The Sevan Podcast - #572 - Jorge Ventura

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. What's up, guys? Bam, we're live. Jorge, what's up, dude? What's up, man?

How you doing? Fuck, dude. Not as good as you and not as good as Alex Stein, but I'm still a fuckhead. Dude, that beard's looking epic, man. Thank you. Thank you. I'm doing the beach life um i had a big old handlebar one looking like a some sort of like hasidic jew knockoff second second rate hasidic jew for a while and then i and then i'm at the beach for the last two weeks i cut it yeah dude i gotta hide my girls around you bro i got my sean penn going i told my wife today that i look like eddie vetter she's like

a little bit but i think she was lying how you doing matthew how you doing man i'm doing great man how are you good good man um can i show you a clip uh off subject a little bit? Yep. Okay. This was on Twitter a couple days ago. I saw this. I thought, oh, I got to run this by Jorge, see what he thinks. So how's it two different things? Somebody unvaccinated comes over on a plane. You say that's not okay. If somebody walks into Texas or Arizona unvaccinated, they're allowed to stay.

Why? But that's not how it works. Like, we actually, no. I know that that's not what you guys want to happen, but that is what has happened. But that's not, it's not like somebody walks over and that's not how. That's exactly what's happening. Thousands of people are walking in a day. Some of them turn themselves over.

Some of them are caught. Tens of thousands a week are not. That is what is happening. Ladies and gentlemen, we have Jorge Ventura on outside of some guy whose job it is to protect the border or some guy whose job it is to bring illegals over the border. I forget what they think they're called coyotes. There is no reporter, in my humble opinion, who knows more about the border than forget what i think they're called coyotes there is no reporter in my humble opinion who knows more about the border than jorge ventura jorge who's right peter ducey from fox saying people are walking over the border and they're not vaccinated and they're not being tested or her saying no that's not what happens no it's obviously my boy p ducey man let we got to let novak play we were actually making actually, I made a joke post about it actually two days ago of like, hey, Novak can't play, but like all these people could come in.

It's kind of ridiculous. The funny thing is Jen Psaki could bullshit way better than her. Like Jen Psaki would have been out of there and like would have flipped it on Ducey and was like, you're a liar. She – I mean this new one, man man she can't get out of there dude that fake laugh she's got to do better than that Jen Psaki's running circles around her so so people from from what I've seen from the reporting I've seen people by the tens of thousands hundreds of oh yeah obviously I'm being I'm being sarcastic but yeah no um yeah by the tens of hundreds of thousands there was a report we did did last year where if you guys remember when those 15,000 Haitians all crashed the bridge at one time, it was in Del Rio.

It was actually in September. They were actually releasing Haitians to the public. And we were actually doing an interview with Haitians saying, hey, have you been tested with COVID-19 before being released to the public? And they would all say no. We actually put that video out and actually forced Secretary Mayorkas to actually have to admit that. So this is very true. They're also being flown on the same planes and buses that a lot of Americans are being put on. This is that video is not less than a week ago. We took that in Eagle Pass. This is around nine in the morning. A group of 300 came from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela.

But the most of them are going to be Cuban. And look how proud they are to you know to like they're throwing like that guy's on his phone he's on like instagram live already they're flexing on us when they come in so so what am i looking at that's at are are we in the united states is this footage in the united states so this is uh this is around nine in the morning i uh this was just last Friday. We took this in Eagle Pass. And so many migrants came at one time that Border Patrol couldn't put them in trucks. So that's where you actually see them walking on a highway. And down that highway

there was already a group of 80. And this was at 9 in the morning. This is like to get the day started for Border Patrol. Now these people want to be caught, right? But look at this. They're not running, right? Look, look. This dude is like, dude just flipped us off. You saw the dude in the yellow shirt just flipped us off.

It's like a line to get into a music festival. So they made it. They know these people made it. Oh, dude. These people made it. They're all good to go. That's why like no other country is doing what we're doing. Every time I'm at the border, the thing that's always shocking me is like this is just in one area that we're able to be at at nine in the

morning i mean can you only imagine what's going on um in the rest of the rest of the border this is a little small uh a portion but this is what was shocking is like this is what you know board patrol and local law enforcement this is like them starting off their morning and you know they're completely overwhelmed and basically they're all u Uber drivers for these immigrants now because they're picking them up, taking them to processing centers. But this is crazy. This happens on a daily basis. So we could send the White House this video. This was less than a week ago.

So where do these people go from here? Do they go straight to a COVID testing center? No, no, no, no. That's my question. Come on, you know that. They'll go to a processing center. Obviously, they'll run identification, try to get their IDs with DNA, fingerprints, all that type of stuff. Then what's happening right now is they're so overwhelmed that the majority of them're being dropped off at an ngo or like a catholic charity and then the catholic charity and that ngo will then organize

a travel for those migrants still in this is in the united states our government passes them off to some non-governmental organization yeah now now very few people will get actually like deported or like title 42 so if you're like a single male coming out without a family you're most likely going to be deported especially if you're coming from central america so if you're like a salvadorian male nicaraguan male guatemalan male you got like zero percent chance if you're coming if you're coming by yourself right now there's a loophole with the venezuelans that's why you see a lot of venezuelan men coming because they know they're being let in and then processed in so a lot of venezuelan venezuelan men are coming right now with no families that's why you're seeing that that's why there were no mexican you're saying that those weren't mexicans

no no if there's a there's a kind of um there's a kind of a myth about the border that like it's mexicans who are the mexicans are not involved in this border crisis at all and they've not been involved in a long time and the reason why mexicans don't cross is because mexico and united states have an agreement where if a mexican national crosses illegally they could be criminally charged and then immediately deported so no mexican even tries the only mexican nationals that are crossing illegally are literally like the guys that are called got away so they're not trying to be apprehended either because they already have a past criminal record uh here in the united states or they're running drugs, fed, you'll see them in the camouflage clothes,

they'll have what is called carpet shoes, so when they're out there in the deserts or whatever, they don't leave any footprints, so those are the Mexican nationals coming in, so Mexicans are not causing it. Also in that video, I want to point out for the audience, because they'll probably find this pretty interesting, is you'll see a lot of Cubans, right, so the question I always get is, why are so many Cubans getting to Mexico? How are they, you know, they're on an island. So when I interview these Cubans, the story that I keep getting from Yuma to Texas is, they say, well, Jorge, what we do is we actually buy a ticket to Nicaragua and fly into Nicaragua.

So Cubans can't fly into Mexico because Mexico requires a travel visa for those Cubans. So the Cubans don't do that route. Nicaragua has a very leftist, you could call him a president, you could call him a dictator, whatever, president, Daniel Ortega. So him and Cuba have a very, very friendly relationship they always had for years. So Cubans can fly into Nicaragua. Nicaraguans can fly into Cuba without any travel visa. It's not required. So what Cubans tell me is the Cubans that you are seeing fly in are mostly in the middle class. So a lot of doctors are coming in because the tickets to fly to Nicaragua, from what I'm hearing, cost between $2,000 to $6,000, right? So basically the Cuban officials know that any Cuban buying a flight to Nicaragua is obviously not coming back.

Like no Cuban is flying to Nicaragua right now for a fucking vacation. They know they're flying into Nicaragua to obviously get into Mexico for Mexico to make that journey to the U.S. And the whole thing's making a mockery over all the COVID stuff. If you were to guess, how many people do you think have come across the border

without a COVID test? 1,000? 100,000? Oh, that's baby numbers. I would say, like, over 2.5 million say like over 2.5 million just to play conservative. Three million just to play conservative. Wow. So the whole COVID thing is just a mockery. It's a complete joke.

We're just letting people in over the border. I mean, even like I said, even last September, last year in September when I was interviewing those Haitians, they weren't even testing the Haitians. So they, I mean, that's The whole testing the migrants before being let out that's already been done. That's been done. I would say probably more than a year and a half ago now.

I wonder what the vaccination rate is of people who cross the border. That's a good question. I'm in Yuma, Arizona and I'm at the border so I'm actually going to go out tonight. We're probably going to do some interviews of migrants if they've been tested or not and then kind of just see what's up. But I guarantee you that 70%, 60% have not been tested, probably even more.

Fucking nuts. And meanwhile, the greatest tennis player who ever lived can't just come hit a ball around in New York City. Dude, Novak can't catch a break in Australia or the U.S. It's BS, dude. It's embarrassing yeah hey do you have an opinion on the myocarditis thing all the people dropping is it is it is it just a right right wing nut job conspiracy or is it i'm gonna be honest bro i i haven't even looked into it i've been so um the i've been so border focused man man, ever since May, ever since May, the ending of title 42 and then you've all day in the border

has just, so we've been, I've been so like, just, this is the grind, dude. I've been, I kind of tuned out at a lot of stuff and, but Hey, that's just, that's just part of the job at this point. Right. Okay. Jorge is not telling the truth there. He has been doing other things and I'm going to show you, I'm going to show you what else he's been doing. Also, run the trailer, Mr. Souza, please. We're taking a minute and 37 second break.

Enjoy this trailer of Jorge Ventura's new documentary. God damn it. You have to understand our frustration that we've been going through this for years. Did you know that one of our citizens got attacked on her property, walked in her dog by one of the pot growers' dogs? So when a straight bullet comes in and hits one of my children or me, I swear to God, on a stack of Bibles,

I will go out and I will... Yeah, you can take marijuana, you can take water regulation. Let's go down the line. We have no allies in the state government. Is there a rough estimate of how many cartel members are here right now? Conservative estimate, 10,000. 10,000 people?

Yeah, I'd say conservative estimate. Just California? Just in California. These are organized crime groups, highly structured, well-funded, very aggressive, well-armed in our forests all over California. They interviewed one of our sheriff deputies, head rats, and he just said, we don't have enough resources to stop them if they ever come here. And then, bam, they were here.

All of a sudden, you had 1,000 people show up who wanted to vote, who all came from out of a sudden, you had a thousand people show up who wanted to vote, who all came from out of the area, who all just happened to be growing illegal marijuana. It was kind of like, well... And it blew up. As the enforcement started to dwindle, they rapidly increased. I want some sort of acknowledgement that it's a problem. I have yet to even hear that. They are racists. Who? The communists. that is a problem i have yet to even hear that they are racist who are the comments

i it's uh the whole racist twist of that was fucking cracking me up it was cracking me up yeah we just put that that was uh that was everyone's screaming it now you have two tons of marijuana in the back of your truck illegally going you're just because you're racist like yeah that was uh that was the mung some mung growers up in uh siskiyou county up in up in norCal man it's it's wild up there 10,000 do you think that that's actually – so there's 115,000 institutional prisoners in California. California has 115,000 approximately people, inmates. Are you telling me that there's 10,000 – do you think that could be actually accurate – cartel members? Yeah, yeah.

In California? I mean that's a fucking army. Yeah, so the guy who said that, his name is – Literally. Yeah. So the guy in California, I mean, that's a fucking army. Yeah. So the guy who said that his name is literally absolutely fascinating. I got to actually connect you guys with him and you got to you got to have him on his. So his name is John Norris. He is a retired game warden sergeant with the with the game wardens of California. So what's fascinating about John is he developed their very first marijuana enforcement team. So like basically getting these game wardens to raiding Mexican grows. And he developed the first Delta team, which is basically a sniper team that helps out these game wardens basically raid these cartel girls. So basically John's just like his quick story is

he was a regular game warden in California,ia you know as a guy who loved the wildlife um you know grew up loving it his father raised him on that and um one day around 2005 2006 he was out in northern california and he found a creek that he saw that the water was being diverted so he was like okay well let me follow the creek and what he was expecting is i'm going to run into a rancher or farmer or whatever that was just diverting the water for their cattle or whatever. Probably write him a ticket. That's like the basic stuff. So he follows this creek and then he follows it and he basically discovers this like 7,000 marijuana operation. This is on a California national park.

So these are these are public property on. this is on a california national park so these are these are our public property um on so basically find this 7 000 marijuana field and notices the guys that are working this field basically are heavily armed long guns camouflaged mexican nationals um he basically alerted the local officials they were able to raid that grove i believe a year later he stumbles on another marijuana operation with operation with another game warden. This time, unfortunately, they were shot upon and his game warden was shot between the legs. So John had to like carry his game warden out of there because they're in this rural parts of California. I mean, very rural, you know, basically no cell phone service. They waited

like three hours for a helicopter to come save him. So basically I discovered John, uh, John's story on, uh, the Joe Rogan podcast. I was, this was back in 2019. I was in, I was in community college. So I was a student journalist. I heard this when I was working for working in Uber. And when I heard about cartel and illegal marijuana operations in California, I thought to me, this is one of the more fascinating subjects ever. Um, but at that time, since I was a college student, I, you know, I couldn't do much about it. I didn't know much about journalism. Obviously, last year, as you guys know, I was on your guys' podcast. We dropped the very first documentary that I've done on this subject, Cartelville. It was on this subject, but it was in the Southern California desert, which is a completely new thing.

So in the Southern California deserts, this is a new problem. And it's not just, so I could just save the context for the audience again for those who didn't listen at least in the last episode thank you this is not the cheech and chong like hippies like growing pot this is not also like for instance like i know there's parts of california where like the legal uh count the you know uh plant count could be like 99 plants and someone could have like 150 we're not not worried about those people. We're worried about the people who are legitimately, are like legit cartel criminals. So Mexican nationals, Hmong, Chinese,

we're seeing a lot of Russians and we're seeing the Armenians involved in these huge illegal marijuana. I thought we talked about that on the last show. I thought we talked about that on the last show. And the thing is they're involved in, obviously you need water to grow the weed and the water is being stolen. So the huge issue here is the water theft.

So if you don't live in California, you might not understand, but our state is in the biggest drought ever, historic drought. So these cartel people are basically stealing all the water, growing the weed for free. A lot of the people that are even working on these grows are basically migrants that are being forced to work on these grows. We interviewed those people, a couple of those folks that were witnesses in the first documentary, Cartelville. We interviewed a firefighter. He didn't make it in the documentary, but he was a firefighter from Shasta County. He actually saved three migrants that were being forced to work on the grow. Basically, there was a wildfire out there in Northern California, which happens basically all the time.

And these migrants were so scared to leave the grow that they actually were burning up and almost died until this firefighter saved them and then the firefighters say hey how did you guys end up in this business they said we were actually you know in a home depot like three hours away from here we got picked up thinking that we were gonna work a regular like labor job all of a sudden we're in the middle of nowhere in the freaking mountains and and we're being told that we have to grow this pot so um it's it's it's crazy so basically someone just to give you a quick breakdown after we put out our first documentary cartelville i got called by a former guy that used to be in law enforcement for years uh up in northern california he gives me a

ring he said jorge i saw your documentary i loved loved it. He said, but in where you live, so where I live is L.A. County. We have about over 500 illegal grows. I think that number is probably over 600 now. Like I said, it's a new thing where we live in the SoCal deserts. The county next door, which is San Bernardino, they're about at 1,200 illegal grows. So it's a pretty big deal now for us. hundred illegal grows so it's a it's a pretty big deal now for us but in just in one county just discu county they have they're estimated between seven thousand to ten thousand illegal grows so i mean they they're seeing this this problem at a scale times a hundred and basically

our documentary goes into telling the stories of what these communities very very poor very rural communities i'm talking about ranchers and farmers we were in a town called Doris, California, which I never heard of until I went there. Doris is like this town near Oregon. So we're like in the border, border state line near Oregon with like barely like a thousand people. And you're seeing this town with like barely a thousand people with like one or two sheriffs deal with a cartel problem. It's absolutely fascinating.

And to me, it's even more fascinating that it's not even like a national issue yet um this this issue after spending a lot of time in northern california has not just become a northern california issue there a lot of southern oregon so a lot of southern oregon is seeing a mexican national cartel being involved in their illegal growth so a lot of these guys are going back and forth between southern oregon and northern california and bringing supplies men you know water whatever they need uh susan how many people live in siskiyou county i think i saw i think in the documentary they said it was 44 000 could that be right it's that small and the thing is this is um um siskiyou county is a massive county when we talk about landmass we're talking about like state it kind of like similar states of like rhode island delaware like it's huge um so you'll you'll find little pockets in towns with like people barely like a thousand people five thousand people um it's very rural so

let me just put it in perspective so these these communities are mostly um white working class ranchers and farmers you'll have a a big population of also Hispanic ranchers out there, workers out there working in the fields. Around 2013, 2016 ish. They started to see a huge wave of monk come into these very poor. What's a monk? Pull up a monk for me.

Yeah. One is like, God, how do you want to get this wrong? But they're a Chinese dude. It's like, it's like a Vietnamese islander is what I heard.

Here, bring it up, Matthew, because I don't want to get this. I don't want to get canceled for it. Hmong? H-M-O-U-N. Yeah, there it is. Hmong are the ethnic group of people with specific language and culture. Okay, thank you.

They originally came from China, over 4,000 years of history. Someong left china to vietnam and laos thailand burma beginning in the early 1800s as a result of lang okay when the guys you interviewed from from my eye look they don't look vietnamese they look chinese well they were um those guys were monks so basically just just to give you guys some perspective um a lot of the Hmong community helped the Americans back in the Vietnam War. They fought side by side. And a lot of those Hmong, they then moved to the state of Minnesota over the years. So basically what happened is around 2013 to 2016, the communities in Siskiyou and also Shasta County up there started to notice a huge influx of these Hmong people, this Hmong community, right, coming into their communities.

And they also noticed that the license plates, all of the cars, mostly all came from Minnesota. So around this time, we're seeing the kind of mung migration from minnesota down to these communities and if you interview the mung people they say well we started coming around this time because land was very very cheap and this land kind of similar as our land back in the homeland so they started moving into these communities around this time in 2016 are you calling horse shit on that you call horse shit on that you buy you buy that? Yes and no. Yes and no. I'm not – I'm saying for some of them, they're very good people that are literally there just to farm. Do you think that they really moved there because of a similar geographic conditions and weather conditions to their homeland and because land was cheap?

Or do you think that they're being seduced there for work? Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. So I'm talking about extremely cheap out there in Siskiyou County. But you did – you started to have some players. One guy's name is Moon Young Lee. So Moon Young Lee migrates from Minnesota to this part and buys massive parts of land

and buys what these things are called, like these little parcels on these land. Now, these parcels are only supposed to have like one property owner, like one or two people basically living on there. And what he does is he starts bringing in his family from Minnesota. And then other Hmong people start to do the same thing where they basically buy pieces of land, bring in many family members. So this the community starts growing. And it's obviously these rural communities.

It's it's it's quick to pick it up. Around 2016 – Typical migrant move, right? I'm sure your families did that when they came from El Salvador. I know my family did that when they come from Lebanon, Beirut. You bring one brother, comes over, and he brings over eight more, and they all live in the same apartment. Yeah, so that's what we start to see here. But the thing is you notice it quicker when it's a very, very poor rural community, and you're like, wait a minute. quicker when it's a very, very poor rural community. And you're like, wait a minute.

Sums up. Around 2016, and I'm just summing this up real quick. I don't want to give the whole story. But around 2016, there was a county clerk for Siskiyou County. She starts to notice that for their registered voters, they got over 500 new registered voters.

She's like, hold on. This is huge for small community. Looks up those registered voters. All of those registered voters have Asian names. Starts to look up the names and starts to see that those names are also registered in other counties. So she calls the sheriff.

They call the state of California and start to investigate. We interview a sheriff. What he told me is they start to interview these Hmong property owners. They said one parcel that it was a huge red flag. One parcel had 55 registered voters. And around this time is they're seeing a huge influx of the illegal marijuana grows. And what those sheriffs told me said he's like, even even to do those interviews with those property owners, we had to go in there strapped because at this time, the Hmong people are already strapped.

They're already starting to grow marijuana illegally and they're starting to get it getting into this black market business so basically our documentary goes into the story of the Hmong this illegal marijuana kind of black business operations and telling the story of that and kind of the new twist to the tale because right now we know about the cartels of the Mexican nationals Russians all of that obviously we have John Norris in there. John Norris brings in the stories of the days where he fought basically Mexican nationals in California national parks. That's still happening to this day. But we wanted to show people what was going on with these monkey memes because I find it fascinating that they were registering to vote.

They're looking to play a role in local politics. And the people up there are very, very worried of what's going on. And like I said, these are poor, poor rural communities. You can obviously see it in the trailer. in local politics um and the people up there are very very worried of what's going on and like i said these are poor poor rural communities you can obviously see it in the trailer the the woman was like worried about her kids saying hey if something happens to my kids a bullet comes in i'm gonna raise hell whatever um that was actually a town hall indoors california one of those ranchers actually presses the d.a and says hey if i shoot one of these cartel guys am i gonna get charged with homicide like for defending myself like these guys are on my property long guns ak's uh and these are real

stories going on um in northern california that that a lot of people just have no idea but people in northern california kind of know but they're they want this stuff more of a you know what a national spotlight the the chinese who were in um cartel land in your first documentary they weren't um bosses right they were working off a deals that they had for getting immigration into the country right but now we're seeing chinese mungs who are actual bosses we're seeing some bosses they're still chinese bosses it's just that the day that we went embedded with the san bernardino county sheriffs and when you're ready yeah they when raided these girls, it was just the workers that got caught that day. Those guys didn't even speak English.

Straight Chinese nationals didn't even speak English. And that's what you're seeing most of these – on most of the girls, it's always going to be the low-level guys. You'll even see it on this documentary when we were embedded with Siskiyou County and they raided girls. Most of the people caught are literally just workers. They're not... The powerful people are never on the growth because they know the chances of getting caught, the chances of getting raided, and they don't want to

obviously get arrested or anything. The interesting thing, too, is we interviewed those people. Those people were a married couple from Minnesota who were there for a whole month who haven't even been paid yet. We asked them, like, have for a whole month who haven't even been paid yet we asked like we've even been paid haven't even been haven't been paid the good looking chinese couple that you kind of had blurred out those people yeah yeah they hadn't been paid in a month they have they've been working 30 30 30 days they're new to the whole

the whole game and they haven't been paid they're calling the cops racist yeah that's crazy the other key here is because these are poor rural communities you're actually watching this you know there's another story um we actually might dive deeper later but of these what these sheriffs have to go through what you know these guys are some of the lowest funded people in the state so like we were in sissue county their county sheriff is the youngest sheriff in the whole state of california so you have this 37 year old fresh guy with a lot of energy he's a good guy jeremiah um who jeremiah larue who has a cartel problem yet has no funding to take on the issue um i talked to some of their sheriff deputies in sisu county i said you know

what do you guys get paid or or you know how come you guys can't attract people it's like dude no one wants to battle cartels or be rightiding illegal girls for like 20 bucks an hour that's what they that's what they start off on they don't want to get killed that's crazy and even really quick even those like little tractors that you guys saw in the trailer you know like they're like you know raiding the girls or like picking up the stuff those are actually loaned by like a local rancher so if i give a rancher didn't give the sheriff department those like tractors the sheriffs couldn't even afford to even have their own tractors and stuff like that so that's how poor these communities are and it makes a perfect um target for the mung community chinese nationals and the mexicans for illegal marijuana operations because everything is on

their side they know that these are poor rural communities so they don't have the resources to take them on the state of california essentially with 2016 when they made marijuana illegal then they made the uh illegal cultivation which used to be a felony down to a misdemeanor it kind of gave these guys more rights so when i talked to john norris the game warden when he told me he said hey jorge back in the day when these mexican nationalists were on the california national parks it was easier to take them on because you didn't really need the search warrant because they're already on public land. Now they own these properties and you need a search warrant. They kind of know how to, it's kind of a loophole.

So they're kind of using what he said, according to their words, is you have these guys using the constitution almost against us. And they're being so far running the playbook successfully. This is kind of an interesting comment here. What is colonization of another nation called if it's legalized, encouraged, and then voted for? It is interesting to think like you look back in 200 years and you could be like, oh, yeah, the United States was colonized by Latins and Chinese. I mean the story could be so easily spun that it was just a colonization of the country um another interesting thing was is they they'll have spotters the cops

will roll in and 50 people will leave and they can't even stop any of them because they have no proof they have no proof right all of a sudden they're coming down a road to do a raid and they see 50 cars drive by them what can they do yeah from a from a reporter perspective it was really cool to see that because we didn't see that in our like with the mexicans in the deserts they don't do that shit and like they just that's just not their game because it's it's a completely different game in the deserts but out there since the bung a little bit more tightly close together the monk communities they have lookouts so when the cops even go in for the raids they're on the phones and you'll see like 50 cars like just getting out of there and by the time you know the cops show up there's like few people i mean it wasn't even lucky that they even got people that day and you know it was great

because we've got them on camera we've got to interview them um but it's it's fascinating stuff out there and it's a completely different world just to put a perspective there was um we were out there also there was another county called Lassen um Lassen County Lassen County is as big as the state of Rhode Island and we interviewed this rancher out there who basically called it called the uh sheriff deputies because he had these uh cartel guys stealing water threatening him whatever he calls the sheriff deputies and these guys are like, hey, man, we have two deputies for the whole county. We literally can't send anyone to you.

I can't risk any of my deputies. And it's kind of really, man, like you're all on your own out there because the local law enforcement doesn't have the resources. A lot of the people out there do feel that the Sacramento and Gavin Newsom, they don't want to address the issue because this is happening under happening under newsom and now we have well they say in your documentaries because hey we didn't vote for newsom so now he's not protecting us basically exactly we voted republicans so we're also also for people who are not in california when you're up in northern california it is a almost a completely different state from southern california so don't think like

san francisco la this is like this is almost like you're in kind of Kansas middle of nowhere, ranchers, farmers, like these people. Forest you've ever seen to crazy forests. Yeah. Yeah. Overwhelmingly Republican. We were in Lassen County and Lassen County voted to over, you know, they voted to recall Newsom by 83%. So that County like led the County in the recall. So just, so it's that type of community. So they feel that because they were so against Newsom in 83%. So that county led the county in the recall. So it's that type of community. So they feel that

because they were so against Newsom and the recall and other issues, they're going to get no help on this one. One of the stats in the movie was that 80% of the marijuana grows in the state of California I'm looking to make sure I got this right

are illegal. 80% of marijuana grows don't state of California. I'm looking to make sure I got this right. Are illegal. 80% of marijuana grows. Don't pay taxes. How, what, what I thought the deal was we were going to make marijuana legal in California. And that was going to make all the cartel crime go away.

How come like Marlboro hasn't come in and just taken over the marijuana industry? How come you know what I mean? How come Dejarum or American Spirit? Is it because it's still illegal federally and big companies don't want to get involved? I think it's because it's still illegal federally and I know there's something with the banks and stuff like that.

What I could just tell you from the fascinating thing with the illegal and legal thing right now, and for people out there, I would highly recommend to do some research after this because I think it's one of more of the fascinating subjects. So in 2016, when this was legalized, I thought like just even being in California,

I'm like, oh, this is awesome. You know, people are not going to go to jail for like smoking a dime bag. Just, you know, get it off. And plus we could do it legally. So then, you know, you can actually go to a store and not have to like call

like a dude in the middle of the night. Like, hey man, can I get a dime bag? Crime should drop. Everything should be part of the agricultural industry. The state of California could tax it. I just thought like, oh, yeah, this is going to be awesome. You know, great. So over the years, what happened is and what some of the legal weed guys told me is like,

hey, back in the day, it was awesome, right? Because we could sell a pound and we would sell a pound of weed. This is the market was for 1200 bucks. The state of California will then tax that 1200 for about 150. So it was great. Business was great. Fast forward to today right now because of the market is so oversaturated and because of the illegal side, the market is you sell a pound for 300 and instead of California, so once 150.

Wow. Wow. So what's happening right now is if you guys don't know is the legal weed side is urging Gavin Newsom. I believe it's like a hundred million dollar bailout. They're also looking, they're telling Newsom to like relax the taxes for about three years to save the legal weed side because the legal weed side is being destroyed by the black market um and it's it's really struggling to survive the only really legal weed business that's surviving in california as i mean right now is are like the semi-big companies but like the small mom and pop shops are almost done um they're looking for people are still buying if me and you were if i was still in college i probably wouldn't be using a dispensary i'd just be buying weed just from the same guy

bought like people are still buying bags from like the dealers in their neighborhoods and shit no no no like like you know regular folks in cali college kids are going to a dispensary they're buying pot like they're still going like that's still that's so happening it's just that in california the market there's just so many lead like weed businesses and the illegal side, it's really just destroyed all of it. So how is that 80% getting into basically the, the, the people who are buying the illegal weed,

there is people that are going to those, you know, to, to, to, to those businesses are just buying illegally. So there's no taxes. There's a lot of dispensaries that are like basically like the fake black market dispensary so they're they might be set up like legally but

they're illegal you know black market so that's a lot all around south l.a interviewing a legal weed guy about that about the fake shops but the 80 percent of this illegal weed is still somehow making its way into the legal market it's still going through dispensary no a lot of the illegals are we the majority is actually being shipped to the east coast to the to the states where it's not legal yet so that's where the majority the yeah for a lot of these cartel guys like the the what you guys are seeing in the in the documentary that weed is not staying in california that is going all to the east coast yeah how do you how do you suspect they're moving that? Because that's one of the things, right?

Like how are they first buying the land? Who are they buying the land for? Or are they buying the land? Are they showing up on public property and setting up? And then how are they moving the marijuana out of there? So there's a couple of different ways. So I'll start off with how we did it in our first documentary, Cartelville. So out there in Antelope Valley california it's like desert it's rural community so two of the ways is one of the ways was simply just what we call is a squatting

right so just finding a piece of land that no one is out there and literally just setting up an illegal marijuana sign and just get into business it's that rule up there where you could you could do things like that the other is literally just buying a property, cash. And the thing is, what makes the cartel buyers attractive to the sellers is they're willing to pay way above market for cash. So one thing that we touched upon, one thing that we didn't touch upon on the second documentary that we really hammered on the first one because we already talked about in Cartelville was the fact that these guys were having on the real estate market. We interviewed that former real estate agent that was like, dude, these guys are out here selling property for like triple, four times the rate. And they're like, literally, basically they're buying so many properties. They're turning into cartel neighborhoods because no one could compete with them. And if you're a seller and you're out there in the middle of nowhere and these guys come

up and say, Hey man, you know, your property, your little shitty property out here in the middle of nowhere that no one wants that has no access to water? Yeah, you have it on the market for like $150K. Well, here's $350K cash. Get out by the first. Just shut your mouth. And then, oh, yeah. Yes, sir.

We're out of here. It really is like that, huh? Yeah. So it's like I said, that's what I was saying matthew when i talked to the law enforcement they told me he said horny in 2016 that the making it making it the felonies basically instead of a felony to misdemeanor making weed basically legal statewide it gives all the basically power to the property owner now because they cannot use a constitution against law enforcement so that's why it makes it harder to raid these girls you could even go out there and be like, dude, there's 5,000 plants. You guys can't just raid them.

You need a search warrant. You need all the little BS before you can do that raid. So that's what kind of makes it a little bit difficult for law enforcement right now. And how are they moving these massive amounts of weed to the East Coast? Trucks? As of right now, one of the things that I found just from witnesses and guys on the ground is like FedEx. I mean, U-Haul trucks. So literally packing up a U-Haul trucks and just driving them across state lines.

And we talked to like property owners in California that like just follow them with like cameras and stuff like that. I'm sure they have other ways to move them because, you know, marijuana is now in day and age. It's not that difficult to move anymore you know but these guys are figuring out that by yeah by the masses yeah the reason i asked about 10 years ago i knew a guy in ukiah that was moving a lot of it to the east coast as well and he was just straight up using the mail systems yep just packaging it in a box and sending it out it was crazy yeah i i know a few like i had a uh i had some friends back in the day who were you know involved in that type of world and the way that they used to move it

it was all through the mail system with like yeah all types of rappers and like all type i mean but it was all possible i mean these guys were like 17 years old and moving weight to the east coast i'm sure the cartel guys have are doing around same thing. But one of the tactics that I found was the U-Haul trucks. And a quick story that I wanted to share, also from the documentary that always stood out, is we interviewed a retired school teacher, right? So she's on a fixed income. And she owned this property up in Shasta County near Whiskey Lake, Whiskeytown Lake. And what she told us is that she hadn't been on the property for about three months. So she sent her son up there.

She said, hey, go check on the wells, make sure everything's all right. So he goes, checks up on the wells, and he goes and discovers 10 Mexican nationals heavily armed with campsites on their property, and they were already pumping water from their well with black polypipes. So obviously he freaks out, calls law enforcement. You know, the law enforcement goes, basically scares those guys out of there. But it kind of lets you know, like, just how blatant they are. Like, they literally had set up campsites on her property.

They had black poly pipe, everything. We're pumping water every single day. And these are the type of stories that we're hearing up in Northern California. And they're all around this issue. And like I said, it's, it's trickled into Northern Oregon. So we're seeing some of that in Southern Oregon. So we'll kind of see how that kind of develops in these next kind of couple of years. But I kind of feel like, man, that the legal weed side is almost set to fail, unfortunately, in, in California, if they, if they can't get a bailout, they can't relax, relax those taxes on these guys.

If it was legalized federally, do you think the whole thing would go away? It's hard to tell. I mean, I think so. Banks would then open up. That bank issue, I forgot about that also. That's another problem. I think the bank issue is the biggest thing because when I talk to guys, that's like the thing that's always holding them back. And when I talk to a lot of guys that want to do it legally, they like hey man i want to do it legally but it's like the taxes and this issue

it's like it's like murdering us um just even even do it legal then this these other guys don't even have to worry about taxes the water or none of that they don't have to worry about the labor rights or paying like an hourly wage right for the workers you really you really can't compete with that's crazy hey any other drugs besides marijuana i mean these same guys are involved in the fentanyl game and in the other issues we just we just point out to this game particularly because there's so much things attached to it and when people kind of think marijuana now it's like hey it's just you know hippies growing pot and i get it like this is not like a anti-reefer madness type of thing. This is like, hey, because these guys are doing it illegally in the way they are,

there's a water theft issue, so the amount of water that's being stolen. I mean, just in Southern California, they estimated that from the water theft, every day that California is losing between 3 million to 9.5 million gallons a day just of the illegal grows, and that's just in SoCal. We're not even talking about even Northern California yet. There's also a chemical issue i didn't even really get into the chemicals but all the chemicals that spray these toxins they're coming in from mexico they're actually banned in the u.s and they're sprayed on these on these

plants so wildlife out there in these rural areas can't eat the plants the issue is that these these chemicals are so deadly that they're killing wildlife out there but they're also destroying just the environment and a lot of these chemicals actually seep into the waterbeds and make it into the water. I'm from the Antelope Valley in Southern California. When these cartels are out there in the SoCal, we saw that in Cartelville. We have the Joshua Tree. We actually have a tree that is protected by the state of California. Out there, the Joshua Tree is kind of like an emblem of my hometown.

It's kind of tied to Palmville, Neal Valley. They're endangered, aren't they? You can't just go out and cut one of those down, right? Yeah, you can't. It's actually, it's actually, I think it's against the law or so it gets some type of code if you do that. But those guys are out there like destroying all the Joshua trees and making flat land to start their illegal grows. And they're not. And the thing is those guys are not getting even like a ticket.

And then if there's like a ticket and then if there's like a rancher out there and if he uses too much water accidentally the state of california will like come down on the guy with fines and like shut down his water but like these cartel guys are like able to do whatever they want out there at this point like they're literally destroying all these joshua trees and all the environment and they don't get hit for it. They don't get misdemeaned. I mean, they're operating freely, and that's just because, I mean, law enforcement doesn't have the manpower. But if you're a rancher, and if you use too much water one day, the state of California will fucking come after you with everything they got. I mean, that's really where we're at.

They'll take your shit. By the way, on a complete side note, if you were ever in California and you get a chance to go out and see these Joshua trees, those pictures did not do it justice. It is some sort of weird phenomenon. You'll be driving along the road, and then all of a sudden you're in the Joshua tree. Like you look behind you, and there's not a single one. You look in front of you, and the land's covered with them. And the other places also, you've got to go see the giant sequoias. If you've never seen the giant sequoias, and then if you're in africa you got to see the baobab trees

i'm kind of a tree nut those three trees are some of the craziest trees uh the giant sequoia the baobab in africa and these joshua trees are bizarre they're not even from this planet yeah i think like the joshua trees i think like where i live out there in southern california it's like the only climate in the world or whatever, like these things could even be grown. So it's like a it's a kind of important thing, man. But like I said, these guys are out there just operating freely, doing whatever the hell they want. In your documentary, you showed a section of river that was, I think, two miles long. They had fucking killed everything.

Yeah. Yeah. Just pumping it, pumping it, black poly pipe. So these guys are like sophisticated guys. these guys are like um hard working you could you could even hear it in the john norris john john rogan podcast where like joe rogan's like dude if these guys were like in the just you know operating like in a in a legal business these guys like some of the hardest working guys ever because they're out there trekking miles they're bringing poly pipe um and they're out there living on that land so these guys are like hard working individuals that like you know

know how to work with the tools that they got going back to John there's another crazy statistic you give we talked about the 10,000 cartel members living in California but how about this statistic what was it here 25% of

all California game wardens are tasked to fighting fucking – oh, here it is. 25% of state game wardens are assigned to cannabis enforcement teams. What the fuck? I'm actually so glad you brought this up, dude. How is that? I mean, I thought they're supposed to be protecting Smokey the bear and like making sure, taking dead deer off the road and shit and yelling at camp people for starting fires. So I'm actually really glad you brought this up, man, because theorry, game wardens are supposed to be out there basically giving guys tickets if they're out there hunting. Like at night, they call it that, like spotlight shooting or something like that.

That's a huge thing. If they're out there diverting water, hunting endangered animals, stuff like that. And that's why he – Fishing without a license. Yeah, fishing without a license. That's why he joined. Without a license. Yeah, fishing without a license.

That's why he joined. And then, like I said earlier, guys, around 03, 04, he stumbles on these marijuana grows. And the passion for John is to see how these guys were just wrecking the environment, the amount of chemicals, the water, how they were just destroying everything. He wanted the game wardens to get behind it. So game wardens all of a sudden in California went from just all that stuff to now we have a cartel issue. The issue is game wardens for a good period of that time and a good effort from John's effort. But for a good effort that time, game wardens weren't even that respected by law enforcement guys. So these guys weren't getting paid the best.

For those who don't know, game wardens' training is very difficult. So they have to do everything that, like, a police officer has to do or, like, a sheriff deputy has to do. Then they have to do all the wildlife stuff. So they have to do all the law enforcement stuff because they're running into hunters with all types of guns and stuff and weapons. And they have to do all that and the wildlife stuff. Yet they don't even get paid or the benefits like these other guys. And these game wardens are covering massive massive pieces of land i mean you you you can talk to sam some gator some game wardens they're like almost covering a whole county just one dude um and a lot of

they're in these rural areas with no cell phone reception so john was telling me that in his early days he was working in riverside county and he was running into California game bangers that were fishing in, you know, with weapons middle of the night. Um, that's what we're off with. But, um, little by little, as this cartel problem, um, started to develop it in California, um, law enforcement in Northern California started working with game wardens. So game for game wardens started to get the funding, the training they started to need. Over time, John finally developed the marijuana enforcement team. Then they developed the Delta team, which is like a sniper team. A huge kind of help to helping these guys.

And I recommend if you guys haven't, look up a book. It's from John Norris. It's called War in the Woods. And how important these freaking canines are to stopping cartel guys. I mean, if these game wardens didn't have these canines, they would be in almost gunfire fights every time they're ready to grow up. But these canines have been trained to basically go out there in the middle of nowhere and take on these Mexican nationals in the deserts. And these Mexican nationals have gone smart, these cartel guys. nationals in the deserts and these mexican nationals have gone smart these cartel guys and they develop basically booby traps um for game wardens and for these canines and a lot of

these booby i forgot the name of them but john norris said that some of these booby traps are kind of the same from vietnam um with the spikes and everything so the mexican nationals studied what the vietnamese did um back in the day and they developed those same same type of booby traps and those tactics um out there in the mountains but it's fascinating what these game wardens have to do and for people who didn't know these guys are out there full-on delta team getting dropped off in helicopters fighting cartels um out there and john goes into it in his book called war in the woods i mean he has a couple other books in this but it really tells a story of what game wardens um have to go through in, in California.

And does he smoke weed? Does he smoke weed? John does it, but I want to say this quick little story. So like, um, you know, I,

I, when I'm in, I was in Texas, um, you know, staying at a hotel a couple months ago and I'm, and I'm, I'm just,

you know, watching like they're boring hotel TV and I run across, um, a game warden show. And obviously it's based on Texas game warden. So I'm thinking, Oh, it's about to be bad-ass.

And this is no disrespect to Texas game wardens. Like, it's based on texas game warden so i'm thinking oh it's about to be badass and this is no disrespect to texas game wardens like oh i think it is badass you guys are gonna be taking on like i don't know they're about to be doing badass texas game warden stuff because after talking to john with the california guys go through and i go on there and they're like busing guys for like fishing with like no light like that was like the show for 30 minutes i'm like what that was like these guys in california taking it was like cops but with game wardens in texas it was the most boring stuff like all these guys are taking taking on cartels i'm like these guys are like bushing guys busting guys for like fishing with no licenses i'm like wait a minute the california version is way more entertaining but um and a funny thing is john john gave me

this so a lot of the game warden guys actually wear this in California. It's called – they call it the thin green line. And this basically is for all the game wardens in California who have to basically, you know, out there taking on the cartels, middle of nowhere. And they're continuing to try to raise this alarm. They're trying to also get more funding for these guys. They're trying to make the job more attractive,

obviously higher salaries and higher benefits because it's a pretty big task to tell someone hey you want to take you know take on cartels in you know california national parks um because you not only have you have to be an expert in you know the weapons and how to handle those high pressure situations but you got to be you got to also be an expert like i said in the game ward in the wildlife as well uh they are the lowest paid deputies in the state yep it's crazy man john john and look if it wasn't for john they probably would be paid a lot less like john is like the one guy who's being vocal um a lot of these guys are like i have been put on a gag order under the state of

california and gavin newsom so like while they're working they can't say anything but like as soon as they retire like guys like John are a huge help because they go on a Joe Rogan podcast or making books. They inform me. Dude, if it wasn't for John informing me, I wouldn't have no idea for this issue. And I learned about it when I was in college. And then I started covering the border. And that's when I met Congressman Mike Garcia who said, hey,

I'm worried about this issue because we got cartels in the deserts. And I said, wait a minute. I've heard about this in the podcast before, and I'm able to make the dots. And then after I put out Cartelville, the crazy thing is after we put out Cartelville, John Norris actually reached out to me and said, hey, Jorge, I thought you did a great job and highlighted the issue. And I'm like, dude, I wouldn't even know about this if it wasn't for you, man. So it's kind of crazy how our worlds collided, me and John.

I'm so glad that John agreed to come up to Northern California. He served a great role as an executive producer. He was up there in Northern California State with us for a week. He really informed us how the tactics, how the stuff they worked, the shootouts. He was just a great asset. And then John

was also a big treat. He got to be embedded with us with Siskiyou County. So while Siskiyou County was raiding these girls, we got to have John there. And his expertise was – it was really amazing. The thing that shocks John is, you know, he saw it in the early days when, like, there was, like, maybe, like, 500 of these girls for the whole state of California. I mean, that number is laughable now.

I mean, like I said, you got 500 just where I live in LA County. And then like a sister county, you got 10,000 just there alone. So, I mean that, that 500 numbers, it's so laughable now.

Is marijuana the most, the largest crop by a dollar wise in the United States? Oh, I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know. I'm not a, I'm not your plant guy. Um, yeah, man. Do you ever suspect that any of these guys are on the take like if they're if you're only making 50 or 20

an hour wouldn't it wouldn't it be easy to just be like hey there's a there's a good chance matthew if you could actually bring this one up because this would be interesting is um back in 2016 there was a mung couple um that basically went up to the siskiyou county sheriff if you put like siskiyou county sheriff mung um uh bribe maybe even the story pops up should pop up there was a there was a married mung couple i think they were married but basically there was a mung couple they went up to the siskiyou county sheriff at that time and they offered the sheriff one million dollars in cash if the sheriff didn't raid their gross now obviously immediately contacted the fbi and they they they they got that handled but it kind of shows the money and the power that these guys have out there there was also in the middle

of the documentary guys who were we were supposed to interview a county board of supervisors. I don't want to say for what county. We were supposed to interview a county board of supervisors, and the very next day they were threatened by one of the arm growers, and they backed out. So they have real power. But I don't know if you have that story, Matthew, but it's interesting

because they actually went to the city with $1 million. If you put Siskiyou County, it's spelled. Let me see if I can put it in the chat here. I'm going to read this to you guys for a second. The cannabis is now the fifth. This is from 2021. Cannabis is now the fifth most valuable crop in the United States behind corn, soybeans, hay, and wheat.

It's a wholesale value of $6.2 billion. It passed cotton, cotton rice and peanuts crazy crazy crazy crazy wow who would have thought alaska has 104 million dollars of cannabis growing that must be is that is that indoor that has to be. Colorado, $1 billion. Massachusetts, $252. Nevada, $433. Oregon, $602. Boom.

That's the one, dude. Wow. Okay. So it happens. It's pretty hard. It's probably pretty hard saying no to a million dollars and a lot of these folks out there are making no money almost in their positions i mean these are very low wage jobs so i'm you know a lot of these folks could be easily convinced hey

look the other way look at this cash i mean so this sheriff i mean he if he could have wanted to could have easily took the one mil cash and could have not said anything. But, I mean, he immediately went to the FBI. Obviously, they got this couple. But to me, it also just shows that the amount of money they're making in the black market, where they just got a million to just throw the sheriff to keep his mouth shut. Hey, so one of the reasons – this is an interesting statistic, and it's so easily misrepresented by the left, which just sucks. But 3% of the county is Asian, and yet 78% of the illegal grow arrests are Asian. So at some point, you get the picture there, right?

They're not going after Asians. They're going after illegal grows. And it happens to be their business. You raid a carpet store and it's in Southern California. It's going to be a bunch of Armenian dudes. I mean, it's just it's the business they're in. You said that this kind of influx of mungs have started in 2016. But also in the dock, the police are busting grows that are up to 10 years old so that means this shit has been going on forever and now finally it's exploding

no it's it's it's been going on for quite a while it's just now we have the monk community getting involved and now we're seeing the way they've kind of evolved in it but this like this issue you know that california isn't anything new it's just that the explosion and now where it's at is something where it's kind of completely out of hand and where they can't handle it. And when I'm interviewing people down there, they feel that they need like the national guard. Like they feel like they need Washington, D.C.

It's scary for them. They're scared. Yeah. And it's gotten to that point. And, you know, me, you know, myself seeing it, seeing myself, it almost feels like if Washington, D.C. doesn't come in, this is never even going to get solved because most communities down there – What's getting solved? Is it going to get worse?

This is the craziest stat, and I've been saving this for last. Northern California has more missing people than the rest of all – has more missing people than the rest of all of California. Fucking no one lives up there. I mean, dude, people need to understand there's counties with 44,000 people. We have neighborhoods in the rest of California that have 44,000 people. And yet these areas, I'm trying to look for the exact stat, but it was something like that. And really quick, I want to add to the thing that you brought up um it's a nickname up there so when you're up there a lot of these immigrants that are being forced to work on these girls or that are working these girls

they're called trim migrants and a lot of them a lot of the a lot of the trim migrants are the ones that go missing in the in the illegal weeds so that's another that's another thing that they're bought into harvest plants to trim down the weed for sale. The amount of people that go missing up there in Northern California connected to this illegal weed stuff is like it's really eerie, man. It's some scary stuff. And that's a huge issue as well, especially like Mendocino County. People go missing in Mendocino County. Oh, Mendocino. Hey, have they ever uncovered like any burials where there's just like fucking 20 dead workers?

No, that would be some crazy, crazy shit. What actually has happened though is two weeks ago, I get called from a dude who told me that he just bought a piece of property and that it used to be a former grow and that everything was still there. piece of property and that it used to be a former grow and that everything was still there so what he told me was he just bought this property and basically like the uh the tarps and all that stuff is everything still there he said he dug up a hole they found um basically bags of cash and ammos for long guns and he basically they looked at the original property name it was a mexican national so did you tell him hey motherfucker that's not an old grow you bought a fucking last year's girl yeah he was a funny store run he was kind of he was kind of hippied out and i was like hey man like uh are you gonna turn this stuff over to law enforcement

he was like oh no man this stuff is like historic i gotta keep this so uh so he's asking to go to go look at it when i'm up in northern california again tell him i'll come up and look at it for some money hey are there any are there any um you know like if you drive in mexico you shouldn't drive at night on any of the highways a lot of the world is like that is it getting like that up in northern california like i've never heard of that in the united states where it might not be safe to drive at night they have areas where they where they where the community there knows not to go so um like when i was in county the one that i was like really shocked is they have a couple mountains up there where amazon and ups don't even deliver anymore so what the stories that i've heard over and over was when amazon

and ups used to go up there, they would be threatened by among armed growers. And after that, they're like, you know what? It's made like a company rule. They don't even deliver up there. So mail doesn't even go up there. Some of these mounds are so dangerous with these growers and armed growers that like, let's say there's an emergency, like an ambulance needs to call it or firefighter. They've been ordered that they cannot attend to that 911 call unless they're accompanied with a sheriff deputy. So if they call a sheriff deputy, and if that sheriff deputy is on the other side of the county handling a whole other issue, they cannot handle that 911 call until that sheriff deputy can

accompany them. So there's been times where they needed an ambulance, an emergency, and they've gone there like an hour and a half, two hours late because they need an armed officer to be accompanying some of these areas they go to. One of the interviews that didn't make it in a documentary, but it was super fascinating, was this guy who starts up this cleaning business. He cleans for companies and basically mass waste for other companies up in Chino, California. And little by little, the city starts contacting this guy and said, Hey, man, we need a company to basically clean up these illegal marijuana grows. And we keep putting out bids and no one wants to take them. Would you take them?

Would you take the job if we paid you so the guy's like yeah so the guy starts cleaning up these illegal marijuana girls with his team and he notices he notices really quickly why no one wants to take the job because every time they have to raid these they have to clean these girls they have to basically be in be in areas where there's active growth so you basically his chemical cleaning guys they're out there in hazmats and bulletproof vests are cleaning, cleaning these girls because law enforcement refuses to go up with the company. And the thing is, this guy is making a killing because the city keeps putting out these no these contracts, you know, overpaying and no one, no one, no, no company wants to take them because no one no company wants to arm their guys it doesn't even sound like they have the resources to accompany them if you only have two sheriff this guy keeps naming his price to the city or whatever the county and is making like a freaking killing out there in chino but i mean he's out there like you know they are they are

you know he's obviously putting himself at risk because anytime they're out there so i did an interview with this guy. I put on the whole hazmat. It was hilarious. His whole, like, bulletproof. I mean, it's funny, man. These guys are out there armed and they're cleaning out there. Like, these guys are not even meant for that type of work.

But they said, like, dude, law enforcement refuses to come up with us. And when you hear these stories, man, over and over, like, the thing that just always plays in my head is this is happening in the United States. And like it's I mean, up and up in Northern California at this point, to some folks, it's like become a way of life. It's like so normal when I'm in the California deserts, it's become a way of life. Like people know there's no go zones. People know that like now to check your mail, you need a gun on you. It wasn't always like that. But that's life for these communities in Northern California. And it sucks because a lot of the communities out there, they live out there because they already hate the cities. They don't want to be in these cities in California where the crime and all these issues are already becoming a huge problem.

They want to get away from that. Is there anywhere where they're assimilated with the cartel? Did you see any people who were assimilated with it? Like they make money off it? Like they sell them pots or fertilizer? Well, I will say this. Like where they've helped the economy a lot of a lot of in these rural communities the rule the people living there some of these people benefit from the cartel because

the owners of the tractor supply are making a freaking killing i think i think like the one of the highest tractor supplies themselves is in siskiyou county with like a town with like no one living there and they're making a killing. So some of those some of the owners of those businesses have communicated to the rancher says, hey, dude, I hate what's going on. But I mean, business has never been better. It was never sold so much black pipe. Yeah. And like lumber, the black poly pipes, the tarps. I mean, all that stuff. Oh, dude, they're making a killing out there. The tractor supplies in Northern California.

Try growing up in Humboldt County. FBI shows up in all black SUVs and stays in one hotel. Whole county knows and everyone goes underground. They bust one farm and leave. The shit I've seen is traumatizing. She also goes on to say, I can attest we lived on a dairy ranch and we never called 911. That's why you need guns. Damn. Dude, it's crazy's crazy to me it's fascinating what both of the communities i've seen both of the differences of like what

northern california in the deserts and it's like it's like the wild wild west in both areas where it's like you gotta stay strapped you gotta watch your back you it's like when you call your local sheriff and your sheriff's like well i'm an hour and a half away so what do you want your shit out of luck that was a great accent and you know it's crazy too jorge it um the the stuff at the border that you do always seem more dangerous from the you know the the hundred thousand foot view but now that you give us the granular details of the two jobs covering cartels in cal versus the border, the border seems safe. I mean, like all those people there look dangerous because they could potentially do something. They could all attack you. But the truth is they won. They're already there.

They got what they want. Right. They're in. We're in. Yeah. I mean, both of them, you know, pose their their their risk you know um you know covering the border you know last year in october is when i is when i was uh had the whole thing with the human smother drawing the gun on us and like i remember that um so it poses it poses a different risk um in in the first filming of cartelville the the first challenge when it came to safety that we faced was getting as close as we can to film the girls even getting our drone over them and the thing is when we were in the middle of nowhere in the desert and let's say like if you're a girl um for us to even get the drone in an area where we could even get the girl we had to be like i think like less or right

around a mile and a half away right so so picture this in your head so in the middle of nowhere and if you're out there and let's say in the middle of the day if you see like a honda civic you know you know half a mile away and you're these cartel growers you're gonna be like wait a minute we're the only ones out here there's only one reason any vehicle should be coming you know should be here to come to us we don't know that car oh yeah we're we're after it so in in the daylight it was pretty eerie because we would have to fly our drone and we would basically be in spots where like if they just come out oh we're we're spotted the scary situation that happened two of them happened in broad daylight one of them we were um on the la county

san bernardino county line and we found the biggest active grow that we saw in the desert which was i mean i i don't know if it was an acre or two it was massive i mean 100 greenhouses indoor okay outdoor out there in the deserts but but but indoor meaning in hoop houses yeah in hoop houses but out in the outdoor so we fly our drone over it, do our whole thing. We fly back to the Honda. And as we're driving out, they spotted us and they actually put a drone over us. So they actually- Oh, shit.

My Honda had like my license plates on it too. I was so effed. And they followed us out. And the other one that happened in daylight, it happened on the second day we were filming this. We were filming this active girl. The guy spots us and then goes back in the girl. And, you know, when we got spotted, we're like, hey, man, we should get in the car. We get in the car.

I had a full-on truck out there because it's like, you know, it's rural and it's pretty rough terrain. So we're out there driving out. This guy hops in like a little Honda Civic and and just like captured captures up to my truck and is like on us dude tell us and um the only reason we got away is because out there in the desert sometimes like a lot of companies will start you know they film commercials so we actually hopped on this road and made a left and they were filming a commercial so we actually when they film a commercial desert you have to put a cop on each end of the side so the rancher that we were with you know uh drives

up to the cop does a nasty u-turn and was like hey we're getting chased by this cartel guy can we just hang out here um so it posts some it posts some challenges northern california post some challenges too i felt safer in northern california because in northern california you have the trees you have a lot of elements where you could kind of be hidden yourself um but in a desert i felt there was a lot more risk in cartelville because it was the middle of nowhere we also in cartel you would see but we would go out there in the middle of night to get the drone shots for the night shots of the of the of the of the operations now now my my drone operator at that

time he felt he felt more scared going out at night um than in the day i felt more scared in the day i felt that at night it actually helped day. I felt more scared in the day. I felt that at night it actually helped us out because I felt like we couldn't be seen. All that darkness in the deserts gave us all the advantages. So I felt better at night. He felt better than day. But it posed some challenges, but we were able to overcome them. And I'm really thankful for the ranchers and the residents because those motherfuckers have balls, man.

Because after the interviews, they would be like, hey, man, you want to hop in the car and not freaking take you to them uh they were down to like take them pretty take us pretty close to them so really thankful for the residents who are down for that the drone shots in narcofornia uh your most recent documentary well the first one too but there are some crazy ones i cannot even believe they're real i mean it's just, it's just hundreds of fucking rows. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, in, um, we, like I said, in this one, we had some, we had some advantages, like I said, just the way Northern California set up with the tree. So we were able to get a lot. Um, the difference too, is in Northern California, you would find a bunch of these operations. Like there would be all right next to each other, almost bundled up,

um, in a desert. You weren't seeing that you were seeing big ones but they were very spread out you weren't seeing them bundled up like they they were there there was one mountain where um there was like a thousand or just one mile near near doors california we we flew the drone over um but man it was it was uh it was crazy crazy to see it and just how wide open and um just like these these ranchers being like dude what the hell do we do i mean what's your what's your are you doing another are you gonna do another drug documentary in california do you know as a as a right now i want to shift um potentially something with fentanyl um i'm i'm i'm i'm also want to shift a little bit more into

the major crimes in a lot of these cities. I think there's one of the cities that a lot of people don't know about right now that's been really crazy with the murder rate is St. Louis. So I want to start looking at St. Louis. Awesome. We've been speaking. Actually, I've been speaking to a lot of Asian-Americans living in San Francisco who actually voted against the DA who have been. Oh, yeah. They got rid of their DA, right?

That guy was fucking another. I'm pretty sure you guys have been seeing the videos of like, you know, there'll be like a seven year old Asian woman. She'll be like on the sidewalk and then like three, just roll up, beat the shit out of her for no reason. So we're going to be speaking to a lot of the Asians, Asian Americans,

Asian activists who are really pissed off about the crime, um, up in San Fran. We might do some with Fed now. So we're going to be shifting the focus. But, um, right now, as of like in real time, we're in Yumaanyl. So we're going to be shifting the focus, but right now, as of in real time,

we're in Yuma, Arizona, so we'll be doing some border coverage tonight, working on some different stories down here, man. And yeah, kind of shifting the focus on, like I said, more crime. I want to get into the Fentanyl and this new rainbow Fentanyl that's been

kind of becoming a new phenomenon is what I want to look at too. So how does this end in Northern California? What's the next step? Does it get worse before it gets better? I mean, man, I hate to be so negative. What if we all quit smoking weed? I don't even smoke weed.

You got to quit on the East Coast. The East Coast. Yeah, the East Coast, man. All those damn in Jersey. There's puff – in Jersey. There's Puffin in Jersey. But at this point, I hate to say it, but it almost seems like it's already doomed because what's already going to happen and what I'm seeing happen in the deserts is regular people can't stand it anymore. So they're moving out and putting their homes for sale. And two things are happening. and putting their homes for sale.

And two things are happening. Either more growers are just going to buy the homes up, and then these communities basically turn into grower communities, or another family is going to just buy the home, and then within a year or two, they're going to realize, holy crap, look at the mess I'm into. And the thing is, in the first documentary, like nine out of the ten residents we interviewed had already put their homes up for sale.

So they're already like, oh, we're done. So we're already seeing them move up in Northern California. Most of the, uh, some of the people have already started to move. Um, and you know, they're already leaving now. Look, a lot of people do have pride, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, Hey, this is my home. We're going to fight for as long as we can. But a lot of the time, man, a lot of, a lot of these people too, in these rural communities are, um, you know, retired. So they're not young bucks that could, you know, in their thirties and, or even in their forties, they're not young bucks that could you know in their 30s and or even in their 40s they're already in the 60s the 70s they don't have the energy to deal with the

water theft or to be up at night or like always have a gun on them and be alert um so we are we are what i'm thinking is it's just going to get worse because these people are going to continue to move out and we're just going to see these communities change also for like a lot of the ranchers and the farmers um they actually want to pass their land to their kids the issue is right the issue is uh give me a second guys the issue is that their kids um and i spoke to some of the kids they're like well why would i take over my mom's or dad's land when a the state of california this is not even cartel related the state of californ California is already restricting my water and I'm going to be over penalized just for trying to keep the ranch up.

So now we have to deal with, with the whole water issue, California, inflation supply chain, and now cartel. It's like, dude, is it? It's so a lot of the, a lot of the ranch is like, dude, we, we want to pass it, pass this down to our kids. Our kids literally won't even take it from us. Even if we pay them to take the land, they don't, they don't want to pass it pass this down to our kids our kids literally won't even take it from us even if we pay them to take the land they don't they don't want to deal with it so now we're going to see lost generations of ranchers and farmers so i don't know where the bright spot is and another thing that that i want to say this is from observing like you know we didn't include this

in documentary but when you're in these towns the all these towns, you know, back in the 90s or even early 2000s were thriving little towns where like, you know, if you're driving out there road trips, people stop in these towns. They stop at the hotels. They stop at, you know, the restaurants there, the truckers. Like these were all thriving little towns. They didn't need large populations. They were all doing great. little towns they didn't they didn't need large populations they were all doing great um but because of california and because of how hard life is for ranchers and farmers and rural life and the taxes and just cost of living um especially the water issue i mean that that's really the

number one thing but i'm looking at homes in doris california as you talk to yeah it's in the middle of nowhere dude yeah so because of all of that guys when you're driving in the middle of these towns they are now literally like diving little towns like you're driving by and you feel bad because there's nothing there and there's like so the people that are like losing hope all you have all these towns are like dude we've lost hope we have we have no future like no young people want to deal deal with this or there's no young people to stay there the old boomers are gonna die off in like the next 10 years um yeah dude it's it's pretty it's pretty devastating bro i don't i i like that town doris i mean i'm making a joke about it but it could not even exist in the next 20 years man

here for 12 million bucks you can get 3 000 acres oh my god this is fucking the middle of nowhere here's here's a house for 20 grand i didn't even know that existed well the lack of resources is what's really crazy too because if you think about it there's no support from the state it's actually working against them in every way you talk about the water restriction of being penalized yet the cartels are moving tons of gallons of water out of there all the time illegally, poisoning the water that's there. I can't help but think that a lot of this has occurred from obviously lots of things, but mostly just failed policies of the leaders at a state level almost. And that's what we're seeing in every single issue.

And the thing is, when we talk about this issue now, it's not even like a left or right issue. And the thing is, um, when we talk about this issue now is like, it's not even like a left, the right issue. This is just, this is just should be a California issue because all of us Californians deal with the water theft. We're all getting hit by like an LA County. Like, you know,

we're getting, we're getting the letters from the county saying, Hey motherfuckers, you can only use this mountain. Now we're coming, we're coming down. So we all get hit by it. The environmental issue,

um, whether you're left or right, I think just as a human, you don't want to see like migrants being like forced to work on these girls i mean the conditions first of all are not labor yeah labor like yeah in both sides like whether you're in northern california or in in my deserts in socal um as you guys know in the summer it could get to 110 out there oh it can get crazy yeah crazy so we can all agree like the like we don't even want these conditions for the people. And for the state of California, like just from a politician standpoint, like literally just like from a suit and tie, like politician standpoint, a you're not making no money because you're not seeing the tax revenue. All the water is being stolen from you. So then't know where the victory is. And now, I mean, when we were doing this documentary, this wasn't the case, but now we have our governor having his sights set on the White House for 2024. And this is an issue that he's going to bury, that he's not going to talk

about. I also mentioned in the documentary very briefly, but I try to say like, whether it was a Democrat or Republican running in the recall election last year here in the california this wasn't even like a top three top five issue like no one brought it up no one brought up the illegal grows the water theft what ranchers and farmers are going through this is not just the northern california issue dude this is in lassen siskiyou shasta and then coming down to san bernardino laA. County. We got Kern County. I can't imagine Shasta is going to tolerate that. I mean, Shasta right now is up to like 4,000, 5,000 girls.

Lassen County right now is at 2,000 girls. That might not sound a lot for how big Lassen is, but the thing is it's going to explode because Lassen County has no manpower. I'm talking about like zilch, nothing out there. It's crazy how rural... We were out there in an area. I don't know if you want to even Google this, Matthew, really quick. I didn't even know this place existed. It was called Ravendale with a population of like 100 people. And there was like 50 operations already in place. It's nuts how these guys have picked out these really rural areas where they know that like law enforcement can't get to or if they do

it'll take them yeah like this is middle of nowhere right here bro yeah unincorporated community in latin county i'm looking at the i'm looking at the map too there's not even a single house for sale yeah There's only land. It's only land. It sounds like out of a movie like Raven, like some, some movie. I like the movie twilight,

but we were 400 acres for 200 grand. Oh, there you go, dude. Yeah. The, the, basically 70 acres for 80 grand.

It's a, it's a thousand bucks an acre here. Wow. And, and what's funny is like, you know, these guys are out there purchasing this land with you know some of this land now majority of the time they want the land with an access to water but like in ravendale there's like no access to water but they're still out there

hauling water um figuring figuring it out how to bring the waterland by you know buying these massive old water trucks and just hauling all that to really, yeah, middle of nowhere type of stuff, man. And it's, like I said, it's kind of an underreported story. I really recommend everyone, if they can, listen to the first – I'll get them on your guys' podcast for sure. But listen to the first Joe Rogan and John Norris podcast. Listen to how – because John – I'm going to get this guy's book. I'm going to get this guy's book tonight when we get off. I'm driving tomorrow

for five hours. I'll listen to it. Yeah, yeah. Because John really talks about it from the issue of the 05-06 and what they had to face then. And then, you know, we really handle it from what, you know, how it's exploded now. But like I said, look up John, guys.

Look up The War on the Woods. I think you guys will find it fascinating. What's great about John's books is there's a bunch of photo evidence. So you're looking at all the Mexican nationals they apprehended. Another little thing, and we spoke about it multiple times on this podcast, is the Santa Muerte. So when they raid these girls, you'll see like the cartel religion. You know, they have this like kind of religion in Mexico that they think that what they're doing is the right thing. So they have the Santa Muerte,

the sacrifice. So sometimes you'll see dead animals next to these little prayers and candles. So you'll see a lot of Santa Muerte. There's these things called the... I forgot the term, but there's these boats that these Mexican nationals, what they'll do is they'll take them sometimes from Mexico,

they'll take them from San Diego, and they'll take them all the way to Northern California and they'll haul all the marijuana up there on the shores. And, and, and you mean along the coast they'll, they'll, they'll, wow. Yeah. I think a couple of them, I forgot the, the exact, um, boat name, but they call that also the, and then the, the traps, um, that kind of are similar to what the Vietnamese did in the Vietnam War. He has a lot of images of like the traps, the booby traps they set up for game wardens, for animals to be caught up in. So I highly recommend people to just look at this issue because it's one of the more fascinating ones. Just because being from California and, you know, marijuana is so embedded in our culture.

california and you know marijuana is so embedded in our culture where like marijuana is basically like alcohol and um people basically will have no idea that this black market industry is operating with this and look this is nothing against weed it's not like oh i want weed illegal now and put those people to jail for smoking joints no one cares about that this is all about you know water theft human smuggling the violence the amount of, the homicides that are connected to these grows are, I mean, it's highly alarming. And the thing is because this wasn't solved in Northern California, now Southern California has become the new safe haven for these guys. They just discovered like, wait a minute, look at these deserts.

Look at these, you know, look at all that. And the thing is what makes the deserts greatest, we have the, like the California aqueduct runs through my um runs to my hometown it runs to the rest of the andala valley so what these guys do sometimes is they'll put some black poly pipe and just put it in that aqueduct and just pump water dude all day and night um and then because we have farming communities in a lot of these rural communities you obviously have a lot of the counties they'll put up fire hydrants for the ranchers. But what the cartels will do,

the growers in the middle of the night, they'll tap into the fire hydrants and just pump, pump water all day. Where I live in Antelope Valley, we have about a hundred fire hydrants for the ranchers. Because of water stuff is so high, they shut off like about like 60 of them so we're down i think we got like 40 left crazy up in doris up in doris california they have like about 100

of these fire hydrants and the same thing's happening right middle of the night they're getting hit with the water theft the thing is um to lock those fire hydrants they uh the lock costs 100 bucks but this little town is so poor they can't afford these fucking locks these 100 locks for 100 to put on these locks so they're just like they don't know holy shit i'm laughing because it's like so absurd that this is like happening in the u.s and like just how blatant it is in 2022 as well horday amazing amazing amazing uh 82 minutes thank you brother for coming on thanks for sharing your story uh can't wait to have you on again you demand as always yeah thank you and tell your grinder date sorry um he can have you back now all right all right thanks

later all right thank you did he get the grind, the dude in the back? Did he get the grind? I think he did right at the end. He was like, wait, what? Dude, that is crazy. I watched the doc. I know you watched the doc too, but it was just like, you wouldn't think of it being the wild, wild west. And all I have to do is drive about two hours north. Not even.

I know. It's so close to us. I know. Yeah. Yeah. And it was nuts because that, like I was told a little bit here, but I knew a guy that lived in Mendocino County and that's what he did. He needs some mob guys out in the East coast and he would ship between 10 and like 20 pounds

just through the local mail, mail parcels that parcels there in the town. And they had people that worked at each one. So it'd be like, Oh, go see john on thursday between 10 and 6 you're gonna hand him this package you're gonna go to ups and this time you're gonna see so and so at this time and um he would actually receive money back through the mail 60 70 grand at a time coming through there and they had that whole area but you know what's interesting the difference between him and what uh hori was explaining with the cartels is that, you know, obviously it was very illegal and it was going across state lines, but he had a family there. They were invested in the schools there. He had like a, you know,

a small business in the town. So at least some of that money circulated back into the local economy by it through the black market. But it's nuts when you have the cartels coming in, taking all that water, taking all that stuff stuff and it's just leaving us bone dry there's nothing being reinvested back into it whoever pays the bills is in charge and so if the cartel is paying the bills they're in charge that's i mean that's why the democrats want to give away so much welfare well he started the conversation with um them noticing all the new registered voters right that's right it started hey there's something weird there's 500 new registered voters, right? That's right. It started, hey, there's something weird. There's 500 new registered voters

in a town of a thousand fucking people. This seems odd. And then you saw more and more and more of that. Wow. All right. Live call-in show tomorrow night. Is that the plan? Yeah.

Okay. Guys, I think that show will be at 7 p.m. tomorrow. Crazy travel day tomorrow um hillar voice idiot hillar voice idiot bummer i thought it started at 8 pacific standard time we could we could start at 8 we started late you need to start at 8 we started at 8 for you eric whatever you need boy okay um we'll talk to you guys soon thanks checking in great day uh if you didn't get to check out the podcast this morning with niggy rodriguez and uh mr jason kalipa please check it out we got alex stein rescheduled uh we have live calling show uh tomorrow evening

and then i think we have uh an affiliate show the following day and then then I think we have a UFC show with Nunley and daring weeks on Friday. Yep. I'm going to try for the next, uh, nine or 10 days only to do one show a day, all of them at 7. A.M. Um,

my kids got a jujitsu tournament on September 10th. I want to make sure that I'm getting them to all their classes and all their, uh, training over the next 10 days. Cause we've been slacking the last two weeks being down here at the beach every day all right guys uh see you guys soon suza thank you