National Geographic Journalist Discovered the World's Biggest Arms Dealer on a Secret Gulf Island

Hey, guys. If you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five-star review. They're both a huge, huge help. Thank you. I don't know how you never get scared doing what you do. I sometimes get scared. Sometimes. Sometimes. Do you show it on the outside or is it strictly internalized? Yeah, I got caught in a military coup in Niger and I was definitely very scared. Oh, yeah. And I showed it. I was visibly shaken the whole time. I was there. Yeah, that wasn't that long ago, right? No, that was like two years ago, August, two years ago. What happened there again? You were on the ground doing a different documentary and then got. It was an episode of traffic from I think from the beginning, first season of traffic. I started pitching that National Geographic Story on Niger because I was, first of all, it's one of my favorite parts of the world. It's the Sahel region of Africa, the southern Sahara Desert region. It's been sort of the center of all sorts of trafficking, human trafficking, gold trafficking, guns, everything you can think of. And gold trafficking is now fueling, which is the story we wanted to investigate there, is how gold trafficking is actually fueling terrorist organizations. And for the longest time I kept telling National Geographic, it's such a good story. The United States has two big base military bases there. The biggest drone military base outside of the United States is in Niger. Nobody knows a lot about it. Wait, the biggest drone military base outside of the United States was in Agadez in Niger, which is right in the Sahel region. And this is because the U.S. is fighting against these terrorist organizations and trying to keep them to not grow bigger and more powerful. And potentially all of these groups, the ultimate goal is to attack the U.S. So to prevent another 9/11. And I kept telling Nageo that this was such an amazing story and so relevant to us. And so I wanted to really sort of look at the gold mining and how the gold is actually trafficked and how it gets into the hands of groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS and Boko Haram. And I spent months putting on a plan and every time Nageo would say it was just too risky. This is one of the most dangerous places on Earth essentially. Again, you have all those terrorist groups right there. You have kidnapping, squads. You know, there were three, I believe, who was three U.S. soldiers who had been killed there a few years before. Oh, recently. Yeah. Soldiers that were there as part of this operation to fight against the terrorist groups. And eventually, if season four, we finally convinced Nageo we have a plan. There was a president, a democratically elected president at the time that had good connections with the United States, the U.S. had soldiers there. We'd been training the local military and they had agreed the government, the Nigerian government had agreed to allow us into the country and to let us do our work and provide us a military convoy. Hey, guys, three quick things. Number one, if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe to Hujuchelp. Number two, if you'd like to join my Patreon for early uncensored releases of the full episodes, you can join via the link in my description or in the pinned comment below. And number three, if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make content from the show and make money, you can join via the Discord link in my description below. So we'd go into this very remote region where all the mining is happening and where all the trafficking is happening to very dangerous region, but we'd go with a military escort, which is not at all what I'm used to doing, right? I don't usually travel with security, but in this case, it was really the only way that I could ensure a way in and out safely out of that place. And so we did, and we spent, it was sort of eight hour journey out in the desert. This is complete desert, so there's no roads, right? And we had, it was two or three of our, two cars of ours and then four trucks with military soldiers on top, all heavily armed and trained, and it's, yeah, an eight hour journey every time we stopped for sort of a bathroom break or snacks or stretch your legs. Because the soldiers you could see, they'd get out of their trucks and they sort of do a perimeter, armed perimeter around us, you know, binoculars on the whole deal to see if there's any cars coming, again, having young terrorist groups and kidnapping squads. But we managed to make it safely and it was amazing. It was sort of one of my favorite days I've ever had in my life, where we spent the day, we got inside one of the mines and this is sort of their dog by hand and dynamite explosions and you go. Yeah, first there's they they explode it with dynamite and then they start like basically digging it and pull up an image of this. Oh, yeah, if you do knee share gold mining. I'm terrified to say the name of that country for obvious reasons. Yeah, the wrong way. knee share, it's not Nigeria, which is how much people get it confused. Yeah, it's sort of that. Yeah, without, yeah, so one of those the top left corner one, that's sort of what we went down my team and myself. But this the one we went was a hundred feet deep and it gets really claustrophobic. I was going to say it's only that wide, but it's a hundred feet deep. And it is more or less that wide and you went in that. Oh, yeah, my team and I, yeah, we did. And at one point you have to go, I sort of had to go with my butt on the ground and sort of slide down. Oh hell no. And one of if not the most common DMs I get on Instagram are many of you asking me what my favorite books are. Well, today's your lucky day because if you use the link in my description below to join my newsletter, I'm going to give you my top 10 book recommendations right now. Also, if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make money producing content from the show, you can do so via the Discord link in my description below. And finally, you can join my Patreon for early uncensored releases of the full episodes via the Patreon link in my description below. As always, please take one second to hit that subscribe button. If you haven't already, I really appreciate that. Also, the like button's a big help and you can join my newsletter via the link in the description below. Now to the bottom and it's a bit wider and there's a team of people that there were like three or four miners picking at the wall, basically a hundred feet deep, picking at the wall, trying to get the little pieces that have golden them to then carry them in huge bags up. But there's sort of no security procedures, right. These guys are doing this in flip flops, by the way. And they told us we got there because it was an eight-hour journey. We got there. I think it was like three p.m. And as we are filming in the bottom, they tell us, oh, by the way, we forgot to tell you, but at four p.m. is when the dynamite explosion start around us. And there's a high risk of this whole thing collapsing. So, you know, it took us about half hour, 30, 40 minutes to go down. And they said, so we have about 20 minutes to get out up carrying all the gear and everything. And it was the fastest we've ever gone up. We've ever moved in our lives. But we got up and within like two minutes after being out of the mind, you hear a huge explosion and all over, they're like basically opening up more minds and getting the gold out. So, it was an amazing day. And we ended up camping out in the desert. It was me, my whole team, the only woman, surrounded by men, the soldiers and my team and the miners. And then eventually, it was, we woke up the next morning. We ate goat. They cooked some goat for us the night before. We all had massive diarrhea during the night. But I was still on cloud nine because this is really, and I knew like how many people in the world have experienced this. And it's such, it's exactly the kind of work I like to do. Just quick question on it. So you had gotten a capture. Oh, yeah, we filmed it all. Yeah, we filmed it all. We filmed interviews with miners. They explained to us how the terrorist groups come over and they get by gold from them or sometimes don't even pay. They just sort of take the gold away from them. And that's how they're funding their operations in the region. Do you ever, first, or like that, do you ever have a goal besides just, you know, sunlight is a disinfectant, get the word out there and then let hopefully good people do something with it to change it. Or do you ever actually go beyond that yourself? Like, hey, I want this story to be able to show X, Y and Z because that'll literally force, I don't know, legislation or something like that. I think I think it's the same thing, right? It is shining a light, but hopefully by shining a light, you're changing legislation, you're making the world better in some way, you know, it's a bit of a cliche, but it's sort of the cherry on top for every journalist, right? I do the stories, it's not a sacrifice to do the stories I do, I do it because I love it and I think I'm very, very privileged to be able to sort of wander in the worlds that I do. I think there is a little bit sometimes those journalists that like to talk about the sacrifices and the danger they put themselves out there in order to be able to shine a light on these important subject matters. I don't ever hear that from me because I know I'm very privileged, it's a luxury to do what I do, but of course it's the cherry on top always, if you can actually make some sort of change and the fact if your work can have an impact. And so for us, yeah, for me in this story particularly, was to explain to the world what the heck the United States is doing in this remote country in Africa, to understand why it is actually important to have military bases and American presence in places as remote as this. And so, yeah, so I was very happy that we finally were able to capture it after years and years of trying to convince National Geographic to let us go and then suddenly we did and we were able to film it all, it was amazing. And know that very few people in the world that have ever been able to get this on camera, so of course I was very happy. All in a day. Next morning wake up head back to Agadés, which is the town closest to where we were and we arrive and we are out of service by this. the way we don't. There's no cell phone service. And we're arriving in Agades. And again, we have a two car convoy plus the trucks with the military. And our fixer, who's a local journalist, who was actually from Mali, but we couldn't find a journalist from New Year that wanted to do this story with us. So we had to bring this guy from Mali who had done any stories in the region. No, we couldn't. But this guy had done stories in the region and came with us. Amazing guy called Baba. And suddenly I hear Baba in the front car in the convoy, you know, walkie-talkie, telling us something that sounded like there's no cook in Yame. Yame is the capital of New Year. And we're like, what? He's talking about a cook. Was he talking about dinner? We're so confused. And then it's sort of after he repeated it several times, he realized there's a coup in Yame. So there's a coup, a military coup. They deposed the elected, democratically elected president. And the military had taken over the country. And the same guy's protecting you. Or not them. Not them, but they work for him. And essentially what happened is that immediately we lose our military. We arrived, they dropped us off at the hotel and they said, okay, the country is in disarray right now. Goodbye. And left us. And so we were abandoned essentially in a hotel that had been built in the 80s, when Kadafi visited New Year. So as you can imagine, very run down. There was one security guy at the gate that spent most of the day sleeping. And yeah, in a region surrounded by a lot of danger. And we had to try to figure out how the hell are we. And they closed the airspace and water. So we had to figure out how are we going to get out of here. And then suddenly they started evacuations from the capital, but we couldn't get to the capital. It was too dangerous. It was three day drive. And everybody told us absolutely do not do that. I actually try to hire a human trafficker. It's like, well, I am an expert. Yes. I mean, we were interviewing this guy. And then it's like actually brilliant plan. If we pay you, will you smuggle us out of the country? And he said, absolutely not. We were Americans. He said, target targets. He said, yeah, you can't pay me enough. Like your high targets, your Americans. Absolutely not. And yeah, it was the beginning of a huge ordeal. So what you do, how long were you there? It's a good story. We got time. We were there for nine days. What happened is that there was a sort of the escalation of a possible war coming because the West African country surrounding these years had said that if they didn't put the president back in power that they would attack, they would invade Niger to make sure that the president was back. And the Wagner group in Russia and its allies were saying that if they did that, they would then invade. They would send Wagner, Wagner group in and it would start, it would start a war essentially. And again, we were with no protection on no way out. And so every day, you'd see it was getting worse and what situation was getting worse and worse. And it was particularly bad on day three when you'd see the French, the British, the Portuguese where I'm from, the Spanish, all getting evacuated. There were journalists, American journalists who were in Yamaha at the time, a couple of American journalists that I knew of because I was in touch with people that worked with them who were there doing the same story but not in a place as remote as us. And they were being evacuated, but we had no war. We weren't. And this, it was an interesting reason why. Essentially, the United States refused to call it a military coup because at the moment they did, they would have to remove all their military personnel and their, all the American personnel from the country. And which would mean the loss of millions of dollars in a country, right? Yeah. And so they were trying and trying to do negotiate, to figure out a way how to get President Pazoon back in power and just take care of it themselves. And they just weren't able to. So it wasn't after, I think it was like a month later that they declared a military coup and eventually had to do away with their bases and lose all the investment. But because we were Americans and we were very close, we were like two miles from this big military base. We actually went to the, the base and tried to contact them and talk to them, but they said, I'm sorry. Unless there's a war that breaks out or you're actually an active danger, or you know, you're kidnapped by ISIS, we are able to bring you into the base right, right now. And we kept explaining like, you do understand that that might be too late, right? If you're not, we're seven Americans here. We need shelter. And, and they refused you. And, and then we had, with all the work that I do, we always obviously have insurance and have an evacuation company that works with us, part of the insurance package and evacuation company. Yeah. If shit hits the fan, there's always a place, a number you call a company that else you out of there. But not in our case, we call the evacuation company and we were recording all of this. And they basically didn't have a plan in place and weren't, weren't psyched on getting us out. I mean, did, I mean, no matter how many times we ask, okay, if the war starts, do you have an idea, all this is in the film, by the way, do you have an idea of where we should go or give us some pointers on what to do in this situation? And are you deploying people or is somebody coming to get us? I mean, we're paying you a lot of money for situations exactly like this. And they just didn't have an answer. We realized that they were completely useless. I hope you got that money back. We did, we did not get that money back. And we ended up actually actually insurance helped pay for what it was eventually our evacuation. We failed another evacuation company, so my husband, who's also a journalist and co-owns MacMedia with me and other, a couple of few other partners, MacMedia's a production company that makes traffic. He and my team in LA were 24 hours trying to figure out a way to get us out and eventually found another evacuation company with two pilots who were crazy enough to agree to get on a plane. Hell yeah. And fly to Tunisia, to Agadez and come in the middle of the night to rescue us. And I know this is getting long, but this is the part of the story. You got me on the edge of my seat. So they told us we get the call and it's this evacuation company and they told us, okay, we've got two pilots, we've got a plane, which happens to be a G5, which is the most expensive private small plane out there, which is a little bit of a sort of a whiplash right after a 10 days talk. But we have a G5, these two pilots, they are coming at 4 a.m. middle of the night, they're going to land for 20 minutes and they only have 20 minutes on the ground. So if you're not there and if you're not in the plane within those 20 minutes, they're going to leave without you, right? And the whole team in L.A. is tracking the flight map, you know, the whole thing is set up. No one, we don't sleep. I remember receiving this news and like, sort of starting to tear up, but not yet, because so much could go wrong that we weren't sure if this was going to work or not. And eventually, meanwhile, we can forget this detail. While we were stuck in trying to figure out a way out, I had also gone to the airport. I think it was like day two or three. I'd gone to the airport to the local airport, very small little place. And I met the manager of the airport, a guy called Cader. And I started talking to him and I asked Cader, do you have children? And he said, yes, and showed me the photos. And I showed him a photo of my son. And I said, look, it's his birthday next Friday. And he's at camp. And usually at my house when I have this tradition where we pick him up from camp, it's his performance camp. And he does his performance, it also happens to be his birthday. And it's very important for me to be there. As you can imagine, traveling mother, I just need to be there this day. So if you hear of any planes taking it off or coming in, please let us know. And he started texting me every day and says, still nothing, I'm sorry. And then he found out that there was this plane coming. And he texted me and he said, I've got here some notice of a plane coming. Is this for you? And I said, yes, but I wasn't sure. I was afraid maybe he was working with the military. And I said, yes, but you know, yes, but don't let's not share it yet. And anyway, yet to the airport the next morning, having not slept at all, we were also nervous. We had a plan in place. We had actually we had our flag jackets with us in case there was shootings on our way to the airport, which is about 20 minutes away. We had a whole plan if we were shot at what to do. And we get to the airport. The airplane is delayed at this point, so it's already the sun is rising. It's like 5 30 a.m. And we get there. And there's a ton of military at the airport, which was not supposed to be the case. It was supposed to be empty. And the manager Carter said he would be there to ensure that we'd get out safely. But there was not supposed to be any military, but it was kind of like the Argo movie right in Ben Affleck. We get there. And there it is. And the military is there and they have a huge problem with us. They don't want us to leave. And they start creating problems. And they say we don't have the correct paperwork because the plane was going to Dubai after we're showing them the visas. They're just creating problems. They just don't want us to leave. And eventually they said, okay, you guys can leave, but the Malian guy can't. Oh, your fixer. My fixer. And this is the moment I'm on the phone with my husband and I tell him, look. And we can start seeing the plane coming in. And I said, look, this guy, I'm the owner of the company. I'm the executive producer of the show. I'm going to let everybody else leave, but I'm not leaving without Obama. So I'm staying behind. And it was really hard for me. This was really, really hard. My husband had the most amazing reaction, which was, I would do the exact same thing if I was in your shoes. And as much as this hurts me, I know that's the right decision to make. And as we're having this really difficult conversation, my husband says, wait, wait, I can see the names of the pilots are Portuguese. I think there's a chance that there are Portuguese. Plain lands, the pilots start coming out. I run to the pilot, the first one that comes out. And I ask him, are you Portuguese? And he says, yes. So then in Portuguese, the military arrives. They're around us. And in Portuguese, I tell him, look, we're explained the situation. We're a general-- Tim Tim of journalists, there's one guy who doesn't have the right paperwork, the visa, because he has an African passport to go to Dubai. But my team in LA is taking care of it. And when we're on the flight, it's going to come through. And this is, like, him saying, yes to this. I knew he could risk his flight license, you know? And he says-- and he thinks about it for a minute. And the military guy starts yelling at him and saying, you can't take him, you can't take him. And the pilot turns again, says, no, no, no. I take full responsibility. He's on my flight, and he's coming in. So we are all allowed in the plane. I'm the last one-- I'm coming-- my whole team is inside. I'm the last one, just making sure everything's OK. I'm going in. And suddenly, I hear my name being called. Mariana, and I look back. And it's Carter, the airport manager, who'd been trying very hard and yelling. He'd actually been yelling at the military, too, and telling them that they couldn't do this to us. And he says, Mariana, and I look back. And he says, say, happy birthday to your son. Oh, my god. And that was a moment where I couldn't keep that together anymore. And we all went into the plane. And we all-- I still get very emotional talking about it. We all lost it. Lost it. And yeah, I think it was, obviously, relief. It was a really tense situation, but also a lot of guilt. Thinking that for us, it was really difficult nine days. But for people like Carter, the miners, the amazing people that I met there, it was very uncertain and shitty future without democracy. And with terrorist organizations that are growing and committing horrific attacks, it was tough. It was really hard. Well, it's clear throughout your career and what you've done, like you obviously have a huge heart, but I'm always amazed by that, too, because you know when you go to all these different places around the world doing the stories that you do, you're going to meet people you love in the shittiest situations. And you're going to have to leave at some point. This obviously was like a movie script that ended, OK, leaving. But either way, you're going to have to leave these places. And I've seen it with other friends of mine as well. I've covered some stories around the world. The saddest part is you'll meet someone who's just pure and great and was just born in the wrong place. And you have become friends of them, you'll leave. And then you find out a month later, they died. Or their family was killed. And I know you've had that a ton in your career. It's like the fact that you're not-- the fact that you're not-- I don't want to overstate this, but numb to that in some way, at that point, really speaks to how much you care about these stories, too, because you've had to see it so many times. Thank you, Julian. Yeah, of course, I do care. And I don't think I'd be doing this work if I was numb to it. I think I do it because I care. Because yeah, and that's been-- I think most people think that after almost 20 years covering black markets, doing stories about sex trafficking and drugs and guns, and all sort of the deepest darkest corners of the world that I would have very dark view of humanity. And it's really quite the opposite. Quite the opposite. Yeah, quite the opposite. The majority of times that people that I meet are people just like you and I, because of lack of opportunities, because of the horrific inequality that exists in the world, end up on the wrong side of the law. Exactly. And I always say there's a line that I really love, which is the wheel of history turns and where and when you're born decides whether you get lifted or smashed by it. And it's so true for so many people out there. And that's what-- whether I'm interviewing a cocaine, a kid, a 16-year-old kid who carries cocaine on his back or a Jamaican scammer, when you actually find out about why they do what they do, it's really impossible not to see yourself in their situation understand that if it was you, you'd probably be doing the same thing. Yeah, there's a story I've told a few times on the podcast before that always hits me, but a very similar kind of thing. My buddy, Josh, from college, he grew up in the projects in the Bronx. And he was really lucky. He had two great parents, both at home. His mom was a teacher at one of the local schools right there. And that's something a lot of the kids there don't have. They've a broken home, one parent in the household working three jobs, just to pay the bills. And so he's a brilliant guy. And he was lucky enough when he was in middle school to kind of get into one of the higher level programs like classes, which then when he was finishing eighth grade afforded him the opportunity to do a program where during the week he got to go to school, like out in the suburbs in Connecticut. So he told me this story that always stuck with me years ago where he said his first, I guess he was like out there full time or staying with the family and then would come home on breaks. I think that's what it was. So he came home, maybe it was Thanksgiving break the first year, ninth grade when he went to do that program. And he was walking back like towards his block and across the block. He saw a kid as a friend of his that he grew up with on the corner, you know, 14, 15 years old, clearly a part of the drug gang now. So he went over there, said what's up to him. And his friend was like happy to see him, but also like what are you doing here kind of thing. And they talked for a couple of minutes. And his friend, who obviously by the law is doing something wrong. His friend had the presence of mine to be like Josh, you don't belong here. You're doing a great job. You're representing all of us walk across the street and do not walk back this way. And there are people who might see that same kid in a courtroom 15 years later on, you know, brought up on fucking 50 charges or whatever and be like throw him away forever. But I look at that and I'm not like, I never want to be misheard and be like, I'm an excuse all crime that happens. But I look at that and I always try to ask myself, how does someone get there? Well, if they weren't born into a situation like me living in the suburbs with two parents and they had X, Y, and Z in their environment, yeah, I'd probably get there too, you know. And you see that in every single story you've ever done like to an extreme. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I really do. I do think that empathy is such an important part of being a journalist, but being a person in general, right? Particularly nowadays where there seems to be no space for a different opinion or nuance. And yeah, we've seemed to have forgotten the importance of understanding the wise, not just asking about the what's what is happening, but understanding why is this happening? Why does this person become a trafficker or a scammer or a pirate, whatever it is, or a drug dealer or that kid? Yeah, so that's a huge part of the work that I do, for sure. How do you not, when you see how widespread so many things are, by the way, in our own country too, we have a lot of problems. And you've covered those stories, but like when you go all over the world or all over America and you just see these underbellies that are once you pull on the weed, you realize how much bigger it is than you first thought, how do you not lose hope? You know what I mean? Like how do you not sit back and go, "God damn it, we're never gonna fix this stuff." Yeah, well, because I do think that it's the systems that are broken, not the people, right? And that's really the crux for me. And with all my work, what I'm trying to always show is that's why when people ask me, you know, we do the majority of our interviews with people with masks who are very careful about not showing their identities or locations, we travel with a bag of masks and long sleeve t-shirts and gloves and hats and anything I need to make sure I'm protecting these sources. The reason why is because I'm not trying to get any particular one person in trouble because the problem that, you know, that black market is going to continue existing whether this person is in prison or not. Again, it's not that these people are broken, these systems that are broken. And there's a lot of people actually profiting from these systems being broken, as we all know. And so my end goal always is to sort of show how this system is broken and try to figure out, you know, by showing what's wrong with it, possibly starting a discussion on how we can fix it. You know, why is it that one of the stories we did for season one of traffic, actually, is still one of my favorite ones, was about gun trafficking and how I think it's something like 90% of guns found at crime scenes in Mexico, which, as you know, has a huge problem with violence, thousands of people dead, thousands of people disappeared, and 90% of the guns found are American guns. So we talk a lot about the drugs and I've covered this extensively, obviously, I've been in fentanyl labs and meth super labs in the jungles of Sinaloa, cocaine, labs, all of it, but we don't, I don't think we talk enough about how those drug traffic and organizations can only operate because of the guns that they bring from the United States, right? It's sure. No, it doesn't. They don't operate an under-adjustice system. The justice is how much gun power you have and so they need those guns in order to be able to continue doing their drug trafficking. And all of those guns come from the United States. So one of the stories we did was how easy is it to get guns in the United States? How do the cartels get it down to the U.S.? Who's profiting from this? And again, it's the systems that are broken and often, yeah, I think we forget. We forget that. So for that episode, you got to actually like do the process and see how it happens. Oh my God. It's one of my favorites because the access we got was insane. So we started, the first shoot we did was in close to downtown Los Angeles and we filmed with a woman they called Blondie, who was American, American citizen of Mexican descent. But who? She had blonde hair. She did. And La Guera, they called her, which is Blondie and she basically was responsible. She got paid really good money to carry guns from the United States. So she go, we went to this guys house also in undisclosed location in LA and we saw, incredible. We saw room full of AK-47s, AR-15s, clocks, the whole thing. And many of them, by the way, that he told us he'd bought from the LAPD guns that the LAPD confiscates. This is in our film. LAPD confiscates and then they buy them back from LAPD. Some of them like at the, like did you walk into the LAPD and be like, here's a hundred. No, they have contacts. So then corrupt LAPD that gave them guns. Yeah, it was sort of a reveal. I mean, I've heard this before, but to get it, to capture it on camera. And he showed us which one and showed us sort of, there was one in particular that looked super professional. It had a scope. I believe it was in our AR-15 that he said he had gotten from some ruins in San Diego. So it was all crazy. And then we saw him putting those guns into the trunk of this woman, the blondie's car. And then we weren't able to follow her as she crossed into Mexico, but we met her the next day in Mexico already and saw the exact same guns being given to the buyer in Mexico. It's true. Right across the border. And actually, we filmed at the border a couple of days later and saw as much control as there is on what's coming north. There's no control as what's going south. Like nobody stops cars. There's no rarely does a car get stopped, a car heading south, and we saw it and we filmed it actually. So she just drove across with a car loaded with AK-47s and the other guns sold it to this one guy. That one guy then, we filmed him selling his guns and then we ended up on an island in the Gulf of Mexico that was also incredible with a guy. We went on a tourist boat to this island where one of the biggest arms dealer was going to agree to be interviewed. I'd met him the night before, by the way, without cameras. And he was not, you know, some people you meet and they warm up to you immediately, others, not like that. And this guy was not warm and fuzzy whatsoever. He was questioning whether I was the DA or I was actually a journalist. I was showing him my Instagram page and some of my previous work and he was like, that doesn't mean bullshit. That doesn't mean shit to me. Like, you could have made that on your way here. I mean, shit all to me. But we have really good connections in the cartel world. I work with a Mexican journalist who has incredible connections. And he'd sort of been told by his boss that he needed to give us this interview. So he reluctantly agreed to meet us the next day in this island and we get there. So you even went after he was like all over you? Yeah. And he told me, like, if you show up tomorrow and you're being trailed and even if you're not, if you are, in fact, a journalist, but who knows why enforcement might be trailing you, you know, like they did for El Chapo and Sean Penn Middlechop. You're dead either way. Like, I don't care. I don't care. Yeah. And you're like getting on that boat. That's right. Still different. You're built different. And the next morning we show up on the island and then there he was and he was like he had some of the guns with him. He was selling it to a guy there. He was selling us held. He sells. In one point, he sold a hundred AK-47s to a member of the CJ and G. Oh, that's nice. He was fighting against the, you know, the local cartel at the time. This was, you know, before the Chapitos got arrested. So there was a huge fight between the two or and before dementia was killed. So huge in fighting between the two cartels. And he was, you know, making tons of money, just selling guns to both sides, by the way. And then he told us like you were being watched all around us. You see these mountains around us like this is like, yeah, you're being watched right now. So we're making sure. And I asked him, I said last night, you didn't believe me, but you agreed to meet me here now. Do you believe me now? He was like, no, but you're being watched and whatever happens, if you betray us, you're dead. And you weren't in this situation, you're not scared a little bit. No, I, you know, she's like, how was good? I think most times, you're sort of a fight inside my brain between curiosity and fear and curiosity always wins. And sometimes that's great, sometimes that's not. But in this situation, it was good because we got incredible access. And yeah, and then we follow the trail of drugs, the guns are all the way to Cinaloa and it films more crazy shit. So it's an incredible. It's a highly recommended. Yeah. That sounds amazing. I mean, it's also like people are really cynical about this too when you literally see something exposed like Operation Fast and Furious, which we've talked about a ton of words like the government was literally paying for it. And there's another guy who maybe at some point will come on the podcast, I've teased this a few times over the years, but you know, basically this dude, I got connected to him through someone else I know and he kind of scares me, nice guy. But you know, he says he's not in the CIA, but you know, he's been in the CIA for 50 years. And the way he got in was the way I understand is he was like a bartender or something like that in California dating one of the Felix Ariano brothers and nieces. And the CIA started watching them and they're like, ah, we like this guy. So they show up and they're like, hey, we're CIA, we think you'd make a great knock. Whatever that is, obviously, he didn't know at the time. You know, we want you to go down to Mexico and do this. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not, listen, I'm not a narc like, they're like, like, we don't want you to rat on them or you can't even know, we want you to work with them. Be inside them, do everything that they do, go where they go, like where are jobs not to stop them. And when I hear stuff like this, and then I have a guy like Matt Hedger sitting there whose job it was to do that as well in CIA, I'm like, you know, do they really want to stop these organizations? Do they want to stop the gun running like that? Or is there some sort of calculation that like, hey, this, and I'm talking about like the US government here, this is the cost, this is cost of freedom right here. And you know, these guns got to go across, this terror has to exist in other places, but we'll control it from the inside and use it to our benefit for the worst terror around the world. Like, am I crazy to think that that might be a little bit of the calculation? Well, I don't know, I think that there's a lot that we don't know. I think that the, for example, I mean, we all know because of recent reporting, something that no one knew about until recently, which is that the CIA is apparently operating inside Mexico. We did, I mean, this was never disclosed, it was the car bombing and close to the Mexico City Airport recently, which has been reported, was fully, happened and was done by the CIA or planned and done by the CIA, they were the two CIA operatives that died in Cielo after coming from visiting one of those super meth labs that I visited in the past as well. And so there's a lot more involvements of the American government. I don't think they're not trying, I don't think they're trying to stop the guns flowing south because that's not in their interest. I do, and I think they should be because ultimately that violence comes back to us, but I do think there have been multiple administrations trying to stop the flow of drugs to the United States. I just think that it's not being done the way that it should, I think it's been it, I mean, it's not me, everybody knows. It's another failure, right? Millions of billions of dollars lost on this drug war that has had zero consequence whatsoever on American lives. We, in fact, are seeing more and more people die every year. I mean, last year, actually, there was a first time, there was, I think it was a 17% decrease in fentanyl overdoses, but there's something much worse coming out now called nitazine. Right. Trank dope. I've also done a story for season five, but even, I mean, Trank dope is terrible because it's the tranquilizer mixed with fentanyl and it's creates these wounds which we filmed in Kensington, Pennsylvania, these wounds that look like it's like open wounds and people. It's just horrific. Hey, guys, if you haven't already subscribed, please hit that subscribe button. It's a huge, huge help. Thank you. But there's a new version, a new sort of synthetic opiate called nitazines that people are in nitazine. Yeah. And they're still not enough laws against it. So now the cartel. sort of really doubling down on these new synthetic drugs because it's not as dangerous for them to make them as it is but fentanyl because anyone that's making fentanyl right now has a target on their impacts. Is this a similar thing to fentanyl where they're getting precursors from other places? Yeah, precursors from China. Oh, this is also coming from China. That's nice. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, I'm quite sure. Yes, I was just thinking because I haven't done a story on Nitesisines, but I was recently spelled Nitesisines and ITAZ and E. Okay, it's funny. So I've been reporting covering the opiate crisis since the very beginning. The first story I ever did on this was in 2008 and it was about oxycotin in Florida. Oh, you were early early early. Yeah, early early. Good for you. Nobody knew what oxycotin was at the time. I mean, if you were a doctor, you didn't or terminally alcancer patient, but you didn't realize what this, what was happening and it was, we were working at the time at current TV, which is augura salivision station, and had read a little article in Miami Herald about how all these pain clinics in south Florida were being inundated with like lines of people out the door that were coming from Appalachia or West Virginia, Kentucky, I mean, as far out as even California, people coming to buy drugs there, and why is it? Why are they coming from so far away to buy drugs from this pain clinic? These clinics had security guards out front. They had surveillance cameras. I mean, not your traditional pain clinic, right? And so we started investigating this and we did a talk about it called the oxycotin Express, which sort of we made lots of contact sources and then eventually our sources in law enforcement and on the street started telling me that hey, there's something now, they're harder to get oxycotin. They're getting into heroin. It was the boom of heroin that we also filmed. And then I did one of the first stories ever on fentanyl, even before fentanyl was known too. This was before Prince died of a fentanyl overdose. It was in 2004, 2015. Wow. Yeah, also right at the beginning, I went to my, I was working at Fusion, another TV station at the time. I went to my editor and I told him, hey, I want to do a story about this new drug hitting the streets called fentanyl. He said, what? Nobody's heard about this. How did you first hear about it? Because I have a really good contact in law enforcement and on the street. And they've been telling me there's this new thing and it started also as a drug for terminal ill cancer patients, much like oxycotin. And but it's being abused on the street now. And so I started trying to convince my editor that this was an important story. He eventually agreed. When our story came out, I think came out in March, the year before had been the first year ever that one state, it was New Hampshire, the only state where there were more deaths from fentanyl than heroin. And at that time it was just one state. Again, nobody had heard about fentanyl, but I traveled to Mexico to Sinaloa and interview, remember the Sinaloa cartel showing us he had a kilo of heroin mixed with fentanyl at the time it was in pure fentanyl. They would mix heroin with fentanyl. And he told us how they had hired, the Sinaloa cartel had hired a chemist in Colombia. They paid him, I think it was like 40 or $50,000 to teach them how to make fentanyl using Chinese precursors. And I remember at one point the marine show up and the guy, there's like this one kilo of heroin mixed with fentanyl right next to me. And the marine show up and the guy takes off. And then I'm like sitting there. There's a shot of me with the one key heroin being like with the black of the marine show up here I am with this What do I do now? People at the Instagram be like journalists. Yeah, I'm sorry. Press, press, press. I promise I have nothing to do with this. But that was right at the beginning and it was sort of the best 50K dollars that the cartel has ever spent. And that's why the Sinaloa cartel were sort of the ones who really started the whole fentanyl trade. I mean they were very early on because they realized that Americans were abusing pharmaceutical fentanyl. Right. And they were like, oh, we can make this in our labs. And we don't heroin is made as you know, it's it comes from poppies. You have to depend on the seasons and how that season does and all that cultivation. And and this shit we can make it in a lab with some chemicals. I cost nothing coming from China. So we're going to make it. Yeah. You ever read Ben Westau's book Fentanyl Inc on this? No. We wrote a great book about it. I had him in here a couple months back. But he like fell into this story. He explained on the podcast how he did it. But he would he had been working on something else and then found out about the drug and started researching it and it turned into this book. And he's like, he was like a music reporter. Like a music and culture reporter. He's like, well, I guess I should look at this. Yeah. Fucking flew to China himself. Yeah. And just like set up a meeting. It was kind of hilarious how it happened with the precursor creators. Yeah. I was like, yeah, so I'll take like 50,000 dollars worth. Wow. Walks right out as if he could do it. Like they took him into the inner sanctum and he's like, this is government fun. Yeah. Yeah. It's the word. It's government sanctioned. And he saw the scale of it. And what's always struck me though, I understand why China would do that and stuff. They're over there. It's like our first hoping more makes sense. But you know, it's dark obviously. But the quartels. Obviously, these are very vicious people. They are still business guys, though. And like when you look at marijuana and then cocaine, you know, especially with cocaine, which was a huge money maker for them and continues to be, it's a party drug. You know, it's something people abuse in the clubs and stuff like that all throughout the United States, rich people will even do it. You know, but with fentanyl, it kills people. And to me, it's like the huge investment they made in like, let's push this because a bunch of people in America are addicted to it. It feels to me like that put an extra target on their back. Like I'm curious what the calculation was there for them to do that besides like a quick, get rich thing. I don't think they thought that far. Yeah. I think they realized it a little too late, particularly the chapitos or chappos sons. And that's why they were I went. So I've done three stories on fentanyl. And the last one was about Trank dope, which is essentially fentanyl mixed with tranquilizer, but we went to Sinaloa and saw how all the chemists were now prohibited from making fentanyl. Because the chapitos realized that as much money as they were making from this, there's a huge target on their backs and soon or later the West was going to catch them and they did. And so they prohibited all chemists from making. And for these guys, you know, the chemists, it's their livelihood. So a few of them had been killed. They'd been hung in bridges. There was signs that with photos of the guys, the chemists had gone against the rule of the cartel. And we interviewed one chemist. It was an incredible interview with a guy who had a fentanyl lab under his house. He happened to have a house that was built right above one of those sort of drain, what do you call those storm drains, you know, gigantic storm drains. And so he took us, we went in a ladder down to this storm drain and he showed us exactly where he used to have his lab and he was making tons of fentanyl. And then the cartel came, they two hitmen and pointed a gun and told them that you are prohibited from making fentanyl any longer. And if you do, you were coming back and killing you and he stopped and he was like it sucks. I don't know what else to do. And he was scared, he was super scared. You could see the whole time he was like shaking, telling us this story. So I didn't touch with him. Through my, through some sources and through, I have an incredible journalist that is that guy. He's an incredible guy who worked with him for many, many years. I've reported more from Cinaloa than anywhere else in the world. And yeah, me and him, I mean, we've been around for the first time I ever got access to a fentanyl lab. I was there with myself, a cameraman, Miguel, and I've been trying for years. And then finally, we got the call and the cartel told us, okay, we'll pick you guys up in the middle of the night. We're going to blindfold you. We're going to take you to an undisclosed location, no cell phones, but we'll be able, you'll be able to film inside a lab. And I called my husband super excited, telling him, hey, I got this. And his first response was just make sure they film you as you're being blindfolded. Like this is why I love you. Production first, safety later. And so I'm talking about, wow, when you talk with a guy like that, though, did I would imagine you got a, you spoke with him about his background, where he's from, his childhood. What was his story? What was his environment when he was coming out? The chemist. Because obviously he's a smart guy. He's a chemist. The chemist. He had to be educated, right? Yeah. So that time when they said they were coming up, pick us up in the moment, I actually didn't happen. They never did. But a couple of years later, for another episode we did for traffic, we went inside really smart guy. I mean, really smart guy. He owned a pharmacy in town. He had a few other businesses that he didn't want to tell us about on camera, and he was really knew his shit, I mean, he was really a chemist, like, because I've been in someone's camera, but not the other business. Yeah, well, he was afraid it was too identifiable, but he really knew his shit and we are, you know, a fentanyl lab is very different from a cocaine lab and a meth lab, you, you know, the level of protection is intense. We went with full hazmat suits. We had a mask that we had to have training to how to use this mask to make sure it had to be fitted to our face. We brought, we had an expert come to our office in LA and fit every single one of our team's faces for this mask. It was, I hated every step of it because I, safety first, I always say, safety fourth. Look good. Sound good. Look good. Safety fourth. That's our two models, a joke. And so, which is why I hated this whole process of taking these masks and hazmat suits, but it was really the only way. What we get there, we were finally inside, we're here with a car to breathe and this guy has one of those like COVID masks on and like a bandana across his head or neck and that's pretty much it and these gloves. And then when I ask him like, I mean, this is very, very dangerous. Like how do you, oh, because a lot of these labs actually explode, it's very, very dangerous. I mean, you, if you do one thing wrong, these labs explode all the time, yeah. People die in these labs all the time. Some are from explosions, some are from just touching and overdosing, obviously of mishandling of the drugs and overdosing and I'm talking about fentanylabs, meth labs actually tend to explode much more than fentanylabs, but in general drug labs, illicit drug labs tend to not be the safest work environment. And I ask him like, how do you know once it's, how do you know it's done and he said that you feel it in your skin and your heart starts palpitating more. And that's how he knows that fentanyl is good, that it's done and it's good quality. And I have said this before and people say, well, that's bullshit because fentanyl is an opium, it is a downer, it's not an upper, yes, but the symptoms of an overdose is that the heart slows down, right? But his explanation I actually now can't even remember his explanation was, but there was a reason, oh, I know, when you start feeling the effects of the chemical precursor chemicals that I used in fentanyl, your heart actually, and if you're exposed to it the way that he is, your heart actually starts palpitating faster. And that's what he explains was we filmed it all and again, nope, he had no protection. Yeah, and he told us he runs a business in town, he's been a chemist all his life, he's approached by the cartel and in his situation, you know, they offer him good money, but in a lot of cases it's, it's not a, will you do it or not? You have to do it, either do it or your family is at risk or you are, will kill you. So that I was going to ask about, if you talked about the more rality question, actually, when I asked Joe for a question, Joe, can, is there some way that you can research what the, what fentanyl would, I just want to make sure that I get this right. But what sort of exposure to fentanyl precursors and fentanyl in a fentanyl lab, what it does to your, to your body? All right, let's get that started. I just want to make sure that I have this right. So you're saying because something, he's wearing suits and stuff, but because he's actually making it something in him is at least exposed to it enough that he could get that because he didn't have the hazmat suits like we, oh, he didn't have the full suit. No, no. Okay. And we can actually even pull up that clip if we work from our traffic. Okay. Joe can find that. No problem. Exposure to fentanyl or it's immediate chemical precursors like NPP and A NPP triggers a life-threatening shutdown of the body central nervous system. These chemicals are up to 50 to 100 times stronger in heroin. So it could be a profound respiratory depression, extreme sedation, muscle rigidity, cardiovascular changes, blood pressure and heart rate drops significantly leading to poor circulation. So can we, yeah, exactly. Can you ask if it's possible that your heart beats faster because that's what he does. If it's a small exposure or something like that, I guess, right? Or just, yeah, that, yeah, or that would, that triggers the heart beating faster. And we can also watch the clip and hear him explaining it to us. Let's see. He just asked it. Yes, small exposure can trigger rapid heart palpitations. Perform ecologically, it is almost always caused by an adrenaline response or a panic attack rather than the chemical. No, this is interesting, though, because I was going to ask you about this. One of the things that was happening, and I think still happens, maybe my law enforcement friends in the comments can help us with that. But like, you know, there would be cops who would have these overdoses. And I put it in air quotes when they'd have, they'd just be in the room with and or whatever. And yes, sometimes that did happen because it's obviously incredibly potent. There were other times where I believe I read this where they determined that it was actually a psychological effect. I've heard about this as well because they had been warned about it, you know? So it could be also like, maybe, I don't know, pure spec here, but maybe when he's making it, he knows he's getting close or whatever. Or it could be that he actually told me his heart slowed down and in my mind, his heart sped up. Exactly what I'm saying. So we should actually at some point watch that clip. Yeah, it says Joe's getting the clip right now just before he pulls it up. It says right here, even the adrenaline and panic response most common when someone believes or realizes they've been exposed to a deadly substance. Like fentanyl, the brain's fight or flight system instantly kicks in. The surge of adrenaline causes immediate physical symptoms that are often mistaken for chemicals, direct effects, I get this another, not to this extent, but to like other random things where I'm like, oh, did I just take like three ibuprofen instead of two or something like that? And then I'm like, right? Or me and the cool where I get. Yeah, you want to go. Yeah. I'm sitting here worried about it. Yeah. But Joe's got the clip. Oh, here it is. They're going to keep it. So keep it. Not full screen. Because this is not geo. Deaf. Yeah, that's perfect. And we'll watch it. And if you guys get a skip in the episode right now, it's because it was copyrighted. So we'll watch it right here. So you see the mask that we have fitted to our faces? That will have a man seat. All right, good. Chemical process. [SPEAKING SPANISH] I'm hoping-- really, really hoping that's what we're going to do. You're not wondering what's going to be a little bit cooler to move here? I'm starting to think, my team and I should get the hell out of here. [LAUGHTER] It's accidentally killed themselves all the time. Yeah. This is so not. [SPEAKING SPANISH] I don't know what it says. [SPEAKING SPANISH] Do you know what you're doing? Oh, that's-- Yeah. OK, yeah. So he said, he said, take a card, yeah, my memory was right. He gets-- his heart starts moving faster for whatever reason that's his case. But this was-- I mean, I didn't test the drugs, but it was very, very-- I'm pretty sure that this was, in fact, fentanyl that he was mixing in front of us and showing us. And he would crush them into these M30 pills, which is how they're commonly shipped here to the US. And so cheap too. So cheap. It's like a couple dollars. Right. I've had so many friends on the show, like Tommy G and Brandon Puccane moved film documentaries in Kensington, and it's just like, you know, they know what they're going to see before they go there. And then they see it in person. They're like, holy shit. Yeah. You know, it's everywhere. Yeah, it is everywhere. And it's just a normal day. Someone in sunlight being given Narcan to come back to life. Oh, and that's another thing with these nightazines is that they're so powerful. The new opiate that, in some cases, Narcan doesn't work. And it's not visible in drug testing either. So that's why people are so worried about it. Yeah. You just wait until nightazine is the next big thing. The morality of this though, as you were saying before, we were checking on the symptoms there. This guy was told, basically, you have to do this or your family's going to die. And hey, that's a really hard place to be put in. I can't imagine that. I'm glad I'm not him. But, you know, do you ask him about, if he ever thinks about the, the lungs, the downstream effects of this? Always. I always ask every single one of these, you know, cartel members in general, if they know what they're doing is actually killing people. And, you know, a lot of the time, my time is spent with those family members. One of the first stories I did, that first story that I did on fentanyl, I spent time with a mother who had three sons and two of them, two fentanyl. And, you know, yeah, again, I spent a lot of time in rooms with particularly mothers who are the ones who are, there's something, I mean, obviously there's a lot of very hurt fathers out there and fathers trying to make a difference after their loved ones pass away. But more often than not, in my experience, mothers after loss like this, they decide that they don't want any other mother to suffer like they have. And they've become very public in their fight against these drugs. So again and again, we interviewed, yeah, mothers who are doing everything going out there, going to Congress, out on the streets and trying to prevent more deaths. Yeah, it's the worst, worst club you could ever imagine being in, losing a kid. And I can't even fathom it, but I'm always amazed when, you know, even years later, with things like this, you'll see moms like really, for like a better way of putting their money where their mouth is and really pushing to make a change so other people don't have to feel that. I'm glad you also hasn't covered that. Thank you guys for checking out this clip. If you haven't already subscribed, please subscribe and hit the like button on this video. It is a huge, huge help. And if you'd like to check out this clip, full podcast episode, that link is in the description below or right here. And finally, you can follow me on Instagram and X by using the links in my description below.