The link between cartel narcoterrorism and Iran’s regime

0:00Good day. Welcome to the Midday Report. On the America out loud news talk radio network that counter momentum has been, I'm your host, Dr. Franco Museo. To our friends listening in the United States and around the world, well, you know, I mentioned this over the last few weeks and more, that there's no lack of hard news items to keep our adrenaline going. Our aim though, and especially now, our aim is to dissect out the nuances and underlying causes and foundations of the events with which we come into contact now continuously. So this show, I am calling the link between the cartel narcoterism machines plural and the ongoing take down of the Iranian regime. But we can't get away from this mammoth, these plural mammoth military activities between the U.S. and Israel against Iran. I'm privileged to introduce a world expert on this topic. This is our fourth show together. Director

1:03Richard Baum, he served in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, ONDCP for two decades, in a variety of positions through five presidential administrations. He was acting director, that is, the drugs are from March 2017 to February 2018 during President Trump's first term. In this position, he served as the principal advisor of the president on drug policy and worked directly with cabinet secretary. So much of his tenure as acting director, he served concurrently as executive director of the president's commission on combating drug addiction and the opioid crisis. Director Baum, he has both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Georgetown University as well as a master's in public administration from the University of Colorado. He's an adjunct professor of public policy at Georgetown's University of Macquarie Graduate School. I'm going to say a little bit about him because there's a lot. But this is important. It's important. He led the creation of key strategies

2:10addressing organized crime, which is what we're going to talk about today, of course. So he was worked with the Southwest Border Drug Traffic, synthetic drugs, focusing on identifying and responding to, boy, evolving and emerging drug threats, those are everlasting. And of course, he has a huge grasp, comprehensive grasp on all of this. He's had boots on the ground. He's worked not only in policy, but in real life and reality. And he's been had been working with a key household named leaders. We would all recognize. So these experiences have served as an incredible foundation for his new book. I'm looking at it right this moment. And I told him before I need him to sign it. So it's titled Inside America's opioid crisis, 12-hard lessons for today's drug war, which it's an incredible title. I'm going through it and I'm outlining it. Not paragraph by paragraph, yes, that too,

3:13but chapter by chapter. So it can be purchased at America Amazon. I'm sorry.com, the publisher, Bloomsbury Publishing and major retail bookstores. If that's the case, and it is, your book is in major retail bookstores. So you've made it. What I want to do, there's so much to talk about as usual. I want to divide this into several segments. The first, just being foundations and understanding cartel operations. And then after that, the links between Iran and international cartels. And I wasn't aware, but quite a few. And then the after we get to it, the aftermath of the Iranian regime take down. It's being taken down as we speak. What's going to happen after that? So I'm going to set the stage rich and our director and as an introduction. And then I'm going to unleash the director. But director, Bob, you just chime in as I talk and talk. Okay. So this is. Thank you for the generous. Absolutely. And welcome. Welcome to the show. I'm

4:18sorry. I'm talking over you. So thank you for agreeing to that law. Speak with us. So here we go. What we spoke about this a little bit. So the Trump administration, he's using different angles of different lines of attack in terms of drug trade. So he designated several Latin American drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations as FTOS for interior organization and SDGT specialty designated global terrorists these acronyms I trouble with. And as an effective date in February, the end of February 20th, 2025. So what he did was he marked a huge shift in policy. Apply and see what you think. But we expect applying terrorism related sanctions to criminal organizations and involved of course in traffic and fentanyl and other drugs in the US. But I'm going to name eight of them because these were the initial ones. So you have Trendy

5:23Aragwin, Venezuela. You have MS-13, which by the way originated in Los Angeles. And then of course more roots in El Salvador. And then six big ones in Mexico sent a lower cartel. You have the cartel de jelisco, the over generation. This is where the last one the most recent news came from. You have the Northeast cartel. You have a familiar mechocana in Mexico. You have the Gulf cartel and you have the United cartel. So I'm going to be honest because you know all these very well. You know, I think it is, you know, when you're working government, you get a map with the different powers of where the different cartels operate. And people, the cartels, things go, they go off and down. But I think for folks listening, it's the cinema cartel and CJ and G El Manchos cartel. Those are really the primary focus, the two leading cartels. And I think

6:25really the ones to know about. But as we talked about in previous podcasts, the whole industry in Mexico of drug trafficking is a giant network of 175,000 employees working all across the country with the goal of making money and moving drugs and staying in business and evading efforts by the US to stop the drug trafficking flow. And there's been terrific and very focused and aggressive actions by the Trump administration. But drug trafficking is a tough business. So we have to stay at it. Yeah, well, they're doing a good job. So with these designations, this has helped kind of authorize, if you will, the US government in blocking assets, implosing travel bands on their members because they're quite a few. And they call it the prohibition of providing materials support to these groups. So anything coming from the outside

7:28and any abatement, any enablement in any way is by gather a terrorist activity or abetting terrorists. And so far there's 81 foreign terrorist organizations. It's not only the drug cartels, but it's the other terrorist groups. And I was mentioning before we went on air here to director. But to me, it's crystallizing. If you take the 40,000 foot view of all of this, the drug cartels, well, they're intimately involved in a lot of bad things. And ultimately, we'll get to it in the second segment, helps fund other activities, other bad activities, like what's going on now with Haswell. And again, we'll talk about it later. But these are bad guys. And drugs are the the fuel, I guess, to nurture other bad activities, which could be separate

8:29if I could just add, please, I get to really a critical point. You know, a lot of people who like maybe work in the anti-drug space, like, oh, only there wasn't a drug trafficking or only a drug's illegal, then these organized criminal groups go away. And that's not the way these things work is it may be that say in Central America and the Caribbean that the gangs and trafficking groups got larger, stronger and bigger because of the opportunities to make money from selling drugs. But it's not like once these gangs and criminal groups are established with their own network, if suddenly there was a cocaine drought and they couldn't move cocaine, that they were going to go into, you know, starting a supermarkets, right? They go into other illegal activities, you know, illegal immigration, prostitution, gambling. And you know, you can really think of Tony soprano, right? Sitting up, sitting in his clubhouse or something is like, he's up for it,

9:31you know, drugs, illicit athletic cards, stolen equipment. He's got to keep feeding the beast, right? Because drug cartels, they got payrolls, they got to pay off for up to fichels, they have staff, they have expenses, they buy the drugs, they owe people money. So I think the point is, is that, however these groups initially formed, once they're started, and it often is drugs, because drug sales can be so lucrative, they get into other things. Like arms, arms, for example, weapons at arms, and it's a critical factor. If you are a rebel group, say in somewhere in Latin America, this is true in Colombia, this is true in Peru, and you're trying to overthrow the government, people turn to drugs to finance their operations. So it's a big part of funding, illicit and dangerous activities around the world.

10:38So if they could make money, like we were saying, weapons, but if they could make money, usually what money, money comes from illicit type of activities, but I'm going to talk about avocados in a minute or lines, what if they, if they took over the whole line industry in Latin America, and that for whatever reason was like gold, they would do that. They would do that. Right. I mean, they, you know, they can tax it, they can put, they can go visit the farmers, and say, okay, you owe us extra dollars, because of how many avocados and lines. Yeah, yeah. But I think they're doing that anyway. But yeah, yes. And then the aside, are they, are these guys going to murder their families? And the answer is probably yes. So they're forced to, to, you know, to pay the bribe. And so they, it keeps these cartels in business as I diversify. So just recently, it came to light. And just last week, March the 3rd, that the U.S.

11:42security, as well as U.S. Southern Command was involved with the Ecuadorian forces. And they were, they were hitting drug trafficking networks in Ecuador and linked to Los Lobos and Los Choneros groups. And those had become a foreign terrorist organizations as of September of this past year by Marco Rubio. So this in tandem with Operation Southern Spear that there's just a growing and growing kind of, if you will, good guy's network and trying to take these bad guys down. Then we found out about a little mention show, a mention of February 22nd in, I was going to say Puerto Rico, no, Puerto Vallarta. And the leader of Jalisco, the new generation cartel. And he was, I guess, visiting his covertly, of course, all of this is covertly his lover. And then there were tips about all of this. And I mean, I mean, yes, it was true. She was visiting him right in one of his, oh, she was visiting locations, right? But they were able to, to track her movement and

12:49figure it out. Yeah. That was great, a great operation. I mean, this was huge, a huge blow against Mexican cartels. I, I, we gathered since the, the, the capture of what's his name? El Chapo, El Chapo, Guzmán, although he was not killed, but he was, he was captured. And then clearly, he's in Venezuela. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this guy was, he's still in, they'll be in prison for a long, long time. Absolutely. And yeah, I think this, this decapitation of cartel leaders, it doesn't solve the whole problem, but you know, it helps. Yeah. So I appreciate those accomplishments. And I hope that they'll be, you know, sustained follow up in supporting partner countries and taking on these gangs and violent groups that are hurting the United States, but also hurting these host countries in the region. So you and I talked about initially Venezuela and then Maduro and then taking him down to, so, you know, and we were finding out how harrowing that really

13:53that military operation was. We found out a lot about it during the Trump speech during the state of the Union address. But I, I wanted going to some specifics and it, well, let me start large brush strokes. You had large brush strokes, you mentioned. So they're very sophisticated. They use violence, terrorist tactics. They're, they have an economic model. So it kind of sophisticated, bad guy's economic model. They do money laundering. They do smuggling trafficking, arms trafficking, human trafficking, other crimes, other. So I didn't know that they were, actually I did hear about the environmental crimes like illegal mining and stealing petroleum, stealing petroleum. And then they use cryptocurrency. They, they deal with Chinese, the Chinese money laundering networks. They have trade-based schemes to repatriate billions of dollars back to Mexico goes on and on.

14:58Absolutely. It's a global threat and naturally in the United States, we focus on what's affecting our people. And that is the production of fentanyl and methamphetamine in Mexico and the trend shipment of cocaine to the United States. And the, the substance is really manufactured based on pre-person chemicals produced in China and smuggled their traffic into Mexico. So that is a huge threat to the United States that has a definitely our attention. And I've had a lot of people working on it in the US. But it's a global market. And just as synthetic drugs are like fentanyl and methamphetamine and take it over the US market, there are synthetic drug markets that are growing in the Middle East. And Captagon, which is an identity-type stimulant, is a very, very dominant market in the Middle East, sold throughout the region and already in groups,

16:02foreign Hezbollah, Syrians, Houthis, they're involved in moving that around the region. So we're going to, we're going to talk about that more specifically in the next segment. But I found very interesting this structure and we're going to go to breaking just a moment here. But the structure, the organizational structure, not only do they threaten local, they bribe and threaten high-level officials, police, military personnel. And so, and then what that ensures is imputed impunity and protection for them. I don't know how I could be president of Mexico in situations like this. I just don't know because it's a thankless job. And you have to be involved in this in some way. One about a third of the territory is basically governed by the bad guys. So hold that thought. We're going to come back in just a moment. Time goes by quickly here. We're going to go to commercial break. And, and on the flip side, on the other side, we'll continue with director bomb and go into more specifics of the cartels.

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19:12out loud today, get the Malcolm Healthy Gut bundle, reboot your gut and your energy and save 20% on your first order. Boral hygiene hasn't changed in 50 years, but our diet and the way we eat has, creating an environment in your mouth for bacteria to wreck havoc on your teeth and gums. For better oral health, get Sprite Dental Defense, an oral care line designed to combat acid-creating bacteria. The toothpaste, mouthwash, mints, and gum all contain xylitol, and natural ingredients shown to dramatically improve oral health. Sprite can be found online and at all find natural retailers. Welcome back. Welcome back and we're talking with director Shabba. Director Shabba, that's a good one. Director Balm. We may talk about the Mexican president a little bit later here. But in terms of kind of, as I said, brush strokes

20:16and now more specifically, the higher, the different structures, I find this just fascinating. So you have my understanding and certainly director can fill me in. They utilize different business structures. So you could have a pyramidal structure, you could have a fluid, more fluid network with an umbrella model. So the hierarchical structure, pyramidal structure, you have lured, strug lured. So they're the big bosses here. They appoint the leaders. They make the alliances. They basically control the entire organization. Like, let's say the Iatola or Iatola number two now. I don't think he's going to be around for very long this sun. Then you have lieutenants. So they have specific territories or hitmen. They supervise them though. That they hitmen in the scouts. They supervise men. Then you have the hitmen. So they're the ones, cicareos. They're the ones who do the violence. They carry out the violence, the assassinations, the kidnappings. So they use military grade assets too.

21:21And then the bottom of the bottom is the Falcons, right? The Halsions, the lowest level scouts and who monitored the police and kind of rival activity. But that's the pyramidal structure. And then it's kind of like a militarized bad guys multinational corporation. So you have territorial control. You have supply chain issues. Then, then correct me if I'm wrong. You have an umbrella model. So it's like the Sinaloa cartels that you have into a number of independent cells. Rather than a strict hierarchy, it's kind of decentralized and it's under a larger umbrella. So if one of the bosses is taken out, then you have that's okay because you have other bosses who kind of take over. So am I right? Or am I wrong, director boom? Yeah. No, you make a good point. And the structure is very based on the circumstances. But I tell you what I look for. When you have elements of the government actually involved

22:26in doing the trafficking, you really have a problem. Yes, of the right of Iran with the Islamic revolutionary guards facilitating our comics trafficking. You know, it's hard enough for a legitimate government to fight, fight traffickers. And I know I'm going to talk more about Mexico later, but they are overall still making efforts to fight the traffickers. But when they're a partner in governing, or not a partner in governing, but a partner in a critical part of the government process of generating funds like the Islamic revolutionary guards or the Venezuelan government, then you really have a problem. That's very tough one because then the good guys who are charged with combating drugs can't do their jobs or corrupt it and part of the problem. Yeah. But what really gets me is you need to have maybe some advanced degrees in economics to

23:28to to run these organizations, you know, that it got only knows London's School of Economics. These are these are people. But you know, I mean, you're right that it sounds funny when you think about it. Yeah. If you have, if you have a big operation and you're making billions of dollars like in the case of the Mexican cartels or maybe hundreds of millions of dollars from the Islamic revolutionary guards, you need people just like a corporation, right? You need lawyers, you need consultants, you need money managers, you need facilitators, transporters. So yeah, you need it all, you need a corporate headquarters, you need record keeping, all these things, you know, it's not like these are like three guys standing on a street corner, right? These are international operations with complex relationships. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder I wonder when they apply for jobs. I'm making light of it, but it's not very very funny. But when they when they quote unquote apply, this is all covertly,

24:33if they have resumes, you know, like, for example, one person has worked his way up the pyramid in one cartel and then he wants to change cartels to let's say in the fluid model, you know, the umbrella model, he wants to go to another cartel. So he gets recommendations from from his peers and and then he joins another cartel that that are in cohertz with that cartel. I I doesn't work that way. No, no, no, no, it sounds crazy. I think I think they would do what you know and I've learned in my career is that everything goes back to personal relationships, right? So even if you had a fantastic, amazing cartel resume, and people don't know you and trust you, then you're not going anywhere. And actually, a lot of it is true. I think in government and in corporate companies, especially for hiring senior officials, you just knock it up. You don't want to pick a resume that's been written by AI out of a big pile. You want to know somebody who is who's either someone

25:39you trust or you yourself have worked with them and people have reputations. So I'm sure it's more informal network than a, uh, uh, uh, formal, town interview and, uh, I know, I know, I know, I know I'm kidding. Okay, let's let's segue over to to what's going on in Iran between the Israeli and the United States and Iran. And and I'm learning a lot here. So just a week ago, 11 days ago, we're going to be, uh, this is, uh, we're taping now one day in advance. So on Tuesday, it's, it's day 11. There are this, this war. And by the way, we're not getting a whole lot of information. We're getting some from the Israelis has to what we are actually doing ourselves and the Israelis, but we don't have embedded, such as in the Iraq, embedded reporters. But, but there's key, key alliances here between Latin America and the proxies. And, and we've had

26:40multiple, multiple strikes, again, going on as we speak. But I wasn't aware of the very intense nexus between Iran, their proxies, meaning Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis and the whole all of narcoterism. So, so Hezbollah, for example, and you had mentioned this director before that there's a direct link with Latin America cartels. Uh, they rely heavily on funding Hezbollah from Iran. But, um, but there's a lot of covert money coming on because of their, their links with the drug cartels. Uh, and Venezuela as a hub for all of this. And then in addition to all this, these, um, Iran itself, kind of outsource outsource other transnational crime syndicates as well that that do are involved in drugs like the Irish, the, the Canankartel, the Foxtrot in Sweden, you have Hell's Angels in Germany. So, there's a, there's a whole huge

27:45underground network of bad guys stemming from Iran. Uh, yeah, you know, I think also just to talk about the demand side permitted in the Middle East, you have a lot of these societies, um, have going, have huge demand, uh, for drugs, along them are, uh, are under stress, particularly these war zones, um, and, uh, and they don't have much treatment, right? And, uh, and, and even some right, they don't allow alcohol. So, there's a huge market. It's very profitable. And especially if there are sanctioned economy like Iran and you have limited ability to generate funds. Um, right. It's being involved. The drug market is, is very valuable. Uh, and they have great market opportunity because of the Taliban starting in 2022, right? It's cut opioid production and, uh, and that reduces the heroin flow. So, although mostly it's been a capsicone and methamphetamines,

28:46there's a real market opportunity for synthetic opioids and other drugs that is throwing, uh, with less heroin in the region. So, it's just a hugely lucrative industry. And if you, uh, don't have any, have any morals and are doing things like selling drugs, uh, they say it's a great market opportunity. Yeah, you know, the analogy I'm thinking about. So, um, on the east coast of the United States and probably all over the world, there's underground springs. There's under, and in fact, one person named, uh, named it an underground ocean. So, in fact, we all live, uh, above underground oceans in different depths and such. And that, that's why they call this underground networks is that there's a huge, huge, different sphere, undersphere, uh, below Iran and the Middle East of a very, very active, uh, illicit movements to, to generate money, to generate money. So, um, let me talk about what we've been hearing a lot is the IRG, the Islamic Revolution

29:52Guard Corps. So, they are really the bad guys, the IRGC, that they are basically what maintain Iran and the Quds Force, which is an elite unit. They label them as elite. I don't know how elite they really are, but, uh, but nonetheless, they're really kind of the gatekeepers or the, I should say, the bookies of the, the, the, um, the principles in terms of running this underground network in order to fund their own operations. So, it's, it's independent of formal state funding, independent of that. But the IRGCs and, and their proxies, like Hezbollah, we talked about, Hezbollah. So, so, what are they doing? They're shadow warfare, they're, there's laundering money. They're clearly in efforts to evade sanctions from the US and international sanctions. So, I find that fascinating that not only are they bad guys in terms of weapons and killing their own people for protesting, right? But, but in terms of funding themselves, well, they're, they're very much

30:57into, into drugs. Yeah, they don't need to have much empathy for their own people and, uh, I almost think of the analogy of Hamas, right? Or use, uh, of their own civilians, women, children, hospitals, uh, as shields, uh, in order to, um, protect themselves. These, uh, these, uh, Iranian, uh, groups, uh, Hezbollah, uh, Iran, uh, who are supported by Iran and the, uh, and, and the, uh, the, uh, the guard in, um, in, uh, in, uh, Iran. They just are, need to, they want to finance their operations. They want to keep everyone paid, uh, and they want, uh, they need money for it. I mean, they have to have it. It's, uh, it's, uh, and they'll do anything for it. And if selling drugs even to their own people, it's not a problem. Not a problem. And, and if I got, you know, I was wondering, my wife and I were speaking. My wife was born in Tehran. She came here when she was 12, and, um, she's watching along with me, the sections of, uh, Tehran are being blown up and hopefully

32:02not so much the, um, the private areas, you know, the civilian areas, but, but missile launchers, you name it, you name it, most of which we're not even aware of what's being blown up. Um, but, uh, is she, she's just, in a way, happy that all of this is happening, that, that it makes sense that it is, but that there's such, such, um, nepotism isn't the right word. Is it such illegal, such illegal in terms of their own people? Um, and, and they favor, they favor this, they, they favor giving it to their own people too. And in fact, there's a huge opium crisis in, um, overdose, uh, it, not only overdose, but addiction, problem in Iran. And in terms of even, as you say, killing their own people or, or having their own people take the drugs, you remember ISIS not too long ago and the horrendous things they were doing. A lot of them were

33:03on CAPTAGON or, or were on heroin or were on, because they couldn't even face what, what horrible things they were doing. Um, yeah, decapitating people and they showed that on video. It was horrible, but they were on drugs themselves, even Hamas. Uh, a lot of those people were on, on, um, on their own drugs, on their own drugs. It's really sick. Yeah. It's really sick. It is, it is, and, um, you know, uh, if all you care about is the military objective, you will give the, give your own people, uh, uh, uh, uh, drugs to keep going and keep moving ahead. And especially if people are, uh, uh, perhaps, uh, has been to certain things, um, they have ways of incentivizing them and, and, and stimulants can be a part of it. So, um, yeah, it's a very dark part of, um, of the world, um, that we live in. These are, these are terrorist states, right? They have, uh,

34:05their objectives are involved, um, you know, they're, uh, religious beliefs, um, their hatred for Israel and the US, uh, and others who don't support their views. It's very deep. And, uh, yeah, they use some horrible things, um, which is why hopefully we'll end up with a, with a better regime. Oh my god. Yeah, we'll talk about this next segment, but what may happen, hopefully, hopefully, this will have an impact, a negative impact on, on Latin America. Um, now, the proxy warfare and the funding of the proxy warfare of, we talked about Hezbollah and, uh, Hamas and, um, and who these now? So, so there, there's hybrid war weapons from, for Iran, we talked about this as an arco-terrorism and, and the funding. So, so the funding is, is, of course, key. You can't have a war without money. You can't have a war without, you can't, um, or anything. So you can't be bad and have bad activities, criminal activities without funding

35:10of those activities, all right? It's all good and all good to dry up. But, um, the links between Latin America, so Colombia, Mexico, Hezbollah, and then, of course, Venezuela as a hub for trafficking, money laundering. The money laundering is unbelievable. And, you know, we didn't talk about the tribe order area that, that, because I remember that the arch, you know, the Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, that area, my understanding is that there's a lot going on there. Yep. It's, it's just wide open. In terms, in terms of drugs. So, um, it, it's kind of comical, but that these Hezbollah spiritual leaders, they've issued fought-wise, religious rulings. And they said, you know, it's okay, it's okay to sell narcotics. It's okay to these Western infidels. And, because not, not to our own people, but to them. And so it's kind of a warfare against the enemies of Iran, because Hezbollah

36:14equals Hamas equals Iran in, in my book. Yeah. But whenever you have drug markets, uh, drugs moving through a country, there's always local drug market sales. So, even if their objective is to, uh, they get the drugs to Saudi Arabia or, or even to Europe, you're, you're, you're not going to operate a drug business and not sell to your local community. So, I'm sure, surely, they're, um, they have, um, a lot of local people affected. Mm-hmm. So, so hence, uh, trend the word transnational, not only with the drug cartels in Latin America, but, but all over the world. So, so local and, and all throughout. Um, so, so the, the intelligence community, what, what I'm hearing is the Western Middle Eastern intelligence. Um, that they suggest that these efforts, these narcotic experts, these trafficking efforts, uh, it could be aimed at

37:17consolidating control. So, not only the ballistic missiles and the ballistic missiles that could be potentially capped with nuclear weapons, but as an additional layer of control is this, uh, the money from the drug trafficking and, and receiving funds from drug trafficking. That, that's, or, and I'm guessing now, but these funds may help them to buy ballistic missiles and to, to, you sharpen the ballistic missiles. So, it's like all one big kind of nest. Well, you know, they, they need money to pay, pay their people to buy things and things moving. So, all, all parts of it, the logistics, the equipment, um, smuggling networks, uh, all, all, all interlinked and, uh, like you pointed out earlier, uh, you know, there's oil, uh, and, uh, and there's drones, and there isn't a lot of other, um, exports, uh, that, uh, that, uh, these countries under, uh, the rest of sanctions, uh, can turn to, you know, um, yes, nope, it's, uh, yeah, it's part of what they're

38:23using in, in their, in their current network. Yeah. So, director bomb, hold that thought, we're going to come back to more recent events over the last couple of days. In just a moment, we're going to go to commercial break and hold the tights. I'm Doug Evans, author of the Sprout Book, and I'm also a father with a three year old daughter, and that's why we grow sprouts. Did you know that you could take seeds, add water and get fresh organic vegetables in three to five days without soil, sunshine or fertilizer for under a dollar serving? That's the miracle of spouting, and I want to share that with you. Go to thespoutingcompany.com slash out loud and use the code out loud for a special offer. Are you looking for a healthy snacks? But you've had enough of all the sweet, sugary energy bars? Good news. There's new bars to try. That savory crunchy and packed with

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40:29soul and the mind to the outflow truth. And we are back with director Baum, Richard Baum. The drugs are. The acting drugs are under the first Trump administration. His first drugs, Trump's first drugs are. So thank you, thank you back. You know, before we start talking about a couple of other things here, the opium in Afghanistan, which is huge. Not only Afghanistan, so there's Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, kind of the golden crescent where opium comes from the Taliban, said, no, it's against our religion. I don't know about that. And then morphine can be extracted from it. And then chemically, from there, the morphine chemically a chemical process for heroin, heroin to be produced.

41:32So although, and also what Iran, we didn't talk about this, the methamphetamines. So they have these Iranian, they label themselves, they call themselves cooks to work with methamphetamines and or to produce methamphetamines. And also we talked about China producing the precursors, going to Mexico or Latin America for fentanyl. But India has a connection as well. So they can join the party too. Absolutely. China is the primary supplier, but there are other places that produce the synthetic opioid precursors. So it is a large little market. And you know, the point Afghanistan and the Taliban's ban on opium production is, there's before the ban, there were many years of overproduction. So it's a little bit unclear how much it's in strategic reserve,

42:32right? By the action. I didn't realize that. So but at some point, since Afghanistan was such a central producer of opium, if they use up their reserves and they're not producing more because they're the Afghan Taliban government is threatening the farmers, then it really can impact drug markets and accelerate the transition to synthetic drugs. Because obviously people, depending on heroin, like can can be switched to fentanyl at the same same nominal opioid molecule. So yeah, very dangerous drug markets. So you're telling me the Taliban, so basically they're very hypocritical or are they not? So if they ban opium and so they have they've had reserves, what did they do with the, I doubt they burned down the reserves because this is a lot of money

43:33for the Taliban, but they're okay with methamphetamines. You're telling me the Taliban. Well, I don't know how the drug markets will change, but yeah, there is other drug production outside opium and possible that the focus on Taliban leaves room for other drug production. And again, it's not just the opium farmers, right? It's the people that the transporters and the networks that do it. And just like I was saying at the start of our conversation, like the gangs in the Central American Caribbean, they don't go into a conventional illicit economy, right? When their primary business dries out, they look for other illicit activities. So there really is a risk of accelerating this transition to very dangerous addictive synthetic drugs. So the mules, I guess they call them the mules, meaning that the actual traffickers, is that am I correct about that? Yes, yes, the lower level.

44:39No, no, I was just saying that I think that sometimes that's the right term, but also it's that it suggests like you got a couple of mules that you really have these piles of opium, you're taking it across and these networks are much more obviously modernized and know how to move products. And of course, particularly finished drugs and synthetic drugs are highly concentrated. So a lot easier to move into a country. I mean, a small suitcase of fentanyl, right, or methamphetamine pills can make a lot of money for people. The tons of money. So in just for a moment here in Mexico, my understanding is there's six kind of rates, super networks, super cartels. But then there's a lot of subsidiaries. Almost like Pizza Hut chains kind of, I guess, in a way. But then there's hundreds of fragmented groups below those. So there's major hegemonic cartels, kind of, you have six to eight,

45:44and then that we talked about. But then you have below the giants, you have other groups that are likewise very profitable. But what I'm reading is you could have up to 200, maybe even 400 or over 400 splinter groups. Yeah, these groups evolved based on all the law enforcement and military pressure they got under. So I support, of course, taking down these huge cartel leaders. But the networks are resilient. So you have to keep knocking off the leaders and also dig deeper into like the key nodes, right? Not every tractor operative is equally important. If you're the guy who does all the money laundering, right, or controls all the banking, you're a pretty important person. And so I think that's what investigators and operators and intel efforts do is they look for these vulnerable nodes to target, which include the cartel leadership, but are not moving to them. There's some very valuable operatives that we look for and focus on

46:49and try and take them down as well. You just mentioned bankers. So I gather their legitimate bankers who accept money under the table in order to be involved in this as well. And Jesus, it runs the whole thing. Doctors, scientists, politicians, everybody, it's all under the, but I gather they don't, they don't put this on their tax returns, do they? So they don't, they don't. No, I don't think so. And you know, and there is, it has been an effort, like in terms of the US in Mexico, of trying to focus on some of these banks, especially if they have US links. But, you know, it's complicated and there are always some unidentical actors to deal with. Oh, now I want to talk about just just the last couple of days. So I think Trump and so the current drugs are who, you know, very well, Sarah Carter. And, um, and I think they're going to call you. I really do like Scott Besson, you know, the Secretary of Treasury. He was,

47:51he was retired. He was having a happy life in North Carolina. And, uh, all of a sudden the Trump transition team called him and said, you know, you have a higher calling. You need to, you need to, and it turned out that a Secretary of Treasury is he's outstanding. I think there's something in the future for you here. I do. Um, but we'll have to wait and see. I'll call, I'll contract. Well, I'm, I'm enjoying going on podcast and talking to the public about these drug threats. Well, yeah. Um, yeah, I'm good now. You know, I wasn't coming for a, uh, a long time, with House staff member. And I've learned a lot. And I'm glad to be outside for a bit and, uh, focusing on the writing, teaching, and just sharing what I've learned. And that's why I'm so, um, you know, proud of the book I put together. Oh, it's an incredible book. I feel, I feel like what I hope it does for people who are interested in this subject and who

48:52maybe work in some adjacent field, I want to try and I know I humbly say I had a lot to learn. Over in my career, and I had gaps in my knowledge. And over time, many of them were filled. And now I want to pay that forward and accelerate other people's learning curve. So, uh, yeah, I encourage folks to, uh, if they work in a, in a field led into addiction or a drug policy, and they want to go a bit deeper to check out the book. I think not only for government and policy individuals, I think even the public in as a whole would benefit tremendously. Just learning about, learning about the intricacies, the mechanics at a national level, policy level, but also wire people psychologically into drugs. Why? Why? Why? Because if there weren't people taking these drugs, the money would wash up and you wouldn't have these cartels. But as I mentioned before, they would be doing other things. I don't know. They would, they would be doing other things.

49:54And there's always, there's always a supply and a demand dynamic where sometimes, you know, people say, oh, if there wasn't a demand, it wouldn't just supply. And there's some truth to that, depending on the drug, but also traffickers are entrepreneurial, right? And they are bringing these drugs and seeing what works in the market and then changing their product line based on what they're successful at. I mean, just back in the truck cocaine epidemic, there wasn't just huge demand for crack cocaine, the traffickers, the dealers created that and built that market. Staying with fentanyl, heroin users weren't looking for fentanyl. The traffickers decided that was cheaper and more profitable. So it's a supply part is important. And you know, from my these conversations, I think the public health and the spread is important too. But you can't ignore the supply side. You can't just deal with one part of the problem. You can't deal with the whole thing. Absolutely. Yes. So Thursday, a few days ago, the America's counter cartel coalition,

50:59A3C was formally launched by Secretary. I have trouble saying Secretary of War, Secretary of Defense, but Secretary of War hex said on Thursday, and he was at self-com headquarters. And so this was officially announced a couple days later, I want to say on Saturday, on the 7th of March at the Shield of America Summit. So it's a 17 nation coalition designed to combat, disrupt and destroy the cartels in the Western hemisphere, and and using military force if that's required. I think that's wonderful. So in addition to labeling groups as drug cartels as terrorist groups, which which kind of puts the foundation for our the acceptance, if you will, for our intervention and military intervention, then he's looking at other ways he and his advisors, of course, other ways to increase the war on these cartels.

52:02So I think it's just at its infancy because it was just announced that this America counter cartel coalition, but then on Saturday, sorry, Saturday, March the 7th, so he had another conference, he had the Shield of America Summit. And were you there? By the way, no, I was there, you know, I'm out of government now, I don't know, I know, I know, I know, but one of these days you will, so they're going to ask you to be Sarah Carter's boss, I think. But anyway, so now here on Saturday were 12, not 17, but 12 Latin American Caribbean nations, including Caribbean, but with a little bit of a difference that they were more politically aligned with Donald Trump. So the whole backdrop of the Shield of America Summit was always

53:02destroying the US leadership in the Western hemisphere, but another way to counter Chinese economic influence and also to address migration. So they called it and I found that the Dural Charter, because it was in Dural, Florida, together right outside of Miami. So, but the leaders I found very interesting. So these were Argentina, El Salvador, Ecuador, Paraguay, Chile, and but but they left out some key people as well and I want you to reflect on this. They left Mexico, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and Canada from the Western hemisphere weren't there. Although I have to say 17 people signing that agreement is a good start and look, there's a lot of problems and a lot of challenges and these countries are willing to work with us to have joint operations and efforts. They can accelerate progress. So let's get started

54:08and trying to grade these trafficking networks that best we can. And the key is, and I think people know this, we don't really operate in a way where we would bomb or attack partel hubs or operational centers or drug labs without the permission and collaboration with the host country, right? I mean, I know it's tempting, but if you go in and you bomb some place, you're going to make a permanent enemy out of that host country unless they're in on the operation. So the fact that it creates this opportunity for these 17 countries to have joint operations where the intel teams and the operation teams can work together and if they want to use a Southcom's capability and they accept that fantastic, they want to do it on their own, that's fine as well. But a stronger effort against these traffickers, they increase the costs and consequences of moving drugs north towards

55:12the U.S. and to other countries. And that's progress requires a lot of follow on work and focus, right? Because you need the intel, the operational details, you need the capacity of the host countries to move their people around to the left capacity. And if some of these people you're arresting, the digital system actually works, right? So a great start, but a lot of work to do. So director, you said, I want to stop you there because you said that if they're able to, well, they're not able to, meaning the countries, if they're able to stop these network, I'm going to invite you to another talk here, another conversation. So thank you so much for sharing your insights. You have a lot, a lot, a lot of insights. That's why I was kind of prodding you about going back into government and being having an additional role in government, maybe overseeing everything here. Alrighty, well, thank you so much to our audience, our listening

56:15audience. I enthusiastically look forward to being with you weekly on the counter momentum of spin, where we will endeavor, we will endeavor to address and work towards solving the problems of the world. How far we get, we'll make one little chip at a time. So please note that this show, in all the shows on America Cloud Radio, go to your favorite podcast networks within 24 hours. Apple podcast, Spotify, Pandora, tune in, Amazon, iHeart Radio, and others. Have a great day. Thank God bless you.