#82 Luis Chaparro - Journalist with a $60,000 Bounty Breaks into Ovidio Guzmán's House | Part 1

Luis Chaparro is a Journalist specializing in narcos, cartels, and immigration. This is his third appearance on SRS where he brings the most up-to-date information on the growing crises south of the border. In part one, Chaparro updates us on the aftershock of a small scale war that thrust Mexico into a state of chaos when authorities captured Ovidio Guzman, son of drug lord El Chapo. In retaliation, hundreds of armed cartel members laid siege to multiple cities, occupying multiple areas, establishing blockades, and engaging in shootouts with authorities. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://lairdsuperfood.com - USE CODE "SRS" https://preparewithshawn.com https://helixsleep.com/srs - USE CODE "HELIXSLEEPPARTNER20" https://shopify.com/shawn Luis Chaparro Links: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/luiskuryaki Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@luischaparro Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. For 125 years, Nordstrom has been part of your story. The stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview. The first pair of walking shoes for your one-year-old. The tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe. These are the moments that make Nordstrom Nordstrom. Big or small, we're here for all of it. Celebrating 125 years with new moments still ad. Discover it all in Nordstrom stores and at nordstrom.com.

• 0:59Shawn Ryan?

  Ladies and gentlemen, my next guest is no stranger to the show. He is possibly the most knowledgeable investigative reporter when it comes to all things cartel. What they're up to, how they're doing it, and everything in between. In fact, this will be his third appearance on the show. This guy is two years ahead of mainstream media. In fact, his first visit on the show, which was over two years ago, he broke the story that China was aiding cartels in the fentanyl crisis that we're seeing here in the U.S. today. He talked about how the cartel is sending in chemists to train the cartels,

• 1:43Shawn Ryan?

  and how the Chinese are sending all the supplies and chemicals that they need to make the world's most potent fentanyl. Now, two years later, you see this in mainstream media. You see it in presidential campaigns. Everybody's talking about it. Hate to break it to you, that's old news. Now he comes back and he tells us that the cartels are starting to move out of the drug trade and into completely legitimate businesses. That's right, they're growing and they're getting stronger and they're turning legitimate.

• 2:20Shawn Ryan?

  Big problem, major problem. Ladies and gentlemen, if you get anything out of this show, please head over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, leave us a review, tell us how we're doing, like, comment, and subscribe to the YouTube channel. And I see you all out there making content, using our reels. In case you didn't know, we have a link below, it has thousands of raw, cut reels waiting for you to download them for free, put them on your channel, make channels, put them on IG, TikTok, YouTube, wherever you want, monetize them, make money. All we ask is that you tag The Sean Ryan Show. Ladies and

• 2:59Shawn Ryan?

  gentlemen, without further ado, please welcome Luis Chaparro to The Sean Ryan Show. Luis Chaparro, welcome back. Thanks, man. For the third time in the show, I really appreciate it. Repeat offender, third time. I don't think anybody's been on here three times. I don't know, man. The first one. But, man, you always have cutting-edge information on the cartels and what they're up to. And, you know, watching the news, like, we've known each other for,

• 3:39Shawn Ryan?

  what, about two years, maybe a little bit over two years. And it's interesting because the stuff that you were talking about on this show two years ago is just now hitting mainstream media. You know, you were the one, to my knowledge, I've never heard this stuff anywhere else, you were the one that broke the story about how China is sending in the chemists to train cartels how to make the world's deadliest, most potent fentanyl. You were the one that broke the story that China is sending in all the supplies to make the world's most potent fentanyl. And just now, I'm starting to see...

• 4:25Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I'm interviewing a lot of politicians because that election season is coming up and I'm seeing, I am just now seeing politicians start to talk about this stuff. I'm just now starting to see mainstream media talk about how China is involved with this whole fentanyl crisis. And I'm sitting here watching this and I'm like, man, we we broke this over over two years ago at this point.

• 4:50Luis Chaparro?

  Mm hmm. I mean, it's it's always a good thing that they're actually talking about it. But I think they have a delay, right? Two years delay.

• 4:58Shawn Ryan?

  It's totally outdated at this point.

• 5:00Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 5:01Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, and we're gonna dive into that. Because I've been hearing that cartels are starting to, I don't know if moving away from the drug business is the correct term, but or sentence, but it sounds like they're trying to legitimize their businesses and and kind of move away from from the drug business. But so I want to dive into that. But but that's a compliment. I just want to say, I mean, what do you think? When you look at the news and you're like, I've been talking about this stuff for two years now. You guys are just picking this up. I mean, it's all it makes me almost seem hopeless because it's

• 5:46Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, they're like, honestly,

• 5:47Shawn Ryan?

  They're so far behind the problem.

• 5:49Luis Chaparro?

  I'm I'm very used to it right now at this point, you know, because I remember that time I told you that a lot of people believe that was a conspiracy theory. And they were holding me holding me up for that, like, that that sounds like conspiracy. A lot of these media outlets wouldn't take those stories.

• 6:05Shawn Ryan?

  People were calling you a conspiracy theorist.

• 6:08Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, well, they

• 6:08Shawn Ryan?

  You had, hold on, let me let me make a correction. Last time you came down here, just to prove that you were in the fentanyl labs, you brought in video footage of cartel chemists wearing vigilante elite hats. So I don't know how anybody, I mean, and AI wasn't even a thing back then yet.

• 6:29Luis Chaparro?

  No, no, no, I mean, they they, I guess, when I tried to pitch some of these stories to mainstream media back then. There was like a bit of like reluctance, you know, like I was faced with these some sort of like anti-China general feeling, sort of like racism, conspiracy theory. And I was like, dude, I'm not going against Chinese people. I'm just telling you what I've learned from on the ground in Sinaloa. I wasn't really publishing most of those stories back then because of that. Because they, they, they thought that there was not enough evidence, you know, like a cartel source or me embedding with them and stuff, that was probably not enough. Um, eventually it's getting into the mainstream media.

• 7:14Luis Chaparro?

  Now everybody wants that story, right? Right now everybody's like, dude. And I'm like, dude, there is a lot of new things happening, you know, like, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, I feel kind of that I'm getting used to it, used to, used to feel that the mainstream media politicians are always behind of what is happening in the streets. My job is to report this stuff timely and correctly and in an ethical way. Um, and if they don't want to take it, if they want to pick it up, uh, I mean, it's on them. It's already proven that this is happening. And this is why I'm trusting shows like yours, specifically your show, right?

• 7:54Luis Chaparro?

  Uh, saying like, this guy opened up his cameras and microphones to listen to, to proofs, you know? Not to listen to a conspiracy, not to listen to me thinking or, you know, overthinking things.

• 8:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:08Luis Chaparro?

  Send you videos, send you photos, my reporting and, and now it's coming up. And it, and I'm glad it's coming up, you know, to the, to the news and, and to the politicians. But now there's a lot of new things happening, developing.

• 8:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, we're gonna get into if that, I mean, we're gonna get into the, if that story's even relevant at this point. I mean, it sounds like things have developed so, so much.

• 8:31Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 8:31Shawn Ryan?

  That maybe this stuff isn't even relevant. There's another thing at dinner last night, I learned something interesting about you, so. I don't wanna make light of it, we're laughing about it, but you have a sixty thousand dollar bounty on your head.

• 8:46Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 8:47Shawn Ryan?

  Why do you have a sixty thousand dollar bounty on your head?

• 8:50Luis Chaparro?

  This is the thing.

• 8:51Shawn Ryan?

  Who's put it on there?

• 8:51Luis Chaparro?

  I, I honestly don't know. I'm not sure who put it out. A, a source reached out to me, a source within the federal, a federal agency here in the US.

• 9:02Shawn Ryan?

  Federal agency?

• 9:02Luis Chaparro?

  US federal agency. Um, he's been my source for, for several years and he sent me a photo of a post they got a hand off. They didn't share any more details, like where did I find that or how or whatever, probably on the phone or, or something. On any device of one of these guys they arrested recently or something. But, um, but on that, on that image, there was my photo, like from, from socials. Uh, one of the oldest photos I have on Instagram or something. And he was asking for help from his guys, from his people, right? Like, hey guys, um, here is sixty thousand for the head of these. Um, that are alive. Um, and I was like, wow, sixty grand.

• 9:46Luis Chaparro?

  It's, it's, it's, you know, it's good money. I was, I was a bit, you know, blushed.

• 9:52Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not gonna lie, Luis, I could use an extra sixty Gs right now.

• 9:56Luis Chaparro?

  I told my wife and she's like, what if we, you know?

• 10:02Luis Chaparro?

  It's, it's not, it's not bad money. Uh, uh, this is the thing, I don't know how real that is. I don't know, um, if it's really the Sinaloa cartel or a faction at least of the Sinaloa cartel. That put that out. I don't know if it's an online troll or whatever. But that was apparently not shared online to make like fun or make a joke. That was retrieved from a device on one of these guys, uh, as per my source. That's what, that's what it said.

• 10:29Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, wow.

• 10:29Luis Chaparro?

  I asked him if this was serious. I was like, how serious is this shit? And he's like, dude, any, any threat, you should take it as, as being serious, you know? Um, cause I get a lot of threats all the time.

• 10:42Shawn Ryan?

  Do you really?

• 10:43Luis Chaparro?

  Most of the times is, it's just like copycats, trolls, you know? People that they, we call them cartel fanboys, you know, it's, it's people that they don't even know.

• 10:54Shawn Ryan?

  Oh.

• 10:55Luis Chaparro?

  Anything, but they just are big fans of.

• 10:59Shawn Ryan?

  They're pretending.

• 11:00Luis Chaparro?

  You know, so they're pretending and they, they're like, shut the up, man. Don't ever publish that shit again or we'll, we'll kill you. And and then you do a little bit of research and you know, it's like, ah, come on, you're just a cartel fanboy.

• 11:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, what I what is the?

• 11:17Shawn Ryan?

  What I mean, what's the cartel think of cartel fanboys? Do they? I mean, if somebody's putting a bounty, because it sounds like Sinaloa cartel is actually a big fan of you.

• 11:27Luis Chaparro?

  Well, sort of, certain factions, I guess, and at certain points and at certain moments, you know? I do know that they got pretty pissed, uh, you know, of the last time I was there, because I broke inside the son of El Chapo's house hours before he was extracted and arrested.

• 11:44Shawn Ryan?

  You broke into the son of El Chapo's house?

• 11:47Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, dude, and he was, he was absolutely crazy, dude.

• 11:50Shawn Ryan?

  Of course you did.

• 11:53Shawn Ryan?

  How did you break into his house? Is it somebody sitting on it?

• 11:56Luis Chaparro?

  No, so this is the thing, the that morning, can't remember the, it was January, I think, this January? That morning, I I started getting a lot of messages on my phone. I usually put my phone in silent mode. Uh, only a couple of secure apps I use to communicate with sources, that that those are always on. So I started like getting a bunch of like, like five in the morning. And I read it and and they said like, hey, there is a lot of things going on in Culiacan right now. Culiacan is crazy. There's a lot of like uh, narco blockade, so they were like setting up trucks and vehicles to block roads around Culiacan and setting them on fire. And I was getting all those reports and I was like, yeah, they're probably doing an operation against someone big. Never thought they were going against one of El Chapo's sons, you know?

• 12:41Luis Chaparro?

  Until one of these messages said, apparently the operation is in Jesús María. And I knew that Jesús María is the town where Ovidio Guzmán was hiding. He has a ranch, beautiful house, state of the art property in this very poor impoverished um, ranch outside Culiacan, like forty minutes drive outside the main city in Sinaloa.

• 13:05Luis Chaparro?

  So when I read Jesus Maria, I was like, shit, they're after him. This is happening. They're gonna get him. Woke up, first tweeted, you know, put it on my Instagram. I think this is happening and start recording on my, on my, on my cellphone. Like, hey, guys, I'm hearing reports that this is happening. Uh, pitch Vice, uh, hey, guys, I think this is, this is happening. I probably should be getting my ass there. I'm gonna pay for my whole trips, uh, but I wanna pitch this story to you cuz, cuz, cuz I like publishing that story there for them. Um, they said, yes, let's put together a legal team, a security thing going. Uh, but by the time they did that, I was already, you know, booking my,

• 13:47Luis Chaparro?

  I, I booked three different flights cuz I know they have people in the airport. So they will know if I'm coming. They will see the, the list of names of people declining. Um, so I booked three different flights in and out, uh, round flights, three different hotels on three different nights. Uh, the, uh, security team from, from Vice asked me not to be more than, not to spend more than 10 hours on the ground and be out at the same day. So I was, I was thinking of that, right? I was like, I'm just gonna get there. I didn't reach out to any source beforehand cuz I was like, no, dude, if they know that I'm there while they're still, you know, that was very recent, that was, that was happening that morning.

• 14:30Luis Chaparro?

  By 10:00 in the morning, I was already having the confirmed information that a video was arrested and he was taken into a, uh, hangar in Mexico City. But people were still fighting by 10:00 in the morning in Sinaloa. My, I, I, I left home, my flight left at like noon. So, so when I landed, it was still going on, you know? The, the, the infight was still going on when I landed in Mexico City. And then I flew the next day, early morning to, to Culiacan. I arrived in the first flight, like 5:00, 6:00 in the morning. And as I arrived there, I reached out to my sources. I was like, hey dude, I have a strong source in the Sinaloa cartel in Culiacan.

• 15:12Luis Chaparro?

  And I told him, hey dude, um, um, I'm in Culiacan, I'm in your town, and I probably need a couple of, of, you know, hands, extra hands to help me out getting there to Jesus Maria. And he said, "What the are you doing here, man? You're gonna get you and me killed? Because shit, it's just hitting the fan." I had previously had a ban by the Sinaloa cartel from going to Sinaloa because of a story I did inside weed, let's call them laboratories, where they're manufacturing weed products and stuff and setting up dispensaries in Sinaloa. So they already asked me, "Don't ever come back to Sinaloa." And there I was, again, a couple of weeks later.

• 15:54Luis Chaparro?

  This just happened like three weeks later after I was banned from Sinaloa. So I called this guy and he's like, "Dude, you shouldn't even be here, man." And I was like, "I know, dude, but I don't have anything, anyone else to call." And he's like, "Just stay there where you are. I'm gonna pick you up in a different car." Picked me up, took me to the hotel. I called a photographer, a local photographer. I said, "Hey dude, you wanna join with me? I need photos, I need video, and I'm doing this shit. I understand if you feel sketched out, but I'm doing it." And he's like, "F*ck it, let's do it, man. Go with you." Brave dude. And we went up to Jesus Maria. Of course, all the way up to Jesus Maria,

• 16:36Luis Chaparro?

  there were still like burnt trucks, burnt buses, like hand grenades all over. It was a f*cking war zone up there. And as we got to Jesus Maria, there was a checkpoint from the Sinaloa cartel henchmen, a lot of sicarios and motorcycles driving around the arcs that said, "Welcome to Jesus Maria." Do you have footage of this? Yes, all this stuff, it's in my child view. I did like a short documentary. Like I recorded everything as I arrived into the city, as I drop off all the way there. So we went in and we started approaching Ovidio Guzman's house.

• 17:19Luis Chaparro?

  And as we approached, I watched this woman and a bunch of suited guys. And my photographer said like, "Oh, it's the Fiscalía, the general attorney's office, so we're good. There's government." And I'm like, "Okay, so we're safe." Jumped out of the car with my camera in hand and then this woman starts saying, "No, no, no, no, no." And then this dude's jamba at me. And then he's like, "Oh shit, this is not government." And turns out it was Ovidio Guzman's mom, former wife of El Chapo, who's also has, she also has a five million dollars bounty by the US government for being involved in the Sinola cartel. So she immediately starts telling me like, "No, no, no, just get the [__] away." And I'm not recording, I don't have my camera on.

• 18:05Luis Chaparro?

  "I just want to talk to you and probably go inside Ovidio's house." And she's like, "No, just get [__] away from here." And these dudes tell me, told me like, "Just get [__] away. If you want to interview neighbors, that's fine by us. Don't come over to these property." Well, good. So I went, did a bunch of interviews around with the neighbors. They absolutely loved Ovidio, loved the Guzman's. Old people, you know, old sick people saying that Ovidio. And the Guzman's family has always helped them out with medicines, with money, with whatever they, with whatever they needed, right? But again, if you look at their homes, very, very poor people, you know. Really? Poor people, man, without anything, without a car, without,

• 18:50Luis Chaparro?

  you know, like old washing machines, not food on their fridges. Absolutely poor. I wouldn't expect this guy to live in a neighborhood like that. It was one of his, one of his properties outside the city, you know, where he was hiding. The thing was, he was hiding there because he couldn't celebrate Christmas or New Year's Eve with his family because he knew he was being sought after. So he waited until all that went through, a couple of days into January. And then he brought over his daughters, his wife, and a couple of friends to have a family party on that property. And so when they got him, he was asleep. He got a bit drunk the last night, stayed up until late.

• 19:33Luis Chaparro?

  So these guys just, boom, let's do it right now while he's asleep. Um, so I interviewed the neighbors and I noticed that his family and the attorneys left the property. And I was like, this is probably a good time, is now or never, you know, I, I need to go in. I need to see what happened inside his house, how he was leaving. Um, I need to just go inside his house. I told the photographer, I'm going in and he's like, dude, if you spend more than five minutes in there, we're leaving, we're taking off, we're leaving you there. There's people around circling, cigarillos, henchmen. And we're just making it look as if we're, we're taking photos from outside, but even from outside, dude, bullets everywhere, unexploded grenades.

• 20:17Luis Chaparro?

  It was, it was blood everywhere. Wow. Um, so I found a hole on the, on the wall, on the, on the wire he had on the wall. And I literally jumped over the hole inside his house and started recording. I had my phone and a, in a GoPro. Um, and I started recording everything inside and inside was war zone, war zone, like heavy, like fifty calls all over, blood all over, man. You, I, I was like stepping in sticky blood all over. No kidding? Yeah, dude, like. And you have footage of this? I have footage of that shit, man. Can we put it in? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'll send, I'll send, I'll send you the, the footage. It's, it's crazy stuff.

• 20:56Luis Chaparro?

  And then I went into his daughter's rooms, room, uh, completely like soaked in blood. Uh, I don't know, I, I don't think it was from them. It was from his henchmen that tried to hide inside the house when, where they were still fighting the government. Um, but yeah, man, it was, it was very contrasting because you will have a setting of a family party, right? Wine bottles, expensive wine bottles, um, dinner, table, uh, plates, a, um, como se llama? What we call a nacimiento, uh, in, in, nacimiento in, in Spanish, which is baby Jesus and the whole. Hmm. You know, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, like a nativity scene? Yeah, exactly. Yes, exactly. They, they had that in the party of the backyard.

• 21:41Luis Chaparro?

  Uh, but at the same time, everything was like riddled with bullet holes and. Wow. Blood and unexploded grenades, fifty calls. And his closet. He had a bunch of Rolex boxes open. The Mexican military stole everything he owned, man, everything. Expensive shoes, expensive shirts, tennis shoes, raw legs, Hubble watches he had there, jewelry. It was all empty. And I asked the neighbors and they're like, we watch how the Mexican government was putting everything on sleeves and taking it all out. They took everything.

• 22:25Luis Chaparro?

  So I recorded the whole thing. And I was coming out, I remember finding a hole. It was a tunnel disguised as a water system, you know. It was a tunnel. And then I asked my guy, like, hey, can I go out now? And he's like, no, no, no, no, just like stay there. You can hear in the video I shot, my heart was racing, man, because these guys were right outside when I was trying to get out and I could hear the motorcycle circling. Government or cartel? The cartel guys. And I was like, if they find me inside this place, they're not gonna shoot me, they're not gonna kill me. They're gonna call the authorities, they're gonna put me in jail and they're gonna torture

• 23:10Luis Chaparro?

  me for several years in a sin alone jail. So I was like, stay hidden for a couple of minutes until this guy told me, it's now, man, you need to get out. Now we're leaving.

• 23:27Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPAC.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. For 125 years, Nordstrom has been part of your story. The stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview. The first pair of walking shoes for your one-year-old. The tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe. These are the moments that make Nordstrom Nordstrom. Big or small, we're here for all of it. Celebrating 125 years with new moments still add. Discover it all in Nordstrom stores and at nordstrom.com.

• 24:26Luis Chaparro?

  I went again through the hole. I was so nervous that I fell back on my back. I was like, then I handed over the camera. So like, dude, just leave, I'll get out. I managed to go out. I immediately switched the footage, the SIM cards and everything. And as we were getting out, we got stopped by the checkpoint of these guys. And they just literally asked me like, everything good? And I'm like, all good. And he's like, you're done? And I'm like, all done. They're like, okay, be safe. And I'm like, thanks. And off we went. They put a guy to follow us until probably they were expecting us to go outside the town. And then he'll just get back.

• 25:11Luis Chaparro?

  On the way out, I was still like kind of shaking with adrenaline and you know, I was still like, shit, man. I can't believe I have this footage. I can't believe I have this story and these guys are still following us. And I need to catch my. Two of my flights were already left, so I had one left by 5:00 PM. And it was already like 3:00 or some shit like that. And we're driving out and then the fucking car breaks. Like in the middle of a nowhere highway with these fucking men following us. And I was like, my life, dude. I was like, what happened? And then this dude was like, I don't know, man, he overheated.

• 25:51Luis Chaparro?

  So I went to a corner store, got some water and Gatorades and poured the fucking Gatorades on the radiator. It's like, oh shit, we just need to get out of here, man. I'm sorry for your car. We managed to leave, lost my flight. So I had to go into one of the hotels I had booked. Went to that hotel, turns out the attorneys and Ovidio's mom were staying in that hotel that night. So I was like, I still had like somewhat long hair. I put a hoodie over, went into my room, bus caught my fucking head off. And left everything ready to go, you know, I was just literally just waiting for my next flight, uh, the next morning.

• 26:34Shawn Ryan?

  How did you know that the, his attorney and who?

• 26:38Luis Chaparro?

  Uh, and his mom, yeah, cuz I watched them on the, on the restaurant. As you enter the hotel, there's a lobby and there's a restaurant. And they were sitting at that restaurant, you know, so I watched them, I was like, oh, they're, they're here. So I just literally went for, for the, um, elevator, put a hoodie on. I remember recording on my phone like, oh shit, these guys are here. Uh, it's, I mean, I'm just getting ready to leave tomorrow, I can't wait, you know? Then this morning I left like five in the morning, stay a couple of hours in the, in the airport. The two longest hours of my life at the school at an airport, I was like, I need to leave. Um, and, and I left.

• 27:17Luis Chaparro?

  So those two things made these guys, or at least one faction of these guys, not happy about my work, right? When I posted this shit, went viral, went everywhere and they were like, this motherfucker broke in Ovidio's house, he recorded everything. Which, if I'm being honest, I'll think like, dude, you probably can prove a case. You, you got stolen by the Mexican government, they shot at your whole place, not giving any fuck about your daughters being here and your wife, you know?

• 27:52Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:54Luis Chaparro?

  Could probably use that, but, uh, but I, but I, but I know they, they got, they got mad at me because of that shit.

• 28:00Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, does that bother you? What is, when, when, when you have a, an insider of the federal government on the US side saying, hey, I just want you to know, you got a $60,000 bounty on your head, we just recovered this off a device. What, I mean?

• 28:17Luis Chaparro?

  It, it worries me, man, absolutely, it worries me because of my family, um, for, for their safety, safety and for my own as well. I want, I want to leave until, you know, I die from, from age and to see my kid grow old and shit. Um, it worries me, but at the same time, it's like, what am I gonna do, man? What am I gonna do? Like, if they ask me to stop doing what I do forever,

• 28:43Luis Chaparro?

  and they tell me, you know what, you need to stop forever, uh, and I have enough reasons to believe that is true, I'll, I'll probably think about it. But up until today, I've never been asked to stop, I, to stop. I've just been asked to, nothing, just get empty threats, you know?

• 29:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:02Luis Chaparro?

  Probably because they're furious, because they're, you know, coked up, they're drunk, and they're impulsive people. Most of these guys, this is, this is another thing, that kinda like gets me into thinking that, the, the, the, understanding that these threats are real, but at the same time, there is a lot of things playing out, right? When, when you ask me about how these cartel guys feel about cartel fanboys, they absolutely can hate them, because they bring a lot of heat to them.

• 29:33Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 29:33Luis Chaparro?

  What, what would you think would happen if I reach out to both governments and say, and make a presser, and bring in NGOs protecting journalists and shit, and say like, the Sinaloa cartel put a sixty thousand grand bounty on my head, and I need protection, and I need the help from you guys, and I need, you know, and I start making a whole, a fuck, mess and, and a big thing out of it, um, you know, pitching stories about that to every other media outlet. This is just gonna bring more heat to them, and I know for a fact they don't want that. So they will go after the guy who probably, without permission, put up, put up a, a hit on my head.

• 30:13Luis Chaparro?

  They will probably go after that guy, so like, dude, just leave it alone, just stop that shit now.

• 30:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:19Luis Chaparro?

  We don't need the fucking heat right now, especially when we already have both of our governments after us, right?

• 30:26Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 30:27Luis Chaparro?

  Because of the fentanyl and all that shit, and what happened to Ovidio, so, so they just want to be clear from all that shit. And I don't, I don't mean to cause any more trouble for, for what I have, right? So, so yeah, I, I, I know that, um, this, this, uh, another, another time.

• 30:43Shawn Ryan?

  Real quick, before we move on, I just, you broke into.

• 30:49Luis Chaparro?

  Ovidio's house.

• 30:50Shawn Ryan?

  Ovidio's house, I just want.

• 30:53Shawn Ryan?

  Everybody to know who exactly that is.

• 30:56Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, absolutely. Ovidio Guzman is the youngest son of El Chapo. He's one of the three leaders of what we call Los Chapitos, which is the main faction of the Sinaloa cartel. This dude is, I think Ovidio is about 32, 33 years old now. And he was arrested in 2019 in Culiacán. And the whole hell broke loose in Culiacán, on what we call Culiacanazo. Hundreds and hundreds of henchmen went out the city, started fighting the government. They grabbed the families of the military members involved. There is a military base in Culiacán. They grabbed the families, locked them up on their houses,

• 31:40Luis Chaparro?

  on the military base, and set a lot of explosives around with gasoline and shit. And they threatened the government to say, "If you don't release Ovidio, we're gonna kill all these families." They opened a hole on the prison, on the main state prison in Culiacán, to let a lot of Sinaloa cartel members in jail out, armed all the [bleep]ers, and as them just shoot around the [bleep] city, everywhere and everyone. So imagine a city of less than, probably less than 300,000 people, absolutely taken by probably 100,000 armed people around the [bleep]. It was a mess. So the Mexican government had to release Ovidio from their custody.

• 32:24Luis Chaparro?

  And that was embarrassing for the government, of course. And that was empowering for the Sinaloa cartel, the Chapitos faction at least.

• 32:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:34Luis Chaparro?

  So Ovidio Guzman was in the center of that stuff, of that detention. And then he was freed. He lived free for two more years, probably four more years. That happened in 2019. And he was arrested early in January this year. He was just extradited last month to the US. And he's currently in Chicago MCC, probably facing life.

• 32:59Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 32:59Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 33:00Shawn Ryan?

  And you broke into his house?

• 33:01Luis Chaparro?

  And I broke into his house.

• 33:03Shawn Ryan?

  Man, that's crazy. I gotta be honest, you know, hearing some of the stuff you did for your tradecraft, I'm impressed.

• 33:11Shawn Ryan?

  You weren't doing that stuff the first time I talked to him. I mean, you booked three different flights, booked three different hotels, took the SIM card out of the camera. And most people aren't that heads up.

• 33:21Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, no, dude, I've been, I've been, I've been trying to step up in terms of taking care of myself and not being so reckless. I mean, it is reckless enough to literally go and do that shit. But I was like, no, I can't be that, you know? Careless, I need to, I need, and, and, and that's the other thing. I, I want to keep covering this kind of like beat cartels and organizations. Probably just going to do like big stories and stop doing a bunch of little small stories that's gonna get me in trouble, you know? Um, so, so, so, yeah, that, that was, that's probably related to that. That was probably, that, that thread was probably related to that. Probably, I think, probably, I don't wanna say it is related to that.

• 34:01Luis Chaparro?

  Or, and again, a fanboy who, you know, got angry because I broke into his fan dude, whatever, or video.

• 34:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you know, I mean, talking to you last night, it seemed, I mean, I asked you this question last night at dinner and I'm, you know, and, and you told me about that. And I was like, man, last time we spoke, it sounded like everybody within the Sinaloa cartel is, I mean, it sounds like they love you, you know? And, uh, and I even, I'm not gonna lie, like, I get a little nervous, you know? I've been trying to get you back on here for a while and I'm like, Luis, what's going on? Why aren't you coming back? I see you going on these other podcasts, come on. And then I got where I was like, maybe we went a little too in-depth the last time and he got in trouble. But uh.

• 34:51Luis Chaparro?

  No, now you know for a fact that they actually love your show too, man. Like they're, they're watching, they're watching your show. They like your show. They enjoy, you know, your, your guests and, and your show in, in general. I think these guys, I don't know, I don't know if they love me or they hate me. I guess.

• 35:06Shawn Ryan?

  Maybe it's a little of both.

• 35:07Luis Chaparro?

  What I've been told by, by, by one of the higher-ups in the Sinaloa cartel is something very straightforward, which makes sense. He's like, dude, you talk a lot of bullshit, but you seldom tell a lie. What we respect is a journalist who probably comes after us and, and, and tries to expose what we're doing in our operation at the shit. That's fine. That's your game. This is our game. You're not the first one. You know, the authorities, the governments are after us. So we, we know how to take care of us. But if you, if you tell lies and you're getting paid by telling lies, that's gonna get you killed. That's gonna get you hated by us. They know that I don't tell lies, not purposely at least, you know?

• 35:52Luis Chaparro?

  I know that he, he, he called me out on a couple of things, you know? He was like, when you said this and when you said that, that's absolutely not true. But, but he could tell that that was not true, not because I wanted to put out a lie. I had just wrong information as every other journalist, right? Probably bad sourcing, um, and that was it. But it's, it's never my intention to intentionally put out lies for the sake of whatever, money, clout, whatever, you know? It's uh, I'm trying to be responsible as of my information confirmed, different sources. If I can, go there, be there, see it for myself.

• 36:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, you're essentially, we'd, we'd, we'd spoken about this. I mean, you're, you're a part of their publicity.

• 36:36Luis Chaparro?

  They, specifically the Sinaloa cartel, they really, they're really big on that. They're really big on, on, you know, putting their name out and saying like, we're, we're huge. As long as you don't get us in trouble by publishing specifics, right?

• 36:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:51Luis Chaparro?

  Locations, faces, specific names, last names, that kind of stuff, which I don't, I don't care. That's not my job. I mean, I've been asked a lot of times. That if it is my responsibility to share this information with authorities, right? To end up with them and to end them and and stuff. It's like, dude, I I'm not a cop. I'm not in the business of justice. I'm not in the business of arresting people, of sentencing people. I'm not a police. That's not my job. My my end of things is telling stories, shedding light. The responsibility of the authorities is, OK, we have this information. We're gonna act against, right? My my part of this business is I I'll turn on the light on a dark room.

• 37:36Luis Chaparro?

  I'm not gonna take anything. I'm not gonna tell you what to do. I'm just gonna turn on the light on this red dark room. So everybody knows what's in that room. And everybody knows what to do with that information, right? It's not up for me to tell you or anyone what to do with that info. It's it's up to me to find info that is made to be hidden, right?

• 37:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, we do a damn good job of it.

• 37:59Luis Chaparro?

  Really appreciate it, man.

• 38:00Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we got a lot to talk about, but you know, everybody always gets a gift.

• 38:04Luis Chaparro?

  Oh, yes.

• 38:05Shawn Ryan?

  So, uh, different gift this time. So.

• 38:11Luis Chaparro?

  What happened to the gummy bears, man?

• 38:13Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, don't worry, we still have the gummy bears.

• 38:15Luis Chaparro?

  I love the gummy bears.

• 38:16Shawn Ryan?

  No, I partnered with Laird Superfood. So you know, we you watch a lot of my military type episodes. We are very big on mental health. And um, so so there's a bunch of things on the in there that uh, will keep your mind sharp. It's part of your mental health.

• 38:33Luis Chaparro?

  Dude.

• 38:34Shawn Ryan?

  Keeping uh, keep a good mental health is keeping your brain sharp. So those are performance mushrooms. Put that in with your coffee. Those are a daily green supplement.

• 38:44Luis Chaparro?

  This is all the stuff you're taking to keep your mind, you know, on check, right?

• 38:47Shawn Ryan?

  There should be some coffee in there. Those are more of the greens.

• 38:50Luis Chaparro?

  Oh, yes.

• 38:52Shawn Ryan?

  There should be some coffee in there. That's uh, functional mushroom coffee. That's functional mushroom creamer. This stuff tastes good. It's the cleanest ingredients you can get.

• 39:02Luis Chaparro?

  This is, this is, this is cool stuff.

• 39:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, we partnered with them.

• 39:05Luis Chaparro?

  My my wife has been putting me in the superfoods, you know, like trying to get me more and more into it. And I it's not that I've been reluctant. It's just that I forget because she has all sort of like different things.

• 39:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:19Luis Chaparro?

  But dude, this is great, great stuff.

• 39:22Shawn Ryan?

  That's to mix it up and

• 39:23Luis Chaparro?

  Oh dude. I really appreciate it, man.

• 39:27Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome.

• 39:28Luis Chaparro?

  This is definitely gonna, gonna help a lot.

• 39:31Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 39:32Luis Chaparro?

  To be on the right mindset with all these.

• 39:35Shawn Ryan?

  I'll send you some more.

• 39:36Luis Chaparro?

  Wow.

• 39:37Shawn Ryan?

  There's plenty of stuff to go around.

• 39:38Luis Chaparro?

  This is cool stuff, man. I really, really appreciate you and.

• 39:42Shawn Ryan?

  Laird Superfoods.

• 39:44Luis Chaparro?

  Superfood, man. Great stuff. Thanks a lot.

• 39:48Shawn Ryan?

  All right, let's get into the good stuff, Luis. So, look, I got a bunch of stuff to talk about here.

• 39:57Shawn Ryan?

  And outlined by, I'm just gonna let you kick it off, man. I mean, it's been, it's been about a year since, since, uh, since we've met face to face and so, what, what have you been into? You always have the latest and greatest stuff.

• 40:13Luis Chaparro?

  I've been, I've been all around, man. Like, as I was telling you, I'm trying to do like more big stories instead of like a bunch of little stories.

• 40:21Luis Chaparro?

  And I think, well, I was, I guess my last trip, my most recent trip was to Michoacan, uh, central Mexico, great place, great state, great food. It's, it's an amazing place all over. Uh, but that's where the self-defense groups were born in 2013, 10 years ago.

• 40:41Shawn Ryan?

  What's self-defense groups?

• 40:42Luis Chaparro?

  10 years ago, people, farmers just had it with cartels, right? They were like, dude, we just had it. We have enough money because they're, they are avocado and lime exporters. So they're making some really good, good money. And cartels were basically extorting them, kidnapping them to get a piece of that money back in 2013. So this dude, Ipolito Mora, a dude I respect, uh, absolutely, man. I have the utmost respect for Ipolito. He was just recently killed and that broke my heart. I had a, I had an interview set up with him.

• 41:15Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 41:16Luis Chaparro?

  He was burned in, outside his house, his body, when he was still alive.

• 41:21Shawn Ryan?

  He was burned alive?

• 41:21Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, dude, that was gruesome shit.

• 41:23Shawn Ryan?

  An avocado farmer.

• 41:25Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, dude. And, and, and the, uh, and the first who told people, let's arm ourselves and go against this. We can own this shit too. And he managed to do that in two thousand thirteen. He bought a lot of weapons. He said, like, if cartels can get a good dealer, you know, to traffic weapons for them, we can do that, too. So they brought a lot of weapons from the US into Michoacan, armed themselves.

• 41:50Shawn Ryan?

  Are all these weapons, all these weapons coming from the US?

• 41:53Luis Chaparro?

  Most of it, yeah, like probably ninety percent of it.

• 41:56Shawn Ryan?

  And it's just from local gun stores? They just send a shopper and?

• 42:00Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, dude.

• 42:00Shawn Ryan?

  It sounds like Instacart.

• 42:02Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 42:02Shawn Ryan?

  They just send somebody up and they're like, yeah, give me two hundred AR-15s, give me one hundred and fifty AK-47s. Make sure we got plenty of magazines and ammunition. Grab some cool optics. And we're gonna need a lot of pistols, too.

• 42:17Luis Chaparro?

  That's literally how it works. Like, you send out a list to your source or contact in the US. He goes shopping around in different gun shows, gun shops, everywhere, takes photos, send you the photos. I think this is the kind of like the stuff you're looking for. They're like, yes. Dude, the revenue you're making out of like trafficking guns, it's more than three times its original price in the US.

• 42:43Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding? So, so a pistol that costs thousand dollars, you get it for three grand?

• 42:49Luis Chaparro?

  Easily, cash. So, so these guys are making a big buck, you know? Especially when there is war between cartels and government or between rival gangs and stuff. You need a lot of weapons, a lot of ammo and all this stuff. It's coming from the US. So it's, it's big money for, for a lot of people. And the border going south, it's pretty much open, right? There is no checkpoints, there is no barriers, there's nothing.

• 43:12Shawn Ryan?

  I think the border's pretty much open.

• 43:14Luis Chaparro?

  Open both ways.

• 43:18Luis Chaparro?

  It's probably even more.

• 43:20Shawn Ryan?

  There goes Luis again. Hey, buddy.

• 43:25Luis Chaparro?

  Pretty much, yeah, you're right. Absolutely, both ways. Yeah, dude. Yeah, I think it's probably holding you more coming northbound the lines, the long lines than the actual, you know. Yeah, dude. So, so, so, yeah, these guys order a bunch of guns, a bunch of heavy weapons, ammo and shit. Train a lot of people and they literally closed the whole farming sites, their cities. They kind of like started setting up barricades. And one morning they decided to go out in arms and start killing a lot of cartel members. Arresting them, turning them over to the authorities, engaging in fight.

• 44:09Luis Chaparro?

  And after a couple of months, they were out.

• 44:11Shawn Ryan?

  They won. They pushed, they successfully pushed the cartel out.

• 44:17Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it stayed like that for a couple of years until, again, cartels got smarter, right? What they did is they, cartels pushed or lobbied, lobbied, well, I'm talking like money to the Mexican federal government back then, to start going against these guys, calling them terrorists, calling them guerrillas, calling them illegal for operations, right? Armed civilians, that can be, but cartels, oh yeah, no, they're fine, you know? And so they went after these guys. These guys had their own fights with the Mexican government, so they looked probably bad on the public eye because they were now fighting the Mexican government. So the Mexican government came out with a truce. So they were like, all right, we're gonna legitimize you.

• 45:02Luis Chaparro?

  You need a badge, you need a proper shirt, like of some sort of rural civilian force, but we need you to be registered as a self-defense member. So they were like, let's, let's do that then. So they started to register their arms themselves and kind of like going more on the official side of a civilian armed group, but like backed up by the Mexican government.

• 45:29Luis Chaparro?

  And a lot of these sicarios and narcos and cartel members, they were like handing money to the government, saying like, hey man, can I, can you, can I have a badge as well so I can carry my gun and shit? The first one, first was one and then 10 and then 100 and then 200 and then 1,000. And then basically the government legitimized. A whole cartel. Whoa. So they they became self-defense groups, but they were cartel. There were the Viagra's cartel, there were the Familia Michoacana cartel. There were all sorts of different cartels, wearing shirts and registered arms as as self-defense members.

• 46:10Luis Chaparro?

  So Ipolito was like, shit, this is not self-defense. This is all cartels. I'm going out. So he stood up himself for several years as a solo vigilante going against cartels. You know, naming them, putting out in social media like these guys are cartel, that guy is operating here. These guy has a laboratory here, calling out for it to say, hey, man, I found a Adam Fetterman laboratory here, come over, raid this this place. They wouldn't listen, so so he was all alone, all by himself. And a couple of months ago, he got killed as he was coming back from his farm back home.

• 46:53Luis Chaparro?

  He I went to his house and he was building a barricade on on his rooftop.

• 47:00Luis Chaparro?

  It was it wasn't finished because they To fight from? Yeah, I think he he felt he knew that that at some point he was gonna have to barricade himself on his house and start fighting these guys from from his own, you know, trench. But as he was driving back home, he got ambushed and they kill him. And before he was dead, they put his body out and set him on fire in front of everyone to see. There's footage. I also have that video on my on my YouTube. There's footage of his body just in flames. Wow. When people looking around confused and shit. That was basically to send out a message, right? That you you're not you're not gonna stand against us. I mean, we still you're not gonna bring again, because the rumors were

• 47:44Luis Chaparro?

  he was putting again another new group of self-defense, you know, of of good people to fight back against the cartel again.

• 47:52Luis Chaparro?

  But that hope died with him.

• 47:54Shawn Ryan?

  So nobody else is doing this, this is spread across the country in Mexico?

• 47:58Luis Chaparro?

  No, I spoke with his brother.

• 48:02Luis Chaparro?

  And he was absolutely terrified. He was all alone, just at his brother, Polito. His brother is called Guadalupe. Brave fucking man, honest man, with big balls. And he's like, dude, if the government is not gonna get rid of the Viagra's cartel, uh, I'm gonna have to go and fight them myself and, and face probably the same fate as my brother.

• 48:26Luis Chaparro?

  He lives in a town that is surrounded, dude, surrounded. You can go out of his house and right in front, you'll have henchmen sitting on the sidewalk, just waiting for him to go out. He can't leave his house. He can't leave his fucking room because it's gonna get popped. So he's living there by himself, alone, in, in the middle of that chaos.

• 48:48Luis Chaparro?

  So this is a brave man. There is a small community called Tansitaro, which is the world capital of the avocado. That's where all the avocados in the US and probably in the world are coming out of, or most of.

• 49:02Luis Chaparro?

  Huge avocado farms, a lot of money. They still have self-defense group with, with barricades before you enter the town. Armed people, armed civilians. I interviewed one of them and he's like, dude, I'm, I'm a teacher, you know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a teacher at a, at an elementary school. But on my free time, I come and, and, and guard post on this barricade with my AK and shit, you know? Waiting for these guys to try to take over our town. That's the last.

• 49:32Shawn Ryan?

  So the, the people

• 49:35Shawn Ryan?

  are really starting to try to take matters under their own hands.

• 49:39Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 49:39Shawn Ryan?

  Because the government is a complete failed state.

• 49:42Luis Chaparro?

  The, the government is, it's, it's sided with, with the cartels. They've been trying to disarm these guys and not the cartels forever.

• 49:48Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, the last time you were here, you were saying that the government was actually becoming more profitable for the cartel than the actual drug business.

• 49:56Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, exactly. Yeah.

• 49:57Shawn Ryan?

  And so now it sounds like they've completely infiltrated it. It's done.

• 50:01Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, or de facto government. It's, it's criminal organizations, different cartels on different territories. So it's like we have different governors depending, depending on which region of this, of the country you are. And they, they, they rule, they rule. Politicians, they they're just like the representatives, you know, representatives of of the of the law. They're not really in charge, man, not at all in Mexico, not at all. That's worrying.

• 50:30Shawn Ryan?

  Man, you know, with

• 50:34Shawn Ryan?

  that's um

• 50:37Shawn Ryan?

  it's sad, but it's also it's I mean, good on the people, you know, for finally saying, hey, this is enough. We're we're tired of this. If you aren't going to handle it, then we're going to handle it. And I hope that's, you know, they say courage spreads. It's contagious. And so hopefully that starts to spread a little bit.

• 51:00Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 51:01Shawn Ryan?

  There's two directions we could go right now. One, we go into the drone stuff, or we could go into kind of the new direction of the cartel, which we're going to have both.

• 51:11Luis Chaparro?

  Let's let's dive into the drones because I think it's related. That that's in region.

• 51:14Shawn Ryan?

  Let me lead into it then. So you were talking about this guy, the avocado farmer, right? Who built this barricade in his house to fight off the cartel? My first thought was

• 51:27Shawn Ryan?

  that's great. I love his mindset. You've been talking about on your social media about these drones last night. Dinner, you were talking about these drones. And, um, you know, ISIS started making these drones quite a while ago. And basically what they're doing is putting explosives on them, just regular, everyday drones. You know, stuff he can go buy a hobby store, you know, attaching explosives on them. And basically, it's a it's a it becomes a IED.

• 51:59Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 52:00Shawn Ryan?

  Improvised explosive device. And so does this guy know that, I mean, before he died, he's building this barricade? All they have to do is just fly a drone over there and it's done.

• 52:11Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, I mean, they got to him before he got to that, but his brother, Guadalupe. He got a share of one of those drones like probably a month ago. He was, someone started sounding the bells of the local church. Apparently calling people out. Apparently it's gonna, it was gonna start a rise up in arms again. So while Lupe went out and he was talking to people and I guess people was like coming together. And then the cartel just dropped an explosive drone in the middle of that place. Heard a couple of them, while Lupe was fine. But that's, that was, that was not happening before when, when Ipolito, his brother raised up in arms, right?

• 52:54Luis Chaparro?

  The, the cartels didn't still have the technology to have explosive drones. But now they do. And that's how they're controlling that whole region by exploding drones all over. They know it's, you can operate that from, from a distance. You have cameras on it. And then they, they use um, plastic, uh, plastic explosives like Tovex. They also use a mix of chlorid, I don't know, this and that. Uh, they, they send me the, the exact mix they use and they put a lot of like schnarpel, you know? Shrapnel. It's not, rap, I can't say that word. Yeah, basically a lot of like nails and, and. Bolts, pieces of metal.

• 53:39Luis Chaparro?

  To, to make more, more damage, you know? So, so that's, that's, that's what they, they're doing right now. Uh, when I was there, my guy in, in Michoacan, uh, he's a, he's a local journalist there. And he was taking me to places and we went to look for a priest at a local church to, to talk to him. Cause he's part of like, he's an activist himself. So his people told us like, he's not here, he's in the main town, but probably come in the next two hours, he should be here. And I was, we were leaving, they dropped a explosive drone at the same place we were. Like literally, what, two minutes after we left? Oh wow. We could hear the explosion at the very corner where we were parked.

• 54:24Luis Chaparro?

  This guy was like, we need to move. We stayed another, at another shitty hotel in the middle of, of nowhere. Uh, and that night, they, one of my sources inside one of these cartels sent me a video of how they were torturing the chief of police of that town. He was like, you wanna know who's really in charge? Have a look at this shit, like 12 in the night, sent me that video out. And he showed me how they were treachering uh the chief of police of the town. And he's like, we rule these town men, uh so if you want to talk to someone, it's it's us. Uh and and then in the video, they they pop it, they you can see his on his knees and then

• 55:01Shawn Ryan?

  Killed him.

• 55:03Luis Chaparro?

  And um it Metuchen is crazy, man, that that place is crazy because it's different cartels, like probably five or six different powerful criminal organizations fighting against each other, breaking truths between each other and then breaking that truths and fighting again and stuff. And you have the cartel Jalisco, you know, you're the the Jalisco cartel new generation. Huge there.

• 55:25Shawn Ryan?

  Are all the cartels using these drones now, or is this one specific?

• 55:28Luis Chaparro?

  I think all of them are probably using it more, but the guys that are really on top of that game is the CJNG, the Jalisco cartel. They those those are the guys owning that game. Uh they they they have these, it's called operaciones, droneros operaciones especiales, like special drone operators. They have their own badge, their own, you know, like symbol and thing, which is basically a drone with a school in the center and the CJNG letters and then droneros on on on on the lower part, which is drone operators.

• 56:06Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 56:07Luis Chaparro?

  So they're they're putting together a a special unit to operate drones, you know, and to and to keep seeing new trends, new drones, um acquiring new tools, getting explosives, um training more guys on in the use of drones for for vigilance, but also for for like us I E I E Ts, basically.

• 56:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, are they, when when it comes to these drones, I mean, are they anti-personnel? Are they anti-vehicle? Can they take out a building or can they do, I mean, can they, how? How advanced are they with their explosives?

• 56:45Luis Chaparro?

  For the most part.

• 56:46Shawn Ryan?

  It's very simple to make an explosive that's anti-personal, that's gonna take humans out.

• 56:52Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 56:52Shawn Ryan?

  It's a little tougher, you know, when you're looking to take vehicles out. Obviously, you know, buildings, you're talking about packing a lot more explosives. Are they?

• 57:01Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 57:01Shawn Ryan?

  What are the capabilities of these drones?

• 57:03Luis Chaparro?

  For the most part, I would say like probably seventy, eighty percent is what you will call fireworks, right? It's just like anti-personal. Um, handmade, handmade explosives out of like a different mix of things, you know?

• 57:18Shawn Ryan?

  Whatever they can get.

• 57:19Luis Chaparro?

  Yes. Uh, but a good percentage of that shit, it's actual explosive stuff, the real dangerous stuff like, like Tobex or C4.

• 57:27Shawn Ryan?

  They're, they're. They're getting actual legitimate explosives. They're not even making their own. Where's this coming from?

• 57:33Luis Chaparro?

  This is coming from the US. The C4 is coming from the US and, and Tobex, which is like the Mexican version of, of C4 or that's, that's kinda like what I understand. It's, it's getting from, from Mexico. Um, I know that they still don't have like, or to my knowledge, like large amounts of that, cause we haven't seen that in a, in a widespread use. Uh, for the most part is that like, uh, makeshift explosive things with the drones. But in some cases, they've installed mines with Tobex or C4 that have exploded the armored vehicles, uh, official vehicles of the, of the, of the Mexican military.

• 58:12Shawn Ryan?

  If they're, I mean, if they're getting C4.

• 58:15Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, they're getting.

• 58:16Shawn Ryan?

  From the US, I mean, well, how are they getting it?

• 58:20Luis Chaparro?

  I have no clue, man.

• 58:21Shawn Ryan?

  People inside the military?

• 58:23Luis Chaparro?

  I have no clue, but I have a, a source inside the Mexican military and he was, he was, I was having an argument with them cause it was like, they're not getting C4 and I'm like, dude, they, I know for a fact, I went there.

• 58:33Shawn Ryan?

  You saw it?

• 58:33Luis Chaparro?

  I saw it. Did they? And they told me and they, I, I, I, I sent you a video. I, I don't think that C4, what, what, what I sent you, that video where they're putting up the, uh, the drones and explosives. But in the same, on the same setting, in the same place, they had Tobex and C4, not large amounts. But I was telling this guy, I, I've seen it myself and he was like, we don't have any intel as of they're getting C4. That's extremely hard to get. And then like probably a month after, in a small place in Chihuahua called Palomas, Puerto Palomas, border town, the Mexican authorities, the Mexican customs seized a somewhat large amount of C4 sneaking from the US towards Mexico on an American citizen.

• 59:16Shawn Ryan?

  An American citizen.

• 59:19Luis Chaparro?

  So, so, and I send the news article to these guys, like dude, you see what I'm talking about? They are getting their hands on C4. And he's like, oh shit, yes, you're right. You're absolutely right.

• 59:33Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. What are they using these for? Are they, I mean, who are they targeting? Are they using this for cartel wars? Are they using it on civilians?

• 59:42Luis Chaparro?

  They usually, they're using it for both. For, I've only seen they using this heavy stuff against armored vehicles from government and from cartel. What they call them Monstros, these makeshift armor rhino type vehicles that they make, you know? And they, it's, they're absolutely armored to the, to the engine, doors, everything. And it's all makeshift.

• 1:00:11Luis Chaparro?

  And they're extremely hard to take out because of the, they even armored the tires, you know, and stuff. But that's what they're using these explosives for. Cause only one of these, one of these vehicles pass over a load of C4 and they detonate that shit. That'll, that'll, that'll damage the armored vehicle. And they've used it against their, their official armored military vehicles.

• 1:00:38Shawn Ryan?

  And it's working?

• 1:00:39Luis Chaparro?

  And it's working. Yes. Yes.

• 1:00:40Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have any video of that?

• 1:00:42Luis Chaparro?

  I think there is, I don't think there's video, but I think there, there are photos published online. I'll, I'll look for them and send it right over.

• 1:00:49Shawn Ryan?

  Are they using this on US Border Patrol at all?

• 1:00:52Luis Chaparro?

  No, for the most part on their border, what they're using drones for, it's for vigilance of the movement of the Border Patrol and US authorities. They're, they do have specific bases to watch over the, the US movements. Also, I wrote a story, another thing I was recently into is they have what they call, I was called C.

• 1:01:18Luis Chaparro?

  I can't remember the name, what they call it. But it's basically vigilante bases they establish in different border towns. Where they have, they set up different video cameras all over the city, you know. Uh, they ask permission probably from a little lady in a house. Hey, can we put just a security camera so you're safe and whatever, just gonna install it here. So they have a lot of those, a lot of like eye rings um on, on different places that they can keep, you know, watching over. They have. Like just regular Ring camera type stuff? Regular stuff, stuff that they get from Anderson. And then they have these center of intelligence where they have a bunch of cameras, a bunch of, you know. Screens. Screens.

• 1:02:02Luis Chaparro?

  And they're getting information through WhatsApp and handing over information either for rivals or uh Mexican officials, US authorities around the border. If they wanna place a hit, they're like, hey, these guys driving a, I don't know, black SUV with these plates. And they'll just start watching the cameras all around town and say like, okay, these guys driving that way, so you can get that guy on the next straight up. And so it's, it's like a proper, proper established intelligence center. Wow. Have you been in one? I have a bunch of photos. I'll send you photos of these places, from inside these places. Oh, man. Yeah, it's, it's crazy, cause they're, they're. These guys are more sophisticated than, than the government. Yeah, man, they're, they're getting to that level.

• 1:02:47Luis Chaparro?

  I mean, I, I know that they're still, they're still outlaw, so that limits their power. But as they keep, you know, going up the ladder in, in corruption and getting more permission and more access to government stuff, uh, they're getting more sophisticated and, and more established. How are they?

• 1:03:11Shawn Ryan?

  What are the range of these drones? Do you have any idea?

• 1:03:15Luis Chaparro?

  I have no clue. I think it really varies because these are all commercial drones they get from Amazon. They are, for the most part, are DJI drones.

• 1:03:24Shawn Ryan?

  What's the most weight that you've seen one hold?

• 1:03:28Luis Chaparro?

  They had this Maverick. Maverick, can't remember the exact model of that. But it was a somewhat big Maverick drone. It was meant to carry a DSLR camera. So, you know, with extra batteries and probably a microphone. So that's probably the most.

• 1:03:49Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, so maybe a couple of pounds.

• 1:03:52Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, and I remember they were loading that one up with a box, with a plastic box with a bunch of stuff in.

• 1:04:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, well, how were they detonating the explosives?

• 1:04:04Luis Chaparro?

  By impact. So they just impact the drone against a house or a person, vehicle.

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• 1:05:12Shawn Ryan?

  Well, there has to be more than that, especially if they're using C4, because C4 can only be detonated with a, with a, with a, with a charge. So basically to detonate C4, you could set C4 on fire. It's not going to do anything but burn. You could throw C4 at a house. It's not going to do anything.

• 1:05:31Luis Chaparro?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:05:32Shawn Ryan?

  Play kickball with it. It's not going to do anything. But if you, if you prime it with a blasting cap,

• 1:05:39Shawn Ryan?

  that when that blasting cap explodes, then it detonates the C4. So it has to be.

• 1:05:44Luis Chaparro?

  I have no clue, man. I mean, I know that for the most part, the makeshift drones with a makeshift explosive. I was telling you with the, yeah, that's basically by impact.

• 1:05:52Shawn Ryan?

  It's okay.

• 1:05:53Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah. But all the other stuff, like when they hit the radios and that kind of stuff, I have no clue how they're detonating that stuff.

• 1:06:01Shawn Ryan?

  That would be interesting to find out. You know,

• 1:06:06Shawn Ryan?

  it's a relatively, I would think it would be a relatively easy defense against the drones. I mean, you can get these commercial jammers, you know, and just, and jam the frequency that the drone runs off of. I mean, and you can get these for relatively cheap on, um, just, you can Google it. I mean, they're illegal, but you know, you can buy them.

• 1:06:30Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:31Shawn Ryan?

  They'll ship them to you from China.

• 1:06:32Luis Chaparro?

  The Mexican government has been afraid of using those jammers because they know that drones have, um, explosive charge on them. So they don't want the drone probably, they will have, probably have to coordinate where it's going to fall or something.

• 1:06:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, the caveat to that would be, you know, your cell phone, everything, every signal is going to be jammed.

• 1:06:55Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Shawn Ryan?

  So you're, you're out there, but that would be.

• 1:06:59Luis Chaparro?

  Because if it falls, it's gonna.

• 1:07:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, if they could figure out the frequency that the drone is running off of, which should, I mean, it's probably in the user manual, you know what I mean? You probably just Google it or look it up and see.

• 1:07:12Luis Chaparro?

  So you take over control of the drone and not necessarily just drop it?

• 1:07:16Shawn Ryan?

  Well, it would drop.

• 1:07:17Luis Chaparro?

  It will drop.

• 1:07:18Shawn Ryan?

  But if you can get the bubble big enough to where it's jamming this, it's not gonna drop on you.

• 1:07:24Luis Chaparro?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:07:25Shawn Ryan?

  But.

• 1:07:25Luis Chaparro?

  Probably on a, because the fear, what they told me when I interviewed these state police in Michoacan, they do have these weird looking guns that are apparently signal jammers. And I asked them like, why they're not using that stuff? And they're like, if we should have drone down, it's gonna fall probably on a house, on a civilian, and it's gonna cause, you know?

• 1:07:49Shawn Ryan?

  Well, guess what? It's gonna fall somewhere.

• 1:07:51Luis Chaparro?

  Somewhere.

• 1:07:53Shawn Ryan?

  Whether the cartel makes it fall or whether the jammer makes it fall. But, um, yeah, it'll be, I mean, they're actually developing, they have them. Um, I've been actually talking with the owner of one of these companies. They're making energy weapons that they don't take ammunition, they don't take anything, but they'll disable a drone like that. And you just, you could watch 50 of them all fall out of the sky at the same time. There's no sound, nothing. It's just.

• 1:08:22Luis Chaparro?

  That's pretty much interesting, and that's probably helpful in Mexico because they're getting, they're getting big on technology, all sorts of technology.

• 1:08:31Shawn Ryan?

  You know, moving into some other stuff, let's talk about, it's interesting how their weapons continue to develop and how resourceful, you know, they are.

• 1:08:43Luis Chaparro?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:44Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, is fascinating to me. But you know what else is fascinating is, I've been reading that some of these cartels, I don't know if moving away is the right sense. I'd kind of mentioned this earlier, I think, but it seems like they're kind of, they're definitely expanding out of the drug market.

• 1:09:10Luis Chaparro?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:10Shawn Ryan?

  And it sounds like that's not even.

• 1:09:15Shawn Ryan?

  The majority of their income at this point in time now, I mean, I know, I know there's a lot of human trafficking happening, gun smuggling, drugs, but it sounds like the cartels are becoming so sophisticated and becoming so powerful that they're actually taking over legitimate business and commerce. Do you wanna?

• 1:09:35Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, sure. I think one, the, the main reason for a criminal organization to exist is, is money, right? It's revenue. They want to have more money, more power. And wherever they have a sense that there is money in whichever industry that is, legal or illegal, they're gonna try to bank on it. At some point, drugs were the most profitable revenue, right? Cause they were illegal, hard to get, scars, and there was a huge demand in the US. Right now, the price of cocaine is plummeting. It's probably at its lowest in history. It's, you, you can get a brick of cocaine for 16 grand, right? Like, it's, already in the US, which is absolutely

• 1:10:19Luis Chaparro?

  ridiculous amount of, of, of a price.

• 1:10:23Luis Chaparro?

  They're still moving.

• 1:10:24Shawn Ryan?

  What was it that it's?

• 1:10:25Luis Chaparro?

  Thirty, even, even a, even a low price will be thirty, thirty-five, forty.

• 1:10:29Shawn Ryan?

  A low price would be thirty thousand?

• 1:10:31Luis Chaparro?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:32Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:10:35Shawn Ryan?

  So it's like a fire sale with cocaine, right?

• 1:10:37Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, exactly. Like, everybody's like, uh, uh, every, everybody in the US is getting a hold of a couple of bricks of cocaine and then trying to split, you know, that over and some, get some revenue. They're still making money out of, out of drugs. Uh, but the thing is, that's sort of like a established revenue stream now, right? They managed to have that, that streamline of revenue established. No issue, no problem. They can even sort of like calculate how much money they're gonna make over a year of shipping different kinds of drugs and stuff. So that's basically settled for them, for, for their business. What they're seeing there is an opportunity is in natural resources and human smuggling. And, and, and

• 1:11:20Luis Chaparro?

  of course, uh, the, the political power, capitalization of, of political power, you know, political positions. That's where they're they're now not moving away from drugs, but probably saying, you know what? We have established drug routes. We have established revenue. We have established providers and clients. Now that that's established and it's getting to a established level of money and it's not even that high anymore.

• 1:11:45Shawn Ryan?

  There's no word left to even expand in the drug market.

• 1:11:48Luis Chaparro?

  Exactly. We we basically own it and that's it. Because they they find new new clients, right? Like Europe and then Africa and stuff, but it's it has a cap, you know? And then they move from that to other revenue streams, one of them being mining. First, they started embedding with mine international mining companies to bring security. Even if those mining companies I've reached out to, they say they have no clue. They don't do that kind of like deals with cartels. And they disguise everything as going with private security companies. Well, guess what? Private security companies, they they are, right? They they are a cartel.

• 1:12:31Luis Chaparro?

  So they pay these private security companies first to lobby with Mexican security forces to assure that their operation in certain region, it's going to be secure, right? They're like, oh, we're too afraid of [bleep] cartels and we want to explode this mine of, I don't know, lithium, my, um, gold, silver, whatever, but we want to know we're safe. They're smart enough and they do have people doing research enough to know that that region is highly controlled by the cartel. So they will just see it and negotiate through different security companies, right?

• 1:13:10Luis Chaparro?

  That means that the security company says, okay, usually we charge, let's call it a thousand dollars for a deal like that. But now we're going to charge three thousand dollars, three times more, because we're going to split that with a cartel and then you'll be safe. So the cartel basically owns the security around most of these mining companies on on different natural resources, right? That was first at the beginning. Then cartel started like stepping a a step ahead, putting a step ahead. And saying like, oh, you know what? It looks like we have rumors that here could be a lot of new silver unexploded yet.

• 1:13:51Luis Chaparro?

  Why don't we establish right there and and hold that place for a while? So when a mining company comes and say like, hey, wanna explode that place? We're already here, man. Yeah, you're gonna have to, you know, give us the good money to keep you safe, to get rid of all these people and and we're good. And and that's been that's been going on and on in different places. So when when we see cartels fighting, like in places like Zacatecas, Puebla, all that stuff, the government tells us, oh, they're fighting a drug route. It's like, dude, that is that is not even a fucking drug route. There there is no port, there is no main highway that leads to the US, whatever. Not the only one. That's not a production site.

• 1:14:33Luis Chaparro?

  But what you have is a lot of silver, like in Zacatecas. So these guys want to own that place because they know there's gonna be a new project coming in town. And that's big money for them, big money. That's all they're fighting for. In Chiapas, Cartel Jalisco versus Sinaloa cartel, fighting hard, killing a lot of innocent people, making a mess, making parades. Like you will see parades of cartels going, and the people will be like, hey, save us, please, from the other cartel, whatever. Chiapas, the the major and main uh human trafficking border and human smuggling border right now. There is in in all of the Americas. That's that's where the uh bottleneck is. That's a new US border.

• 1:15:18Luis Chaparro?

  The the the the US basically moved its border to southern Mexico. That they negotiated that with the Mexican government. Just put up a bunch of military in your southern border so they don't reach or southern border, right? Which is, it's not working, but still, they're paying Mexico to do that.

• 1:15:37Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 1:15:38Luis Chaparro?

  And while Mexico's trying to do that.

• 1:15:40Shawn Ryan?

  What's it look like down there?

• 1:15:41Luis Chaparro?

  Dude, it's a mess, man.

• 1:15:43Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, is there any, is there a line?

• 1:15:46Luis Chaparro?

  There is a river. There's a bridge and there's these little, small booth of security. There's a bunch of military.

• 1:15:55Shawn Ryan?

  It's a total joke.

• 1:15:56Luis Chaparro?

  It is a joke. People are literally walking across the river with merchandise even. They go in Guatemala, buy cheap stuff, you know, like clothes or toys for their kids, whatever.

• 1:16:06Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it's, it sounds like it is so bad, and we're gonna get to this, with, with the, with the lobbying of the government from the cartels and the government, or the cartels embedding within the government. I mean, you were talking about this the last time. So essentially, it is, I mean, it, it's so foolish. I mean, so the US, the government has embedded so much in the Mexican government that the US, this is actually the exact same thing as the US paying the cartel to... They're paying the cartel to police their own.

• 1:16:49Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:51Shawn Ryan?

  It's just, I mean, it's, it's absurd.

• 1:16:54Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah. Remember the last time I told you that I knew that a cell from Sinaloa cartel was moving down to Chiapas because they were moved specifically to stop the influx of migrants, right? Who's paying for that? Who lobbied that shit? That was the US government. That was the US government through the Mexican government towards the cartel. So it's basically this. US government says to Mexico, hey, man, loud enough, so the cartel's here. I need you to secure your southern border. I'll give you something in exchange, but I need you to secure that border, right? Mexican government says, yes, but it's gonna cost

• 1:17:35Luis Chaparro?

  you this much. And they're like, we'll fund you all the money you need. Hand the money over. Probably Mexican government keeps 20%, 80% goes for the cartel. So like, hey, guys, go and do your thing on the southern border.

• 1:17:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:48Luis Chaparro?

  Cartel gets there.

• 1:17:49Shawn Ryan?

  Because the Mexican government is the cartel.

• 1:17:51Luis Chaparro?

  Exactly. And, and, and the cartel gets to the southern border and at the beginning start doing their job, like, nobody's gonna cross if we don't know. And then they start taking more money. I mean, he's like, if the Mexican government already paid... Why don't we get some extra cash from these guys as well? So, so they're like, yeah, come on over, just pay us. They becoming more and more and more powerful. And the US government is like, Mexico, what the, you're letting everybody through? Where's the money we gave you? Some cartel hats. So that's, that's what happened. Like, these guys are trying to monopolize every other aspect of our regular lives. Like, in Michoacan, the avocados, every Super Bowl season, dude. It's bad stuff for Michoacan.

• 1:18:35Luis Chaparro?

  Every Super Bowl season, the amount of avocado that it's consuming in the US spikes the shit out of prices in Mexico. And cartels are, let's go for those avocados. They, let's put a cap on the production of avocados. Even if they go to shit, even if they go to waste, if they get rotten in a warehouse, we don't give a shit, man.

• 1:18:57Shawn Ryan?

  They're controlling the supply.

• 1:18:59Luis Chaparro?

  We're controlling the supply, so they control the price. Same thing with, with lemon. They've, they just recently, like, last month, they killed a bunch of farmers, poor lemon farmers, that decided, you know what? Fuck you, I have my own lemon trees. I'm gonna, I'm gonna sell that shit, I need that for my family. They're like, I told you, no more picking up lemons, because we need the prices to spike.

• 1:19:21Shawn Ryan?

  So they're gonna control the supply, make lemons and avocados very rare to inflate the price. This is what the De Beers family did to the diamonds.

• 1:19:29Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, exactly, that's exactly what they're doing. That, that's exactly what they're doing, with everything, with everything. They started doing that with avocados and lemons. And you go to a, to a corner store here in the US, they're like, what the? This avocado is extremely expensive now. It's, it's not because of supply and demand and the market, whatever, it's because of cartels, taking over the, the production, or the picking up of, of their fruits.

• 1:19:54Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:19:54Luis Chaparro?

  And it's, and it's crazy. And then, I was also in Chihuahua, northern Mexico, the state where Ciudad Juarez is, just right across El Paso. So, it's a huge state. And I was deep into the mountains, in what we call La Sierra de Chihuahua, which is the, the little, the mountains of Chihuahua. A region controlled absolutely by the Sinaloa cartel, by a faction anyways of, of it. To learn how they're monopolizing water. Water did like we were, I was there during a, during a, during a drought, right? One of the wars that ever hit northern Mexico. Water was absolute scars. The government was telling us, you know, you need to take uh control of the water usage

• 1:20:39Luis Chaparro?

  because we're out of water. And, and, and, and also the rivers that flow from the mountains down to the Rio Grande, down to the, to the river that divide both countries. Mexico and the US have an agreement of sharing waters, right? Uh, the, the, the, the Rio Grande is born in the Colorado Mountains.

• 1:20:58Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:20:58Luis Chaparro?

  Then it goes into Mexico and then back into the US and then back into Mexico up in Coahuila and then back in the US in Texas and like that. So they have an agreement. You, you let that water flow and I'll give you 20% back. And then up, up ahead, you give me 20% back of that water that cross into your turf. And that's an agreement, right? We're at a point where the US and Mexico relationship is very fractured because of water. The US is saying Mexico owes us like five years of water. They haven't paid and Mexico is like, we are on a drought. We don't have enough water to pay you back and we need that water for our locals.

• 1:21:36Luis Chaparro?

  Cortez learned about this shit. They say like, oh, so water is scars now. So water is money now. So we're one of control every river, creek, lake in this region, at least in the region we own. And they start doing that in, in, in Chihuahua, in, in this, in the Sierra de Chihuahua. And how they start doing that is literally putting lookouts, sicarios enhancement around those creeks where the creeks were born or where the, where the rivers were born.

• 1:22:05Shawn Ryan?

  So they're looking for natural springs.

• 1:22:07Luis Chaparro?

  Natural springs, natural springs, yes. There is a huge lake called uh Lago de Arareco. Beautiful lake in, in the middle of the, of the mountains of hills in, in Chihuahua. The last time I was there, dude, I mean, it was probably only full to the third part of it, absolutely empty. And when I asked locals, that no one wanted, wanted to say what exactly was happening to the Arareco River, right? To the Arareco Lake.

• 1:22:38Luis Chaparro?

  That lake doesn't have an exit. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't have a stream of, the water is going to, through that river, through that whatever. The water stays there, it's a natural lake that fills every time it rains.

• 1:22:53Luis Chaparro?

  So, the locals have this joke, and they were telling me, like, I think it has a hole on the, on the right bottom of, of the lake, and that's where that water is going, because every morning, um, we see the lake, it's more empty. You go to sleep one night, and the next morning, it's more empty. And I was like, they're trying to tell me something they don't, they can't say, right? So I started working my way in with locals and with biologists and people around. And they showed me how the cartels by night goes with, uh, every night goes to that creek, to that, to that lake, with these water pipes, and start extracting a lot of water from, from it.

• 1:23:35Luis Chaparro?

  And then, they sell that water to hotels, stores, Airbnbs, for tourists. You go to a hotel in the middle of a draft, of a draft, and, and, and you can open the, the faucet, and leave it open for hours, and you're not gonna run out of water. But if you're in a local house, you're immediately gonna be out of water, like, probably within an hour of leaving the faucet open.

• 1:24:01Luis Chaparro?

  And all these guys are sourcing from the cartel, and the cartels are making shit tons of money. So they are now controlling, is this, they're controlling the water supplies? Water supplies, yeah. Is this spreading? It, I don't, I don't have, I still have no information about other states. I did my reporting specifically in Chihuahua, because it was going through the worst drought in history in Mexico. That was the, that was where water became more and more scarce. I think it's happening also in Nuevo León, uh, in, they're also border with Texas, in, in Monterrey, Laredo, Nuevo Laredo, all those places, uh, east of Mexico, it's not, the, the northern east of Mexico. Um, because also water is absolutely scarce right there.

• 1:24:43Luis Chaparro?

  So, so they're banking on that, they're banking on jellyfish in Sonora. Jellyfish? Jellyfish is just like, that's, that's, that's very new, that's, that's a very new revenue stream, they, they just popped up. In Sonora, in the Mar de Cortez, which is the, the, um, Pacific side of Mexico. Uh, there is a massive population of jellyfish. We don't use jellyfish for anything, so it's became basically a plague in Mexico. But in China, apparently, dehydrated and covered or curated with salt, it's an exquisite plate. It's something expensive they eat. It's a delicacy. Yes, exactly.

• 1:25:27Luis Chaparro?

  They pay shit tons for a jellyfish dehydrated and curated with salt.

• 1:25:36Luis Chaparro?

  Well, that's been happening before the Sinaloa cartel. Local fishermen have their season. They'll grab a bunch of jellyfish and sell that out to Vietnam and... It's Vietnam and other... Thailand. Thailand governments, yes, both of them. They're selling that to those governments and then they are selling it to the China's government and making a buck out of it. Great season for local fishermen, the jellyfish season. When the cartel learned how much money they were making, it was something like ten million dollars a season or something like that, the revenue from that.

• 1:26:18Luis Chaparro?

  They were like, alright, so you're not gonna sell anymore directly to these companies. You're gonna sell to us and we're gonna sell to the companies. We're gonna export this shit. Many fishermen decided like, you know what? No, I don't think that's good idea, man. I mean, we're gonna be left out of this business and we're gonna just be left with, you know, just a couple of bucks around. So they didn't listen. They killed two, three fishermen and then they started burning the trucks where they were transporting the jellyfish and killing some of the drivers to make a point. It's like, okay, you keep selling directly to these guys and I'm gonna keep killing you guys. So now they own that business.

• 1:26:59Luis Chaparro?

  Now the fishermen had to ask for permission first to go out and sell and get jellyfish. And then they have to report exactly how many jellyfish they gathered and they sell that to them for, you know, super cheap price, local price. And now the cartel is handling with Vietnam and Thailand companies to export that shit out to China. So, so they're literally getting in the middle of, of a lot of heavy revenue business, you know.

• 1:27:29Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. There, you had mentioned something about Lyft and Uber as well.

• 1:27:34Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, that's another thing. There is an app, if you don't mind, let me, let me, let me tell you which, which app is this. I don't know. Do you think that's, that's, that's fine? We're fine if we say the brand? Not get in trouble?

• 1:27:46Shawn Ryan?

  It's up to you.

• 1:27:47Luis Chaparro?

  I mean, I'm, I'm not gonna get in trouble, but I don't know if you want to call out the brand. They probably don't even know. But let me, uh, let me see. Well, there, there is one of these, um,

• 1:28:01Luis Chaparro?

  um, ride applications like Uber and Lyft, specifically in Culiacan, in the, the main city, capital city in Sinaloa. Um, I can't find them. Uh, but this is an international brand as well. Some, the, the, the next up competitor to Lyft and Uber. And they establish, um, business in, in Culiacan, in, in Sinaloa and in several different parts of Mexico as well. But in Culiacan, there was an order by allegedly Los Chapitos, the, the sons of El Chapo Guzman, of the Sinaloa cartel, to, to, for everyone to stop working for Uber and Lyft and to start working with that company exclusively. So there was a time where the, very recently, where, where you will see the, the local news in Sinaloa,

• 1:28:46Luis Chaparro?

  there was a lot of Uber and Lyft drivers getting killed. And everybody started wondering why. I asked one of my sources, like, what, what's happening? And he told me like, there is an order for every Uber driver, Lyft driver to stop working there and start working with these companies specifically. I still don't know why. He, she couldn't really gave, gave me an answer. He's like, that, that was the order. And I was like, do they have money in that company? Uh, did they pay something? Or what's, what's?

• 1:29:13Shawn Ryan?

  Is it their company?

• 1:29:14Luis Chaparro?

  I don't think it's their company because this is an international company. You know, this is, I, I think it's a US-based company or, yeah. It's, it's like Uber and Lyft.

• 1:29:21Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 1:29:22Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah. Yeah, I'll find, I'll find the name of the company and.

• 1:29:25Shawn Ryan?

  What, when did that start happening?

• 1:29:28Luis Chaparro?

  Probably like two months ago.

• 1:29:29Shawn Ryan?

  So they're, they're getting involved in legitimate transportation.

• 1:29:34Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:36Shawn Ryan?

  Water.

• 1:29:36Luis Chaparro?

  Water.

• 1:29:37Shawn Ryan?

  The water supply.

• 1:29:38Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:40Shawn Ryan?

  The food supply.

• 1:29:41Luis Chaparro?

  Human smuggling.

• 1:29:42Shawn Ryan?

  Human smuggling, drugs.

• 1:29:45Luis Chaparro?

  Fishing. Well, yeah, food supply.

• 1:29:48Shawn Ryan?

  Food supply.

• 1:29:50Luis Chaparro?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:29:51Shawn Ryan?

  I mean.

• 1:29:52Luis Chaparro?

  They have their hands on on everything, man. And and again, what they what their their strategy is. When they feel there is an opportunity to be to be making money out of an industry, they'll dive in.

• 1:30:09Luis Chaparro?

  They'll dive in. It's it's they're probably the the.

• 1:30:12Shawn Ryan?

  Who's engineering these ideas?

• 1:30:14Luis Chaparro?

  That's the thing, dude. I I I it's weird, because when I was talking to these higher up in the San Diego cartel, one of the guys that that it's in the leadership of the San Diego cartel. They're smart people. They went to schools in Europe, in Canada, in the U.S. These is highly educated people.

• 1:30:31Shawn Ryan?

  These are the serious business people.

• 1:30:33Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, and and they know and they have friends with money that probably gave give them ideas, you know.

• 1:30:41Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, they're probably.

• 1:30:44Shawn Ryan?

  I probably, I mean, if they're hiring these kind of people, they're doing a straight market assessment, you know.

• 1:30:48Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:49Shawn Ryan?

  This is what the avocado industry brings in every year. We need to take a piece of this or the whole thing. This is, you know, this is what the water treatment plants and the and in in the water supply businesses are making.

• 1:31:03Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, I think if you think about like of of like an investment house, they they have two things. They have analysts that kind of like look at the trends and they have people on the ground, you know, pitching in new ideas, saying like, hey, man, I just learned that water is going to be scarce in this state for the rest of the year, you know, because there's a drought and there is not enough water and Mexico needs to pay water to the U.S., that kind of stuff. And I think cartel has both. They have like analysts saying like how much and how is the market of different things moving and people on the ground saying, hey, there is no water in in Chihuahua.

• 1:31:40Shawn Ryan?

  Are they are you aware are they are they webbing out in anything else?

• 1:31:45Luis Chaparro?

  That's that's as far as I'm aware now, you know, these these past couple of years I've been reporting on all sorts of different stuff they're doing, you know, traveling from Chihuahua to Michoacan to Chiapas.

• 1:31:58Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, to Sinaloa, to different, different places. And it's wild, man.

• 1:32:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:32:09Shawn Ryan?

  How does this, how do you even, how do you even begin to combat this when they're illegitimately legitimizing themselves into, into, into just everyday, regular business? I mean, it's a crime to, I mean, it's, how do I say this? I mean, they're forcing these businesses to comply with them, but once they're complying, I mean, the crime just goes into the past and, I mean, how, it seems like it would be impossible to break them up.

• 1:32:52Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, I mean, we're definitely past that point now, because I think there was still, there was still a time where, where a business owner, a politician, could have closed the door for that, you know, and say, you know what, I don't care if I'm gonna make three times more money, it's dirty money, I'm not gonna do it, I'm not gonna comply with you, I'm not gonna do it. They were, they were not still that powerful back then, there were still like cartels. I don't, I don't even call them cartels anymore, they're either criminal enterprises or pseudo paramilitary armies, you know? They're, they're everything but drug cartels.

• 1:33:37Luis Chaparro?

  I think that's a term that is absolutely outdated. We, we shouldn't be calling them drug cartels, because they're not drug cartels.

• 1:33:43Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, what is, what, I mean, what does this mean for Mexico? What does it look like? Ten years from now?

• 1:33:50Luis Chaparro?

  It's, it's, it's looking bad, it's looking sad. Like, imagine on your daily basis, you're a regular man living in Mexico, middle class. You say, you know what, I probably can put together some money, some savings to make a business. Depends on where you are, you're gonna get extorted or kidnapped immediately to get you, to rip you up of what you're building. If you pass through that, you're gonna learn that you're gonna have to make decisions and say like, if I'm gonna make a business in Mexico, if it's, I don't know, whatever you're doing, you're setting up ladders for whatever, or building houses. If you're making enough money, someone's gonna come after you. Someone's gonna say, hey, man,

• 1:34:33Luis Chaparro?

  why don't we partner and you start laundering money for us and I'll keep you protection? And you say, no, man, I'm not interested. I'm doing my money. And then they start extorting you or kidnapping your family. They're like, hey, what about now? And you'll be like, I'd rather close my business or comply and make a buck out of it. But now you're part of it.

• 1:34:56Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it's just getting to the point where even if somebody wants to start a legitimate business, it's all, I mean, you can't get into the avocado business, you can't get into the lemon business, you can't get in the jellyfish business, you can't get in the transportation business, you cannot get into the water business, you can't dabble in the drug business, can't, yeah, I mean, it's just.

• 1:35:16Luis Chaparro?

  What does that make for the economy of our country, you know?

• 1:35:19Shawn Ryan?

  That's kind of what I'm getting at is, I mean, you know, what's left? Power? They'll probably go after the power.

• 1:35:25Luis Chaparro?

  They're on, yeah.

• 1:35:26Shawn Ryan?

  Control that.

• 1:35:27Luis Chaparro?

  Exactly.

• 1:35:28Shawn Ryan?

  Medicine, the medical industry.

• 1:35:30Luis Chaparro?

  They're on that.

• 1:35:30Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it's, it's.

• 1:35:32Luis Chaparro?

  They're on everything. They're on everything. It's a fucking plague. I mean, the thing is, they're gonna start shrinking the middle class so much that there will be no economic development in Mexico for a good while.

• 1:35:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:46Luis Chaparro?

  And it's probably, we're probably facing that. I'm not, I mean, I'm of course very ignorant on how the financial markets move, whatever. But if you think of it, if the, if the middle class is absolutely shrunk and all you have left is probably an upper class and then a lower, lower class, right? And the cartel is kind of like monopolizing and going in between both, then a lot of the money you need for that country, for that middle class to live, it's gonna come through illegal sources, right? These study by science, this new research by the Science Magazine, said that Mexico, that the cartels are the fifth largest employers in Mexico, right below the Mexican government.

• 1:36:31Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:36:31Luis Chaparro?

  Fifth largest employer of in Mexico. So if the Mexican government will go after cartel activity and stop all the money moving from related to any criminal organization, we will become like poor immediately, man. We'll become like one of the most poor countries in America, you know, in in in the continent. Probably in the world, man. Because these monies getting through everywhere. Mexico is a highly cash based country. You use a lot of cash. There's a lot of different stores, corner stores, different places that they don't want to pay taxes because they're gonna get left without anything, so they use cash. Perfect for money laundering. But also, where is this cash getting from?

• 1:37:16Luis Chaparro?

  You don't go to an ATM and withdraw money all the time. There's cash moving around the the the city, you know, that you get paid with cash. It's it's it's dirty money. It's cartel money. But that's the money that is backing up Mexico right now.

• 1:37:30Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 1:37:31Luis Chaparro?

  So I guess Mexico needs to find a way to legitimize all that dirty money, all that, you know, money made with dirty hands, put it into a legal, basically launderer money for these guys, and then stop the revenue and and opening up more, I don't know, man, shops or whatever.

• 1:37:51Shawn Ryan?

  But do you have any ideas on how to even begin to combat something like that?

• 1:37:54Luis Chaparro?

  I think a good start, it's it's again, by the Mexican government recognizing we have an issue, we have a problem. But putting a blind eye, it's not helping.

• 1:38:04Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, where would they even start, though?

• 1:38:08Luis Chaparro?

  I guess if you start saying, openly saying, we have a war, a non-declared war in Mexico that we're losing, you can you can get resources, you can get people, you can get smart people jumping in, you know, making education policies, health policies, financial plans to know how to get out of it, how to can fight these guys. Not only just going after them and shooting them and, you know.

• 1:38:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:36Luis Chaparro?

  But actually, how do we hurt these guys? How do we take the money and the power out of these guys? One strategy that has worked in the past is divide and conquer. And you make a bunch of little cartels and then you go fight them. But that's you're only gonna gonna fight the armed branches of the cartels, right? What about the financial branches?

• 1:38:57Shawn Ryan?

  So you're talking about using propaganda against the cartels.

• 1:39:02Luis Chaparro?

  You need to switch and change the way.

• 1:39:04Shawn Ryan?

  You're a smart dude.

• 1:39:06Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, dude, like, that's how they're getting into everywhere, right? By propaganda.

• 1:39:13Shawn Ryan?

  So we would have to, so you turn it into a psyop?

• 1:39:18Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, that's I, I, I think that's the only way to go out at this point, you know, of that.

• 1:39:24Shawn Ryan?

  That's a very interesting conversation. Let's take a break.

• 1:39:29Luis Chaparro?

  Let's.

• 1:39:29Shawn Ryan?

  When we come back, maybe we'll pick up right there.

• 1:39:31Luis Chaparro?

  For sure.

• 1:39:32Shawn Ryan?

  Next on the Sean Ryan Show.

• 1:39:34Luis Chaparro?

  We embedded with a girl, with a woman. She's the mother of five kids. She lost her child during the pandemic. And a friend of her at a bar came out like, hey dude, I know a couple of guys that will give you a car, a nice car, and they'll give you five grand every time you cross. The cartel guys that were stashing her car, they, they told me the first five, six times, we send her across without anything. She, she thought she had anything, but we're doing that to test her first and also to get the custom officers used to her crossing every other day, once a week, every weekend. So we did that several rounds.

• 1:40:15Luis Chaparro?

  And then after the sixth, we loaded the, the, the, the gas tank packed with fentanyl pills.