#23 Luis Chaparro - Inside the World's Deadliest Cartel

After being embedded with the Sinaloa Mexican Drug Cartel, Luis Chaparro an investigative reporter brings us some very eye opening insight on what they have been up to. He informs us of a new drug which the cartels are introducing into the United States and Canada that is more addictive and more deadly than fentanyl. He also was able to witness one of the Sinaloa Cartel's Tactical Training camps, describing exactly what they go through. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website - https://www.shawnryanshow.com Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/shawnryan762 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 1:29Luis Chaparro?

  When people ask me, like, why do you do what you do? Why do you embed with those guys? Why do you go and talk to them? Why do you risk your life going to them? I'm not stupid. I mean, I get scared as well. I get, I mean, I'm a, it's not like I don't get scared and I want to go with them. I get fucking scared. It's scary to be around them because you never know what's gonna happen, you know?

• 1:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, I think most people think that a heroin addict is a bum on the street. Heroin addicts are doctors, lawyers, dentists, cops, everybody.

• 2:08Shawn Ryan?

  That was a setup.

• 2:10Luis Chaparro?

  That was a, I mean...

• 2:13Shawn Ryan?

  China is trying to achieve global domination and they're going to achieve it. As sophisticated and as smart as these cartels seem to be, they're inserting these chemists.

• 2:24Luis Chaparro?

  A source told me that there is a new thing a thousand times more powerful than fentanyl.

• 2:34Luis Chaparro?

  And it's hard to even find it in the news. I had to call a doctor, call a proper chemist, to learn about those stuff and it's called...

• 2:45Shawn Ryan?

  Luis!

• 2:46Luis Chaparro?

  Ryan, how you doing, man?

• 2:47Shawn Ryan?

  Good, man.

• 2:48Luis Chaparro?

  It's great to see you again.

• 2:49Shawn Ryan?

  It's good to have you back.

• 2:50Luis Chaparro?

  I mean, it seems like it was a long ago, but it wasn't even that.

• 2:54Shawn Ryan?

  I think it was only like six months-ish.

• 2:57Luis Chaparro?

  Six, six, nine months, something like that.

• 2:59Shawn Ryan?

  Six to nine months.

• 3:00Luis Chaparro?

  It felt, it felt like a lot.

• 3:02Shawn Ryan?

  Well, you're gonna be the first person to officially be on the show two times.

• 3:08Luis Chaparro?

  I really appreciate that, man. That's, that's interesting. Especially, especially because of these few months, I've been doing a lot of stuff.

• 3:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you've done. You've done, so on your recent trip to Mexico, you went and you went to a fentanyl lab where they turned, is it paste?

• 3:27Luis Chaparro?

  It's a, it's a pills, these blue M30 pills.

• 3:31Shawn Ryan?

  But they turn the paste into the pills, right?

• 3:33Luis Chaparro?

  The press, the press, the paste.

• 3:35Shawn Ryan?

  And basically get it ready for export?

• 3:37Luis Chaparro?

  Yes.

• 3:38Shawn Ryan?

  And you went to the Sinaloa cartel's training camp?

• 3:44Luis Chaparro?

  Training camp.

• 3:44Shawn Ryan?

  Tactical training camp. You were there. How long were you there?

• 3:47Luis Chaparro?

  Just for a night.

• 3:48Shawn Ryan?

  Just for a night? And then you partied with one of the head honchos?

• 3:52Luis Chaparro?

  Yes. My birthday is January 19th, so I happened to be on my birthday, on my 35th birthday in, in Culiacan, Sinaloa. And I ended up partying with, with some of the Mayo Sambada people. That was pretty interesting.

• 4:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:10Luis Chaparro?

  I mean, not as interesting as I thought it was gonna be, because they're still regular people. But it was interesting to, to hang out with these guys, you know, especially on my birthday.

• 4:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:22Luis Chaparro?

  That was crazy.

• 4:23Shawn Ryan?

  Well, something you did do to prove that you were down there, which I wasn't sure how, I kinda, I was like, oh man. You put my...

• 4:33Shawn Ryan?

  Vigilance Elite swag on cartel. And I was like, man, that's cool. He's like really down there doing it. But I was like.

• 4:43Shawn Ryan?

  The cartel is repping my my brand right now, but but. I appreciate it, you know what I mean? For I I appreciate it for what it is and.

• 4:51Luis Chaparro?

  Man, it was just only, you know, I was I was trying to do like a joke between us, you know, I never published that. Cause I don't know if you want it to be, you know, you you will feel that way like, okay, my brand needs now associated with those guys. And it was something just because I had the uh the hat on that day, that night when we went out. Um I took it to to Kulyakan. And and one of the guys was asking like, man, they're gonna know me because of my hair. One of the two guys in the in the fentanyl. They he asked me for sunglasses, which I which I didn't have, but another man there had a like dark sunglasses. And then he asked me for the cap. And I was like, you know what? This might be interesting. So, yeah, by all means, go ahead. And I I never didn't even.

• 5:33Luis Chaparro?

  Tell him what the um brand was about or anything. I was just like, have at it. You like it? And it's like, man, this is this is pretty good. This is. And he saw like, I don't know if the um, I don't know the tag, and he was like, this is a pretty good one. And I'm like, you can keep it. So now this. A vigilance elite cap around that.

• 5:54Shawn Ryan?

  No, no worries. At at first I was I was like, oh, this probably isn't gonna go good. But you know what? Like, I appreciate. I appreciate, I appreciate it. And if people take it the wrong way, that's on them.

• 6:04Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, man, I mean, and it was only, you know, meant to to make like a like a it it was it was completely. Unplanned, um he wanted to have a cap because of his hair, because he had color hair. Um and and I just like thought it was gonna be funny. So that's that's why I didn't post it anywhere. I just like send it out to you, you know, like, man.

• 6:26Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I'm gonna put it up right now. Yeah, I'm gonna put it up right now and and uh and since. You gave all my swag away to uh cartel members.

• 6:38Shawn Ryan?

  I got you a little

• 6:40Luis Chaparro?

  Oh man, thank you, thanks a lot man. Um, I was just telling you I have the um, I had a bunch of stickers all over my laptop and some of the people now is getting to Well, I was always very praised at the airport in El Paso, I was like, oh, you're going to the show? And is that your friend? I'm like, I'm actually going on the show. They was like, no way, I follow that guy, the, the um, I think he was a CBP officer At the airport and he was like, super stoked about your show.

• 7:07Shawn Ryan?

  That's awesome.

• 7:08Luis Chaparro?

  That's pretty cool. Man, these gummy bears.

• 7:11Shawn Ryan?

  Wolfie's still there when you get back, tell him I said hello.

• 7:14Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, definitely. Gonna hide this from my kid, man, give them for my, for myself, all bags and thanks for I promised this woman.

• 7:24Shawn Ryan?

  Hey, whatever you need to do with it, if it gets you out of a pinch, use it.

• 7:28Luis Chaparro?

  This will not end up in um, cartel hands, man.

• 7:31Shawn Ryan?

  No worries.

• 7:33Luis Chaparro?

  Thanks, thanks a lot, man, I really appreciate it.

• 7:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. But um, before we kind of dive deep into what you've been doing, uh, I'd like to So Patreon, my, are my top supporters and they, they basically support us and that's what enables us to do the show And, and everything that we're doing, so I promised them That I will ask a question and then after this, uh, if you're okay with it, I'd like to do a full Q and A, they got a ton of questions for you.

• 8:02Luis Chaparro?

  Sure, man.

• 8:03Shawn Ryan?

  But, I thought this one was pretty good, this is from Jonathan Bush And basically what he's asking is, how many regular folks in Sinaloa are dependent on the cartel for jobs? Especially the nonviolent jobs? And then he wants to know if the cartels In any way are helping the locals down there by building schools? Or anything of that nature, so it's, sounds like Are they doing kind of like what Pablo Escobar used to do back in the eighties?

• 8:33Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, I mean, it's hard to tell how many of them are, but I can tell you there are a lot of people relying on cartel jobs. As you might know, Mexico's not doing great economically, there's a lot of uh,

• 8:45Luis Chaparro?

  Like bad paid jobs, you know, underpaid and and there's there's no a lot of jobs. That's that's why many, many people was. Trying to get into the US as well. Uh um we saw an economic migration back in the two thousands. And now it's coming all over again because of the lack of jobs in in Mexico. But guess what? Cartels are stepping in. To fill that gap of of jobs and they're paying not too bad. I mean, they're paying way better than. Than a factory or whatever regular job you can get in Mexico. Of course, it has a lot of risks um uh embedded with with it. But uh but there's a lot of people, especially Sinaloa and now Michoacan.

• 9:27Luis Chaparro?

  Uh those places, man, are are are filled with nonviolent jobs, which might mean. Um they they they have these guys called operators and what they do is they they listen to. Uh the radio frequencies from the police or or from um uh Mexican military. And they reply all that, they record the whole um record the whole um frequencies, the whole messages. And they they keep repeating that on to cartel frequencies.

• 9:55Shawn Ryan?

  Oh.

• 9:55Luis Chaparro?

  And that's in an office, you know, with weather and everything good. Um and they get paid well. They they they get like a a thousand pesos a month, which is. I mean, it's shitty, but not too bad for an un- uneducated Mexican.

• 10:11Shawn Ryan?

  A uh thousand pesos a month will be about two hundred fifty.

• 10:14Luis Chaparro?

  It's about five hundred.

• 10:16Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 10:17Luis Chaparro?

  Dollars. So, I mean, a month, it's not too bad for an uneducated Mexican in rural areas. It's actually pretty good. Um Alcones, these guys who are basically lookouts, um just stepping in in heels and waiting there for months. Uh reporting everything they see around, money launderers. Um the people who takes out money from extortions or kidnappings, you know, they get uh paid like twenty percent of the. Amount of the ransom. Um usually woman, um you know, like usually uh old woman. That can go into a store, you know, like a money express or that kind of stuff. Where they can get out money and then break it to the cartel. There's a lot of, there's a lot of that stuff going on, even.

• 11:00Luis Chaparro?

  Even people who has like small restaurants and they have to take out food for a big army out in the woods in Michoacan or in Sinaloa. They get paid well, cause I mean they get compensated on top of their payment for the service of of food, you know. So, there's, there's a lot of people, man, that it's uh that relies on that.

• 11:19Shawn Ryan?

  So the cartels are actually boosting the economy.

• 11:22Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, they are a lot.

• 11:23Shawn Ryan?

  What would a, if, if, if a baseline, low level cartel job, nonviolent, pays five hundred dollars a month. What would a baseline civilian, somebody making an honest living. You know, without being associated with the cartels, what would, what would that be a month?

• 11:44Luis Chaparro?

  I think a month it would be like two hundred, two hundred fifty bucks, you know, so, I mean.

• 11:51Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, uh Mexico, you can consider wealthy if you're earning thirty, uh thirty thousand pesos, which is. Um fifteen hundred bucks a month. That's, that's like the, you know, you, you rank as wealthy. So imagine that, I mean, you, you can't make a living out of fif- five, uh fifteen hundred bucks in the US, you know, it's too low. It's a lot of an income. That means that you're kind of wealthy in Mexico if you earn that, so. So, yeah, there's, I mean, imagine, uh that, I'm talking about like someone who studied and has a university and works at a. Proper place, maybe in government or some stuff like that.

• 12:26Shawn Ryan?

  That'll be the top one percent.

• 12:28Luis Chaparro?

  Exactly.

• 12:29Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 12:30Luis Chaparro?

  There's a lot of people obviously earning much more than that, like business owners and, you know. Um but uh, but that's like the average, you know, like the average people who has a family and everything, it's, it's around fifteen hundred. Uh two thousand bucks a month.

• 12:44Shawn Ryan?

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• 14:11Shawn Ryan?

  I believe, they may have changed. That's a huge gap. But, well, it sounds like they don't have any, very many options when it comes to the job market.

• 14:20Luis Chaparro?

  Exactly, and the other thing that he asked is if they're helping out people. And I mean, I wouldn't really call that help because it's coming from a violent place, from a violent, I mean, the same harm that they're doing, that's, it's unbalanced with the help they're, they're doing. I would call it like, what, aid, maybe? And it's a strategy. I mean, it's not even that they're building schools because every, every Christmas, for example, they will take out food on these nice baskets of food with a message from El Mencho from Cartel Jalisco de la Generación, or from Mayo Zambada, or even still, even behind bars from Primal Chapel.

• 15:02Luis Chaparro?

  And also these baskets filled with, I don't know, meat and cans of food and some money, you know, tres mil pesos, 3,000 bucks, which is around 150 bucks. Uh they will say like they will go to the rural areas and deliver a bunch of those baskets. And so like this is from from the viejo, you know, this is from from the boss.

• 15:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:24Luis Chaparro?

  It depends who the boss is around the area, so.

• 15:27Shawn Ryan?

  He's one in hearts and minds.

• 15:29Luis Chaparro?

  Yes.

• 15:29Shawn Ryan?

  So very old tactic.

• 15:31Luis Chaparro?

  Very old tactic, they're they're trying to earn social bases, you know, and to take it away from government, that's that's basically what they do.

• 15:39Shawn Ryan?

  What do the locals think of that? Do they do they fall into it?

• 15:43Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, yeah, yeah, you have to know that most Mexicans around rural areas like that, um they they're not. As educated to know that that's a tactic, that that it's it's it's a it's a plan. They just think that these people, they're doing harm, but they're not harming us, you know, they feel like, okay, we know they are at war with the government. But they are earning social bases, because most of these people think like, you know what, the military, what is the military doing for us? Nothing, they just come here. Kill us, uh beat us, rob us, but these guys are actually bringing in help, they build a school, they're giving us baskets since Christmas. Baskets in um, I don't know, uh in every holiday.

• 16:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:25Luis Chaparro?

  Uh protecting us, taking care of us, that's that's the feeling they have, and that's obviously dangerous for. For any country in the world, you know, because that's that's how insurgencies are born, basically.

• 16:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, let's dive in. Where do you want to start? You want to start, what did you do first?

• 16:43Luis Chaparro?

  In Culican.

• 16:45Shawn Ryan?

  Culican.

• 16:46Luis Chaparro?

  Well, what I did was, I was trying to put up a story about these blue pills, these M thirty blue pills popping up in the US. That they used to be um heroin pills, and now they are switching to fentanyl. Many of the people, many of the users, they don't even know that there's fentanyl now, which is like a thousand times more powerful than heroin. So there there's there's a lot of overdoses all over the US, uh because of these blue pills.

• 17:14Shawn Ryan?

  Canada too.

• 17:15Luis Chaparro?

  In Canada too, yes.

• 17:16Shawn Ryan?

  It's getting real big in Canada as well.

• 17:19Luis Chaparro?

  So I wanted to learn like what, who's making these bills, what's in it, why? How do they learn to switch from heroin to fentanyl? Um, so I called my source in, in Culiacan and asked him like if I can embed with him. And he told me one thing that now things are different in Culiacan with El Chapo out. And with the US, um, raising the, uh, the amount of, of the, of the rent, of, of, of the money they want for the, for the Chapitos. Um, it's like five million for each of, of the San Pol Chapo. And also for the brother of El Chapo and for Mayo Sambada. So the US is stepping up and at least in sending out a message that they're going after them.

• 18:03Luis Chaparro?

  Um, so he told me like this, this time is different. This time you won't see, you know, the Lambos out in the street, all the flashy people. You won't see like the armed people just like driving pickup trucks and the, and the labs. Cause the last time I was there, they had like a huge lab in outdoors and wherever we shared that.

• 18:21Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:21Luis Chaparro?

  The last time, now everything is inside and small apartments, residential areas, you know? They have a facade, you know, like the cook, uh, the cook has to make it seems like he has a family. So his wife gets, his wife gets home every night. Um, they invite over neighbors so they know that nothing's going on in that residential area. But behind doors, they're cooking.

• 18:48Shawn Ryan?

  So are you, are you saying that they've moved everything from out in the woods or out in the bush it to indoors? Or this is the next step in the process?

• 18:57Luis Chaparro?

  No, they moved everything.

• 18:58Shawn Ryan?

  So it's complete, they've already restructured their entire fentanyl operation?

• 19:03Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, the entire like criminal operation, everything. Now the order is like you cannot go out with a Lambo, you know, with flashy cars. Everybody's gonna move in Nissan Versas and like family cars, like that. Um, if you wanna carry weapons, you're no longer allowed, unless you're doing an operation, you're no longer, longer allowed to go out with a case in the streets. You're gonna have a handgun, you know, like a nine millimeter or some stuff like that. Um, laboratories are gonna be indoors and smaller quantities, but more laboratories.

• 19:34Shawn Ryan?

  They've moved it under, completely underground.

• 19:36Luis Chaparro?

  Underground, yes.

• 19:38Shawn Ryan?

  Well, looking at. Looking at this new operation, it looks a it looks a hell of a lot more sophisticated than what you showed us last time.

• 19:46Luis Chaparro?

  Definitely, man. I mean, it feels it feels less uh sophisticated because of course. When you have footage from a lab outdoors, which is like a huge lab cooking out of a huge pot. And now you go to a house and they have like a this small pot and they're just like want cook there. And you will see, it seems like uh nothing's really happening here. It's this is not even attractive for for news, you know. Cause it's looks like very small, but when they tell you like we have lab here and then another there and then another one there and then another one there. And you see like they have up over two hundred fucking labs around the city. You're like, wow, this is even a bigger operation, but just very fragmented.

• 20:31Luis Chaparro?

  That that works as well for them, cause if they get a lab, they won't lose that much money, you know. They'll just move to another location and and they will only lose one lab out of a fucking two hundred, so that works for them.

• 20:44Shawn Ryan?

  Man, these guys are good at.

• 20:47Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, they move quick, they move fast. Yes, and um and they show me uh a ma- a voice message they got from. What they say was El Viejo, which is Mayo Zambada. I can corroborate it was El Mayo. But his people was talking that this was a message recently from El Mayo, calling everyone, cause they said like. I don't wanna see you with cameras. I don't wanna see you posting stuff in social media. I'm paying you to be warriors, to cook and not to be YouTube stars. So he prohibited all cameras around the place, so like, you know, like videos and clips. So that was targeting me directly, that was affecting me directly when I the this last time I was there. So they were like pretty nervous.

• 21:32Luis Chaparro?

  Pretty skeptic about about taking me out there with a with a camera. So I uh what they wanted to do is like, we're gonna record everything on on my cellphone and then and then share it to you. And I'm like, nah, that's not gonna work for me. I need to. I need to be able to record at least on my own phone, you know. Um and yeah, they said, okay, after negotiating a bit.

• 21:54Luis Chaparro?

  But yeah, apparently.

• 21:57Shawn Ryan?

  If they don't want anybody, if they don't want any of this getting out, why, why would they allow you? How, how does it work? When you call your contact? Does that run up the chain to? Is that, is that basically run through an approval process?

• 22:11Luis Chaparro?

  Yes.

• 22:12Shawn Ryan?

  Different levels have to approve that you're coming in?

• 22:15Luis Chaparro?

  Exactly, but not, not all the way up. Otherwise, I would, I will never be able to, to go inside on these operations. These guys trust me because I've been talking with them for eight years now, you know, and they know I'm not putting them at risk. I'm never sharing their information. I'm never sharing their names, their whereabouts, you know? I just go for what I, for what I go. And when they say something like, you know what, leave this out, or can you change my voice, or can you hide my face? Because I noticed you moved the cellphone and then you caught a little bit of my face. I will just do it, you know, because I don't want to be in bad terms with them, especially with something that I, it's not gonna be useful. You know what, I mean, I wouldn't be any of any use to me to share who these guys are, you know?

• 23:00Luis Chaparro?

  Everybody knows, the military knows. Um. The other traffickers knows who these guys are and they're still operating, and that's for a reason. They have their own arrangements and I'm not gonna get in the middle of that shit, you know? I just want to tell a story and say like, this is the reality when you're talking about fentanyl. This is what you're getting. When you're using M thirty pills, this is how they're made. Um, I had, uh, because I posted the video on, on, on my channel, like a, a, a small video. And, um, and I had a guy say like, man, I think I'm stopping using that stuff now that I know exactly where this shit coming from. Because it looks like all like super unhealthy, of course.

• 23:38Shawn Ryan?

  What, uh, I'm just curious, before we dive into production, um.

• 23:44Shawn Ryan?

  Are they aware that this footage is gonna be on this show?

• 23:48Luis Chaparro?

  Not not specifically on this show, but they know that I was gonna share um that for for news, you know.

• 23:54Shawn Ryan?

  Did they see your last show here?

• 23:56Luis Chaparro?

  They see, they they saw that, yes. I mean, many of them don't speak English. They just asked me what was that about? And I told them that this was a YouTube channel. I of course told them that you had an extensive background in military and that that was pretty cool. And they were like, uh, and and they uh my guy was like, you see, do you think it's tracking you? When you come here? And I'm like, no, man, like, I I I don't think so. And he was like, okay, okay. And obviously, they asked questions. They asked me like, what are you doing? What is this for? Uh, like the uh a German uh that I met recently and we went to Culiacan and. Uh, they had her investigated, you know, because I told them like they're Germans.

• 24:40Luis Chaparro?

  That they came back at me and so like, well, they're Germans, but they live in the US, man. They're not Germans. They're from the US. And I'm like, oh shit, how do you know that? And they're like, we investigated them. Who were they? And yeah, they they're out from the out of Washington DC. And I'm like, wow, seems like you have a good team. So, yes, I mean, they know that I that I obviously if I if I go there and I have my phone out, that's for sharing, you know.

• 25:06Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 25:07Luis Chaparro?

  And and yeah. Because a lot of stuff they asked me to leave out, a lot of stuff. And I and and sometimes I push the line, you know, sometimes I do push the line and say like, hey, man, I need to record this. And they're like, no, no, no. And I'm like, man. Trust me on this one. I'm not gonna share a location or anything, like on my way there. They're like, no way you can film your way there. And I'm like, yeah, but I need some road shots, you know, to edit on my story. And they're like, you can't do that somewhere else, but not here.

• 25:36Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 25:36Luis Chaparro?

  Okay, so sometimes I have to, you know, do road shots, not there, but on any other highway.

• 25:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:43Luis Chaparro?

  So, yeah.

• 25:43Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 25:46Luis Chaparro?

  Well, let's let's get into production. Yeah. So first, the first place I went into was a so a residential house. We went in um by night, like ten ten P M. Um, and they had everything set up, but that that first in that first laboratory. It was not a laboratory properly, that was first like a packaging station. They have everything sealed back to you vacuum. Um, they had some uh detergent to wash the the bags, they won't smell. Have a bunch of different stuff.

• 26:23Luis Chaparro?

  And the cooks explained me that all everything that he was packing there was going to go to the border of Mexicali or Tijuana to get smuggling to. San Diego, Callexico, and then way up into the U S. So I asked many questions down there, like. Why did you started doing this job? And he was like, well, I'm I'm an engineer. And I don't get that much of a money from from being an engineer. And then a friend of mine who was in into this. He told me that I was gonna getting, if I wanted to get involved in cooking pills. That was not dangerous, that I'm not gonna be on the front lines or um or involve in any violent environment. Um.

• 27:07Luis Chaparro?

  Did you say cocaine pills? Yeah, no, fentanyl pills. Oh, okay. I might I might have said cocaine pills, right? Do they have cocaine pills? No, I don't think so. I didn't think so either. No, fentanyl, the M thirties. So he was like, and how much are they gonna pay? And they pay him around five hundred grands a month, which is not bad. Five hundred thousand dollars a month. Five five, no, no, I'm sorry, no, five thou- five thousand. Five thousand. Thousand bucks a month, yeah, yeah. And I mean, it's not bad, you know, in Mexico, that's uh. That's like the ten ten thousand uh a hundred thousand pesos a month. He's doing well, man. I mean, that's a lot of money for for a Mexican at his level. And um so.

• 27:52Luis Chaparro?

  They brought in a Chinese chemist, same story as the other lab I went the last, the last time, they told me again about this Chinese chemist. Coming over, but apparently the other chemist who came over was teaching them to. Lace fentanyl with with heroin, the quantities and how to take care of fentanyl. Um and all that stuff, but right now they teach him how to do pills, how to press pills, how to test them for quality. Um all that stuff, so and I was like, how how did that happen? And it's like, well, we had a translator between us. Um this chemist was here for about three months.

• 28:33Luis Chaparro?

  Just showing me the process, he was like, you don't get to ask questions, you just get to see and stay put. So I learned and took notes for three months and after three months. He was like, okay, now it's your turn to cook. I'm not gonna say anything, I'm not gonna answer questions. You're gonna do a batch and we're gonna s- send it over to the US and if it works. And if the uh people gets, we get good feedback, then you're set and the Chinese chemist is out. And he started cooking and apparently they sent off his package to the US, he made it well. They got feedback that pills were good and and he was like, okay, now you're all cook now.

• 29:15Shawn Ryan?

  Man, so are the, is this a whole nother team of Chinese chemists?

• 29:19Luis Chaparro?

  No, it's a whole other team, yes.

• 29:21Shawn Ryan?

  Whole different group.

• 29:22Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, then the one, then then the ones, uh then the one I told you last time, right? The outdoors thing, yeah, that was completely different team.

• 29:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, are are the, sorry, what is the pill, M thirty five?

• 29:31Luis Chaparro?

  M thirty.

• 29:32Shawn Ryan?

  M thirty, are those straight fentanyl?

• 29:35Luis Chaparro?

  Straight fentanyl, yes.

• 29:36Shawn Ryan?

  So they went from lacing heroin to fentanyl to now it's straight fentanyl.

• 29:41Luis Chaparro?

  Straight fentanyl, yes.

• 29:42Shawn Ryan?

  And this is all basically.

• 29:46Shawn Ryan?

  Drive from China.

• 29:47Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:49Shawn Ryan?

  They've got a great long game.

• 29:50Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, man, I mean, it's. It's interesting because they they don't they don't see they they don't really see the long run, they don't see the whole. Situation there, because I was like. Why China, why Chinese, and I'm like, I don't know, I'm just following orders, my my boss got a hook of a man in China, and I'm like, how? How does he get a hold of a chemist in China? All the way from Sinaloa, you know? And he's like, apparently a military, Mexican military member. Told him that that this military member was posted in Manzanillo, which is the main port of imports from China. Where the big um containers come from China, it's Manzanillo. Um Colima, which is at fucking war right now. And what no wonder why.

• 30:34Luis Chaparro?

  Um so this military was set up in that port. Uh and he. Somehow met this Chinese organization. Bringing in precursors.

• 30:47Shawn Ryan?

  That was a setup.

• 30:48Luis Chaparro?

  That was a, I mean.

• 30:50Shawn Ryan?

  That's a setup. China is trying to achieve global domination and they're going to achieve it.

• 30:56Luis Chaparro?

  And yeah, they're succeeding.

• 30:58Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, because you gotta think, there's chemists all over the world, all over the world. It's can't be that hard to find somebody that knows how to make fentanyl, I mean it. I don't imagine it'll be easy. But you don't have to go all the way across the world to find a chemist. They're they're inserting these chemists or or in into into Mexico, knowing. That it's killing the population of the United States and Canada.

• 31:27Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, because those are the guys like in charge of telling kooks. The quantities, and if the quantities are killing people in the US, that means the fucking quantities of the drug. Are being controlled by China, you know?

• 31:40Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:41Luis Chaparro?

  They come here and they say like, okay, you put this much amount of fentanyl. And then you put this much amount of um acetone and this much amount of alcohol. And this much amount of something to make the paste, I can't remember what was that. And then you add uh the color, the blue vegetable color to make the peel. Cause different markets asks for different colors, you know, like in Chicago, apparently they don't like that blue. They're used to like sort of like a greenish peel. So they add like more uh yellowish and then blue. And if they're cooking for uh Los Angeles market, they will say like, okay, they wanted like dark blue, so we're gonna add like more blue.

• 32:27Luis Chaparro?

  So they have the whole.

• 32:28Shawn Ryan?

  So they, so it's basic, it's the exact same, it's the exact same substance. Just different colors.

• 32:36Luis Chaparro?

  Different colors, cause, cause if people in the streets see like, they're used to a greenish peel, then they, they see like a pink one. Those are like, no, this is, I don't know what this is, and they start getting suspicious of the peel. And not selling enough, so they have to know exactly which market is used to which color, you know, um, so.

• 32:53Shawn Ryan?

  Well, that makes sense, so you mentioned there's what, two hundred labs ish, estimate two hundred labs and where were you?

• 33:00Luis Chaparro?

  One city, Culiacan, which is not even that big of a, of a city, you know.

• 33:04Shawn Ryan?

  So is each lab in charge of like a different city?

• 33:09Luis Chaparro?

  Um, no, I think each uh, each lab is for a whole organization, which is the Mayo Sambada organization.

• 33:15Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 33:16Luis Chaparro?

  Uh, well, there's another one, which is in Alamo Cartel as well, which is the faction of those Chapitos, the Chapo's sons. They're kind of like fighting to who's gonna get on top of the chain of the Sinaloa cartel. Um, but now the US raising the uh, the uh, ra- it's not called ransom, how do you call it, it's uh, the reward. For Los Chapitos and, and for El Mayo Sambada, that kind of likes make them stick together again. They were like, starting a fight, and now that action was like, okay, we'll fight later, let's stick together to survive this. And you cook your own thing, I'm gonna cook my own thing. So they started like cooking, but we're talking about eh each day, every day, his work is to

• 34:00Luis Chaparro?

  produce fifty thousand pills, fifty thousand each day.

• 34:05Shawn Ryan?

  Fifty thousand pills a day.

• 34:08Luis Chaparro?

  One lap.

• 34:09Shawn Ryan?

  Times two hundred.

• 34:12Shawn Ryan?

  I don't, I have no idea what that is.

• 34:13Luis Chaparro?

  I have no idea either, but that's, that's why the US is getting these huge busts. And that might be only ten percent of the whole, you know, pills coming over the border. At least that's what the, what a, what a CBP officer told me.

• 34:28Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have a calculator on your phone? Fifty thousand pills a day times two hundred.

• 34:37Luis Chaparro?

  Fifty thousand.

• 34:41Luis Chaparro?

  Times two hundred, that's ten million.

• 34:43Shawn Ryan?

  Times three hundred and sixty-five.

• 34:50Luis Chaparro?

  That's a number that. That's like three billion and I don't know.

• 34:56Shawn Ryan?

  Three billion, six hundred and fifty million fentanyl pills a year. From one small city.

• 35:07Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, they're cooking all over Michoacan, Colima, Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. They're cooking all over that. And I mean, I, I could, I could think that Culiacan might be one of the biggest producing cities. That's only me thinking because that's where the organization is based.

• 35:27Shawn Ryan?

  There's only three hundred and fifty-two million in the US.

• 35:32Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 35:33Shawn Ryan?

  People.

• 35:35Luis Chaparro?

  But addicts, they, they don't use just one pill a day, you know, they use two, three pills a day and. I mean, I, I'm, I'm guessing there's a lot of more pills stashed for years. Stash houses to keep flowing, you know.

• 35:51Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 35:55Luis Chaparro?

  That's huge, man. That's hu- that's, that's huge fucking contamination to our whole country.

• 36:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, I think of most people think that a heroin addict is a bum on the street.

• 36:10Shawn Ryan?

  Heroin addicts are doctors, lawyers.

• 36:13Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 36:14Shawn Ryan?

  Dentists, cops, everybody. Everybody's hooked on this shit.

• 36:19Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 36:19Shawn Ryan?

  You know, it's, it's, you probably bump into fifty of them a day.

• 36:24Luis Chaparro?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:24Shawn Ryan?

  You know, they're, they're working, my point is, they're working professionals. This is killing everybody.

• 36:30Luis Chaparro?

  Killing everybody, man, and, and it's, and it's, I started, I, yesterday before, no, the, uh, on Monday, I talked to an organization that helps addicts in Tijuana. And what they do is basically they, uh, they deliver, um, they deliver needles, clean needles to addicts. So they say like, we're not gonna stop this, so we're just gonna share some clean needles. So people stop getting, uh, infected by a lot of stuff, you know? And by doing that, they also did a research and they gather old needles from addicts. And dur- during seven months. And from all the needles they gather in Tijuana, seventy to eighty percent had traces of fentanyl.

• 37:14Luis Chaparro?

  We're talking about, and they don't even know, they think they're shooting heroin. And we're talking about the drug that stays in Mexico, that don't even make it across the border, and they had to sell it. Cause most of the drugs that the Mexican government sees ends up back in the street. They sell it back to, to cartels. Um, so imagine how many heroin, let alone fentanyl pills, is, is getting into the US laced with fentanyl. Wow. I've been reading a lot about cocaine laced with fentanyl, weed laced with fentanyl. I have found, I haven't found no real evidence that that is happening.

• 37:53Luis Chaparro?

  Uh, when I talk to, um, labs, cartels, uh, organizations helping addicts, addicts themselves, law enforcement, I only get response, uh, positive response from law enforcement in the US, that they've found cocaine laced with fentanyl. Which doesn't really make sense to me, to be honest, and doesn't make sense to anyone but to law enforcement in the US. So I guess it's a way that where they're trying to scare people out of several drugs. See if they can de-escalate the consumption of, of drugs, that's my thought, that's my take. But, uh, but what, what I have seen personally and learned from a lot of contacts is heroin laced with fentanyl. And, and in only one city in Mexico, seventy to eighty percent of the heroin was laced with fentanyl.

• 38:39Luis Chaparro?

  So that's that's a huge problem, man. Uh and just today, a source told me that there is a new thing. A thousand times more powerful than fentanyl. And it's hard to even find it in the news. I had to call a doctor and I had to call a proper chemist to learn about those stuff and it's called. Uh, I can't even remember the name, but it's called like N- Niteson or Nitesona or. Something like that. I'll share that with you so we can keep an eye on that, because apparently that's a new wave.

• 39:11Shawn Ryan?

  So so this so it went from heroin to fentanyl to this and it's.

• 39:17Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I mean.

• 39:20Shawn Ryan?

  It's horrible that this is happening, but I mean, you have two different organizations both getting a win here. You have. China, who wants to weaken the United States population, which is happening at a record pace. And then you have them utilizing the cartels and the cartels get the money.

• 39:38Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 39:39Shawn Ryan?

  So it's two goals being achieved at one time.

• 39:42Luis Chaparro?

  Definitely, man. Cartels are making tons of money. I'm telling you, one of these pills is um. The production cost is uh fifty US cents.

• 39:53Shawn Ryan?

  And that's it.

• 39:54Luis Chaparro?

  That's it. And they're selling it for around four to five dollars each pill.

• 39:59Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 40:00Luis Chaparro?

  So the margin of each pill, it's huge. Imagine three, three billion pills a year. Costing each pill five bucks. That's a lot of money.

• 40:14Shawn Ryan?

  So are needles becoming obsolete?

• 40:17Luis Chaparro?

  Needles, n- not necessarily, because there's a lot of people still using heroin and and shooting up. Heroin with fentanyl, even if they don't know or they do know. Because there are some addicts that they they know it's laced with fentanyl and they like it better because it's stronger, so they have to use less. Um and and have like a longer uh. Or high. So, but there's a lot of people that they don't know. And they keep shooting it and as if it was regular heroin. And they pass out and they fucking die. I mean, this year alone, I think the US had what, over a hundred thousand of deadly overdoses?

• 40:56Shawn Ryan?

  I bet it's a lot more than that. I'm unfamiliar with the numbers, but.

• 41:00Luis Chaparro?

  It's something something about those fucking numbers, and imagine that, I mean. Scaling the whole a whole fucking population, but at the same time is getting a whole country addict addicted. To a substance they control.

• 41:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:13Luis Chaparro?

  So if they imagine what's gonna happen if they caught supply. Oh, fucking revolution is gonna pop up in the US, man. There's a lot of people already hooked up on on this stuff.

• 41:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:25Luis Chaparro?

  So, so yeah, it's it's crazy and it's uh and it's dangerous and it's very profitable for Mexican criminal organizations. Uh, which I'm not calling them drug cartels anymore. I decided not to call them drug cartels, too. They are like. Doing everything else but drugs. Drugs is just one part of their funding, you know, to to keep funding themselves.

• 41:48Shawn Ryan?

  Would you say that's the top funding, their main source of revenue?

• 41:51Luis Chaparro?

  No, I think I think their top funding. Uh, will be uh getting around politics. Setting up politicians and getting money from them. Corruption, basically, that's that's their main uh funding right now.

• 42:07Shawn Ryan?

  How are they making money from that?

• 42:09Luis Chaparro?

  Cause there's there's there. There was a time like maybe ten years ago when they were still drug organizations. That they would get money from a politician to let let let let them alone and let them work and. And you know, like transit drugs through their city or stuff like that.

• 42:25Shawn Ryan?

  So they pay the politicians?

• 42:26Luis Chaparro?

  They used to pay politicians. They used to, you know, like bribe politicians, basically. So like, okay, I'm gonna. So that was a that was not an income, that was an outcome, you know, that was like, okay, I'm losing money to pay politicians, still allow me to keep making money. Now it's the other way around. Now they have control the whole fucking country. And now they're they're saying like, we had elections, um, I think last year or two years ago. And we had a over a hundred and fifty candidates killed during elections. A hundred fucking fifty politicians killed in a single election period. That was only because cartels wanted to set up their own people. And that was a show of force, like if you're not stepping out, I'm gonna I'm gonna.

• 43:11Luis Chaparro?

  Leave you out of the equation by killing you and setting up my own people. So now they're setting up their own people, their own majors, their own governors, their own chief of police, so they don't have to pay them anymore. So they're like, okay, you don't like it, I'm gonna fucking kill you. Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna set you up as a governor of this state. And we're gonna do business, both of us. You're gonna give me all contracts for construction, for roadwork, for building. Um, government buildings, all the contracts, both imports, exports, all of the government contracts, you're gonna give them to me. I'm gonna handle that, and that's making them shit tons of money, because they're getting all government contracts. Who's gonna fight that?

• 43:55Shawn Ryan?

  I wonder if the United States is gonna follow suit with that. I just did an interview about all these, all these politicians that are being paid off by China. I wonder if that's what comes next.

• 44:07Luis Chaparro?

  I don't know, man, I don't know, but it's it's a it's a it's getting out of hand. It's, I mean, we're we're on their hands right now.

• 44:13Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think it's reversible?

• 44:15Luis Chaparro?

  I don't think it's reversible, to be honest. I will I would love to say yes, but there's no fucking the. How how will you make these backwards, you know, how how do you deescalate the power of these people and not only violent power? The corruption power, the power they have in politics, they have the power they have in into ec- economies. You know, Mexican economy has a lot to do with cartels. Um, the Mexican president keeps uh. Keeps praising the um, the money coming from um, remittances from the US. It's like, okay, we have hardworking man in the US sending out remittances to Mexico. Guess what? Do guess where does that remittance end up in the hands of human smugglers?

• 44:58Luis Chaparro?

  Because that's not remittances, that's money to pay. So people can get their family out of the country and into the US, they have to pay smugglers, which is again cartel. So it is a coincidence that the higher number of remittances remittances this year has to do with the higher number of uh immigration flux, you know, in coin trying to get into the US. They they moved exactly the same. It's like, okay, we have more people coming trying to come to the US and we have more remittances. And when you cross those two numbers, they only make sense.

• 45:36Luis Chaparro?

  Wow, that's that's insane, man. That's every everything, every single thing, it's related to cartel, to to criminal organization, which is they're no longer cartel.

• 45:46Shawn Ryan?

  This is so sophisticated.

• 45:49Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, they're becoming very, very, very, very sophisticated.

• 45:52Shawn Ryan?

  It's fascinating to hear about it.

• 45:54Luis Chaparro?

  When people ask me, like, why do you do what you do? Why why do you embed with those guys? Why do you go and talk to them? Why do you risk your life going to them? I'm not I'm not stupid. I mean, I get I get scared as well. I get, I mean, I'm up. Uh it's not like I'm not, I don't get scared and I wanna go with them and help, you know. I get fucking scared. It's it's scary to be around them because you never know what's gonna happen, you know. But um but I but it's fascinating to me to talk to those guys. How they how they switch strategy, how they think, how they understand a world that I'm trying to understand, you know, because I come from a good family, from from a good neighborhood. I come from from good places. And I'm like, okay, this is how the economy works, you know.

• 46:38Luis Chaparro?

  According to what I read, according to what I interpret the world. Those guys have a different, a completely different interpretation of everything, of the world they see, of the economics. Very basic, you know, at some level, very, very basic, but at the same time, very sophisticated.

• 46:57Shawn Ryan?

  Man, I I gotta like, the only.

• 47:02Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know how this ends. I think how it ends, just

• 47:09Shawn Ryan?

  off the top of my head is.

• 47:14Shawn Ryan?

  I think one cartel would have to dominate the entire country. And when that happens, maybe, maybe.

• 47:23Shawn Ryan?

  There will be, maybe it will. Become more peaceful, I don't know, you know, because there won't be so many, so much fighting in between the different cartels and, and it's one. Unit running the entire operation.

• 47:37Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 47:37Shawn Ryan?

  I don't, I don't see it either way. I don't see it reversing.

• 47:40Luis Chaparro?

  It's not reversing. I mean. This is not. A drug cartel operations now. This is, we're talking about a, a hybrid insurgency criminal movement. It's a, it's a hybrid between mafia. As we know mafia in, in Italy or Europe, like that kind of mafia and insurgency. The people from Cartel Jalisco Nova Generación, growing. They went from cartel. As, as, as you're reading the manual of an insurgency movement, they went from small organization to earning social basis. To getting funding, to trying to destabilize government, to trying to de- digitalize, that's, that's the correct word? Digitalize government?

• 48:25Shawn Ryan?

  Illlegitimize.

• 48:26Luis Chaparro?

  Illlegitimize government, trying to step in. And now teaching um official tactics to their people, you know? Um, back then was like, just get a fucking AK and let's start shooting. Now they have uniforms, military uniforms with Cartel Jalisco Nova Generación here. CJNG. They're driving armored uh vehicles. They have training camps. They, they, they, they. They're following the fucking insurgency manual.

• 48:55Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 48:55Luis Chaparro?

  That's, that's so, so it's no longer drug cartels. That's insurgency. And the tactics that Mexico is doing against them, it's counter insurgency all the way. Trying to split them, you know, trying to get in, be inside fights. So they fragment into smaller cartels and then they can go in and break them out.

• 49:16Luis Chaparro?

  Um, trying to earn um the uh trust of social basis as well, trying to infiltrate rumors. Like recently it's happening with the Cartel Jalisco Novo Generación. They recently had rumors about Almenjo being dead, the leader of Cartel Jalisco, the most powerful uh criminal boss alive in Mexico right now. Um, saying that he was dead, and it was all over the news, that Almenjo is dead. I was like, who says so? Who said Almenjo is dead? And I started watching, because I mean, this war is also being fought over in social media. It's not only in the streets.

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• 51:06Luis Chaparro?

  So I follow a bunch of accounts in Twitter and Instagram, Facebook, that is propaganda for the Cartel Jalisco Novo Generación.

• 51:15Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have any of those, do you know any of those off the top of your head?

• 51:18Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, I mean, the the names are kind of like difficult because they have like, you know, Pedro, zero, there are a lot of, a lot of numbers. But I'll share some, some with you, and you can have a look at it, and, and, and they are propaganda, a hundred percent propaganda.

• 51:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:32Luis Chaparro?

  Um, and they were the ones pushing the version that Almenjo is dead, and I'm like... So you're telling everybody your boss is dead? That, how does that work? Doesn't really make sense. You will be the one saying, no, it's he's not dead. He's alive and the cartel is alive. So I felt that was a strategy and of course that was a strategy to destabilize. Um, government to make them think that a target was dead, but he wasn't. That was a, yeah, that was misinformation campaign.

• 52:02Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:03Luis Chaparro?

  Put up by Cartel Jalisco no Generación online. These guys are smart. They're learning from somewhere.

• 52:10Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 52:11Luis Chaparro?

  They're learning from somewhere. Now they hide I I IEDs. You know, like fucking landmines all over Michoacan. The Mexican government had to send a troop to to find landmines and they found in a single territory. Single uh ranch over two hundred.

• 52:28Shawn Ryan?

  Like a c- a cachet of them or they were already planted?

• 52:31Luis Chaparro?

  They're already planted. They killed a farmer walking with his son around his farm and one of the bombs went off.

• 52:38Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 52:39Luis Chaparro?

  So, I mean, this is, this cannot be longer called drug cartels, right? Drug cartels were. Caro Quintero, you know what we see in Narcos Mexico, the last season of Narcos Mexico. That was drug cartel. Those guys were just trying to make money out of, you know, shipping trucks into the US.

• 52:56Luis Chaparro?

  These guys are after the control of the whole country. They're experimenting with um cocaine, co- coca plantations in southern Mexico. To leave the Colombians out of the equation. So they're like, if we get to get our own coca plantations, then we own the whole fucking business.

• 53:15Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 53:16Luis Chaparro?

  They, they, they're huge, man. They're huge and and it's getting out of hand. And I think the only way I see this sort of reversible if it's if Mexico actually declares. That this is a fucking war, you know, that we have a violence issue, a violence hybrid problem or issue in Mexico.

• 53:35Shawn Ryan?

  Th- this has got, this is flooding into the US and Canada as well. I mean, I think. When people think of these organizations, they think they have borders.

• 53:43Luis Chaparro?

  Mm hmm.

• 53:43Shawn Ryan?

  There are no borders.

• 53:44Luis Chaparro?

  No.

• 53:45Shawn Ryan?

  There are no borders.

• 53:46Luis Chaparro?

  Not at all, man, like. I mean. How many pills, how many cocaine, how many heroin is going through? No borders area, you know, like the desert, none, none of it, none of it.

• 53:59Shawn Ryan?

  Even even the the infrastructure of the entire cartel, I mean, it has no borders, I mean, it's essentially. A business powerhouse, I mean, Google has no borders, Toyota has no borders.

• 54:12Luis Chaparro?

  There there are no borders, man, and.

• 54:13Shawn Ryan?

  You know cartel has no borders, everybody. In the world is getting addicted to these pills.

• 54:20Luis Chaparro?

  And you know, it's crazy because uh if if you follow my account on Instagram, I'm posting everything in English. Cause I write in English, I write for US publications, um and I post everything in English. And I follow a bunch of accounts from people from Cartel Jalisco Nova Generación, from uh Mayo Zambada, you know, from criminal organizations. And you will be amazed uh how many of those people speaks perfect English. I I was like, what? They keep writing me in English and sending me voice notes in English. And I'm like, how do you, how do you know English? I mean, aren't you like from Cartel Jalisco down in Michoacan? And it's like, no, no, no, no, man, I'm I'm in Dallas, I'm funding those guys. I'm part of the country, but I'm I'm I'm set up in Dallas, this is this is my, this is where I was born. I have family in Michoacan.

• 55:04Luis Chaparro?

  Or other guy like, no, I'm I'm in some other place, you know. They speak perfect English, they're funding, they're they're funding the fucking cartels from here, they go back and fight, go back. Have an operation, get back to the US, that's that's what they do, and of course, I'm not, I'm not calling names. For obvious reasons, because these people are trusting me with with that information, you know, with with stuff, and some of them, of course, are pushing an agenda. Cause I get a lot of messages of people pushing a an agenda on their own groups. Uh but I also get a lot of people not pushing any agenda, just straight up saying. There is no way to end this, so I'm joining, I'm fucking joining, there is no fucking way.

• 55:44Shawn Ryan?

  Get on the train or get run over, I mean.

• 55:47Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, and the most common thought amongst them is. Like if I don't do it, someone else is gonna do it, so why not make a buck out of it? That's that's the most common. Uh way of thinking.

• 55:59Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I don't I don't agree with it, but I definitely understand.

• 56:02Luis Chaparro?

  That definitely, yes, definitely, that that's exactly how I feel. It's like, I'm not, I'm not gonna agree on that, cause if you stop doing it, and everybody will think like that. You get the funding, cartels get the funding.

• 56:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:16Luis Chaparro?

  But um, but I guess that's a way of brainwashing themselves into working with a fucking violent organization.

• 56:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, let's move on to the training camp.

• 56:26Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, that was, that was pretty interesting as well. I mean, it was only a night.

• 56:30Shawn Ryan?

  How'd you get invited there?

• 56:31Luis Chaparro?

  Uh, the thing, I asked, I asked my contact. I mean, I usually what I do is before I travel there, I ask him for what I'm looking to achieve while there. And he's like, all right. So that was not, that was not in the plan. The, the training camp was not in the plan. The training camp came only after I bumped into another journalist in, in Culiacan. And apparently they've been scammed. Someone told them that they were gonna be able to go to a training camp and do this and that, and then nothing happened. Um, so they, they, we knew, we, we met each other and was like, okay, I'm a journalist too, and I'm a producer and this and that. And then we went off.

• 57:10Luis Chaparro?

  Uh, I offered them like, okay, yeah, I mean, yes, for sure. Let's, let's give it a try. Of course, I charged my regular fee as a producer for them. And I was like, yeah, I'm, I'm gonna, I'll charge you, I'll charge you this if you have this amount of money. And um, then let's go, let's, let's try and do it. I'm gonna call my contacts, can't promise you anything. So I had a meeting in my, in my hotel room with my, with my source. He always, um, even if he trusts me, he always uh, scanned me with a thing to make sure that I don't have cameras, microphones, all that shit, you know? Um, and, and I had a, I had a microphone in me from the production, but it was a louder, it was not hidden, you know, it was, it was. Um, and so the, this guy was still like, started scanning me.

• 57:52Luis Chaparro?

  And he's like, beep beep beep. And I was like, no, it's, it's not a hidden microphone. They got me wrong. It's from the production, cause I'm being interviewed and all that stuff. So. I was like, all right. And I told him that these guys wanted in to a training camp. And he was like, yeah, let me call the chavalones, the youngsters and see if they're willing to, to take us there. Are they taking cameras? And I'm like, yeah. And he's like, nah, just cell phones. And I'm like, undoable, man. These guys are a full TV crew, so we need a big camera inside. And we was like, okay, let's, let's give it a try. And we went there. We went to, to the training camp, which was basically just a ranch in the outskirts of Culiacan. Uh, with a bunch of people, uh, wearing tactical, um, suits, you know, like military.

• 58:37Luis Chaparro?

  And a guy giving instructions. The instructions were basically how to properly grab an AK, how to shoot it. Uh, cause they switched something, which I don't know, you might know, they switched something out of the AKs to making what they call Ráfagos, which it's, uh, making, making them, I know. Fully automatic. Fully automatic, I guess, yes, cause. It's a seer. Exactly, yeah. They, they do that at an armory. Um, so they're teaching them how to, how to use a different sort of, or a fixed AK forty seven. Wow. So he would just give me instructions, you know, like, uh, uh, at the count of three, you guys have to shoot at the same target or different targets. So we'll come una, dos, tres.

• 59:21Luis Chaparro?

  You will hear the ta ta ta ta ta ta, a bunch of them. There were like seven or eight of them. Seven or eight. Seven or eight kids, like twenty, twenty something years old. Do you know what they were training for? Uh, they were gonna be deployed into Zacatecas, I think. Zacatecas or Durango, I can't remember. They, they're having a huge fight. Okay. In that territory. So they were gonna be deployed there to, to go and fight against another, uh, group, which was actually against Cartel Jalisco de la Generación. Um, and they were like the new trainees, I guess. Um, so, yeah, we saw that. We saw them shooting. How long is the training camp? Did you ask? No, I didn't ask, but they only allowed me to be there for two hours. Okay. And they had a bunch of older, older people

• 1:00:06Luis Chaparro?

  driving armored vehicles around that area, just like surveilling and doing all that stuff. Do you have footage of this stuff? I have footage only of the, of the shooting range, of the, of the shooting, um, and it's not great footage because it was way in the dark and we only had the lights from the pickup trucks, uh, pointing at them so I can actually film something. So the thing didn't go go really well um in terms of. What the TV production was expecting to see. Cause they were expecting to see a proper, you know, mi- US military. Training camp, you know. They were asking if we could do that by sunset because sunset light is better. For TV and where were the robes that were like, you know.

• 1:00:51Luis Chaparro?

  Where were like that so. I mean, yeah.

• 1:00:55Shawn Ryan?

  Hollywood.

• 1:00:56Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, they wanted to make everything look like Hollywood like stuff, you know, and um so so so.

• 1:01:04Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, this is what you guys do for real, right? Okay, let's just make it all fake.

• 1:01:09Luis Chaparro?

  It's like, yeah, exactly. So, man, that was that was something. And so these um these. Part of the TV group made a comment and she said something like. You're supposed to be the most powerful organization in the world. And I'm not seeing that. So my contact kinda was like. What are you talking about? This is what it is. And then we left. And then I was I was getting ready to go out dinner in my room. And my contact called me. So like, hey, man, are you with with this with this person? And I'm like, well, that person is in in in the room, but it's not here with me in my room. And it's like.

• 1:01:48Luis Chaparro?

  Can you both guys come downstairs and talk to me? Cause I need I need to tell you something. And I'm like, there's no way. Just let it go. I know you're angry about what this person said, but just be cool, man. And he's like, do you think I need that money? Cause I I shared some money, some of my money with him. Just because it was cool. That was out of the plan. And you know, I was like, you know what? Fuck it. You can have a grant, you know. Just just go and have fun with with your guys or pay some of your guys for the for the time or whatever. I was just trying to. Be cool with him, you know, in good terms. Uh, and and he was like, you you you think I need a fucking grand? And he started like counting packs of hundreds, you know.

• 1:02:33Luis Chaparro?

  Ten, twenty, thirty, counted forty forty grand. I have forty grand forty grand with me right now. So. Let that people, that person know that I don't need the fucking money and to come and pick it up, please. And if she want, and if she wants to show to, to see our power force. Um, just pick out the window and I, I went out the window of the balcony. And there was like ten pickup trucks full of armed people around and in a parking lot of their hotel. And I'm talking, it's, it's a nice hotel. It's not any like sketchy motel, whatever. In, in, in, in a nice, eh, the nicest area around Culiacan called Tres Rios.

• 1:03:14Luis Chaparro?

  And I was like, holy, man, you, you really need to de-escalate this, just fucking leave and it's all good. I mean, we weren't meant to disrespect you or, and it's like, no, no, I'm cool with you, man. I'm cool with you. But, um, you guys wanted to see power? Well, let them know that we're here. And I'm like, no, you know what? So I, so I called the, uh, the production and said like, this is happening. And they were like all scared and were like, well, should, should I call the embassy?

• 1:03:42Shawn Ryan?

  The embassy. What's the embassy gonna do?

• 1:03:46Luis Chaparro?

  Put them on hold, maybe? Hold on.

• 1:03:49Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, well. Like, should we call the embassy?

• 1:03:53Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, you know what?

• 1:03:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, we'll send somebody, uh, right over.

• 1:03:58Luis Chaparro?

  Extract me from this, you know? Why do we're gonna send like a chopper all the way from Germany to Culiacan? So, so I was like, um, I'm gonna go downstairs and try to talk to my guy and let's see what happens. And then this, this, this guy was like, and what should we do? Should we call someone or? So like, just stay here and wait. Don't do anything fucking stupid anymore, you know? Just stay here. I went downstairs and of course I was scared because that was the first time my contact was coming hard, you know? He's usually very fucking friendly. He's usually very service, you know, like he. It's weird because it seems, I mean, he's a fa- he's one of the fucking middle range bosses in Culiacan.

• 1:04:42Luis Chaparro?

  But he's always very, um, how, how do you call it? Very, uh.

• 1:04:46Shawn Ryan?

  Accommodating.

• 1:04:47Luis Chaparro?

  Very accommodating, yes. It's like, was it good? Did it work? Was the shot good? Uh, i- i- is it useful for you? You know, he's, he's cool like that and he's. But now is it was I that that that was his dark side, you know, it was being violent and aggressive and menacing and. And being a fucking bully, basically. And I went downstairs and he's like, get in the car. And I went into his car and and I was like, man, just just be cool about this. I mean, they meant not disrespect. You have to understand that I've never been in Mexico before, especially covering this kind of stuff. Um, but he was he was he was hurt, you know, he was like his ego was fucking hurt. So he was like.

• 1:05:30Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, but but those people are not my fucking boss. Who do they think they are? You know, I can get them fucking disappeared in a fucking second. I don't take orders from them. But I was kind enough to to to let them go into a training fucking camp. So what are you talking about? They don't believe we're a fucking huge organization? They think I'm bullshit. They think I'm lying. And I was like, no, man, no, no, not at all, not at all. It went on for for a while, for a good hour. Um, and yeah, after after it worked, he was like, you know what, man, ah, fuck them. Just let them know that they're not longer welcome. In Sinaloa ever um anymore.

• 1:06:06Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:06:07Luis Chaparro?

  And I'm like, all right, are we cool? And he's like, yeah, we're cool, man. We're we're good. I mean, it's not with you. I know you understand this shit, but that those guys.

• 1:06:15Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think that contact's gonna accommodate you again in the future or?

• 1:06:18Luis Chaparro?

  Uh, I hope so, man. I'm trying to go with I'm trying to go uh on another stuff uh to to Mexicali with him, with the with same organization. And I reached out to him um and he stopped answering for like three weeks.

• 1:06:32Luis Chaparro?

  But you just recently came back to me.

• 1:06:34Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:06:35Luis Chaparro?

  And so with a different phone number and he was like, I meant, sorry, I was out doing some shit. Um, so I thought it was accurate me too. So I was like, oh shit, I lost a good contact there.

• 1:06:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:45Luis Chaparro?

  But enough, apparently we're we're in good terms and I'm trying to go into Mexicali for another another story.

• 1:06:51Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. Well, back to the training camp.

• 1:06:55Shawn Ryan?

  What? So it was all when you were there, it was all shooting?

• 1:06:58Luis Chaparro?

  All shooting.

• 1:06:59Shawn Ryan?

  Did you see the targets? Were they accurate?

• 1:07:01Luis Chaparro?

  The the fucking targets were like um. Dirt little, you know, uh, mountains.

• 1:07:09Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, they weren't, they didn't have targets?

• 1:07:12Luis Chaparro?

  Targets, I guess, I guess they don't, I mean, there are only a few of them that. That know how properly shoot like targets and have like tactics and stuff like the their commanders, what they call comandantes. Um, those are the guys not that had like a have like a lot of knowledge on how to disassemble and assemble guns and all that stuff. But um, the rest of the guys, uh sadly, they're just. Uh, what we call carne de cañón, you know, they're like people who's gonna basically send off to die in the front lines.

• 1:07:44Shawn Ryan?

  So it's, it's, it's, so the training seemed very basic. It was here's a gun, this is how you manipulate it.

• 1:07:51Luis Chaparro?

  Mm-hmm, exactly.

• 1:07:54Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, they will give them the old AKs, the fucking oldest and you know, more worn AKs you've ever seen in your life. We're like fucking falling apart and, you know. And I was like, dude, I I've seen you got some pretty good uh, minis, what they call the minis. Um, some good, different kinds of weapons, why do you have these old AKs? And he's like, these are kids that are going to die, man. I mean, and they in in in in we get captured by the other group, they're gonna ca- get our guns. We're not gonna, I'm not gonna send these kids out with some nice guns. Those fucking guns are for me and my people, and the people who's taking care of me.

• 1:08:31Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. So there's definitely different levels of training. And that was the the lowest.

• 1:08:38Luis Chaparro?

  The lowest, yes. It was basically for kids that were gonna be sent out to to die in chacatecas.

• 1:08:44Shawn Ryan?

  Do you know how many, how many kids are running through this training camp a week?

• 1:08:50Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:51Shawn Ryan?

  A day worth of training?

• 1:08:52Luis Chaparro?

  Uh, no, I I think what they do is they train people by like on the go, like it depends if they be they gather enough. Kids to to train, they will have to go on training, but if if there's like a week or several days that they don't recruit anyone. They they will just they won't have a training, so they're they're not as as organized like us. You know, like every Tuesday we have a training or whatever. It's just like uh he will get a call and say like, hey man, I I got another ten or fifteen kids. Um he's telling me they're they're trying to get more more kids, more people, because they need more firepower, because Cartel Jalisco no generación apparently. It's grown huge and they need to put up a fight with with uh with them, so.

• 1:09:37Shawn Ryan?

  I wonder why they're not, if they have the ability to train them

• 1:09:40Luis Chaparro?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:41Shawn Ryan?

  to a higher standard, I wonder why they're not doing that, because that would be. I mean, when you say, well, I'm not gonna give them good guns, because they're just gonna die, but if you gave them better guns and a higher level of training, then they would be more effective.

• 1:09:56Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, that will be most more more effective, but I I don't think they they they grasp that, they.

• 1:10:01Shawn Ryan?

  They're not at that, they're not there yet.

• 1:10:02Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, they they think about numbers, they think about like, you know, we need more people, even if they're not properly trained.

• 1:10:09Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 1:10:09Luis Chaparro?

  Um and some of the guys I spoke with were kinda mad and disappointed that a lot of their guns get uh stuck or or break during fight. They're like, they're sending us with this shit and my gun always like gets um stocked.

• 1:10:30Shawn Ryan?

  Jammed.

• 1:10:31Luis Chaparro?

  Jammed, exactly. And and I'm like, wow, you should call management.

• 1:10:38Luis Chaparro?

  So you're gonna get better guns, because but there's there's enough to die, and the ones who the ones who are loyal to to the cartel, the ones who kill more people, the ones who uh survive most fights, those are the ones uh promoted to comandants.

• 1:10:56Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:10:56Luis Chaparro?

  And we're talking about.

• 1:10:58Shawn Ryan?

  So basically, if you come back alive, you're probably getting promoted.

• 1:11:01Luis Chaparro?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:11:03Shawn Ryan?

  What is this, what does this uh war zone look like?

• 1:11:06Luis Chaparro?

  Uh, how how is the whole?

• 1:11:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, what is, if if we're to go, I mean, is it? Is it specific areas, is it?

• 1:11:15Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, they're trying to, what I know is they're trying to do like some tactics, like ambush. Um, when I spoke to the, the people, and we'll jump into that maybe later with the people, the Ode Mayo Sambada, one of their, their top sicarios, they're twenty-four-year-old kids. Uh, and what they do is they get intel that there's a group of the enemies of Cartel Jalisco. They usually don't go after government. They, they just, when it's government, they just react. You know, if the government starts coming over, then, and shooting, or trying to capture, or trying to burn their harvests, they will react. But they usually don't go, even if they know where they are set up, they won't go after government.

• 1:11:59Shawn Ryan?

  They don't provoke?

• 1:12:00Luis Chaparro?

  They don't provoke. That's, that's one of the, like, the rules I've seen they follow. And every single criminal organization, they usually follow those rules. Uh, but they, when they know where the enemy cartel is, let's say Cartel Jalisco. They, they gather some intel, and they say like, you know, one, they are in the outskirts of Durango, in the Sierra de Durango, in the woods. Um, this is sort of like their location, we last saw the camp, so they can't be far from that area. So we know they're sleeping by, by night, I mean, by day and then moving by night. So, the, tonight, they should be around, I don't know, these range, you know? And so they send a bunch of soldiers to surround that mountain, you know?

• 1:12:44Luis Chaparro?

  So, that means they, they stay two or three weeks walking, because they walk, and when, when, when I'm telling you walk, they walk maybe from one city to another, through the sierra, through the woods. Walking, sometimes using ATBs, because they have like some houses of people who, in, in, and, and again, in an insurgency group, you have the aides, you know, that are not properly. Organization, they're not properly, uh, be, they belong to the organization, but they are aids. Uh, meaning an old man or a family that has a couple of ATBs and they aid these guys to. Let them use the ATBs or their house to stay there for a couple of days.

• 1:13:26Luis Chaparro?

  Um, so they have aids in se- several towns, you know, so sometimes they'll travel through ATBs. Or by horses and sometimes they'll just keep walking until they are positioned and say like, okay, this is sort of like the place. We needed to be, cause these guys should be around this area. And on the footage I've seen from one of these soldiers, um, GoPros. When they're around there, when they feel that they're around there, they will just wait and and try to see if they are actually there. When they see they're there, most of the times they first watch them, cause they position over the top hills.

• 1:14:07Luis Chaparro?

  But in some other times, these other cartel notices them first, so so then a shootout. Breaks and when it depends on uh, a group that makes it, like if they are are outnumbered, they'll just try to get away. Or they end up being all killed and then they they gather some more guns, ammo, money. Um, I saw a fucking gruesome footage about a Cartaginico Nova Granacion member. Uh, getting like an uh, initial ritual, like if you wanna belong to these forces and stuff. And he was eating, I think he was a heart or a lung, I couldn't really tell, cause I I didn't watch the whole fucking clip.

• 1:14:51Luis Chaparro?

  But of of of a of a man they killed, of a man, of a soldier they captured. And apparently that was a ritual they had to to eat the uh, organs of a recently deceased person. Yeah. That's, that's fucking brutal to watch, that was like, what the fuck are they doing? And yeah, he was like biting out of it, out of the fucking, I don't know if it's the heart or the heart or the lung. Um. Most likely the heart. The heart, right? Well, it makes sense. Have you seen this other one? Other, yeah. Really? Well, like, is is it like a war tactic then?

• 1:15:25Shawn Ryan?

  It's a thing that's been in around. A long time, you know.

• 1:15:31Luis Chaparro?

  That's the, that's what I thought, cause I think they're using that, and and that might point out to where they're getting trained for from or intel from.

• 1:15:40Shawn Ryan?

  It's uh, it demoralizes the enemy, you know.

• 1:15:45Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm trying to do, cause another group, when they captured, I don't know if, I don't know if you actually watch uh. Vice, Vice documentaries, I mean, they can, they can be tricky in some other parts of the world, but when it comes to Latin America. They're very fucking accurate and they're good. So they did, uh, some, some of my colleagues in, in Vice World News, they did this embedding with the Carte Jalisco. In Michoacan, and they interviewed a comandante called El M dos, M two. And he was a, a high up commander for Carte Jalisco. Uh, a few weeks after that, they killed El M dos and they burned him alive.

• 1:16:28Luis Chaparro?

  And um, so I guess that's what they were doing, like trying to demoralize the enemy by capturing first the commander. Second, unknown and public commander who gave an interview to international news, and third by burning him alive. Or sending out, sending out a message. So, yeah, that's, that's basically how it looks and in, in um, there is this uh documentary called Zicari Warfare, if you uh looked at in YouTube. It's fucking amazing and it's good access to, to how an operation of Zicari's look like.

• 1:17:04Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, I'll have to watch that.

• 1:17:07Luis Chaparro?

  Pretty good, very recent and uh, and yeah.

• 1:17:12Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think these cartels are gonna keep one upping? You know, they ate the hard, where does it end? Is the next guy gonna eat the brain?

• 1:17:23Luis Chaparro?

  Uh.

• 1:17:24Shawn Ryan?

  It's been happening, do you think?

• 1:17:25Luis Chaparro?

  It's happening and it's it's stuff that I don't know if it's. If it's too gruesome to even talk about that shit, but. Uh the most recent thing I I saw was they killed a woman. I don't know if she was part of the cartel or whatever, but apparently she was. She was pregnant, she was like seven months old pregnant, they killed her, got the baby out and killed the killed the.

• 1:17:50Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 1:17:50Luis Chaparro?

  I mean, that's that's that's that's just make my fucking skin crawl, it's. It's another fucking level, man. It's another fucking level and that's happening in a country. Right next to this one and you know and a country that is my country. It's, I can't fucking understand that shit, man. That was that was painful to watch, that was painful, I I didn't watch the whole fucking. I didn't even, I did, I didn't even watch a second out of it, cause I read the description. On what they they sent me and asked him like, can you stop sending me gruesome shit, I'm not really into that, uh. But thanks for letting me know this is happening. Um, and people eh uh all over, I have a bunch of groups on Telegram and Signal.

• 1:18:33Luis Chaparro?

  Um from different organizations and stuff and people keeps asking for those videos, man, people is getting fucking sick in Mexico.

• 1:18:43Shawn Ryan?

  People are like that.

• 1:18:44Luis Chaparro?

  I don't know why.

• 1:18:45Shawn Ryan?

  They wanna see, when I when guys come on here and they talk about people they've killed or. Or in in in more, you get these weirdos that are like, oh.

• 1:18:55Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, they like it.

• 1:18:56Shawn Ryan?

  Can I see, can you post that?

• 1:18:58Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.

• 1:19:00Shawn Ryan?

  What?

• 1:19:01Luis Chaparro?

  They're like, anyone had the video of the pregnant woman, I'm like, why in the fucking world do you wanna watch that, man, that that's gonna get into your brain?

• 1:19:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:09Luis Chaparro?

  I don't know, but yeah, I mean, it's it's escalating, uh it's escalating the intel and the tactical cartels are. Or criminal organizations are getting. And now there is a fucking ridiculous um race. Between the Mexican military and cartels, it's like a cold war in between the same country, you know? Cause the cartel Jalisco shows up with IEDs. And then the Mexican cartel shows up with, I don't know, big, huge fucking war tankets. And then the cartel Jalisco shows up with these armored vehicles, level eight. And then now the Mexican military shows up with a rocket launcher called the uh

• 1:19:51Luis Chaparro?

  I can't remember the name, but it's a it's an old rocket launcher from the fifties, you know this.

• 1:19:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. You know, as as sophisticated and as smart as these cartels seem to be, that uh it's all ego in the end, right? But that is just pure ego. If they really wanted to become effective and scare the shit out of their enemy, they would utilize torture techniques. Because

• 1:20:21Shawn Ryan?

  if I killed you right now and took your heart out of your chest and ate it, you wouldn't know the difference.

• 1:20:25Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:25Shawn Ryan?

  Nor would you give a shit.

• 1:20:27Luis Chaparro?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:27Shawn Ryan?

  But if I did things to you while you're still alive and left you alive and then the enemy came and found you. And they s- they saw that you've experienced all of that pain and you're still experiencing that pain.

• 1:20:43Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:43Shawn Ryan?

  That's that's a different level.

• 1:20:46Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:46Shawn Ryan?

  Are they doing that?

• 1:20:47Luis Chaparro?

  I don't I don't think they're doing that. I know that they do that uh to people they want to get info from.

• 1:20:53Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:53Luis Chaparro?

  But not really like a show of force.

• 1:20:56Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 1:20:56Luis Chaparro?

  I don't think they're still still using that that that shit.

• 1:21:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:01Luis Chaparro?

  Not that I know, at least, um not that I've seen. Uh what I what I have seen is they capture family members and that's how they break sometimes enemies. Um this last Sunday, there was a huge massacre in Michoacan during a funeral in broad daylight. There was a guy from Cartel Jalisco. Cartel Jalisco is breaking up from the inside and that's that's a counter counter insurgency tactic put out by the Mexican government. It's trying to break Cartel Jalisco into small pieces, you know, and it's working. It's working. It's fragmenting. So now the Cartel Jalisco is a huge fucking war inside, which we haven't seen before, but that happened to Sinaloa cartel. The most powerful became several small factions.

• 1:21:47Luis Chaparro?

  And now the most powerful is Cartel Jalisco and it's becoming several small small factions. So they a guy from Colima from the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación had a beef with another Jalisco Nueva Generación member from Michoacan from way back. Cause this guy killed his brother and then this guy got revenge and killed his brother. Uh and they now, they both became bosses on their own turf. So the mother of the guy from Colima died recently from old, eighty-two years old. And she had a funeral, the family put out together a funeral in Michoacan. So apparently this guy called the higher bobs in the Cartel Jalisco and said like, hey man, I need to go to my mom's funeral.

• 1:22:28Luis Chaparro?

  I'm going in with just a few men, but I need your permission to go in without these other motherfucker gang to me. Cartel Jalisco said, yes, okay, come over. He did, five minutes in the funeral, twenty fucking pickup trucks showed up with this other guy. They did a, they had a standoff. They gather all the people, put in a line, other people in the funeral, and they had a list of names of of these guys' people. So like, okay, so they took family members, some of them, and they took his soldiers and then someone shot a fire from inside the funeral and whole fucking hell broke loose. After killing seventeen people, they still had the time to clean everything.

• 1:23:10Luis Chaparro?

  They they cleaned with with uh sweeps, with water, they cleaned the whole fucking bloodshed. They even tried to repair bullet holes from the of of out of of the wall and they took the bodies of the deceased out. And that's only because there is an order by the Mexican government right now to lower homicide rates. And the government said, we need to lower the fucking homicide rates, no matter what. No matter what, translated into criminal organizations on, okay, we're not gonna kill people, we're gonna disappear them. So now the number of people disappeared in Mexico is spiking up while numbers of homicides are waving down.

• 1:23:52Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:23:53Luis Chaparro?

  And that was, that was impressive, cause there was like videos and clips of these guys cleaning the blood, piling the bodies. Making as if nothing happened. That, the whole thing lasted for five hours, no authorities to be seen.

• 1:24:08Shawn Ryan?

  They had professional cleaners.

• 1:24:11Luis Chaparro?

  Cleaners. Yeah, they brought like a machine, you can see like a, like a, like a car wash machine, you know, psh, cleaning the streets.

• 1:24:21Luis Chaparro?

  Total inability to have now.

• 1:24:24Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:25:05Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:25:48Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:26:04Shawn Ryan?

  Alright, so we're back from the break. And after that discussion about torture and what they're doing, I don't know if I want to go to lunch afterwards. Yeah. Maybe not. But let's move into something a little lighter. So you you partied.

• 1:26:20Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, I happened to to spend my birthday in in Culiacan. And I was sitting at a restaurant and I know um a couple of friends, uh uh El Enfermo. Hi to to El Enfermo, wanna wanna cheer to to El Enfermo because he's a rapper in Culiacan. But he's the only fucking rapper doing this thing. He's mixing regional Mexican music, you know, like banda. Or corrido with rap and he's doing great, man, and he's and he's growing and he's. Going up and if you guys wanna listen to him, it's called El Enfermo, the sick one, cause he's fucking sick for real.

• 1:26:58Luis Chaparro?

  Uh so he called me, he knew that I'm I was gonna be in Culiacan around that that time. And he um hit me up when I was having dinner at a fancy restaurant in in Tres Ríos. Uh and he was like, hey, man, what what are you doing? I'm like, having a drink and having dinner. And he's like, we're we're having a small gathering and um my other friend, uh Eduardo, the the guy who was one of the co-authors. Of Sicario Warfar's uh book that I wanted to to bring down to you and I'm gonna send you. Um I'm with with with Eduardo, you wanna come over? And I'm like, for sure. It's actually my birthday. And I was like, oh, man, so yeah, let's have a fucking proper party for you. And I'm like, alright. They were very sketchy about where I was going. They were like, okay, just.

• 1:27:41Shawn Ryan?

  Real quick, so you're going to party with a cartel boss. Who's a rap also a rapper.

• 1:27:48Luis Chaparro?

  No, no, that's not the rapper. Like, I I I didn't know that I was gonna meet these two fucking cartel bosses there.

• 1:27:55Shawn Ryan?

  So one of them's a cartel boss and the other guy wrote the entire tactics program for the cartel.

• 1:28:01Luis Chaparro?

  No, this this I so the guy who called me is a is a rap singer. And the and he was with Eduardo, which is a a producer who wrote Sicario Warfar. Which was the photo a photo album uh of a sicario embedding. Um in in a in a in a in a to in a fight, you know. Following a fight. Uh these two guys gave this guy a GoPro to go and film everything. And then put everything together into a book and then into a documentary. Fucking genius, man. They were like, but I didn't know. That there weren't gonna be at the party, that the the party was gonna happen actually on that guy's house, on on the.

• 1:28:42Luis Chaparro?

  Head of Sicarios World, Mayo Sambala, who is the one with the GoPro. And I didn't know that, so I was just gonna meet these two guys and and and have a couple of beers. But they were like very sketch about what I was going, it's like, I start driving in this, on this location, when once we're closed, just give me a call and I direct you. And I I took it like, uh, everyone is like that, sort of like that in Culiacan, you know, you have to be careful. And I went to this really nice residential area in in Culiacan. And they asked me to stop on the other side of the uh sidewalk, walk over, got into an elevator. A beautiful apartment with fucking, you know, uh Mercedes vans and, you know, nice cars.

• 1:29:25Luis Chaparro?

  And I went in and I see a table full of fucking drugs, arms and radio communications. And I was like, what the fuck is happening here? And in the documentary, and in the photo album. You can see the faces of the Sicarios, for obvious reasons. So I s- I I turn my head and I see these two kids, twenty twenty year old kids, early twenties. Just sitting there, you know, making some lines and just listening to Narcos Corridos drinking. And then this guy introduces me like, hey, this is our friend Luis Chaparro, he's a journalist. Um, and and this is El Compa, I can't say his name, um, it's El Compa ta, it's Compa bla.

• 1:30:11Luis Chaparro?

  And I'm like, hey, man, great to meet you. Are you El Compa bla in the documentary? And they're like, yeah, that's me. And I'm like, holy fucking shit. And then there was another guy, it's like, oh, he's my second in command, another kid. And I shook hands with both of them, kept drinking all through the night. I I went in with a with a six pack of the Cates, you know. If I if I knew I was, uh, well, maybe we'll show up with a proper bottle of something, you know, whiskey or some tequila or some shit like that. But I just arrived with a fucking six of the Cates. And um, it it amazes me how these guys' soul is completely gone from their body, you know, they're.

• 1:30:54Luis Chaparro?

  We're all talking, we're all having fun, we're all like sharing experiences. I'm of course all very curious about the book and about the documentary, how was that made? And I was like, well, how was it and how many times did you film? And these guys were completely out, you know, just like smoking, snorting, smoking, drinking, snorting. All through the night, um, you will you will see a glimpse of happiness whenever a corrido about himself will come up in YouTube. And you're like, esto me gusta, esa es muy buena canción. And but all through the night, they were just, they were just absent, you know, they weren't there, they were like. They're staring at nowhere.

• 1:31:34Shawn Ryan?

  They're trying to escape their own head.

• 1:31:36Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, yeah, really, really quiet guys, um, and. That was, that was the whole night, I I didn't spend a whole time there, but like, let's say from eight P M to maybe twelve one in the morning. And I was drunk by the time I left, I was like feeling tipsy and and I was like, do you think I'm gonna get in problem with the. Police if they caught me driving drunk? And they're like, if you have any issue, just call this guy, he'll fix everything for you. Like, alright, thank you, I hope I don't have to call you, um, and so, yeah, we shook hands. Um, we hugged each other when when that that this guy, cause we usually say hi, like, uh, uh, like every other Mexican, even if you've never met him. You'll say hi with a hug, you know, you.

• 1:32:21Luis Chaparro?

  So I was like, see you, man, thank you very much for having me in your place. And then when he was like close to me, he was like, just be very discreet, you know, you know that, right? And I'm like, no, yeah, I know, and I was like, I know you know, just, I just wanted to make sure, just be discreet about this place. And I'm like, shit, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, man, like, by all means. And I left, but those guys were or are the uh, right hand of El Mayo Sambada. And and El Grupo Flechas, it's called the group, the group, the sicario, it's like the elite sicario group for Mayo Sambada. Um, that was fucking, I mean, I wasn't expecting that, you know.

• 1:32:58Shawn Ryan?

  It's incredible how you find yourself in these situations, it's like over and over. You know, I almost feel bad for those guys, like, on one hand, you know, it's. Well, you're in the cartel, you're a piece of shit, you know, and and but on the other hand. They don't have any options. That's what that's I think that's what people in the United States don't understand. I mean. You know, people in the United States think you have it tough when the government sends you a free check, a free place to live. You get free food, you get free education, everything's free, free, free, free. And because you're not wealthy. Or because.

• 1:33:39Shawn Ryan?

  You're getting only free stuff and you.

• 1:33:43Shawn Ryan?

  They bitch and they complain, but they have options.

• 1:33:46Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, I mean, they have the option of keeping their fucking lives and and being.

• 1:33:50Shawn Ryan?

  These guys, there's no check coming from the government. There's no free place to live. There's no free food. There's no free education. There's no free. Medical, there's no free anything. And. That's what it it's unfathomable for most Americans who've never been outside of the US. Understand that and with these guys, you know, they have. They have no other option.

• 1:34:15Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:15Shawn Ryan?

  But to join the cartel and to do that.

• 1:34:18Luis Chaparro?

  And imagine how be I I will I will like to maybe make an exercise of like the people watching this this channel and and think. Ask them to think about them being in a country that doesn't give you anything for free. That it's impoverished by the most part. But that also leads next to a rich country, you know, to a first world country.

• 1:34:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:39Luis Chaparro?

  So it's like you are you live in a small village house. Right next to this mansion where the kids have everything. And. You leave. Uh, looking through your window to that house and wanted to be that. You want to be that. You want to have the cars. You want to have the checks. You want to have the freeways. You want to have what they have in this. First world house. Many of us, people like me, who have the opportunity to be dual citizens. We can go back and forth, back and forth all the time. When I when I like to live in Juarez or in Mexico, I lived three years in Mexico City, but then I went back to El Paso.

• 1:35:23Luis Chaparro?

  Then I I have the benefit of both, you know, have the the benefit of both. My my friends also, a friend of mine has just. Uh made this trucking company in the US, cause it's a dual citizenship. And he writes me every often and and says, dude, uh I owe my fucking life to my parents that. Brought me into the US, cause I'm a Mexican. And here I can thrive and I can work hard and I can drive my own fucking truck and have a trucking company. And I'm so fucking happy about this, that I'm not being forced to leave in Mexico, cause I have no other option. Uh my other friend has a furniture company and he he says exactly the same, like, I owe my fucking life to my parents that brought me here.

• 1:36:06Luis Chaparro?

  Cause otherwise I will be stuck in Mexico and there is no fucking way you can do a a successful. Um you know, furniture company in Mexico without having to do or to be extorted or to be kept if you're being kidnapped or. Even to thrive. And but these kids, they live impoverished, they live in the outskirts of Culiacan, these guys are not even from the city. These guys are from the ranches around the city, but still they are exposed to to the life the US portrays. You know, so they want that, they're fucking jealous of that, they want the Mercedes vans.

• 1:36:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:43Luis Chaparro?

  They want the house, cause you can tell the houses, it's almost like an American house, you know, very fucking American house, it's a. Like the the faucets are all American, the fridge, very fucking American, the TV.

• 1:36:57Shawn Ryan?

  It's amazing, you know, I mean. We were talking last night about that, I just did a trip down to Mexico at Talde Ron and we went into a migrant camp and. You know, and I'm very, I've been all over the world. I've seen the poorest countries in the world and and I was I was still very. Extremely tough on immigration, or my viewpoints were, and I still am somewhat, you know, but. But when you go down there and you go into that migrant camp, it shifts. It shifts your perspective because you're in it, you're in there and you're seeing what's going on.

• 1:37:38Shawn Ryan?

  And when I was telling you about, you know, I, we uh pulled two Hondurans out that made the trip up to. To the one up to that migrant camp and I'm talking to this guy and he is, I asked him what he's doing and he said, um.

• 1:37:55Shawn Ryan?

  I asked him how it came up is I asked him, would you rather stay here under a tarp? On a parking lot or go back home because he had been there for, I believe, three years, if I remember correctly. And he said, I would rather stay here no matter what. He's like, I have a business here. I said, well, what's your business? And he had pulled out a little portable battery charger and he said, I go around. And I charge people's phones for a dollar.

• 1:38:23Luis Chaparro?

  Dollar man.

• 1:38:24Shawn Ryan?

  A dollar. Which is probably doing really good and to, you know. Compared to where he came, obviously, he would rather stay there and sleep on a parking lot under a tarp. Then to do that, and then when you think about Americans. You know that we can't even get anybody to work right now and I would trade.

• 1:38:49Shawn Ryan?

  So many Americans for that guy of sitting right there because you know he's gonna come in into this country. And he's going to contribute to society. And work his ass off to get what he.

• 1:39:04Shawn Ryan?

  You, you know, you know where I'm going with this.

• 1:39:06Luis Chaparro?

  These, these country has the great blessing of. Helping thrive hardworking people. All you have to do in this country is work. All you have to do is get to fucking work. And you thrive and have your heart on it and that's it. That's not enough in my country, you know, that's not enough in my country. You can work your ass off in my country. You can put all your heart into whatever you wanna do. In my country, and that's not gonna be enough. And no matter what, you're gonna have nothing. Never gonna fucking thrive, never man. It takes more than that. It takes luck, it takes corruption, it takes doing things the wrong way. Cause the taxes we fucking pay for everything, it's crazy, the the the amount of money the government takes out of you.

• 1:39:51Luis Chaparro?

  The uh, burden burden of ability you are to your own government or to criminal organizations or to the mix of both, you know? You can be well off, working, having your pretty life. And then you get kidnapped, you get you get um, um, I don't know, extorted, or then you get a bunch of military outside your home saying that you did something and you never, and you spend twenty fucking years in jail. Just because they thought you were something else. Talking about journalism in Mexico, I I wrote for ten or twelve years before actually started writing in English to US outlets. Um, and my career thrived somehow to some level in Mexico. I got to the

• 1:40:37Luis Chaparro?

  top magazines in Mexico, did the top stories, um, being interviewed in TV all the time. But uh, who was who was having my back? No one, man, like no one, the government won't have your back. Once shit started hit the fan against journalists. Um, and I was getting paid shitty, which I was fine because I still live with my parents in a one of the best neighborhoods in Ciudad Juarez, a fucking, you know, a fucking dream residential with a five-story house with a basement and a huge fucking uh, garage and they were paying for my two cars and I was living fine, so I didn't really need the money to to keep living out of journalism.

• 1:41:21Luis Chaparro?

  All I had to do is to thrive, just that's what I wanted to do. But then, when I married, had my son, actually got out my my parents' house. I was like, oh shit, I need to work for myself, and this is not enough. I mean, the the best wage that I got, the best, like, when I was rich, it was uh, thirty grand, a hundred and fifty. Uh fi- fi- fifteen hundred grand a month. You can fucking live with that, even in Juarez, you know, it's it's not. I was living by myself, okay, fine, it's it's enough to to rent an apartment, never to own a house. To pay for my gasoline and this and that.

• 1:42:02Luis Chaparro?

  But then I had to do something, you know, I had to and I had to switch lanes or to or or decide to close my career forever and then go to. To do something else, cause I was not gonna be able to support my family with that fucking wage, you know.

• 1:42:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:16Luis Chaparro?

  Um, and I decided to make the crossover and start writing for English ma- for uh English spoken. Uh or written magazines and and outlets and start producing more for US companies like Netflix and. Uh Amazon and HBO and doing documentaries for Showtime and that kind of stuff. And my fucking career started thriving a lot, started thriving like crazy when when I did the crossover and I learned. That all it takes in this country to to thrive was to fucking work. To get to work, to get your fucking ass to work and do it properly and and you'll be fine, you know, you'll do fine. Uh and and I was like, wow, just just switching languages, just switching.

• 1:43:00Luis Chaparro?

  A border, which is basically a line, an imaginary line. Everything changes, everything switches off, uh but but a lot of the people in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, uh Salvador. They don't have that possibility, they do not have that opportunity, you know. They want it, that's what they are trying to get here, you know, they're trying to get here to work, most of them. And I know I've met some of them that are that are not, you know, hardworking people, they're fucking thieves. Um, they're fucking bad thieves, basically, I've I've met a bunch of fucking thieves that they just been deported like three or four times. And they're trying again and they're saying the US is my country and I love that country, but uh once they step fit foot in in the US and start.

• 1:43:44Luis Chaparro?

  Drinking and robbing people and doing shitty stuff.

• 1:43:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, there's definitely a tricky, I mean, it's a tricky. Subject to.

• 1:44:00Shawn Ryan?

  It's it's gonna it's it's tricky to solve cuz you can't take everybody, you know, you just can't. But the.

• 1:44:09Shawn Ryan?

  But the system's broken, you know, it it is broken, there is no.

• 1:44:13Luis Chaparro?

  Whenever you're setting up walls in the middle of the desert. But leaving your ports of entry bullelo to fentanyl pills, that's gotta be something wrong.

• 1:44:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:24Luis Chaparro?

  You know.

• 1:44:25Shawn Ryan?

  What do you got coming up?

• 1:44:28Luis Chaparro?

  Well, I'm uh, I'm I'm trying to travel to Michoacan, I'm I'm looking out for traveling to Michoacan. To learn about the drones, operations, the weaponized drones are using. It's a hard time right now cuz there's a rumor around all organizations in Michoacan that there's gonna be a journalist who's gonna be an infiltrate. Not by the US government or the Mexican government, but by the other cartel. They think that. Both cartels fighting each other, they feel that there was gonna be a journalist who is from the other cartel and just wanna try and. You know, uh, get some info or some intel and then sell it to the other cartel, some shit like that. That was the last time I I heard over from Michoacan.

• 1:45:09Luis Chaparro?

  So I'm in standby, see if the rumor goes away or something like that and then I'm able to go and embed with. With one of these organizations, uh, I'm very fucking interested into that.

• 1:45:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:20Luis Chaparro?

  Into that, that that part of the world.

• 1:45:22Shawn Ryan?

  It'd be interesting to learn about their intelligence gathering.

• 1:45:25Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:45:26Shawn Ryan?

  You know, how they do it.

• 1:45:28Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:28Shawn Ryan?

  How they, I mean, cuz I'm sure they're running all kinds of intelligence and and espionage, you know, on each other.

• 1:45:36Luis Chaparro?

  Especially online and uh, especially online, they're using a lot of technology, man, they they have their hands on technology on. Like these drones, I mean, I've I've seen footage, not taken by regular commercial drones, but actually these drones that tell you. Odditude and that can be like super way fucking up and like a huge zoom. Um, and of course, it's, I, they've shared that information with me cuz it's propaganda and I've never shared it out cuz. I'm I'm gonna be helping who the fuck knows who. But um, but what they wanted to say is like, look, here's a convoy of Mexican military. Selling weapons to a cartel.

• 1:46:18Luis Chaparro?

  I don't know if they're selling or they're giving away weapons supporting this cartel. And yeah, in the footage, you definitely see national guard or military pickup trucks. Uh unloading a bunch of what it looks like uh boxes with arms. And a couple of pickup trucks with armed men civilians loading all that into their trucks and taking off. And um you you could say it was like a arms trafficking operation. But uh and it will be interesting to put it out, you know, to me as a journalist of like, uh this is happening. But because of the source that came up to me with that, I was like, I can't confirm anything, you know, coming from this source.

• 1:46:59Luis Chaparro?

  Because they wanna push on an agenda. So I guess that's their whole apparatus of information gathering stuff uh. I know they they see my videos, I know they watch what I post, I know they they're following me because they wanna learn about other organizations. And all that stuff, um I guess, I guess it's something that I have to be careful with, you know. What what what what am I sharing and and what am I withholding?

• 1:47:25Shawn Ryan?

  They're killing more and more journalists down there from what I understand.

• 1:47:28Luis Chaparro?

  In the whole twenty twenty, they killed seven journalists uh during the whole year, which was a lot. Uh and in the first two months of this year, there's been uh seven, so we're.

• 1:47:41Shawn Ryan?

  The first two months?

• 1:47:42Luis Chaparro?

  Months. There's been seven journalists killed, two from Tijuana, another from Oaxaca, uh Michoacan. I can remember the other place. But uh but it's been seven already, the whole number for twenty twenty, for I mean from twenty twenty one. So that's that's a lot, they're killing a lot of journalists. And I believe it's part of these tactics to to illegitimize the government because. People is not going after criminals. The regular people is not saying fucking. Carte Jalisco, fucking Carte de Sinaloa, they're fucking us up. They're saying fucking government, they're doing nothing to protect us, to protect our journalists.

• 1:48:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:24Luis Chaparro?

  And I don't think that's by coincidence, I think that's by design. To to heed uh to heed journalists, to heed doctors, to heed uh nice people and you know. Well people, so I think that's by design.

• 1:48:39Shawn Ryan?

  It's interesting that they.

• 1:48:42Shawn Ryan?

  They want journalism because they use it as a PR platform, which helps them with their recruitment. But on the same hand, they're killing journalists, so. Seems kind of counterproductive to me.

• 1:48:53Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, but but look, look at the journalists they're killing. They're not killing journalists um uh on national TV. Or international journalists. You know.

• 1:49:04Shawn Ryan?

  They're killing journalists that are tying names to certain murders and.

• 1:49:08Luis Chaparro?

  And exactly, and especially local journalists.

• 1:49:12Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:49:12Luis Chaparro?

  Local journalists that they know they are not protected by any international law or or whatever that means, any international outlet backup or. But they're not gonna get heat for that. Cause it's way too different what's gonna happen if they kill. Me or they kill the, I don't know, New York Times or Resonant in Mexico City. The fucking international community is gonna step up to find those motherfuckers and the whole attention is gonna go for that criminal group. But if they kill a local journalist. Who's gonna.

• 1:49:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:47Luis Chaparro?

  No, who's gonna, who's gonna go after them.

• 1:49:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:50Luis Chaparro?

  The people is gonna get mad at the government for not protecting these journalists. And that's what they want. And that's why they're hating these uh local journalists.

• 1:50:00Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 1:50:01Luis Chaparro?

  And and that's, that's crazy. But uh but yeah, I mean, I'm I'm I'm working on that, trying to stay safe, trying to. To keep uh putting up stories, um trying to find. Interesting stories, but also trying to find truth behind talking points in. In US media, US media, it's. It's been, it's been doing an awful job, to be honest.

• 1:50:24Shawn Ryan?

  It's a joke.

• 1:50:25Luis Chaparro?

  It's.

• 1:50:26Shawn Ryan?

  I can't, I can't believe people even.

• 1:50:32Shawn Ryan?

  I can't believe people even watch it. I mean, every. I guess not everybody knows, but I I think it's the, I think it's the older generation.

• 1:50:41Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:41Shawn Ryan?

  That still believes that. That traditional news networks are telling the truth and and it's sad to see because.

• 1:50:52Luis Chaparro?

  No.

• 1:50:53Shawn Ryan?

  It it's ruining the country.

• 1:50:54Luis Chaparro?

  It is, man, it is, and. If you talk to, and this is, this is important to to to tell, it's not us journalists. It's not producers behind the camera, it's not media workers, it's the execs. Most of the executives, they hold, the the their decision makers. But they don't come from the news, they come from business, they come from economics, come from all over uh backgrounds. But journalism, so they don't care, they don't give a fuck about journalism, what they give a fuck about is about numbers. Or about who's gonna fund their channel, talking politicians, talking other businessmen. They they think they know what the audience wanna hear, but it's not what the audience wanna hear.

• 1:51:40Luis Chaparro?

  It's basically what's gonna make the audience fight.

• 1:51:43Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, they want the outrage.

• 1:51:45Luis Chaparro?

  They want the fucking outrage, and we're we're playing that game and.

• 1:51:50Shawn Ryan?

  People are falling right into it though.

• 1:51:52Luis Chaparro?

  And most of us media workers don't agree with that, man, but but that, sometimes that's a job.

• 1:51:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:58Luis Chaparro?

  Sometimes you get a win, sometimes you pitch a story that is a well story and well angled story and telling the truth. And sometimes you get the win, sometimes you're like, this is a good fucking story, this is what I'm talking about. Uh especially when it doesn't have to do with the US, especially when it's something which is good for me, cause I cover the foreign desks. Um so, when I'm talking about Colombia, I'm talking about Mexico, I'm talking about that. They usually leave me alone, they're usually like, alright, yeah, let's run the story, why not? But if it's US related, they will get, you know, picky and tricky, they will get like. No, no, that's not the proper angle, let's let's go on this side, cause the audience will feel that this is too, this and that and.

• 1:52:40Luis Chaparro?

  And they start manipulating the whole fucking thing and then the piece out, it's completely different from the fucking pitch.

• 1:52:47Shawn Ryan?

  Well, that's where I come in.

• 1:52:48Luis Chaparro?

  And then it's exactly, and that's where you come in, and that's that's what I fucking love about your show, I think. There's more useful information in in your channel than in any fucking TV station and. And coming from a fucking journalist, I I do news and I and I produce for TV. This is the real thing.

• 1:53:07Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 1:53:07Luis Chaparro?

  This is, this is where you find truth, and this is, that's, that's fucking cool, man.

• 1:53:11Shawn Ryan?

  That's what I'm trying to do. Just tell it like it is.

• 1:53:16Luis Chaparro?

  And that's because you're not tied to.

• 1:53:18Shawn Ryan?

  Anything.

• 1:53:19Luis Chaparro?

  To anything, but yourself.

• 1:53:23Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we're talking about doing some stuff together down the line, maybe.

• 1:53:26Luis Chaparro?

  Let's do that, man, yes, I mean, I will, I would love to, cause I was telling you this, uh, yesterday. I was telling you, your experience in fighting and, you know, going to other places. Could be very enlightening to know what the shit is happening on the ground in Mexico. And I would love, uh, to have you going and embedding to places like Sinaloa. Chiapas with the Ejercito Zapatista and all those guerrillas. There's a new cartel in Chiapas. Called the El Cartel de Chamula. The Chamulas are indigenous, basically made Magians.

• 1:54:08Luis Chaparro?

  Uh, from the Maya, uh, ance- ancestry, and they formed their own fucking indigenous cartel. To fight the Mara Salvatrucha that is coming all over Chiapas. And to fight the old or what is left from the Setas. So, that's, that's an interesting place to go, that's an interesting thing to watch. Um, maybe going to, to the Chiapas border with Guatemala. Then you will find the hotels, like right at the fucking hotels, a lot of Romanians, Russians. A lot of people from those other countries staying there, doing, I don't know what.

• 1:54:49Luis Chaparro?

  The last time I was there, there was a huge group of, I think they were Russian or something like that. Staying at the hotel, no one could tell me what they're doing, what they're do- doing there. I asked the taxi driver, I asked the front desk girl. I asked the police.

• 1:55:07Luis Chaparro?

  Everybody was like super sketched out, they were like, cause I thought they were, um, they were Greek. I was like, why is there like Greek people? And everybody knew like, no, no, they're not Greek, they're Russian.

• 1:55:21Luis Chaparro?

  Why are the Russians here? Oh, no, I don't know, man, no, I can't tell you. But they were, you know, all over the hotel, smoking cigarettes twenty-four hours outside, making phone calls, drinking.

• 1:55:33Luis Chaparro?

  Jumping into taxis, going off, getting back, making noise all all through the night.

• 1:55:39Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm, interesting.

• 1:55:41Luis Chaparro?

  So, yeah, I mean, I will I will love to, um, I love to to have you. To have you south of the border and go to Juarez and go to different different places. I think that will be that will be something that your audience will will enjoy and and that I personally will enjoy to. To bring you with me in one of these, um, reporting.

• 1:56:03Shawn Ryan?

  That would be.

• 1:56:04Luis Chaparro?

  What do you think?

• 1:56:05Shawn Ryan?

  I think it's gonna take a lot of research. And I never I never drop a location before I go, it's always after I'm already out. Um, so, you know, for obvious reasons. And, uh, but I am down. I do like your idea. I really like your idea of interviewing the hitman.

• 1:56:24Luis Chaparro?

  Yes, I think, um, I think, yeah.

• 1:56:26Shawn Ryan?

  I would like to do that. If I get enough support on Patreon.

• 1:56:30Luis Chaparro?

  Yes.

• 1:56:30Shawn Ryan?

  You know, then we'll make it happen, but.

• 1:56:32Luis Chaparro?

  Yeah, let's push for that, man, because that will be that will be fucking interesting to watch, to, uh, to watch you talking to to one of these hitmen. Uh, and so you, I think what you can do is like you can judge how much knowledge. These people have in in the use of arms, because us journalists can know a lot of other things, you know. But maybe not such a specific stuff. And I guess now Mexico is all about specifics. Especially this time, you know, you need to know what kind of training they have, how they're using their guns. Like this armor, uh, that I went into Culiacan where I was switching this thing that you know the name of and I can't. Remember the name of the piece they're switching it to make them full automatic.

• 1:57:17Shawn Ryan?

  The sear.

• 1:57:18Luis Chaparro?

  Mm-hmm. I think that's what that's only because it's, I guess it's cheaper. To buy not semi semi-automatic guns and then just switch them. I guess that's the reason behind that, but, um. But that will be, that will be interesting to, to watch. So, so yeah, I mean, it's gonna take a lot of planning, a lot of negotiating as well, cause of, because of your background, of course.

• 1:57:42Luis Chaparro?

  I'm not gonna be able to, to lie to these people and to hide that part um of, of your background and, and so I'm gonna have to negotiate a lot with them and. And test their trust as well, you know.

• 1:57:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:55Luis Chaparro?

  Test like how, how trustworthy I am with them and oh. And, and let's see, it may, it might not even hap- it might, it might end up in them saying like, no, fuck no, man, no, no way.

• 1:58:07Shawn Ryan?

  I wouldn't blame him.

• 1:58:08Luis Chaparro?

  Me either. But um, but it might end, end up happening and, and that will be, that would be interesting to, to see, to watch. Especially because, uh, I don't think you're gonna be able to be um carrying anything.

• 1:58:26Luis Chaparro?

  So that's gonna be fucking tense to, to see. That's gonna be fucking tense.

• 1:58:30Shawn Ryan?

  It wouldn't be the first time. But uh, well, I wanna wrap this up and uh, I just wanna thank you for coming, man. You always have like.

• 1:58:41Shawn Ryan?

  The intelligence that you're bringing back after these trips is just phenomenal. You can't get this stuff anywhere. And um, and so I just wanna thank you for coming back and, and, and giving me and the audience your time and, and. And telling us what you found down there. So, one more time, where's the best place for people to find you?

• 1:59:01Luis Chaparro?

  Um, I think in my Instagram especially, in my Instagram, I post my link in bio and I have uh, my YouTube channel. I have a Substack account where I put a lot of detailed information that I. All the info that don't, doesn't really make it into a story, into a news story, because it's, it's too detailed. Uh, I post it on my, on my Substack account and um, and that's where I share names, locations, gatherings, uh, maps. You know, that kind of intel.

• 1:59:28Luis Chaparro?

  For someone. Um, and thank you, man. Thank you. It was a fucking pleasure, man. It's, it's really cool to be here and, and my whole intention in coming over is just to tell. Truth and to share truth, cause I see what you're doing on your channel with other guests and I see they are raw. Their raw information, it's, they're sharing their, the truth.

• 1:59:48Shawn Ryan?

  One last question. If you had.

• 1:59:53Shawn Ryan?

  Three people, doesn't have to be three. Who would you recommend? Who would you wanna see on this channel?

• 2:00:00Luis Chaparro?

  Definitely Viktor Avila, we're, we're, we're talking about him. He, he got screwed by both US and Mexico government.

• 2:00:09Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:00:09Luis Chaparro?

  Um, it will, it will be cool to, to watch here.

• 2:00:14Luis Chaparro?

  Um, I think, um, a colleague of mine, Ian Grillo. Um, he's a, he's a UK journalist living in Mexico and covering arms trafficking specifically for maybe twenty years. He's very knowledgeable and he's fucking cool. He's, he's great and I, and I guess he's gonna love the show. And maybe one of the, uh, one of the criminal asset living in the US. That will be, that will be interesting. You interviewing directly one of those guys who lives in the US. I mean, it's a long shot.

• 2:00:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:45Luis Chaparro?

  But, uh, but that would be, that would be dope.

• 2:00:49Shawn Ryan?

  Well, make the connection, we'll make it happen.

• 2:00:53Luis Chaparro?

  We'll try to.

• 2:00:54Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Luis. Thanks again, man. Hey, best of luck. Be safe down there and, uh, I'm sure we'll see you again.

• 2:01:00Luis Chaparro?

  All right, man. Thank you very much.

• 2:01:01Shawn Ryan?

  Cheers.

• 2:01:08Speaker 06

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