminal groups from Mexico have said station and
there they do the multiple different criminal enterprises that they're
(15:44):
involved in, including human trafficking, motor vehicle theft, train robbery,
yes right here in the United States. It just happened
in Flagstaff, Arizona, just last year. Motor vehicle theftfs I mentioned,
and yes, drug trafficking, drug trafficking which includes the very
popular substance which is crystal methin fetamine, crystal meth and fetamine.
(16:05):
In this case, what I'm holding right here is about
a pound of crystal method fetamine. This is just examples
of various investigations that we had. This today is one
hundred percent pure crystal methn fetamine. That is the risk
that we're facing today, one of the risks. The other
one would be a great example fentanyl, the fentanyl pills
(16:28):
which are out there, the fake oxycotton fentanyl pills. How
we know that the border is being secured and how
we know that this is working. Back in twenty nineteen,
I can make a telephone conversation, an undercover telephone conversation,
to various individuals in the city of al Kaque, and
I can order one of these pills for twenty five cents.
(16:52):
Twenty five cents a pill. Now the prices are going
up right now as we speak. If I were to
buy in book these pills, and this is just an example,
if I were to buy, let's say a thousand of
these little devils, these little pills that can kill a
human with no problem. Now it's costing me about a
dollar in fifty cents to two dollars. So the rise
(17:15):
and price tells us that that border is actually working,
that securing of the border is working. However, we still
don't need to do quite a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
What do you think Victor is the way to tackle
this immense problem that seems to have its headquarters in
parts of Mexico, but its tentacles reach all over the place.
Is it the case at the end that you have
to strike at the root of the problem and that
(17:45):
trying to tackle it in its subsidiaries is not going
to work? Or do you need a kind of battle
at all levels in which you, on the one hand,
need to tackle the problem in the United States.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Trump is somehow employed.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
That there may be a way to even strike at
the cartels in Mexico. I'm assuming that this would have
to be some kind of a joint operation with the
Mexican government. Do you foresee any of this even happening.
I mean, this problem has been with us for a while.
I would expect it's gotten worse. It's clearly not going
to be all that easy to root out. If Trump
(18:21):
were to call you right now and say, tell me
the first three things I need to do, what would
those be?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Continue the influence against the Mexican federal government by implementing
those terrorists, that's number one. For the last thirteen years
that I've been teaching about the subject, I have always said,
go to the cash cow of the Mexican government, which
that would be Pemis Petoleu's Mexicanos, Mexican Petroleum, Mexican Petroleum.
(18:50):
One way in the fight done by the mex and
themselves against these criminal groups also focus on the corruption,
the corruption from the very top to the very bottom.
And lastly, I would say, we need to secure our
well number three, we need to secure our border. Even more.
(19:13):
There is not only the southern border to Mexico to
the United States, but also the incredibly poorest border with
Canada and the United States, which these organizations have learned
to use as well.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
In past years, my wife and I have gone to Cabo,
we've gone to Puntameda, which is near Port of Iyarta,
and usually there is a sense of being in a
very safe environment. But when we talk to people, like
someone who works at a hotel and we say, hey,
is there a cartel influence here? They go, oh, yes,
(19:45):
this most certainly is. It almost appears that for tourists,
for the most part, the cartels keep a sort of
a low profile. And maybe that's because the cartels invest
in these hotels. I'm not really sure. I mean, is
it safe for Americans to go to Mexico or should
Americans stay away.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I give you another perfect example. Myself took the wife
to a beautiful city is called San Miguel the Agende,
beautiful place. It's on the list of places that you
must go in your lifetime in the travel magazine. The
reason I wanted to go there is to prove self
censoring by these organizations, by the local and state government
(20:28):
stay self censored.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
San Miguel the Agenda is a very beautiful colonial city
in which there's a lot of American and Canadian expats uh.
And my purpose of going there was to prove that
cj regnition was operating in that city. During my research.
During that time, I was able to come across a
(20:52):
get up by a get up by a sabindo of
at this pon time methanphetamine uh in the in the
bendle of methane. I mean it was stamped right there,
ho and Mexico made in Mexico CJNG with the name
of the city there is. The theory is that if
you do not put the information out there, it will
(21:14):
not harm tourism, which is a great economy for Mexico.
Obviously right now as we speak, due to the terroriffs
that have been placed again from the United States onto
Mexico and because of a drought. This is the first
time in fifteen years that Mexican agriculture has not made
it into the top four of their economies. Right now,
(21:35):
we have manufacturing, PETROLUS, Mexicanos, Pemex oil, tourism. Those are
the big three at this point. So they don't want
to influence obviously their tourism. There are certain areas like
I said that, yes, you could travel, but you have
to be very safe and you have to be very aware.
But can at any moment in time can that change?
(21:56):
Someone like us can go this is Chicago, beautiful city
to win the city, perfect place, but what's around the
corner violence? So it all depends on where you travel
at one specific time. Do I suggest Americans travel right
now to Mexico as we speak. No, And that's another
(22:18):
thing I've been starting to talk about the Mexican Actually,
the Mexican government will be hosting the World Soccer in
the city capital city of Guadalajaa, in the capital city
of Mexico. Would there be a risk for people to
go there and attend these games? Yes, there would be.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
I mean, it seems to me, Victor, that there is
an added dimension to this, because now if I go
to Chicago, I'm in the wrong neighborhood. I've got to
look over my shoulder. I've got to be very careful.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
But on the other.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Hand, I at least have reasonable confidence. I mean, the
cops may be incompetent, maybe they avoid certain neighborhoods, but
I don't have to worry that the cops are in
it with the gangs, whereas it seems like in Mexico
a bigger worry is. I mean, on the one hand,
you have to worry about the bad guys, but on
the other hand, you have to worry that the good
(23:10):
guys may be in with the bad guys.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Right, absolutely, yes, there is a state of Champas the
secretary of security for the state, he was the number
one criminal mastermind of the group La Barada that was
under the leadership of CJNG. So yes, there might be
a rogue police elements. Absolutely yes.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Well, Victor, I want to thank you for the work
you've been doing to educate not just citizens but law
enforcement officials and dealing with a problem that requires a
lot of knowledge as well as a lot of expertise
I've been talking to Victor Galarza.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Victor, thank you very much for joining me.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Be safe.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
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