Chinese Mining Companies Are Partnering With Mexican Cartels

When you first started working with the Mexican government with this, it wasn't like it is now. Give everybody just a rundown of how it went down. So I went to work for state government down in Mexico, in Baja specifically. And this was in... This was 2004, right before the start of the official start of the kickoff of the drug war as... The kickoff. The kickoff. But there was... The official start was when Felipe Calderon came into office and said, you know what, gloves off. We're gonna go after the organized crime, right? We're gonna send the military onto the streets and they're gonna head up spearhead operations against the cartels. But before that, things were happening still. Scene of the law cartel was growing. There was a rift between the scene of the law cartel and Tijuana cartel, fragmentation. Cartel heads were being killed and one cartel turned into three, all this fragmentation. And then they basically militarized the war on drugs with Calderon. Came in, militarized the war on drugs. Immediately you start seeing that drug enforcement efforts were being put towards a single or a group of cartel groups, but not a major one like the scene of the law cartel. So you start seeing how they were basically taking sides. They were breaking up the competition. That's what you would gather from... And making it look like progress. And also Ochapo has been built up into this mythical figure. He was the head of the scene of the law cartel. He's the main guy. That's not true at all. He was an operator for the scene of the law cartel, but not the main operator. There's different theories about who was actually in charge or the brain behind the whole operation. When you say scene of the law cartel, it's not one group. It's a federation of several criminal groups, enterprises uniting and working in conjunction to put drugs into the United States. One of the things they do is put drugs into the United States. They do a lot of things, but that's one of the things they do. So certain people... There's a lot of people out there that theorize that El Mayo Sambada, which is Ochapo's compadre who's still out there, is the actual head of the scene of the law cartel and has been since the start. But you see how some of these people become celebrities. And as soon as somebody becomes a celebrity like Ochapo, who escaped from custody a few times under pretty interesting situations... I mean, it's pretty interesting situations. Now the government has a celebrity they can go after so they can point at that guy. That guy's a bad guy, right? So you saw a lot of that, a lot of theatrics around him as far as him being the head of whatever group or operation was. But at the same time, you start seeing the DEA and the US government, condecorating and putting all these awards on a guy like Luna, who was the guy that got arrested recently, who was head of security down in Mexico. And now all of a sudden, he's... No, no, he's not. He was recognized by the US government as being a player for the good guys and now he's arrested. So you start seeing all these different interests, different political movements around the drug war and what that turned into. And you don't know what they think, right? Each US administration has changed the way they do things when it comes to the drug war and also benefits certain groups down there. So who knows, realistically? Fuck. Yeah. It's just, I went to Chichen Itza, I think, in 2002, maybe, 2003, somewhere around that time, and there was no concern. Yeah, it's a different time. But that's 16, 17 years ago. That's so recent in terms of human history that a region changes so radically, so quickly. There's a lot of things happening. China has a lot of interests in Mexico. And you go back and you see some things like the... I'm sorry. You see things like the whole... How some armed groups started popping up in Mexico in the Michoacán area, fighting back against the cartels. There was a series, like a documentary on them, the Alto de Fensas, they were called, basically, vigilante groups. And then later on, you realize that they were all fighting for basically protecting or working around security for illegal Chinese ore mining in the area. Whoa. Yeah. It was all about iron ore mining, illegal Chinese ore mining. So the Chinese ore miners, they just made a deal. And then we can get in on it. So let's arm all these guys, and we're protecting our communities. But there was a lot of that going on. Not all of them. But there was a lot of shady stuff going on in the region when it comes to that. Now you see things like the stuff that's going on in Sonora. And there's a lot of lithium there. That's a pretty valuable thing. Sonora is a place that a lot of hunters go. Sonora has these big hunting ranches. And it's famous for giant mule deer. Yeah. Yeah. I've been out there hunting myself. And it's a beautiful part of Mexico. But that seems like a sketchy spot to be venturing into. It's perfect because it's perfect for them because it's rural, so there's nobody around. But if you were a guy from Texas wanting to drive your truck down there, it's a little hunting. My recommendation is this. If you have a 4x4, don't take it down there. Take it to fucking Ugo. We do have the largest population of American citizens living outside of the country in Mexico for some reason. Really? Yeah. All throughout Mexico? Yeah, I mean all throughout Mexico. Well, it's fun down there. Well, a lot of people like Cabo. People love Mexican food. Yeah. Yeah. There's a certain chaotic freedom in Mexico, which being a child of Mexico and then moving up here and seeing you guys talk about freedom. Not that free. But I get the draw. And some of these communities down there are pretty safe. But some aren't. They're safe until they're not safe. Safe until all of a sudden you're in the middle of some place that is going to be disputed, which I think is something along the lines of what happened to some of these Mormon communities down there. You're in the middle of your community and your movements are in the middle of our route. Could you please get out of the way?