How European Cocaine Cartels Took Over The Global Drug Trade

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These criminal elements are active in Belgium and Holland and France, which are the main three. Cancers are spreading in Europe, and they're expanding their power base, and they're growing in strength from one country to the next. The Algerian criminal elements operating in Marseille are now creating alliances with Moroccan gangs in Holland and Belgium. I got kidnapped by the group that I was working with. I took a lot of beatings. They broke my ribs. Mock execution. They showed me this. It was like a pool. They would bring people and drown them there. And then next to it, there was a basketball. Basketball court. They used to hang people there every day. And you know who gave them that expertise? Mexican cartels. Jonathan Alperi is a war journalist who travels the world documenting the war on drugs. From the cartels and the dealers to the users in the attics, Jonathan has seen it all. He's embedded himself with Brazilian drug gangs in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, filmed live shootouts in the slums of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, snapped photos of condemned MS-13 gang members at the notorious. Seacott-Supermax prison in El Salvador, and hung with fentanyl junkies, crackheads, and meth addicts from Mexico City to Selma, Alabama. Most recently, Jonathan has been documenting the dangerous rise of European drug super cartels and exposes why Western European nations like France, Belgium, Germany, and Holland are powerless to stop them. Nobody has a more unique, first-hand perspective on the worldwide drug crisis than Jonathan. Check out his book, Drug Wars, Supply and Demand, available anywhere you get books, and we'll leave a link to that in the description of this episode. Ladies and gentlemen, this one is deep, and there's no happy ending. It's Jonathan Alperi, right here on The Connect, with Jonny Mitchell. How did you get interested in the subject of the underworld? I've always been fascinated in, like, I've done a lot of, like, stories on polyamory, and, like, underground sex things, or, like, drugs, anything that's very hard to get to. I love the challenge of setting things up and diving into that world and becoming like them. So it's embedding. It's embedding yourself with these subgroups, these subcultures that is challenging. But if you can get in there, that's where you get access that most people can't. That's right, because taking the photos, that's easy. But the access and setting things up and developing the right contacts, but also having them trust you, that's 90% of the work. Do you think that because you don't have a camera, like, we film stuff, which limits our access, because, like, when I'm going to film you in a mask with a, you're a Sinaloa cartel member, and I want to literally get you talking about your crimes, do you think the fact that you don't do that, that you're just taking pictures, gets you more access than somebody with a camera? With an actual film camera? I don't think so. And the reason is because when people in that world see you with a camera taking pictures, they think you might be spying. Because you're being discreet about it. If you're filming with an actual camera, it's much more obvious. I mean, it could be a problem, but it's not considered, at least in people's mind, that you might be spying on them. You're snapping some photos of their face, and you might give these photos to law enforcement. When you're filming, it's much more obvious. So photographers, it's really tricky. And the key is to really make, you need them to feel comfortable around you. And once you're successful with that, and that's really a skill, you are able to just do what you want. That's why I never take pictures for a while. You just sort of hang around, and, you know, it's kind of like when you go surfing in an area where, you know, you go to Oxnard, if you surf, you don't know, you'll get your ass beat. But if you spend time, and you go every day, and you, you know, and the guys after a while, they might say, yeah, it's all right, you know, but you don't just start surfing. So there's a way to just kind of ease into it. So you filmed, taking photos all over the world from gangs in Kenya? In Congo, in Kinshasa. In the Congo to, you went to Gaza, after October 7th, you've, of course, been embedded with cartels in Mexico, as far south as El Salvador, Ecuador. What I find most fascinating, though, is that you've filmed, excuse me, you've embedded with European drug gangs. Now, to me, that's the, as somebody who's a quasi journalist myself, that's what I salivate at, because those guys are the hardest people to get you to trust them. Because they're, they've really, you know, they've got the power of European law enforcement, you know, coming after them. So how, first of all, how did you manage that? - The only way to be able to get close to these guys is through law enforcement units that you embed yourself in. To go completely the other way and to live with these criminal elements that are active in Belgium and Holland and France, which are the main three cancers. And this is what they are spreading in Europe as these three countries, is almost impossible. But with the units I work with are all undercover and they're all special units. I don't work with regular police. I only work with the top units, the most aggressive units, and the units who do all the big busts. And the reason is because you do get close to these criminal elements like that, because I behave like a, I become one. And they do a lot of operations where they're buying drugs off these guys, where they are pretending to be criminals themselves. So I'm actually privy to that as well. And I'm doing that with the guys. - So you pose as an undercover cop? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Not pose as a number, you pose as a criminal. - Yeah. - With undercover cop units. - Yeah, like in Hasselt, which is in Flanders, that was in February, we did a big operation where we, they had been tracking this guy who's been selling kilos of marijuana and cocaine. And they've been tracking him. They've been tracking him down for a while. And we were coming in and we worked out a deal when we were buying a few kilos of drugs from him and he fell for it. He tried to make a run for it and they took him down. But so yeah, that's the best way. Otherwise, if you wanna go, like you were mentioning about Mexico, to really spend time with them, that's not possible in terms of just being with them all the time. Or in Brazil, you should spend time with criminal elements in the favelas in Rio. You can do that. - All right. - But the problem is that the underground world, the drug world in Northwestern Europe is incredibly detached from the social structure, if you will, of Europe. Now that's changing 'cause everybody's doing drugs and they're expanding their power base and they're growing in strength from one country to the next. So that's the way I do it usually. - That's fascinating. So you actually have purchased drugs with undercover cops from European drug dealers? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That's wild. - Yeah, that's the way they do it. The problem is they don't do any prison time. So you'll see as this conversation extends into Europe, the law enforcement units are good in these countries. The top guys are good. However, the law system in Belgium and Holland, for example, is quite different. So I'll give you an example. Two years ago, they had arrested three guys at the port of Antwerp. I'm sorry, Rotterdam. And they were caught with three tons of cocaine that came in through Mexico, Caribbean mostly, and then going to Europe. There was one Brazilian guy and two Moroccan with Dutch passports. And they got two years each. That's it. - How is that possible? Did they have to give up information on their suppliers? - It's the way, the punishment to the crime is that's just, they were just reading the law book and they only got two years each. And I don't know if you've ever seen photos of jail cells from Holland. They're like little cozy apartments. They have nice wooden floors, nice little bed, a TV, which connects to a Nintendo Switch. Nintendo 64, which is the first thing you can ask when You go to prison and you get it 100% of the time. It's human rights BS. So it's not really punishment. And for these hardcore guys, two years in jail, comfortable. And you can probably get a cell phone in there and just keep working your business. You can. Now, so are there no mandatory minimums for per quantity the way there are in the United States? Like over five kilos of cocaine is considered like a mandatory minimum amount of prison time in the U.S. under federal statutes. Does these European countries not have anything like that? They do have that, but they don't upload the law for two main reasons. Number one is because there is no more space in jail. So they're not building new prison spaces like we would here. For example, France has had for decades about 50,000 spaces. For prisoners. And they haven't built new jails. So now I think the total population that's incarcerated is about 76,000. So they're overloading these prisons with a lot of prisoners. So what they do, the judges who are very leftist in Europe. So for ideology, they just decided society is the reason why they're doing this. We should forgive them. And they just released them also because they don't have space anymore. Isn't California as much? It's the same way. It really incentivizes the system to keep, even if people have long sentences, life sentences, now you see a lot of guys starting to get out because they need to free up space. So you think the main, you said France, Belgium, and Holland are the main narco states. Yeah. Or the closest thing to narco states in Europe right now. So Belgium is the biggest problem for all kinds of reasons. Belgium is not really a state. It became a state in 1830, but it's very fractured now between the Dutch part and the Walloon part, the French speaking part, and they hate each other. That's historical. That's been the case. The European Union Commission and the parliament are based in Brussels, and they're the ones who are the main power base and they control everything. And for example, Belgium went through a period where they didn't have a government for about a year and a half. Didn't. Didn't make a difference whatsoever. Now, their immigration policy is backfiring too tremendously, where, for example, 30% of the population of Brussels is now Muslim. And there's a lot of ethnic tensions going on because now they're bringing in Nigerians, they're bringing in Nigerians, also Albanians who are doing a lot of the drug deals as well. Moroccans too. It's mostly Moroccans, yeah, like in Holland, but now you have a lot of ethnic tensions. There are a lot of ethnic tensions that are going on, even in the drug trade. So the Albanians are real tough. They're small in number. They're incredibly cunning. We did operations to try to catch them. Very hard thing to do. They're very intelligent in disappearing or not getting caught. The Moroccans are big in numbers, so that's the issue, but they get caught easily. And now you have no borders, obviously, between these countries. So the Algerian mafia, not mafia, but criminal elements operating in Marseille. In the south of France, who's doing all the drugs, selling, dealing, whatever, and bringing them in, are now creating alliances with Moroccan gangs in Holland and Belgium. So it's really expanding, and they're getting a lot of their influences from Mexican cartels. And that's the scary part, because Mexican cartels are incredibly violent, incredibly efficient, very tough. Now, obviously, there's criminal. Criminal elements in Europe are now nearly as tough or organized, but it is gradually going upward as the state— Eros. Exactly. Yeah. Because nature hates void. So if it's replay, it's going to be replaced by something else. When they say a neighborhood like Saint-Denis in northern Paris, they'll say, oh, it's chaos. It's not chaos at all. It's just a new order replacing the old one. And this is what's happening. And you're talking about the Paris suburbs, which have always been ghettos. Yes. Immigrant ghettos. But now they're immigrant ghettos filled with drugs and drug dealers and organized crime. Who are they in the suburbs of Paris? Who's the main ethnic group? Algerians. Algerians. Yeah, yeah. They're definitely the biggest problem. In Marseille now, for example, you see gangs coming from Italy. They are from Nigeria, who were brought in by the Sicilian and the South. They were brought in by the Southern Italian mafias to do the dirty work. And they were so poorly treated that they split up from the Italian mafia. And they're their own now. And they're the worst. They're the most violent. The Italian police has real problems with them. They control a lot of small towns around Naples, around Anzio. They do everything. And now they're in the South of France expanding. It's really a disaster. And the European governments are completely disarmed for ideological reasons. They don't want to do it. But also, they don't have the political courage to do it. So it's getting worse and worse. And it's very troublesome. So the Italian mafia clans, the Andrangheta in Southern Italy, and then the Neapolitan clan, which is the Camorra, in the early 2000s, they had all the press as being the biggest cocaine importers in Europe, right? That's what the ports at the very boot of Italy, can't remember what it's called. Like Bredisi, maybe? Or Bari, maybe? Yeah, some Italian name. So has that changed? Are they not the biggest importers anymore? Is it the Northern Europeans that are the biggest guys, like out of the port of Antwerp, and Brussels, or Rotterdam? Rotterdam. So in terms of volume, it's always been Holland and Belgium. That's because they are the two biggest deep sea ports in Europe, which you just mentioned. Now, that security is a big problem. And it's a big problem for the European government. ports when you were embedded in europe so i did some in and not in europe but in ecuador i have in guayaquil that tons of cocaine uh in europe i've been trying to and the authorities have been very standoffish with me when it came to being work in the harbors and the reason is one of the reasons is because uh antwerp and rotterdam are highly corrupted areas because if you're let's say i'm i'm waiting to get the drug start coming through that specific container and i know which one you have connections with the dockers and whoever is checking the x-ray machines where the thing goes through you go to him and you say the number 24 here has stuff in it you go to him and you say the number 24 here has stuff in it and you say the number 24 here has stuff in it and you say the number 24 here has stuff in it and you say the number 24 here has stuff in it and you say the number 24 here has stuff in it and you say the number'm as strong as the state or almost are those threats real in a place like belgium so they are real in holland they're not really killing that many people they're starting to kill each other more because there are more weapons and they're becoming more aggressive there's so much money people are really fighting for it however you're not that level that you have in mexico or in south america we were not there yet far from it but it is gradually getting there did you see that video where i want to say it was in germany there these cops these swat and military units did a huge raid on these uh collection of like containers okay like big containers and this drug gang had hollowed it out and made it like a torture chamber and they just like managed to save whoever was like about to get uh some dental work done to his teeth in order for him to like you know give up information on somebody wild i think that was in holland maybe it was hard i think because i saw that they showed me the pictures so yeah it's a dental chair that was launched in the middle of that container and you know who gave them that expertise mexican cartels they had brought in these guys were arrested too mexican sicarios were brought in to teach them how to do these things so you do have a strong alliance uh between some big mexican cartel especially the next generation and the senegal cartel who are making strong ties with uh north african criminal elements in northern western europe and they're bringing in their expertise and that's one of them yeah yeah for sure what about the serbians like okay so you think in these problem countries belgium france and holland you think it's the the moroccans the albanians algerians nigerians more and more and now you have criminal elements from afghanistan in france you have criminal elements from chechnya you have romanians uh you have a little bit of serbians and uh and montenegro and stuff like that but they're very small in number so they should be able the government should be able to deal with them very very easily if they wanted to so do you think these these countries are have a history of being war-torn obviously france did horrible things to algeria in the past do you think they they take that culture of violence and and outlaw behavior and just transfer it now into the you know the host countries if you will that question is fundamental and truly fascinating there are strong cultural differences between these different groups that we mentioned especially when it comes to how you do business you guys have something similar with somalis there are in all the money that's being stolen i'm personally not surprised because that's how they do business in somalia you see how people bring their own goods and beds with them the spaniards did the same thing in south america in terms of great family landlords created a lot of corruption so no small uh farmers could survive like it was the case here right which is the reason why north america was more successful to begin with that was one of the big reasons so they bring the good and the bad with them the albanians are very tricky because traditionally they are smugglers and whether they like it or not in throughout the medieval period that's been true and they've always been okay with islam and then christianity always very fluid and very adapting to situation they're hard to trust when you want to have an alliance with them as a country very hard so they're very um they're they're very fluid like that they also suffered under communism the poverty yes of communism for decades that's right so they went through i mean you know first of all the ottoman period was very tough on them and then later the other balkan wars and world war one so everything in world war ii was brutal and then you know the end of the the tito period that you just mentioned um so they they are very tricky the the afghans are tough because they're just very tough people like if you go to actual physical confrontation against them on the street to arrest them they will fight back so sometimes the police or in germany they're taking a bag because they're not used to that anymore the toughest are the chechens real hardcore you know weapons smuggling and drugs and stuff but mostly weapons less drugs prostitution is a big thing with the albanians so different ethnic groups have a different relationship with money how they use it how they spend it how they make it and how they protect their territories the albanians in holland are very tough much tougher than the moroccans and actually the moroccans are afraid of them and we did operations to try to catch albanians all the ops i've been on they were not successful very sneaky very smart and they never create problems the moroccans they're on the street and they'll mug people and stuff like that so they're much more uh open about that they got the numbers they have the numbers too yeah um although there's big drug traffickers you know with the hash route going into spain sure and probably now cocaine you would assume right yeah um what about places like england paris i i or excuse me uh london i can't believe paris france is the number one cocaine using country now by far so let's talk about that like what is it do you find a link between the uh you will just call the disintegration of these once great european countries over decades from all of these different political and economic reasons right the uh uh the european union the mass migration the everybody kind of just getting poor kind of like it is in the united states but on europe it's a much it's a much worse level do you think that's the reason that everybody is like why are they doing all these drugs that's the main thing it's like why why why more now as opposed to 19 the 1980s when coke people first discovered what it was like why why is everybody just giving up the european union is two main structures in terms of what who decides you have the european commission and they have the european court of justice these two structures they control everything the government doesn't control anything they can they vote on the margin of the laws that are being written by the european commission and the european court of justice the ideal which has become an ideology is the trifecta is freedom of capital of goods and therefore people so are you saying that a lot of these countries in europe don't have sovereignty to create their own drug laws that would that would fix their drug problem you're saying it's made by the european union so in terms of the the national drug laws they're different for each country what's the problem is not the fact that they have these laws it's the fact that they don't apply them on the punishment level against criminal elements but the other big problem is that normally in a normal country uh you will get kicked out of the country for that like usually they're dual citizens actually they all are because if you're moroccan tunisian and nigerian and your grandparents one of your grandparents has a passport from back home you have that by by birth and you could never get rid of it by law so they're both they always have two passports you can remove the french passport and send them home because they did criminal offenses the european communal law forbids you from doing that you have to go to court it's one case by case basis but there are so many criminal elements now it would take a million years right so that's why they're not being kicked out so yeah criminals don't get a lot of prison time and they're not deported no they're not being deported at all right so but the drug trade like the thing that's you know ripping cities apart and the kensington and skid row and uh the paris parisian suburbs right like what is is the solution to it you know you you went down to to el salvador yeah you went into the mega prison sure um tell us about that tell us about the the what you saw what you heard and then do you think that el salvador is a workable solution for the whole world for the for europe for the united states the el salvador example resembles tremendously the filipino with duarte also you know went after criminal elements 200 000 dead i mean he went all out now he's in jail he's being judged by the international court of justice for crime against humanity for getting rid of criminal elements el salvador is an interesting example but they were successful because it's a small country tiny they knew where everybody was which areas were controlled used the army surrounded them and actually interestingly enough uh most of the criminal elements didn't fight back there were a couple of clashes here and there but the army and they surrendered they were not as tough as they thought they were right because going after people is one thing going into a hand-to-hand street fighting with the military that's i mean i've experienced street fighting many occasions it's a very you very hard experience and very dangerous and when you start to go hand to hand and do and start spraying fire around then you'll see who is a man and who is not took them out he built that prison i was privy to see that uh very high tech a lot of chinese technology and uh all these guys who were taken i think it was 70 000 and about 45 50 000 i'm not clear what the exact numbers are in that prison um were uh unless um boukele was a president now gets arrested which is possible after his tenure these people will never go out like they'll just die in place right and a lot of um ngos and more progressive liberal entities went after him heavily in the media as well turned it was inhumane i always say go talk to the local el salvadoran who's very happy he can walk around a night without getting shot or his kid get kidnapped or whatever it might be so he was quite efficient at it uh the timing was ripe uh people really had it he went too far and again it's a small country you could do that honduras is trying to do that right now not as successful it's a bigger country it's more complex so but is that in el salvador has that wiped out the drug trade because there never was a big drug trade in el salvador like these ms-13 guys like you know i don't disagree necessarily with what boukele did but these guys were like extorting bus drivers for quarters these were not high-level cocaine exporters so again that's also a big difference right so you're correct their strategic imprint was very small you're right uh el salvador was a good hub right to stop on the way just what they do is just go from one port to the next working they went to mexico and then land route to the great north american market right so you are correct they were into all kinds of things i remember i was they showed me this it was like a pool a swimming pool very small but it was all grass around because it was the vegetation had grown they would bring people and drown them there terrible location i mean and all the time and then next to it there was uh a basketball court that the government had built you know sometimes they built sports so kids don't do drugs or they do sports instead they used to hang people there every day from the the net they show and the net was like yeah from the pressure on the body that's what they were doing to people so you're right they were doing all kinds of extract you know of um of uh different ways to to get money and they were fighting each other what do you think okay so you've been to i mean if you look in your book drug wars supply and demand you've been to the tenderloin in san francisco you've been to skid row in la i'm assuming kensington in philadelphia the whole city of baltimore baltimore covered heavily dangerous city yeah yeah what do you think what do you think is like the worst in terms of just lawlessness drug addiction and we'll call it violence throw that in there yeah they all have their particularities um in baltimore was tough because lots of gangs so i was operating in gang areas so i had to be uh you know careful didn't know what was the obvious reason in philadelphia it's just a drug usage of crazy people just completely off their rockers doing fentanyl and just really heavy drug users but to me the most grim was new mexico and i spent a lot of time in northern new mexico and maine there's that kind of abandoned area who were um once prosperous and now just these abandoned small towns in the middle of nowhere yeah i've heard that so new mexico's like why were these towns abandoned northern new mexico yeah like hispaniola these places so basically new mexico has been a drug route for heroin through mexico since the light late 19th century so there's a tradition of drug smuggling in the area and then it just spreads out across the land you still have that not to not nearly as much as california or florida or texas those those areas it just it just feels like time has stopped there and you have beautiful landscapes so it's a weird combination of beautiful nature in these small human towns where everybody's doing drugs they're doing dirty drugs there's no money so there are little resources to help them uh and just really lost souls in this wilderness and it's visually in intellectual it's fascinating to dive into that to that world arizona was interesting too maine was cool not cool i'm sorry it was interesting because it's yeah very affluent coastal towns like canada port and a lot of money and then you go more inland in the wooded areas then it's all prescription drugs all poor white drug addicts and it's grim and that's because the industries are gone and there was never anything to replace it but in the 1970s we decided that it would be better to produce in china and obviously we wiped out a lot of jobs and industries in america same in europe so drugs were when people had nothing else to do okay so then like new mexico is it also poor whites or is it like native americans you got a bit of everything uh-huh yeah so do you embed with drug addicts yeah yeah yeah i could spend weeks seriously yeah do you do any drugs no i used yeah did you used to be an addict no but i i mean no i've never been addicted to them and that's my pers that's how my brain's wired i remember in high school and i was an athlete for 20 years and um i used to smoke during lunch break at school in new york city back in the 90s because i went to a french high school so all the kids smoked yeah they're french that's what the french people do but i was you know i tried and never i really tried to to be an addict and never same with the hard drugs but i grew out of them because there was a time to me it was just it was uh but it was never going to be a problem i knew that but you take a chance you don't know about your own addiction unless you try but i've tried all kinds but i was never addicted to them and i grew out of them so but yet you and that makes you a perfect person to hang out and observe drug addicts because you're not going to do them right yeah no i would never yeah yeah but so you're watching people smoke fentanyl yeah like shoot it um yeah like a lot of like needles uh let me ask you this do you find that less people are od on fentanyl now because i've heard because we study cartels on the on the show pretty heavily and we've heard that the regulations around getting the chemicals out of china to mexico to produce the fentanyl have worked to an extent so that the fentanyl batches are less strong could also be that they're they're getting tolerant to them here but do you find like when did people stop what do people go straight to the fentanyl to get high and not just have it be like heroin with fentanyl in it like like when do people what year do people start like saying no i wanna i'm i am a fentanyl addict so the genesis of the fentanyl uh historical arc is the 1990s there was multiple deals that were struck between chinese businessmen and sinaloa cartel like the traditional real powerful base cartels maybe tamaulipas to golf and you know these lesser but still powerful deals were struck and it was basically we'll bring you the molecule and you will produce and you will sell to the us market that's how it happened the dea did a big raid in mexico city mid 90s maybe it was 98 i forget and there was a chinese businessman and he had 300 million dollars in cash in his apartment there's so much of it he didn't work there's a scene like this on the movie uh blow remember right he opened the door like that and i knew pesos or dollars no dollars and i knew the some of the guys who were on the operation they told me about this but it was on the news okay but you know i knew the guys anyway and uh what the way it worked is the following it's easy to cook all right it's big toxic but it's not that hard to make you make it they what they would do and they did that with other drugs and they're doing that with xylosine which is the tranq is the big thing now uh which is even more devastating it's scary they would have some of these cartels would have already connections with local gangs philadelphia namely they will bring a certain amount of fentanyl to them for free and they'll say mix it up but you know as because you die right it's just very little and because these guys are not chemists that's why many people die there's too much fentanyl and a product itself give that product mix it don't give it just really mix it and give it to a bunch of addicts some of your clients because they are clients that's how they see it and it was bingo because the guys got so addicted they saw the result so they applied um on the ground how it worked and the guys would keep coming back they went completely crazy i need more and they didn't give it to me because they were like i don't know what the hell is going on i don't know what the hell is going on and they were like i don't know what the hell is going on they were like i don't know what the hell is going on i don't know what the hell is going on i don't know what the hell is going on i don't know what the hell is going on i don't know what the hell is going on i don't know what the hell is going on i don't know what the hell is going on i don't know what the hell is going on i don't know what the hell is going on i don't know what the hell is going on it takes a few years before it really becomes a very visible national issue but um it takes time to set up the lines to produce and stuff like that and then to see if it works and then spreading out takes another few years so it takes a bit of time but it became huge in the media yeah like over about 10 yeah 10 15 years ago but so do you see less people ods are down like fatal overdoses fatal overdoses are down when it comes to fentanyl specifically opioids in general why do you think that is you're from what you've seen on the street with all the emts the cuffs don't have that spray what is it called actually i have some narcan and uh i would always have a couple with me in case you know someone but you know it's very simple you put it in someone's nose you press it down it's like a red button and that works so it works less and less because like every drug the body gets used to it but that's why people don't die and it actually backfired because if you're a hardcore drug addict and you know you're not gonna die because someone's gonna then you keep doing your your hard drugs you see them it's a double-edged sword on one end you save lives you keep them going but they will do more and they will continue because they know they're gonna get they'll be awakened by the oh my god yeah did you ever have to do that do you know i had it with me i mean i have seen a bunch of guys who would eat and die in front of me but there are other buddies who also drug addicts also i had the the narcan the narcan so again hold on buddy and put in their nose and they're like sometimes they would put like three or four because they were so drugged up that they needed a few pro football is back and so are the predictions trade yours on calchi america's number one prediction market platform this sunday it's denver versus los angeles with denver currently trading at 46 to win trade 100 and you could get 209 if they win download calchi use code win 26 to get 25 when you trade 25 a k l s h i calchi trade what's next 18 years plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors calchi products are not available in all jurisdictions prices values and available markets may differ from the market size from those mentioned for more information see calchi.com regulatory yeah so you just witness people fall out oh yeah i've seen that many times just and i'm taking pictures of it have you seen anybody not wake up like yeah i've seen plenty of dead either murdered or you know od yeah plenty yeah because that we'll talk about that the violence that goes on you know you even assume desperate drug addicts are gonna it's gonna spin out of control people are gonna get killed yeah yeah i mean divide i mean drug violence in any poor environment that's always been the case drugs adds another element because when people are really addicted they need their fix obviously but the amount of money that's being exchanged is just no one knows how much money is being made across the the the north american the south american north american trade route and into europe the dea goes up to 400 billion dollars a year but they don't know how much money is being actually no no one knows well how much okay talk about like kensington how much money is moving i mean obviously it's 24 hours but there's such small amounts like a guy from baltimore was on this show the other day he said they're selling three dollar fentanyl hits okay so obviously there's thousands tens of thousands of transactions every day but how much money are those strips really bringing in versus like it just being a place where people come to get high and the the junkies are also the dealers like is it that kind of thing or or is a place like that actually even though it looks chaotic it's actually being run by organized crime yeah it's totally run by organized crime and they're making a lot of money who's running kensington philadelphia right so you have different local mostly black gangs uh they do have connections with some of them like the higher ranking guys they do have strong links with some mexican cartels and that's been around for years so you do have traditionally like in baltimore these kinds of gangs uh they are making a lot of money as well and and the proof is that in order to protect their business they're heavily weaponed they have a lot of guns mostly an eight millimeter glocks some assault rifles but mostly handguns you it's you can't just walk around with a you know you know not like here you can walk around with a machine gun but um it's very prevalent the money no one knows how much money is being made there are some numbers but i wouldn't trust them no one knows i think the fentanyl there's a really high margin because you can buy you can buy a key of fentanyl really low and make you know like if you buy it for a thousand this is coming from somebody that emailed me do i trust all emails no but i've heard it i verified it like i think it's a thousand thousand twelve hundred for a key like if you got like a mexican connect like if you're part of the cartel and just chopping it into three dollar hits you can make like 25 grand off of a thousand dollar investment yes that's good yeah so you know and actually three dollar hit is very expensive because the fentanyl uh the fentanyl uh result on your body is very brief so you want another one quickly you'll be spending multiple times these three dollars on a daily basis okay how that's wild so it's like a hit a crack it doesn't last very long it doesn't last very long how how would the junkies that you the fentanyl addicts how many times a day are they are they using like on average so some of the very dependent ones that i've spent time with and there's some in cartel territory northern mexico uh i remember these guys were shooting up straight fentanyl in their necks and uh one of these pictures or is in the book actually now he his body could take it that's how crazy addicted he was he was out of his mind for we hang out with him the entire day uh maybe an hour and a half he was just completely off his rockers then it started declining now he's a very resistant guy but it's just a few hours it's brief so not 10 times a day i wouldn't say 10 times a day but i've seen guys do yeah three six times a day just like completely hooked on it yeah yeah oh man no so three you add up it's not cheap that's how i see it bucks no i know but these people have no money but over time every day i mean it's like well yeah it's tens of thousands do you think like in kensington or or the tenderloin like i know it's impossible to know the number for sure but did it look like thousands of people yeah so if you you don't see them all right you got people on the street and then people inside you know doing their drugs either it's abandoned buildings or just where they live there yeah it's like thousands and thousands the authorities don't know either did you go to like any shooting galleries or any places like indoors where where you know people come to get high i have but not in the united states uh you mean like the legal ones no i meant like safe houses yeah just yeah drug houses yeah i did a couple in the dominican republic like crack and heroin safe houses very dangerous places to go into but i had a good contact and after a while it was like you you need to go now because there, you know, you never know and some guys are becoming edgy. And so I would, of course, listen and leave. But yeah, yeah, I did a couple of those over the years. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's grim. It's just dark and all these little rooms. Yeah. Sometimes, I know it sounds weird to say, but that's the photographer in me. Beautiful lighting sometimes. Right. Just like a string of light, just lighting one guy. Right. And dark around. Or, you know, I would use other people's flashlights at night. So they're, you know, for whatever reason, they're using to light something up. And I would use only that light to take the picture. And because I'm using a prime lens, I'm only shooting a 51.2, which is a very wide lens. And it captures a lot of light. That works very well to shoot at night. Just grab whatever lights around. I don't use flash ever, ever, ever. They're beautiful pictures in the book. Okay. Do you, has fentanyl or meth, how much were you around meth, methamphetamine? So meth, you don't see it. Like, I remember doing some stuff in Pensacola in the Panhandles. And you do see that more like the white port trailers. You do see that there are more. It's interesting how, to some extent, drugs differ on the ethnic group. Yeah. It's, so crack is, it's more like in New York and the Bronx, for example, of crack usage, mostly Dominican, Puerto Ricans and blacks. But you don't see Mexicans do that at all. Yeah. And that's a cultural thing. Mexicans are not, no, they drink heavily, but they're not known for doing heavy drugs. It's been changing. You should go down. You should see the places we've been. The Mexicans do drugs. No, they do. But I mean, like as a nation, it's not like a culturally, like you would in the U.S. where drugs is a much more widespread in terms of consumption. My experience with Mexico is that they are still a very family oriented nation. There are certain limitation and restrictions when it comes to when you're raising kids. But yeah, there are areas, everybody is in Mexico City, there are bad areas for drugs. Well, even amongst the elite in Mexico now, it's like being in Spain. Cocaine is like, we party with coke. Oh, you're talking about cocaine. Okay. But, but, but. Yeah. Yeah, sure. But also like meth is, if you go to places, we've been to Nogales, we've been to Monterrey, Saltillo, all these places in Northern Mexico. It's a working class drug. So there's big time. Yeah, there's, they sell a lot of meth in, in Mexican cities. But I was asking that because I want to know about Europe. Did, well, just let's focus on the fentanyl. Will fentanyl make it to Europe? Do European cities have the problems that we have? With FEN? Not right now. And the reason is because people have to remember that fentanyl overwhelmingly is a legal production. China makes four drugs. That's what they give you when you're in a hospital bed and you're in an op. That's how they, they shoot you up for pain. At a very, very tiny dose, obviously. So India is a big producer of the molecule as well. We are too in Canada. And I think these are the top producers. And I rarely say this because I don't like the European Union, but they do have a good side in terms of restriction for prescription drug production and consumption. So the fentanyl is, is highly, highly, highly controlled in terms of being given out. So you don't really have an illegal fentanyl usage in Europe. It's very tiny, though it is increasing. Okay. So is it because, so a lot of people, unlike in the US, in Europe, they're not so addicted to legal opioids. You're correct. And so therefore you have less demand for illegal opioids like fentanyl. You're correct. So the prescription drug issue from the 1990s with the Sackler family, this has never happened in Europe. Okay. However, France does have a huge problem with, I forget the word in English, drugs that you take, like, because you're depressed. Antidepressants? Antidepressants. A lot of people are on it in France. It's like the number one user by far given by a psychiatrist or, yeah, legally, but huge problem. Right. A lot of people are taking because they're depressed and France is number one. Right. Right. And do you think that maybe, well, certainly it probably leads to, you know, stimulant use, ketamine, right? Ketamine is on the rise. I did a ketamine piece in Brazil in the gay community because I used, I did this crazy story on the underground gay sex world in San Paolo. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. You had to embed in that. Oh, my God. I hope you didn't have to get high on your own. No, I, yeah, I had to be, I'm straight. So I had to, you know, I'd be extra careful, but, uh, the parties, the drugs, it's insane. Brazil is not a production hub. It's a consumer hub. They do a lot of kinds of drugs. Right. And everybody in Brazil is gay. Like you have a lot of crazy. When I went to Rio, it's like jacked fucking gay black dudes. So you have a lot of, it's very fluid sexuality. It's a weird, my Brazil, I've worked a lot in Brazil. It's a weird between a very Christian state. Abortion is illegal. So they have these deep Christian foundations. And on the other hand, the sexuality is very, it's true. It's very, uh, uh, fluid. And ketamine was a drug being used. I used to, during that week, I photographed that for a French client, but it was also part of some of these photos are in it, uh, in the book. Is the use of ketamine in a gay community for party drugs. So they do ketamine, uh, this snorted usually. And, uh, they, they go all out and these parties on the ground parties is basically one was in an abandoned factory and that was grim. It was basically a huge concrete floor, uh, and they had a stage in the middle and a bar on the, on its flank. And there were balconies, multiple floors. And I, uh, I started shooting and I bought my girlfriend at the time was Brazilian for safety and a couple of buddies of mine. And it was 2000 people in an orgy, ultimately doing drugs. It was like the end of the world. And I remember the further go up, you would go, the darker it would get. And I got to the top floor and there was some sort of an entrance and I opened and someone grabbed my arm and. Pulled me in and he was basically an orgy in the dark where like dozens of people, I thought I was going to die. So I extracted myself. They thought I was in to join and I was able to pull myself out because, you know, I was holding my camera, but, uh, all drugs, everybody is just doing something. Cocaine, obviously. That's a, but what, what does ketamine do? Like, like, you know, gay guys used to do and probably still do poppers in the U S is, is ketamine a similar feeling to. Poppers or why, why do gays, you know, go to this drug? I mean, it keeps you going, right? You could just go all night and just keep part of me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could really, uh, I mean, then you do, you could do too much of it and then something it's called, uh, going through a K hole. Like you lose, like you feel like your body's detaching from itself. It's burning. It's a very weird, uh, very unique feeling that you get if you take too much ketamine, but it's really a party drug. It's just, it's linked to that. Now does organized crime, like at what scale is ketamine moved because we're ketamine's big in the U S now too. Um, at what is it controlled by organized crime or is it kind of just more like localized people again, who do it that also know how to make it, or is there a hierarchy to ketamine trafficking? Uh, there is trafficking of ketamine, but it is also, um, a trend where people who feel depressed go to. They're a doctor and they get ketamine. You do have that. Now there are doctors who think that it's okay to give ketamine if you have anxiety. So you have this legal side of it where people are getting it legally. The illegal side is mostly for the party scene. It's not something that you will have a junkie on the street, just shooting up or snorting ketamine. You might have some, but it's marginal. It's really the criminal elements are targeted. They're getting the big party scenes that can Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, huge gay scene, a lot of ketamine there. Okay. So who's making it, who's, who's, I mean, obviously part of our, to people controlled by the cartel elements. Right. Um, but like in a place like Rio or Europe, uh, like, do you make it at scale? Like, are there kilo dealers of ketamine or is it just something that like small time people get involved with? No, I think it's all. It's, you know, it's like for the, on, on the large scale, these international criminal elements, it's like a menu. You go to a restaurant and they sell you different products and ketamine is one of them. It's probably on the lower scale. I don't think it's, um, it's not their big moneymaker. It's just an extra way to earn cash because it targets a specific kind of people, the way they used to target advertising people in France in the eighties with cocaine or heroin with a jazz and a great Charles used to talk about this in the fifties and sixties, they all, you know, allow them or junkies, uh, using heroin. Mm-hmm. It was targeted for specific bubbles of groups of social people. Ketamine is like that. So would you liken the market, like the market capitalization? In other words, how much, how big the market is for a drug like ketamine? Would you say it's on par with like Molly or MDMA? It's a good question. No, I think Molly, MDMA is much higher. It's much more popular and it's been made less ecstasy now, more MDMA. Because it's actually a little bit better for you. I don't mean it's good for you, but at least it's a pure form, right? Ecstasy, you didn't know. You got speed, you could have crack in it and whatever it could be. And that was an organized crime. They made that in like Holland. They had a big production and they still do. And I've been on ops that were farmers. These guys were Dutch though. And they were producing MDMA because they already have the chemicals. And they have the facilities to do it. So they would set up cameras. It was like an investigation, right? For months. And they would set up cameras, like in the movies, you know, and like on the light on the street, wherever, on the tree, whatever they could find. And they would film it 24/7 and you would see some, they were pig farmers in that case. And they were bringing huge barrels, plastic barrels. And there were so many of them that I, hmm, that's weird. And they were big. They were big. And they were bringing chemicals to make MDMA because Belgium and Holland have these huge festivals, music festivals, and you know, you pop MDMA to, you know, you party, you, you know, so. Oh, interesting. So, so it started with music festivals in those countries and then they started exporting it. Cause I know they, you know, we've talked to big ecstasy dealers that would get their shit from, you know, tell us about the favelas in Brazil. This is a, that's one of the most fascinating. Frightening, you know, drug organized crime areas in the whole world. Yeah. So in Rio, so you have two different kinds of favelas. You have the favelas or night nicer, more accessible where you even have tourist tours, like Vigigal, Santa Marta, they do have tours and they take you around and these stores have a deal with the, the gangs who control the area. And that's okay. Uh, I've, I worked in a real, uh, like Jack Alasino. Academy, which is in, uh, north and north, uh, west part of Rio, where no one goes. These are the real hardcore, some of them controlled by red command, who's one of the big criminal elements for Brazil, very violent guys, very dangerous guys, not the same voice as Mexican cartels is very interesting differences. Um, and I, I worked with these guys because I had a good contact and I spent time with them very hard to take pictures is very restrictive. Was not very happy with the photos. Uh, and you were working embedded with the red command. Yeah, because I had a contact, he was a priest and he would bless them. So I had this contact. He said, yeah, come with me. They know about you photos. We'll see. So I took some, but it was never, I didn't spend enough time. I think I should have spent more time. I just couldn't. And you would go to their homes and bless them and stuff like that. Like you need to survive your soul. Do you need to survive today? Maybe try to. Find another way, but they were very, a lot of these criminal guys were religious, heavily armed flag jackets. I mean, say it was fun. And I did really, uh, I did half a dozen combat operations in these areas. And this was with, uh, Corey, which is commandos. I got had access to, I was the only one with that kind of access and different military police units. Um, and we did a proper firefights on the streets. Like gun battles, people getting killed, uh, spraying fire all over. Yeah. Like no joke. Like the, the, these units were when they go after it's to kill, it's not to negotiate. Yeah. They just take them. So do you, so you were wearing a press suit? No, no, no. I mean, I was flag jacket, but I don't wear press. Okay. So you, but they gave you a flag jacket and a, and a helmet, no helmet. I don't wear a helmet. Yeah. If they hit you in the head, man, that's, that's part of the gig. That's a good shot. So, yeah, I know. But a flag jacket was for security, but, um, I'm also very experienced. I've done a lot of urban combat, like Mosul and in Syria and stuff like that. So I know what to do and it's, it's intense, but it's not intense. Like it was in Iraq. Right. So it's, but it's, it's for a city that's not a war. It's a, it's pretty serious. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's at war every now and then it flares up. Right. Yeah. When, when do they decide to do raids? Like those lethal raids where they, they're just there to kill. What, did you get a sense of when the police decide, okay, let's go in and do it. It's like a cleansing. The crispy chicken crunch wrap slider that you love is back at Taco Bell. And it's back with attitude because now you can enjoy the all white meat chicken nuggets inside a slider sized crunch wrap with Hidden Valley Diablo Ranch. The crispy chicken nuggets, the crunch wrap slider, or maybe the Hidden Valley Diablo Ranch. But yes, the answer is yes. The crispy chicken crunch wrap slider, a brand new classic is back only at Taco Bell. Yeah, yeah. Right. So sometimes it's because they, a lot of police officers in Rio are getting killed and they're getting killed when they're getting home. I think it's a, I forget the number. They told me it was like 80 or a hundred, it was like dozens every year. It was not a small number. And because some of these police officers work in the areas where they live, so the dealers know who they are. And they would ambush them going home when they were out of their service without their weapons and just kill them. And when that happens, out of revenge, they'll go in and they'll kill a bunch of them in return. So you have that. Or the new governor who's hardcore and he said, I need to make an imprint on my tenure. We'll do major operation. We're going to kill a bunch of these guys and calm things down for a while. But it doesn't solve the problem long term, but it goes down and then it goes back up. Right. It's a never ending pendulum. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like constant. You saw that. Did you, did you hang out in any like drug sale spots in the favelas? Yeah. These, I was never really allowed to take pictures because they're, for them, they're tactical areas. They're points of sales. But yeah, you know, anywhere, some corner, they sell everything, you know, bad cocaine, bad drugs, because people who do drugs in these areas are poor. So they get cocaine. I saw it. It looks almost brown. Dude, I had one of the worst cocaine. The worst cocaine I've ever bought was from a guy in the favelas. Yeah, I'm sure. I didn't go up into the favelas, but like I sent him up there. I sent him up to get weed. Right. But I don't speak Portuguese. So he came back with a bunch of blow. That's how cheap it was. It was like money for weed. And he came back with coke. It looked like pancake mix. It was fucking awful. It was like I didn't even do drugs. It's terrible. It's terrible. One of the trips I did in Rio, I was, I lived with transgenders for a couple of weeks and they are all prostitutes and drug users. That's the trend. Unfortunately, there it's, that's, that's the MO and they would do cocaine and they would get that kind of cocaine because it was cheap. And, you know, actually these, these, these people who I became very friendly with actually were, but, you know, prostitute at night doing drugs or just living together in a band. Right. So doing that too. So do they, they have tourist cocaine, which obviously I didn't get, but they must have better product for the tourists and then the locals get the shit that's just cut and they sell it for, it's cheap. It's very cheap. It's the same for coffee production in Colombia. They do very good coffee production, but none of it stays in Colombia. It's for export. And the bad coffee is for domestic consumption. Right. Same thing. Same, same business calculation. What do you think the worst area was and all of these fucked up drug addled crime ridden cities that weren't technically a war? Cause I know you've been in real war zones too, which we should talk about at the end. What do you think was like the worst? In terms of the addiction side of it or overall? Both. For addiction, the U S is grim. And the reason, cause I would go shoot in the winter. Sometimes it's the whole. Ambulance, you know, Baltimore used to be a very, you know, uh, you know, I had a lot of business, not anymore. Um, new Mexico was grim. I spent a lot of time in Oakland in California, obviously grim in different way. Um, just to see that you're in the United States and you have that, and that's, what's so surprising in the, in terms of violence, the, the deep port of Guayaquil in Ecuador, uh, was dangerous, uh, because I took part in air operations in areas completely controlled by, and they clash and the people they arrest were really bad guys. And there's a lot of retaliation from the criminal element against the police element. My friend there was the head of all this almost got assassinated a bunch of times last year. They tried to kill him in his car and they missed he's a high end commander. He's clean guys. So you have a love, not so clean guy. so they don't get killed. there was threats on me too afterwards after a month i went back to quito and in quito i was going to do the same thing and i was introduced to the main commander and i could tell as soon as soon as i walked in you the guy was deeply corrupted and i told my fixer like i don't know about this guy and he was not happy that i was around and he was like yeah maybe two months later he was arrested got 25 years in jail for drug dealing yeah so you know you have a lot of that too so you think ecuador was the most violent it was really getting to that curve mexico is the most dangerous uh to work in mexico is a whole different ball game and where were you you were in tijuana yeah there are a lot of the north uh and uh like the south like part of the southern pacific coast a little bit mexico city and around um a little bit in cancun as well but uh yeah mexico is different because because their understanding of death, their relationship with death and violence is very unique to them. This mix of culture, of Aztec culture and Spanish colonial violent era combined into a very peculiar population group who really doesn't care about death. A lot of people do not. It's like, eh. Yeah. Doesn't matter. I know. For sure. I think that same thing, especially amongst the indigenous and who usually become sicarios. It's the white guys that look like me and you from Jalisco or Sinaloa that make the deals, that make the drug deals, but it's the brown soldiers. They're the ones who fight and get killed all the time. It's extremely normalized, but it's deeper than normalized. There's a cult. It's like fascination with death. Medio de los Muertos, right? Yeah. The whole society. That's not necessarily bad on the surface level, but yeah, it's permeated the criminal element. I mean, one of the most violent cartels at the time was they had one group called Los Aztecas and they were vicious. Los Zetas as well, who were wiped out. Yeah, it's just a combination, of course, but it's a very strong culture. It's very peculiar because you go to Central America, there's violence, but they're not as creative with it. And same in Brazil, it's very violent, but they'll never put you in acid. They don't do these things, really. They'll just kill you. But in Mexico, there's some sort of creativity around it. There's even evidence that ISIS, when they were expanding in Iraq 10 years ago, less, 10 years ago, there was some social media stuff that came out when they were saying they were a bit shocked, by the way, Mexican cartels are dealing with violence. ISIS was. Were you ever personally in danger? I mean, covering drugs? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, there are times I had to leave, you know, and it's, I worked in Nogales and I was being checked out by cartel after a while. ICE helped me out with that. So yeah, like it's, you know, they don't touch international reporters because it's too much light on them and they don't want that. But if things go bad, you never know. Right. I mean, people start fighting each other and they get desperate. Hmm. So yeah, what about, I felt the most in danger, personally, when I was filming in America, like in the Tenderloin, is when me and my camera guy were like, oh, we definitely cannot walk down this street. Yeah. Whereas in Mexico, yeah, you feel uncomfortable. But it's just much more controlled. Nobody gets out of, nobody gets out of line. Yeah, yeah, you're correct. There's a, there's a, there's a logic and a law with criminal elements who impose their own. So you were embedded in Iraq as well? Yeah, with the Iraqi army when they retook Mosul and when they were twice. And are you there on assignment for a big network or, or why, how are you funding a lot of this? All right, so the, the war stuff, I have big clients. Like I shot for Vanity Fair for years. I shot for Bloomberg for years, CNN, different French magazine, like Paris Match. So I had my clients over the years. I worked for Getty earlier in my career, but now I don't do news so much anymore because it's, the money's not really there. It's just, you know, going to Beirut and just photographing bombed out building is not so interesting to me. Right. But the drug stuff is something I've been embedding myself more and more and that's self-funded. I, I do go fund me. I just, I raise capital for that. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Got it, got it. Yeah, I mean, and do you, you must go in there. Do you ever, has there ever been an experience where you're like, oh, I actually mega killed? Yeah, yeah, many times. And in Syria it was hardcore and I was kidnapped in Syria and held hostage for many months. But you know, the whole torture and the whole, the whole experience. You want to talk about that? Yeah, we can. I covered that war three times, so early on. So early 2012, I went twice. And the third time I went towards Damascus through Lebanon because we'd go through Turkey before. And after 10 days operating in the area, I got kidnapped by the group that I was working with. They decided to, it was financially a good business deal. See, it's all about money. Of course. It's a business. Now you're dealing with humans. Who's the group you're with? They were like a local Katiba, which is a fighting brigade or, it's a loose term. So these are the rebels trying to overthrow the Assad government. And they decided to, yeah. And the experience was very unique, obviously. I mean, they tortured me quite a bit for a couple of weeks to break your will. It's not personal. It's just to make you not a problem to them 'cause they need resources to watch you. Well, these guys are watching, they're not out fighting. I was released 'cause there was money involved. Someone paid my ransom. Someone that was close to the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Very political situation, very unique, the way I was released. And I escaped in Beirut. And they smuggled me back to Beirut in front of their car after paying off all the guards to cross the border. This is a whole story. And then I escaped. I ended up at the French embassy where they hid me for a while. 'Cause the Lebanese government was pissed off that guys like us were going back and forth, crossing illegally all these borders without their permission. And they flew me back to Beirut. - How much was the ransom? - Half a million dollars. - Dude, you're a handsome guy, man. That's, yeah, you fetch a higher price. - Yeah, I know, it wasn't that high. Some guys are like two, three million. That's like the joke now to you. I wasn't worth that much. - What are you actually worth? You're getting kidnapped by Syrian rebels. - Half a million. That's disappointing. - So it was a political deal that got them the cash? - So the guy who paid my ransom was also a businessman. Still is. And I can't say who, obviously, for his own protection. I actually reached out to me very recently, oddly enough, to see how I'm doing. He had businesses in Canada and his assets were all frozen because he was part of the regime. That's how we do it, right? We freeze everybody's assets. - Wow. - Adversary. And you wanted to be out of that list. And by paying my ransom, you thought that would happen, but it didn't. The French and the US governments were like, "We're not being blackmailed by you. Yeah, you released our guy. We're happy, our citizen, but." - Okay. Now, so Bashar al-Assad has fallen. His regime fell six months ago. Just like in an instant with the health of Turkey, Israel, of course, the good old United States. So finally, after all these years, he went into exile and now some ISIS-like guys are running the country and it's completely balkanized. It's been cut up. It's a failed state. First of all, what they were saying about him in the news when he was in power, you were there. The propaganda in America was he was dropping white phosphorus on all his cities, on killing his own civilians, kidnapping people, disappearing them. Is any of that true? Is there any truth to that? - It's tradition for the regime and before him, his father, Hafez Assad, to torture and do a lot of killings. But that's how they do with each other. The Middle East, when they go at it, they just do a lot of that stuff. That's cultural in my opinion. Anyway, again, particularities of violence also, it changes culturally. And the Middle East, they have their ways as well. They love to torture and kidnap because also kidnapping is a business, especially in Lebanon. Smuggling, you know, smuggle antiquities, like you smuggle people. What's the difference? Just different amounts. Anyway, so was it a good regime? No, however, when it comes to geopolitics, people have to understand that the morality side of it is not relevant. People, countries talk to each other. Even if the guy in front is not a good guy. We dealt with Qaddafi for decades. fucked up individual but we did a deal with him you said we said to him no nuclear weapons no nuclear anything but you control southern border for migration that was the deal that the italians struck we get rid of him everybody came up yeah now you can buy human slaves in libya literally so at the end of the day i said to people he was a bad guy yeah but look what you have now look what you have now in syria do i trust this new guy was uh no i do not they are nice in the beginning because they want to be legitimate so they want yeah he was invited into the oval office the guy was a isis like he wasn't just a soldier he was like an isis like commander he had responsibility yeah he probably has a lot of blood on his hands for sure but that's what i mean is like you you negotiate and you deal with everybody because that's how people think that nation states are friendly with each other that that's a nonsensical comments nation states have common interest or they don't if they have common interest they make an alliance and they work things out until it doesn't work and they move on that's how the world works is it nice is it fine no but that's that's how it operates but there is you know there is a morality or at least value sharing that makes some nations close even when there is no economic reason to be close you know this is why we should we share a sentimental connection with europe because that's our ancestors christianity is where we come from but in a place like syria was this guy bashar al-assad was he committing like ethnic cleansing was he doing what the israelis are doing to the palestinians like on that level or why why why was he killing nobody asked why he was white phosphorus bombing his own civilians yeah so in terms of i'm trying to imply that the cia was behind all of this is that true so because they've done a lot of shit like this yeah at least so the war in syria was not a civil war it was in the beginning it was a little bit but it was truly a proxy war and the proof is and there are many uh the to make it simple the islamic opposition were a ragtag and then efficient foreign uh mercenary force uh in terms of the proportional to its population the largest number of non-syrians coming to fight against the regime were from tunisia and i mean proportional to their population i think it's like a couple of thousands but you had chechens you had saudis you had a lot of muslims from europe from france from belgium from holland from england thousands and thousands went to fight and die there so it was truly an international war very contained it did not go over really thank god so it was very contained very violent within that containment but truly international war the us was arming and training the southern groups that did a pocket and on the jordanian border it's still there then you had the kurds the turks were involved i mean yeah everybody was like ripping apart that right and why were they trying to overthrow why why syria there's a lot of oppressive repressive regimes why why this government it dates back from on one end it dates back from what the media like to call the arab spring which is non-arab spring it's not in a sense it's not a genuine popular movement to be a democratized egypt i mean a general dictator and probably for the better he's actually quite smart and managing his country in the region lcc is not a dumb man far from it but it's not a democratic rule and when they try to have elections they they elected uh forget his name the guy was a muslim brotherhood he would now went to jail and died i forget his name people will remember so people voted for hardcore islamists so why do they do that um it's could be uh one thing that goes back to your secret service um argument is you use other people's troops to create issues problems the byzantine empire intellectualized that very well you take one barbarian tribe against the next a lot cheaper than saying your own troops to fight them you have them fight against each other sometimes it backfires hamas is a israeli creation yeah uh sharon i mean it's yeah everybody knows this created a little bit of a monster to compete against the fata in uh uh west bank right who were not the ones who were fighting against the fata in uh west bank who were non-violent less violent yeah because they also had hardcore troops in ramallah and everyone they do they did clash a lot with israeli troops right um what i've heard and i i like this kind of argument or this this way of framing it is that israel however you look at it either they're leading us wagging the dog or we're we're wagging them but they're trying to destabilize all of these other countries so they're not threats to to israel so that's why you destabilize libya by by you know creating a failed state there get rid of gaddafi that's why you've syria is now a failed state they're trying to do that in lebanon as we speak right so i've heard that i'm like okay i can i can accept that i'm sure there's there's an economic there might be an economic reason behind that you know i don't know why the u.s feels like this one tiny little country israel which is an ethno state it's a religious ethno state just like you know syria was or excuse me like turkey is a muslim state i don't know why they feel like those guys are the ones that we need to be using to to destabilize the rest of the region but but they have so i i don't know i like that worldview the crispy chicken crunch wrap slider that you love is back at taco bell and it's back with attitude because now you can enjoy the all white meat chicken nuggets inside a slider sized crunch wrap with hidden valley diablo ranch what do you love most the crispy chicken nuggets the crunch wrap slider or maybe the hidden valley diablo ranch yes the answer is yes the crispy chicken crunch wrap slider a brand new classic is back only at taco bell uh for people who don't know him and they should check him out there's a he went to university of chicago which is where i went and he's a professor there his name is john mersheimer yeah okay you know who he has missed others might might you know who he is i don't know who he is but i don't know who he is but i don't know who he is but i don't know who he is but i don't know who he is but i don't know who he is but i don't know who he is because the interest that we have is different than the interest that israel has and that therefore it's possible that benjamin metaniel tricked the united states i find that hard to believe to some extent because if that's the case how dumb is the defense department in the united states and there are a lot of very smart people in the pentagon probably the smartest people go to pentagon in the u.s work for government and they're not smart people in the pentagon they're not smart people in the pentagon they're not smart people in the government yeah they don't work for congress government yeah they don't work for congress government yeah they don't work for congress or senate i can tell you that um anyway i'm not or senate i can tell you that um anyway i'm not or senate i can tell you that um anyway i'm not going to name names but i would like to um and going to name names but i would like to um and going to name names but i would like to um and uh what is the interest for israel considering uh what is the interest for israel considering uh what is the interest for israel considering that the abraham accords which were negotiated that the abraham accords which were negotiated that the abraham accords which were negotiated and impulsed by trump by trump won 2016 and impulsed by trump by trump won 2016 and impulsed by trump won 2016 were and the chinese were instrumental were and the chinese were instrumental were and the chinese were instrumental or basically saying okay iran saudi or basically saying okay iran saudi or basically saying okay iran saudi arabia you guys stop all this bs with arabia you guys stop all this bs with arabia you guys stop all this bs with the utis and the utis and the utis and and you guys going to work things out and you guys going to work things out and you guys going to work things out and we're all going to make money we're and we're all going to make money we're and we're all going to make money we're just going to commerce which is what the just going to commerce which is what the just going to commerce which is what the chinese want that's everything they want chinese want that's everything they want chinese want that's everything they want commerce fine and israel struck a deal commerce fine and israel struck a deal commerce fine and israel struck a deal saudi arabia things are moving forward saudi arabia things are moving forward saudi arabia things are moving forward why are they doing this now no one why are they doing this now no one why are they doing this now no one really knows really knows really knows there are a lot someone's right but there are a lot someone's right but there are a lot someone's right but it's strange that and right before the it's strange that and right before the it's strange that and right before the midterm elections trump would take that midterm elections trump would take that midterm elections trump would take that gamble gamble gamble i don't understand i know the mega i don't understand i know the mega i don't understand i know the mega movement is fracturing movement is fracturing movement is fracturing uh the what they call the donor class uh the what they call the donor class uh the what they call the donor class which is which is which is high-valued american jews who are high-valued american jews who are high-valued american jews who are zionists zionists zionists and not so nationalist for the united and not so nationalist for the united and not so nationalist for the united states we have those in france and states we have those in france and states we have those in france and that's you know it's a big problem it's that's you know it's a big problem it's that's you know it's a big problem it's a big problem and they're you know a big problem and they're you know a big problem and they're you know they're donating for that too they're donating for that too they're donating for that too the problem on a strategic level for the problem on a strategic level for the problem on a strategic level for israel is that it has no strategic depth israel is that it has no strategic depth israel is that it has no strategic depth it's too small it's too small it's too small it could be pushed out of the sea it could be pushed out of the sea it could be pushed out of the sea eventually that's why they're trying to eventually that's why they're trying to eventually that's why they're trying to expand expand expand and they're just you know west bank is and they're just you know west bank is and they're just you know west bank is now completely taken over now completely taken over now completely taken over gaza all this bombing for what gaza all this bombing for what gaza all this bombing for what and now they're pushing north timidly and now they're pushing north timidly and now they're pushing north timidly very hard on northern uh southern very hard on northern uh southern very hard on northern uh southern lebanon from what from what i know lebanon from what from what i know lebanon from what from what i know they might have conquered six to ten they might have conquered six to ten they might have conquered six to ten miles miles miles i think they're trying to reach that i think they're trying to reach that i think they're trying to reach that river yeah and their crashes apparently river yeah and their crashes apparently river yeah and their crashes apparently are serious are fucking serious are fucking serious yeah well they've moved uh you know They've already moved a million and a half people, have had to flee. But they're pussies. So when they go in and try to fight men like Hezbollah, they get fucked up. So a lot of them are taking big casualties. So they're taking losses. They're very losses averse. That's true. They don't like taking casualties. Yeah, they're faggots. So they, I used to have an IDF friend. He's not a friend anymore. Right. He tried to be friends with a Nazi in 1939. It's difficult. But they have a saying like better. Yeah, it's basically like better anybody else than Jews. So they're very ethno-supremacist minded. You know, it's interesting because when I was in the kibbutz right after the attacks, You know, obviously they were showing us a lot of the Palestinian troops were taken out. I mean, they were just bombed out, basically. Helicopters, artillery, some infantry clashes, but a bit more of a distance. But there's an argument, and that was by Haaretz. The big newspaper says it. That's a fair amount of civilians that were killed in the Kibbutz were killed by clashes because they were bombing heavily. Palestinian infantry positions. So they killed a bunch of their own citizens. And there's also another argument that better off to kill them than to have them being kidnapped and held in Gaza. And that's something that's being said in Israel quite a bit. The Hannibal directive or whatever. Just sort of like better because we're not going to get them back. And in some ways, I understand why they're doing that. For us, it's hard to understand, but they're constantly at war. So this is what I think. And I don't know anything, but this is just my observation about why America. Because we're talking about why now. So if I put my tinfoil hat on, like, why are we doing like, why is this the moment that we have to start a war with Iran? There's maybe like three possibilities. One is the Epstein files. That's what you hear a lot about. Trump is compromised. There's a lot of his friends are compromised are in those files. And Israel's got them. Hence the connection to Jeffrey Epstein and Assad and all that stuff. And and they know this is their best chance because they've lost all their goodwill that they used to have with the American public. So this administration, it's like now or never. So, hey, we're going to release these unless you do what we say. That's one of them. Another thing that might be possible, kind of like COVID. Our national debt. Is. So unpayable. Right. And in order to save the U.S. dollar or excuse me, rather, they're going to sacrifice the U.S. dollar by printing so much of it. But they need an excuse. So in order to refinance the debt, in other words, in order to have the central bank, the Fed, buy up all of our treasuries, they need an emergency. So COVID was a great emergency. Right. Like 25 percent of all the money that's the U.S. money that's in existence. One quarter. It's wild. Was created in 2020. Right. So it's it's a buying opportunity. So with now that we're creating this emergency, this energy emergency, you cut off all the oil. We're going to go into, you know, the economy is going to come to a screeching halt and and the Fed will step in and say, OK, well, nobody will buy our debt. We'll have to do it. But it's because of the war. So that's like my if you want to look at it, a tinfoil hat. I don't know. Could be elements of all of it. You know what they say. Don't ever let a crisis go to waste. Right. So that creates opportunities in that context. You are correct. In terms of the details, the Epstein files, it seems like an awful lot of risk to start a war for that. But who knows? It's good to keep everything open and have that discussion. Because you're right. Anything's possible. Yeah. The other possibility, and that might be more of a direct consequence, is that the U.S. wants out of NATO. And you could tell already the U.S. just pulled 5,000 troops out of Germany. And but it's been going on for years. European Europe has to relearn how to rejoin history in a grand sense of the term by defending itself, which is incapable of doing. Right. England sent one frigate to the Strait of Hormuz. This is the Royal Navy, you know? A bunch of frigates. Yeah. Sorry. And it broke down. They had to send it back. We're talking about England. This is how bad it has become. Yeah. I mean, France has a better navy. And so it could be a way to force that because what Trump has always been elected on is we're retracting within ourselves traditionally, which is where we started. Right. And because the U.S. is no longer able to be the number one cop on the planet. Because we lost a lot of resources, wasting some of it. Then we understand China is on the rise. Right. Russia to some capacity, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, a little bit, Turkey. So everybody is making moves right now. Yeah. So the U.S. is no longer able to be the number one guy and be like, this is how it's going to be. That is partially over. I think it's a good thing, though. Because if you go back to being like. The war, and maybe that's the reason to go to war is to figure out how do we save face but not be the unipolar power anymore. Yeah. Do you think that now that the world is being divided up again into fiefdoms rather than a one world police order, like how the U.S. was, do you think that will have an effect on cartels and criminality? I feel like it will. I feel like because, say, for instance, the U.S. can't police the Middle East and the rest of the world anymore, and they'll just eventually be forced to come back to this hemisphere, it'll turn its power, its power of the military, onto Mexico and Colombia and Ecuador and all of these places with massive instability because of organized crime. Yeah. I mean. I was just in Cuba actually covering the embargo recently, and so Cuba is the next target. We'll see how it transpires and how it's being done, but clearly Cuba is. It's next on the menu. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And from an American perspective, it makes sense to no longer have this rock in your shoe right next 90 miles south of Florida. So what you're saying is accurate. The U.S. is regrouping. It's resources towards the Monroe Doctrine, which is what we were originally. Well, not originally, but pretty quickly after the U.S.'s creation, 100 years. Anyway, so that's happening and hoping that some local players in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia, will take the helm and through an alliance with us, which is what's happening with Salman, to be able to. Well, now you. Now you're going to be dealing with your own. That's what we call a Westphalian ideas, which is the big treaty of 1648, which ended the 30-year war in Europe, which was one of the most devastating war in European history, which killed one third of the German population, millions. It grew some. It's called the 30-year war for people who don't know. I didn't know that. And the Treaty of Westphalia, the town of Westphalia as well, the powerful European state joined. They said, okay, no more. And now nation states took their modern form at that time. That's how it happened. Fascinating. Fascinating. So how'd you get tortured in Syria? They broke my ribs. Mock execution, stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. They fuck you up a bit. Yeah. The mock executions would just kill me. Yeah, with knives too. Yeah. Yeah. They were going like this and then. Yeah, they're real fuckers. And did you look at them like, dude, we were friends. Oh, you're shaking. Like, you're like, it breaks you down because you don't know. They're not going to do it. Well, you know this in hindsight, but yeah, you're like. And I was shaking for like two days, trying to control, but not a lot, but just. Because you know it's going to happen again, right? It's during that peaceful time that you're thinking, but the next time they're going to drag you out. So, yeah, most of them are dead now. I doubt anybody's going to miss them. Oh, my God. Yeah. That's. And did you. And you had no idea if these were going to be real executions the next time? You don't know. You don't know anything. It's a dark hole. You don't know what's happening outside your bedroom. Were they feeding you? Yeah, yeah. They feed you because they want you to be healthy. You're worth no money if you're dead or sick. So, they do. But then it got a lot better for me because I started learning Arabic. I started integrating with them. And then it becomes personal relationships. So, they started liking me more. And then the military situation, Hezbollah was pushing through our area. And there was bombings constantly. It was intense. I was chained up for a while, blindfolded while bombs were dropping around the house, stuff like that. Wow. Yeah, it was hard. Your brain forgets a lot of it for survival reasons. Right. So, have you. You seem like a perfect person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a perfect person for ketamine therapy. Right? Yeah, right. Yeah. So, have you. Yeah. How do you deal with that? I mean, how do you. I don't take prescription drugs, nothing. I don't do any of that stuff. I'm very resilient. So, I just train through it. Do you have nightmares or anything still? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Less right now because I'm not covering wars that often anymore. But I used to have a lot of nightmares, screaming. And nice for the girl sleeping next to me. - For sure. - Just like, what the hell? You're about to get to know him. Yeah, he's like, I'll call you and disappear. It never hurts for me again. It's a good way to get rid of him. You're like, I'm having night terrors. I can't have you sleep over. I'm screaming in my sleep. You might wake up with a pillow over your face. I might mistake you for a Syrian rebel. Yeah, for a Syrian rebel. That's amazing, man, because, you know, it's like trauma. You know, it's a reason a lot of people probably get on fentanyl, you know? I mean, look, the opioid, your body physically gets addicted. So you can blame that on the Sackler and the opioid crisis and the pharmaceutical companies. Because you still made a choice to take these pills. But you did make a, like. You do make a choice. You know that you can, if you go through pain, you can get off of them. That's why legally it's so hard. How they got them is the way they distributed the drugs and to what aim. But you're correct. You cannot sue McDonald's because you're fat and you have diabetes. Because McDonald's is not coming to your house with a gun in your head, telling you you're going to eat McDonald's three times a day for 10 years. That's the thing. You do have some choice. And this is the problem that I have with the war on drugs. This is the problem I have with blowing up drug boats. It's like you, they are, it is the free market and they are responding to an insatiable demand. Right. From people that are making choices. That's why I tell people, like, don't, you know, if you think you're a humanist, which by the way, is that your philosophy, right? You called yourself a humanist. What do you want? No, I wasn't talking about me. I'm talking about, I consider myself, I'm definitely a nationalist. That's a political, but I mean, in a traditional way, a conservative. I don't mean, I mean in a. Far-right nationalists. Yeah, I don't mean that. Far-right nationalists are much more globalist than people understand. Yeah. They've. They've somehow co-opted, the globalists have co-opted nationalism. I'm a Charles de Gaulle nationalist. Right. Because you have a different form of nationalism. You have the national socialism, which I'm not, but I'm a Charles de Gaulle, which is everybody has its own right in its own country and you do what you want. Right. I'm not going to invade you, but if you invade me, I'm going to fuck you up. Right. But it's about nation states. Everybody is respected within their own borders. You commerce, you have deals, no problem. I mean, I'm not a liberal like that. If you want to make money, that's no problem. However, that's true, the true notion of being a conservative nationalist, the way Charles de Gaulle understood it. And that's why I hate the European Union. And they're destroying Europe for multitudes of reasons. But now the word nationalist is a bad connotation because what happened in the twenties, thirties and forties. But there are different types of nationalism, like there are different types of migration. People, you know, it's in the deep, that's in the detail that define the devil, you know? So you have to look into that into detail. Well, I asked you that because like, if people consider themselves, like if you care about, you know, other people, if you care about people getting blown up on a, maybe a drug boat in Venezuela, you shouldn't do it. There's real consequences to like buying and using drugs. And I think there's a selfishness involved, you know? It's, you know, I used to go. So in Rio, you go to this high end parties, everybody's doing drugs. And some people I've met there, I was like, do you want some like, no, why? Because I've seen too much on how it gets to your nose or your veins. And you've seen this, it's like, once you've seen the gritty, the darkness in it, it makes it hard to want to do it or, you know, you're young. You make mistakes. You do it. You know, you fuck around. That's fine. Everybody. It's a long life. You make mistakes. You deserve a second chance. I don't have a problem with that. But to be very nonchalant about it, I think is morally problematic. And I think to some extent, we should bring some people in these areas that this is what's going on. Right. Okay. Last question. Yeah. Because this is a solutions based podcast. People aren't even know who Charles de Gaulle is. He was the great president of France. Yeah. I just rewatched Day of the Jackal, one of my favorite movies. Okay. Sure. What do you think, you know, Tucker Carlson floated this and I just as an American solution, right? It's potentially, it's like arrest the drug addicts. Okay. Like we've been going after the kingpins for years. It doesn't work. It doesn't. They just regroup. You know, one guy just takes the next guy's place. If you actually arrested the drug addicts, you know, nodding off in the middle of the street in Philadelphia or San Francisco or Baltimore and put them in a place where they can actually get help, make them get the help, right? Like, I'm not saying put them in a prison with, you know, murderers or rapists, but put them and keep them with the force of the state. And now you've just gotten rid of a whole. If you force people to clean up, you've gotten rid of this whole demand base. And therefore a lot of the drug dealers, not all of them, but a lot of them just get put out of business. Yeah. So if you're going to do that, you need to also at the same time go after the criminal elements hard. Like you really need to clamp down on them. Like the way they did, you know, I suppose because we're different country, but in, I was talking about earlier on about the Philippines. Right. When it was, I mean, we're talking about all the criminal elements was 250,000 people sold with weapons in a drug business. That's like an army. Right. You went after them. And now he's at the Hague. He's going to, he's being judged for crime against not humanity, but like the one right on the African name, which is a very bad sign because if you're, which means if you go hard against criminal elements, you're going to go to court. But why do you need to go after the criminal elements though? If you've arrested the people that are funding. Because many people were killed. Like they made mistakes. I mean, you know. No, no. I understand the, the Philippines example, but you know, we're not the Philippines. Like, you know. Right. For the US. Yeah. I don't want us becoming. Right. To just. I'd rather have there be drug addicts than us have no rights. Right. Like the fucking Philippines. Right. You know? So in the US if it's, it's illegal to do drugs in public and they just don't arrest anybody. Yeah. You know? Could. Yeah. So, and then it would depend on the kind of drug. If you're smoking weed, it's different than if you're like a complete junkie. But you do need to take care of these people and you need to make a break. And that's what Bukele and El Salvador did. He did in a very violent terminal way. Yeah. To make that break. So the young youth generation hopefully will not be intertwined from an early age within that gang culture. Right. Which we have here extensively. Totally. And that's a mistake. The crispy chicken nuggets? The crunch wrap slider? Or maybe the Hidden Valley Diablo Ranch? Yes. The answer is yes. The crispy chicken crunch wrap slider. A brand new classic is back. Only at Taco Bell. It's going to take somebody to, yeah, do it. Take something from, you know, a leader to take some ideas from Bukele, but do it in an American way. Sure. Try to like, it's going to be something that's not ideological necessarily. It's like practical and hopefully as close to fair as it can be. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, for example, I remember when on the Reagan, Nancy Reagan was like, just say no. The message was proper. Right. But the way it was advertised was people were laughing. They were like, this old lady, what the fuck does she know about drugs? It's not legitimate. I'm 35 and I'm on Wall Street, dude. I'm trying to close. I need a little shot. That's right. So it didn't transpire into the social public arena by saying, well, yeah, okay, you shouldn't do drugs. Everybody, most people agree with that. Parents all agree with that. Yeah. So it didn't. It was poorly advertised. It looked silly. Do you care about solutions? I've talked to another reporter. She, and she exclusively focuses on like drugs and crime and, and she, she's just in it for the adrenaline. She's like, oh yeah, it'll never end. So it's, you know, always be drug users, drug dealers, blah, blah, blah. She's just in it for the juice. But what are you in it for? You're in it for the challenge of it. Are you in it to make the world a better place? Obviously you'd like to see the world be a better place. Are you in it for the challenge of it? sideshow. What's important is my historical understanding of everything is so fundamental and so lacking in a lot of young people, unfortunately. For lack of interest or the system, the educational system is subpar, to say the least, especially in public schools. Not everywhere, but New York is a disaster. It puts a lot of money for nothing. So it's really about that. For me, it has a real, if I'm going to leave something behind, it's the history of what I like to call the great human experience. For better or worse, the judgment that could be posed at a dinner show, I do have solutions. And we hinted at them. I don't know how much more time we have, but it's what people need to understand that, do I want to make the world a better place? I'm not nice. I'm not naive. Okay. I'm just one man. And some people who say that publicly, I always kind of laugh. I find it a bit nonsensical. You could try, sure, it's commendable in some way, but often people who believe that are not very realistic about how things work between nations, geobiotics, for example. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I'm just idealistic, you know? Yeah, I get that. But it's too, to always step back and have this, on a personal level, it kept me sane all these years to just put a distance between kids getting shot by snipers in Iraq and seeing that and not losing my mind because they're still just kids. Kids are just kids anywhere, right? So to be able to be cold about it is an asset, but it transpires into a bit of my life. It goes over. And that's why I have, I usually don't respond emotionally to things. I don't respond emotionally to things when it comes to war, stuff like that, because being as logical as possible, in my opinion, is the best way not to make mistakes and predicting how things will be in the future. Right. Okay. Well, let's plug your book. I wish you had your book about the European drug war ready, but that's still- In process. Yeah, still in process. Let's talk about this bad boy right here. And where everybody can find you, just in general, because I want to plug this. Yeah. Yeah. So this is my third book and this is G Editions in New York City. They do high-end coffee table art books and it's distributed by Salmon and Schuster. And it took me seven years to do it. It's about almost 300 pages and it's a lot of photos, but a lot of text on my personal experiences of how I got to these places and how I worked out or didn't work out. So there are a lot of chapters in the book. And I think it's a good book. I think it's a good book. It's split in two. Yeah. South America, Mexico, and then the addiction side of the story, which is the United States. So people, I'm sure you'll have links in the description and stuff like that. But so that's the, it took seven years. Yeah. It was a long time in the making. Incredible. Incredible. Yeah. It's I'm very excited to dig into it. I'm probably going to read it tonight. So go get it. Drug Wars, Supply and Demand. It's a photo. So if anybody out there, section of our viewers don't know how to read, see there's plenty of pictures in there for you. I'm just kidding guys. Yeah. Go check it out. How do you say your last name? Alperi. Alperi, Jonathan Alperi. And the link to that will be in the description. Well, thank you so much, man. That was a real pleasure. Thanks for coming all the way down here. All right, you guys go get it. Drug Wars, Supply and Demand with Jonathan Alperi. We will see you next week. Take care. Peace out. Who can you trust? Animals stars Affleck, Kerry Washington, Jillian Anderson, and Steven Yeun. When a Los Angeles mayoral candidate's son is kidnapped, he and his wife are pulled into a web of deception. Forced to make choices, it could tear their world apart. Watch Animals in select theaters and on Netflix, October 9th. Rated R. Hey y'all, Kelly Clarkson here with Wayfair. You know my favorite compliment during the holidays? Your house feels so cozy. That's when I know everyone's comfortable enough to kick off their shoes, grab more dessert, and stay a little longer. Wayfair makes it easy with everything from dining furniture to festive guest room essentials all in one place. So whether you're hosting for an afternoon or all weekend, everyone feels right at home. Get holiday guests ready at Wayfair.com or on the Wayfair app today. Wayfair. Every style, every home.