Inside Mexico’s Cartel Civil War

Ajouté : 2026-05-05

[00:00:05]Tonight, Mexican authorities say they've killed the drug kingpin known as Eleno, the leader of the Haliscoco New Generation Cartel.

[00:00:12]>> And Meno made Hisco New Generation Cartel from something that was not known to the most powerful drug cartel in the world.

[00:00:19]>> I'm here with Canal Cinco Latino America. We just arrived to the house where they got Mencho. Windows are shot out. Everything is torn apart. It looks like the military came through the front the the forest area in front of the house because it's all burned down. Some of it actually as we're driving by is still on fire or smoking. It's like smoldering.

[00:00:39]>> Let's talk about the actual Elmeno raid.

[00:00:41]What happened there?

[00:00:42]>> What happened was there was two Mexican special forces units. One from the military looks like in the National Guard kind of did the outer perimeter and there was a significant shootout and they killed Mento and his a couple members of HIS BODYGUARDS.

[00:00:56]THERE is interesting reporting that's coming out indicating that Invention might have been executed. So, he surrendered and they executed him, which wouldn't be surprising. We've seen the Mexican military do that, especially for high level figures where they don't want to deal with that person. They'll just straight up execute the person, right?

[00:01:11]We have no confirmation that definitely killed.

[00:01:19]A lot of people don't believe that Mena was captured because it's incredibly hard for them to believe that he would have stayed at that location considering the two Marina helicopters were circling the area exactly where he was.

[00:01:44]On February 22nd of 2026, El Mencho was killed during a National Guard operation in Tapala, Halisco. Elmeno was the leader of the CJNG, the Halisco New Generation Cartel, a hyperviolent and extremely powerful criminal syndicate known for their international drug smuggling and heavily trained hitmen used unsparingly for their various conflicts. My name is Stephan Rendo. I'm the chief intelligence officer of Artorius, which is an AIdriven uh OSENT intelligence company. I'm also All Source News which covers Mexican cartels and I've been doing that since 2021.

[00:02:13]It's really been a huge focus of mine.

[00:02:15]>> So I want to talk about Eleno's life.

[00:02:17]Who was Eleno before becoming a cartel boss?

[00:02:19]>> I mean you can look at his story and say you know he came here as an illegal drug smuggling a lot of those operations was detained, deported. I believe it was in San Francisco group >> and Redwood City had a huge meth operation >> where I think Aleno had his break. like how do you make not only the most powerful drug cartel in Mexico but the most powerful criminal organization in the world and I think it's because of his connections with the Van Gonzalez family that his his wife that then they got separated I believe in 2018 was Rosalinda that family controls all the money so when he was deported he was kind of do still doing all the drugs here this was a huge explosion in growth that it just I think caught a lot of people off guard because we had no hardcore evidence of a lot of the things about him and that just shows that he was able to operate very secretively in the shadows, but even still was able to influence large segments of America and Mexico. He was very unique in his game.

[00:03:09]He knew how the money and the guns intertwined. He knew the network and the families. He knew the corruption and the politicians and he knew how to play everybody against each other to enable him to grow to the power figure that he is now. Imagine the corporation Amazon and the the Blackwater, right? The mercenary group in the US merge into one. That's what a cartel is. The Trump administration, for example, has six cartels designated as foreign terrorist organization. The Sinaloa cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Northeast Cartel, the United Cartel, the Lova Familia, and the Kalisku Generation Cartel. There's more than just those six. Each of them operate in different areas. They make money certain ways. They have different plaza bosses, etc. If you look at Mexican cartels as a whole, they would be considered the fifth largest employer inside of Mexico. Generation cartel makes billions of dollars every year in just oil smuggling into the US. uh avocado trade, lime trade. I mean, they're involved in so many industries and that's why they're so powerful. And I would even there's even suspicion that Elmeno has a dominance just in the drug trade and the cocaine trade. I mean, he he has really built in a decade an empire of a Mexican cartel.

[00:04:11]>> Once we got word that the operation was carried out against Elno, we got in touch with ironclad reporter Katarina, who went boots on the ground in Tabalpa within 24 hours.

[00:04:20]>> This is the region where Elmen was captured and killed. There's a massive police presence around me, as you can tell. A few burned vehicles and storefronts. It's also important to keep in mind that tonight is supposed to be El Meno's funeral. And the CGNG have requested that the Mexican government return the body, repatriate the body to the cartel. There's a threat that if they don't repatriate the body, they will shoot everybody up, cause chaos again like they did. We're literally at the spot where Mena was captured and killed.

[00:05:01]We're driving up to one of Aleno's homes here and you can see residue of a burnt vehicle on the pathway to Mencho's house. We've seen a lot of of this going on where you can see where a vehicle was burnt. This whole forest area behind us was actually completely destroyed by shootouts, fires. They were burning everything down.

[00:05:57]For veteran reporters, it was hard to believe that the raid was actually being executed. Elena was used to having the cops in his pocket. And generally, the raids against drug lords in Mexico are typically for show and don't result in anything tangible.

[00:06:22]I saw the first videos that said, "Hey, there's an operation in okay, Mexican operation. They're targeting a cartel. That's normal." And then we saw subsequently afterwards reports of what we would call these narco blockades, right? The burning of the vehicles and all that, but it was very it was kind of like in a a specific area very kind of close to Haliscoco.

[00:06:39]That's a normal occurrence. Then we started to see it in Porto Viarta and Porto Varta again it's a major tourist area. So so generally they don't want to necessarily do it in Portoarta unless they absolutely have to cuz that's my first little red flag that something big is going on. And then the second one is that we started to see the violence spread from the narco blockade. So it wasn't only in Kaliscoco. Then I started Mitwakan and generally when you see two states that's like a very senior guy but but what was very interesting it wasn't it wasn't just in two states it was in Halisco Mitakan Kolima Aaskcales Tamaribas even some areas I believe in Tabasco right it was basically all the territories that Holis generation cartel controls super fast super quick spread over and then it became very clear there's only one man who is able to cause this level amount of violence and I remember tweeting about it before it became confirmed like it has to be Almano and then subsequently We we got the reports that he was killed and then what was interesting was that shortly afterwards the holistic generation cartel said okay we're on a war path.

[00:07:36]It's important to note that the violence in Porto Vayarta and other parts of Mexico was very much physical damage.

[00:07:41]Like they didn't target Americans and for the most part they didn't even target civilians directly from a casualty perspective. They targeted businesses but not they weren't going for civilian casualties. But what they did specifically target and very effectively was the Mexican National Guard. I believe the last casualty figures we got was 28 Mexican National Guard soldiers were killed in the aftermath of that operation in directed attacks by holistan generation cartel for retaliation. So they slaughtered a large cont like that is the most violent day for the Mexican national guard since their inception during the previous Mexican president and that was generation cartel sending a message saying we're not going to tolerate this and just take it for granted. The reason I wanted to go to these two towns in Halisco, Elguo and Outlan, is because this was essentially ground zero for all of the chaos that ensued following Elmeno's capture and kill. And there was one individual who was held responsible for this. And he went by El Tuli. He was in this town we went to, El Guru, and he was the one who told CGNG, "Lock down.

[00:08:42]This is war." and basically burn Mexico down, >> prompting the US State Department to issue a rare shelter in place order for all Americans in those locations until further notice.

[00:08:54]>> He was actually the one responsible for sending the order that for every National Guard member that they kill, the perpetrator will receive 20,000 pesos. I keep wanting to call it a war zone, but I also, you know, don't want to declare that, although it really does look like that. I mean, when we're looking at all of the cartel lookouts, the military presence that eventually happened, the burned vehicles, the burned businesses, it looks like a war zone. The very place where one of the right-hand members in the CGNG and the person really responsible for making the call for everyone in CGNG across the country to start burning [ __ ] down and taking out National Guard. This is where he was taken out. When we arrived, there is a heavy cartel presence. no military, no police until we were leaving. And and that chaos became very obvious.

[00:09:42]>> The CGNG's violent response to Eleno's death has spread across 20 of Mexico's 32 states. As power dynamics continue to shift among the cartels and government ops, the rise in violence and retaliation attacks indicate a growing struggle for control of the land. Hey, what's up guys? I'm not in Mexico at all. I'm in Canada inside of an old growth beautiful forest called Stanley Park in Vancouver. But I want to show you guys something real quick. So on my phone here, I got ground news pulled up on my phone, which is a superfire dopeass news aggregate, which also happens to be Channel 5's primary research tool. So what ground news does, among many things, is compile media coverage of every major news story in the world, then map out coverage from left to right, so you can see what the hell is going on and how both sides of the political spectrum are covering news events as they unfold. Look, we know the media is completely compromised on both ends due to corporate capture by mostly tech overlords. But to grasp an often nuanced situation, you have to be able to see the forest through the trees if you know what the hell I'm saying. So, I use ground news on a goddamn daily basis for that exact reason. And right now, I have cartel typed in in the search bar, which takes me to a homepage where I can see several articles here about CJNG and Elmeno that ground news has split up by topic. One story beat dubbed El Mencho's death could worsen violence from narot traffickers features articles from various sides of the political aisle about the potential consequences of the post- raid power vacuum that's been created. 23 sources have covered this beat. On the left, the outlet Spiegel interviews a progressive political scientist and speculates that this raid would only worsen violence in Mexico.

[00:11:12]Then on the right, India Today's article is called Only Fans Model Denies She's Girlfriend Who Led Cops to Drug Lord Elmentoo, focusing solely on the role of women and mistresses in this situation.

[00:11:22]Funny enough, there's actually major nuggets of truth you can find in both articles. Yet, due to the algorithmic shaping of our social media feeds, it's almost impossible to get both sources in your brain. Break out of your echo chamber. Boom. Ground news. Because of their many tools, including the bias ranking, I follow all my major areas of interest like Middle Eastern conflict, criminal justice reform, and looks maxing on ground freaking news. Because they make it easier for me to develop the balanced perspective without having to endlessly sift through slop on the big four. For real, whatever topic you're into, download Ground News on your phone or go to their website, look for a topic page, and it's probably there. aggregating everything, mapping sources and stories by factuality, ownership, and volume. And of course, including information about news media ownership, so you can draw your own conclusion about what owner investors may be pushing an agenda and why. I genuinely believe in what Ground News is doing, and I use this [ __ ] every day.

[00:12:14]It's the perfect partner for Channel 5 because our missions effectively align.

[00:12:18]And guess what? Subscribing through my link, ground. / channel 5, which is currently in the description box and pin comment of this video, or hitting the QR code on screen right here, is a one-stop shop for you to join our team, Channel 5 Ground News Nation, Algorithmic Echo Chamber Explosion. Boom. And guess what?

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[00:12:45]Ground.new/ channel 5. There's a big ass bee, so I got to go. Got to get out of here. back to Mexico. I wrote a piece about this literally about the the militarization of drug cartels and I think to your point because they are able to then leverage that to really silence people at their women at their discretion because the Mexican government doesn't have what we would call the monopoly of violence. The idea is the president can order the military to conduct operations against the Iran or the drug cartels or Maduro say that's what we would consider the monopoly of violence. The state when the police with guns can detain you. the problem in Mexican cartels that's completely broken down and that's the new problem set that we're dealing with and that's militarization of the drug cartels. You have transactional cartels and territorial cartels. So what are the transactional cartels? What you're saying the drugs I need to sell the product. There's buyers in the US. So we got to get this there. A key example of this if people see Narcos Mexico the series the beginning of the Gualadara cartel with marijuana right that's all they cared about push drugs. The other cartel is the territorial cartel and we were talking about this earlier. Who would be a perfect example of a territorial cartel? The Zetas, right?

[00:13:47]What do they care about? They want territorial control because that's how they get money cuz they control the territory. So the routes, the drugs got >> and specifically for those who don't know, the Zetas control Tamalupas and the the Gulf region. So they wanted to be able to control the smuggling route into places like Renosa, etc. >> Yeah. All those areas. And they they they used to be gunmen and the kind of the armed wing of the golf cartel. And they said, "Hey, we can make more money.

[00:14:10]So how do we make money?" Well, we got to kick the golf cartel out of here.

[00:14:13]That's how they did it. And they became a territorial cartel. One of the fundamental issues of a territorial cartel, though, although all cartels are violence, is that they put a primary importance on the violence because they need to control the territory. And think about it in broad sense, like a war zone, right? Russia, Ukraine, they're fighting for territory. So, there's a lot of violence to get there. So, we're starting to see, I think, in the broad sense, every single cartel is kind of slowly transitioning into a primarily territorial focus. And that territorial focus inherently makes them more violent. Even if they lose money on drug trade, they can still make money other ways, even just extorting the civilian population and stay relevant.

[00:14:47]>> So the violence is almost a a tool of creating fear. So the fantastical violence, bodies from bridges, decapitating people, and leaving a message written on like a piece of cloth on the side of the road, that's to freak people out so they don't try to dispute the territorial control of the area.

[00:15:01]>> There are some areas that you get just a sheer level of brutality that I think shocks even those who've seen it. Like I when I was deployed, I saw ISIS execution videos and I can say hands down that the cartel videos are worse and and one of the most brutal ones I I want to explain this without sounding like a psychopath, but I think it's very important.

[00:15:20]>> Well, you didn't do it, >> so it's okay.

[00:15:22]>> But but the fact that I think I caught it kind of concerns me. And what in this specific video, what happened was it was a bunch of guys in the CDN typical execution video. They're on the back and then they have a guy kneeling in front of them who belongs to Linia. The Nalinia is basically the Huarees Cartel.

[00:15:35]And this was done in northern Zakatkas, which is a huge conflict zone that CDN historically has a princess, even though right now it looks like it's been reduced. But what they do, they do the whole spiel. Hey, this is a Linia member. And they always pretend, they always portray themselves cartel members as we're Robin Hood. We're here to do justice and because the government sucks and corruption. And what happened was then after their their their speech they get the guy and what they do is with a knife they peel his skin off from his face and then they remove the skin surgically basically. So you see like the muscles with the skulls and the eyeball and everything. They remove it. They open his chin up all the way down here completely open it, remove the tongue and then they cut off the heart and then towards the end of the video they pull it out and then how they end the video is they show in the camera and you see the the heart beating until it stops beating and the moment it stops vading the video cuts and the message was sent and received of like we're violent you can't fight back against us and and that was the one video that I probably said I need a break because it was just the sheer level of brutality violence was completely eye opening. It's also a way for people to it normalizes violence.

[00:16:48]They're not going to go to the government and say, "Hey, this is unacceptable because it's been so normalized that in the end of the day, the government says, well, this is just a fact of matter.

[00:16:55]>> This is just life." Historically, when we saw violence go up in Mexico, it's because cartel leadership kind of gets captured, kill, and then this idea, well, you kill one cartel leader, 50 form. And the way Stfano sees it, this power vacuum and the battle for control that ensues ultimately weakens a unified cartel's ability to focus on importing drugs like fentanyl into the US. The US is seeing a drop in drug overdose deaths for the first time in years. New data from the CDC shows a 25% decline in overdose deaths. Experts say fewer deaths from synthetic opioids like fentanyl are driving the trend.

[00:17:30]>> Fentel has dropped in the US from a consumption and even smuggling into here. And I there's I think I have a lot of suspicions why that actually really happened. But that's why we've seen a huge surge in cocaine and now the price of cocaine is plummeting. But in 2024 uh there was a a major development I think much more so than what we're seeing recently at least with Aleno. And it's the a key cartel leader was captured named Myo Zambada. He was one of the key figures of the Sinoa cartel. And the way that happened was that the US basically turned one of El Chapo's sons who was part of a rival faction of the Sonoma cartel called Los Chaptos. Basically made him an informant to the FBI.

[00:18:06]>> Wow. So he snitched.

[00:18:07]>> He snitched.

[00:18:08]>> There is a wide range of cooperation from agreeing to discuss a plea deal to testifying against cartel associates.

[00:18:15]>> So those chapitos are four brothers of the of El Chapo when he was in when he was detained. It's Ivana Chibaldo Jesus Alfredo Oido Guzman Iwa Guzman the same name as the father. When the father of a chapo was captured the two factions of the son cartel shapito for mentioned and then zambada. What happened was during the b administration they grabbed hingman and basically leveraged him to trick myo zambada into flying into the US where federal agents detained him in El Paso. And this was all the way back in in 2024. Well, who took over after my Zambada was captured? His son, a guy named Mito Flaco. And obviously this public record mito saw wait a minute lo chapitos el chapo's son turned in my father to US prison well that's the ultimate betrayal and so he declared war in lo chapitos and that's when we had the sonoa cartel civil war and what we've seen with the sonoa cartel civil war is those chapitos were not doing so hot they actually announced an alliance with the holistic new generation cartel so what used to be historical rivals became allies and that alliance I think fundamentally transformed the cartel dynamics in Mexico where we're starting beginning to see basically not everybody but for the most part two major blocks forming inside of Mexico within the holistic new generation cartel chapitos and then the mayito flaccos with other groups such as chapo cedro or cdidenne and that's where you're seeing these two alliances that are really driving the violence in Mexico mostly in sinaloa durango and even some other areas of Mexico we're seeing it as well >> we're finally treating the cartels as the core national security threat that they really are the cartels are waging war on America America and just as I promised in the campaign, we're waging war on them like they've never seen before.

[00:19:53]>> Cartels, their biggest threat is not the US. It's not the Mexican government.

[00:19:57]It's other rival cartels. Holistic generation cartel who are their main rival, the Mito flaccos. Who are the Mito flaccos main rival? The alliance of holistic generation cartel no chapitos.

[00:20:05]The mito flaccos have an alliance with chapedro which is the meaflores cartel.

[00:20:09]They're also suspected of having an alliance with the CDN cartel. And that's kind of the beginning where I said the main difference. It's this idea of these two main groups are forming. This is the first true test of I think a hooliscan generation cartel. Are they able to sustain themselves as one unitary cartel? I have reporting that his stepson Juan Carlo Valencia Gonzalez also known as 03 has been named as the new leader of Holis New Generation Cartel. What's interesting about him is, as I said, not only is he the stepson, but he was born in Santana, California.

[00:20:36]He's a US citizen.

[00:20:37]>> Wow. He's from Orange County.

[00:20:38]>> Yeah.

[00:20:39]>> Interesting.

[00:20:40]>> He comes from the Valencia Gonzalez familia, right? The Los Queenies, are they called?

[00:20:44]>> Los Queenies are the aristocratic and financial arm of the Haliscoco New Generation Cartel. Led by the Gonzalez Valencia family, they specialize in trafficking cocaine and meth into the US as well as managing massive moneyaundering networks in cities like LA, Chicago, and Phoenix. Hey, what's up you guys? Andrew here. I just mentioned Phoenix, Phoenix, Arizona. And guess what? I have some special Phoenix related news. Check this out.

[00:21:06]>> Hey guys, Hunter Biden here. I just got a call from Andrew Callahan. He asked me to come out on the Channel 5 carnival tour at the end of the month. I think we start in Phoenix and then we go to San Diego and we end in Albuquerque. And uh I think he's trying to organize a a cage match, me versus Eric and Don Jr. Um I told him I'd do it 100% in if he can pull it off. And if he can't, I'm still coming. And uh I think he's got a lot of other surprises up his sleeve. A lot of fun. And I hope I can see you guys out there. You can get tickets online right now. And I'll see you out on tour. All right. As Hunter mentioned, you can get tickets right now to the C5 Carnival stops in Phoenix, San Diego, and Albuquerque at www. channel5.news. I'm going to put the link in the pin comment and description box of this video. Hope to see you guys there. All right, back to Mexico. What do you think Eleno's net worth was at the time of his death? You have to track the drugs, the oil, the avocado, the lime, the human smuggling, money launderer, etc. And the expenses and revenue has to be easily in the tens of billions of dollars. As long as they all coales around 03, the stepson for the most part, more than likely everything can continue to stay normal.

[00:22:23]It's just a new leadership. The question that we have though is is the the appointment of 03 as the new leader enough to kind of keep this cartel and the holistic generation cartel to continue the same or do we see fragmentation in a civil war similar to what we see in the Siloa cartel or the Gulf cartel.

[00:22:39]>> In many ways the successful execution of this raid can be seen as indicative of policy change within the Mexican government. Originally, President Claudia Shinbomb ran on a hugs not bullets platform, suggesting that treating the root cause of cartel criminality, i.e. poverty, and offering compassion would ultimately lead to a reduction in violence.

[00:22:59]However, Shine Bomb has had a rough go so far with certain factions of the country furious about what they say is a lack of action.

[00:23:15]Back in the day, the Ki cartel in Colombia, the main, right? This this aura almost of these cartel leaders, Pablo Escobar, right? And Menchu and Mayo Zambada were kind of the the new type of at least in the last decade were kind of these major figures and they both are now gone and Menchel being killed. Why now? Why would Kaida Shinbon, the president of Mexico, go after in Menchel? Well, I mean, logically I I felt like especially after the assassination of Carlos Manzo Lupan, who was the governor that was like gonna take on the Narcos, and he was killed at, I think, a public event. And we covered some pretty major uh Gen Z protests on the streets of Mexico City.

[00:23:50]It was mostly older people, but they were there basically speaking about Claudia Shinbomb, like she was this like narco compliant sort of like inactive president who was not doing enough to combat the way that cartels had infiltrated more rural states and cities. And I I felt like this was their way of getting even. That was my first reaction. I was like, "All right, well, maybe this is proof that the Mexican government actually does have the capacity to take out some of these top level cartel bosses."

[00:24:12]>> I I do believe, for example, when Trump did the whole Maduro raid, the Mexicans saw that and they said, "Oh [ __ ] we don't want that to happen here. We don't want Seal Team 6 or Delta Force or drone strikes to happen because sovereignty."

[00:24:24]And so there was this argument that Kaida Shyban said, "Okay, who's the top dog we can go after that puts everything to rest and you know buys us political goodwill with the US. It's a Mencho. So hey, let's go after Menchel because I can go after Mencho. There is literally nobody you won't go after." It does look like one of the key aspects they had to find him was through the mistress. But I, if I may, it's not like this guy was Bin Laden. I mean, the ranch that they got him, that ranch was sanctioned by the US. Like this wasn't an unknown location. It's not like Bin Laden where eventually we found him after years in a bought about Pakistan and this convoluted intelligence operation. A lot of these cartel members we kind of more or less know the general areas are at.

[00:25:04]So now we're really getting to the question of US intervention here. You talked about Colombia and how Colombia, you know, it used to be Medí was a war zone. Now everybody with a fat crypto wallet is moving there to escape the dating scene here cuz they see it as restrictive and they want a more traditional lady. Things have I mean, there's some guys getting scopamine, you know, and dying. So, I would not advise going to median if you're watching this if you're looking to only procure ladies of the night. However, different topic.

[00:25:31]Colombia is doing great more or less.

[00:25:32]There's obviously problems with the with remainder of the FARC in the jungle and they're definitely still involved in narco trafficking and I don't even want to go down the whole leftwing gorilla narco connection there. It's too much right now. However, >> that is a great thing though. That is a great conversation. Crazy. The DEA was instrumental in the Essar takedown.

[00:25:47]Yeah, >> the Escobar takeown kind of led to an era of prosperity in Colia.

[00:25:52]>> Now with Petro Gustavo, the problem he's running into is we're being flooded with cocaine. Price of cocaine in the US is going down based on all the last reporting we're getting.

[00:26:00]>> I've read some reports about that, too.

[00:26:01]>> Yeah, it's going down. I think in the last 48 hours, Mexico, just in the Pacific coast, have announced two major drug seizures of at least five tons of cocaine in two different vessels.

[00:26:11]>> So for all the people that love cocaine, I am sorry. The president of United States does not love cocaine. We encourage you to go rehab and we're going to keep on pursuing America's interest.

[00:26:20]>> I think anybody objectively can look at Columbia say even with all the problems they have, they're still violent. It's infinitely better than where we're at.

[00:26:26]>> And you think that Mexico could get to that point like maybe in the coming decades if there was really good collaboration between the federal government and the DEA with like the Mexican army and special forces.

[00:26:35]>> There is extensive cooperation between the Mexicans and the US, right? And this isn't a battle of like who can do it better. The reasons why we can't solve this necessarily. One is one I said is the corruption. It's so invasive that it's impossible really to to do. But two, I go back to this argument I made about Losinis. If you literally were to grab every single dollar that the queenies have ever dealt with and removed it from the Mexican economy, the Mexican economy collapses overnight.

[00:26:58]People say go after the money. Go after the money. Go. Well, we can't. Why?

[00:27:02]Because if we do, well, what economy is left? As mentioned, Losinis and other narcobased enterprises no longer rely on drugs as their sole revenue source and have applied the same pressure, violence, and extortion tactics to dominate the oil and avocado industries.

[00:27:15]And who pays the price? Well, Mexican civilians do.

[00:27:59]Mhm.

[00:28:28]I meanchech.

[00:28:59]He's had this car for 20 years and he had just put a ton of money towards fixing it. And then 3 days ago he comes outside and the vehicle is in flames.

[00:29:09]These are the people who are victims of organized crime when they really are just trying to make an honest day-to-day living.

[00:29:17]>> You speak Spanish. You've been to Mexico a bunch, right? Mexicans are so cool and so trustworthy. It's confusing to me as someone who's never interacted with cartel members how there's also this brutality in Mexican society that seems to surpass almost anywhere in the world.

[00:29:30]America is a really violent, antisocial place, but you don't necessarily have that same fringe of people doing the kind of thing they're doing. Mexico, 90% of crime is not even investigated. The vast majority of homicides, no getting even investigated, let alone convicted.

[00:29:44]And if they're not even going to investigate a crime, what's holding you back from committing it? I think about it. It's almost like in a way the purge.

[00:29:49]Even if outside of just crime, let's say you and I have a business dispute and it's going to take me 10 months, 10 years to solve it through court or I could just kill you and I win. What do you think these and there's no punishment? That's that's the problem that that the judiciary in Mexico is completely ineffective. Let's say the holistic new generation cartel hanged bodies on a bridge in LA. I mean, ju just imagine the uproar that would exist in the United States because of that and the political pressure that that would put on to our government at the local, state, and federal level to action and respond to it. And I think that's the fundamental problem in Mexico that that has been broken down completely. I mean, you can make the argument that many may probably many in Mexico would rather just have back in the day the Gualahara cartel, which is one cartel. Everybody making money, drugs get pushed into the US, but violence is an imaginable acceptable level. But the question then becomes, does the US care about that?

[00:30:39]>> Trafficking and moderating information is another powerful tool of the cartels and corrupt officials. Tightly controlled through violence and cultural influence, the truth is cold by curators who will edit things mercilessly.

[00:30:49]getting this type of coverage that I wanted to do today can prove to be very difficult and also risky.

[00:30:56]>> There's a reason why a lot of the corruption aspect Mexican journalists can't cover it because if they do, they get targeted. And and I would even say just by the cartels. I would even say it's by government officials who use the cover of cartels to just silence people in in in honest reporting. I know people in Mexico that are citizen journalists who can't release their name because if they do, it's to your point. I got in contact with a breaking crime news reporter who discovered a narco manta.

[00:31:23]So a banner with a narco message on it.

[00:31:26]And he said that here the law is that you cannot say cartel. You cannot say what the narco message says because actually it gives authorities here legal principle to pull you aside and say how do you know how do you know it was the cartel? How do you know what it said and who's responsible for this and who it's targeting? It's threatening the secretary Fabian Gomez. If you want peace in Kol Lima and zero impunity like you say, I'll give you the name of uniforms that are in collusion with organized crime. And if you want evidence, I have it.

[00:32:01]>> There's a phenomenal New York Times report that talks about the story of General Theen Fueos. General Theen Fueos was the senior army commander within the Mexican military. I mean, he was the top of the top of the top. He was indicted in the United States and detained and eventually they had to let him go because the Mexicans threw a fit. And this was all during the first Trump administration. But if you read that article, people think that cartels control the corruption and that they bribe Mexican government officials and these Mexican government officials like beholden to the cartels and they do the cartels bidding. But if you read that story, it's like the question is not who really controlled who? Because what happened was Jonathan Figos one day said, "You know what? I'm done with Bo even though you guys have paid me million dollars. I'm done. I'm I don't want to do you anymore." He sent the Mexican special forces after him when the Mexican special forces went in the raid. And there's this very, this is a very famous video because this where the minigun, the Blackhawk firing the minigun. It looks like he surrendered.

[00:32:51]He goes to the Mexican special forces.

[00:32:52]He says, "Hey, I'm the fuego's guy. I'm his guy. What are you doing? Why are you going after me?" And the Mexican special forces said, "Cool." And shot him and executed him. And what that shows to you is who really controls who in that aspect. And I think that's not a conversation we're having, which is a lot of times the Mexican government is the corrupt official that tells the cartels, you will pay me a portion of your profit, and if you don't, I'm going to send the military after you to kill you, and I'll go with your rival. I think it's always safe to assume that corruption is at any level within the Mexican government. What is the most effective anti-corruption body in Mexico? It's the Southern District of New York. And you know, you love it or hate it, but you know, we we see sanction now much more a lot of the sanctions that we're seeing within this administration targeted against Mexican politicians, right? Really singling out their corrupt dealings. It's not the truth inside of Mexico that matters. It sounds crazy. It's the perception. The cartel members thrive on perception. If they're perceived to be within the power structure, if they're perceived to be powerful, that's more valuable than the actual truth of the matter, how they can do it. And that's where you see cartel members really try to push very heavily within the culture and the news and society is to give this perception of power because the perception of power is what gives them the deterrence and that deterrence enables them to operate and I think that's the fundamental issue. It's the power structure of that and it's not a one answer fits all type of scenario dep you have to analyze it depending in each scenario but who has the power structure and the corruption of it the cartels to the government or is it to the government to the cartel and and when we're talking about Mexican cartels and the violence and the war there it's not just the cartel war it's dozens of conflicts spread across Mexico that some of them have nothing to do with the other but that then creates this idea of the normalization of violence and the power structure that then allows them to thrive and make money in the drug business and other I mean look I To most people, there is a lot of execution videos that get released every day.

[00:34:37]There's a lot of violence that happen.

[00:34:38]There's a lot of targeting of civilians, of killing of civilians. I mean, Mexico, over a 100,000 people in Mexico are missing to this day. Mass graves are found in Mexico all the time. There was a famous extermination camp in Kaliscoco that was found. Hundreds of bodies, an extermination camp that was literally there where they would just dissolve bodies. At some point, even in their mind, where is justifiable and everything you said, there is an absolute just an evil component to it.

[00:35:01]And I just firmly believe that at some element that's the fundamental problem.

[00:35:05]And the narco culture, the narcoidos, as you said, it's a way to whitewash it.

[00:35:10]It's a it's a way to just say this is acceptable. And even that aspect to me kind of infuriates me. But it's caused a situation where there's never going to be unfortunately as long as this continues, the political will to change it inside of Mexico is never going to exist because it's just been so normalized. And I do believe at some element we have to call them out for what they are. And they Yeah. There is an inherently an evil aspect of this.

[00:35:30]Yeah. Does the solution to ending the violent reign of terror in Mexico exist?

[00:35:34]Is there an endgame that could see a steady decline in the normalized chaos and senseless murder? Can diplomacy bring about a new era of peace for Mexico? A lot of Americans especially who are watching this stuff from afar, they hear about all these different cartel factions, but the main question they have is like, how is this going to end? What could put an end to the cartel violence? These constant back and forth territorial disputes that lead to bloodshed. I did a report one time in Mexico City talking to Chilongos about the KTOS band and I asked them, "Yo, what what do you think about, you know, Besuma not being able to perform in TJ?

[00:36:05]What what do you think about stuff like that?" And they're like, "Listen, man.

[00:36:08]They're just rapping about the material circumstances of of life in the north and in in some of these more narco dominated states and communities. And the real solution is for America to legalize and regulate drugs and kind of make it so there is no illicit group controlling the inflow of drugs like fentanyl, meth, cocaine, and heroin into the US.

[00:36:48]Do you think that regulation on a US market level could lead to a reduction in cartel violence? And if not, what is the solution to stopping this?

[00:36:54]>> My counter to that, I would ask those guys, what about the Santa Rosa the Lima cartel? So the Santa Rosa Lima cartel is a is a group out of Guanauatoto.

[00:37:02]Extremely violent. I mean, these are guys who will go to a bar full of people. If they suspect the bar is supporting their rivals, which is Holistan New Generation Cartel, they'll shoot it up, do a mass shooting, kill everybody, and they will record it on their phones and upload it. They're not major drug pushers. The key way they make money is oil smuggling in the Guanauatoto. They're simple as a red triangle because it's called like the Bermuda Triangle in Guanauatoto because that's where all the oil in the pipelines kind of work. They push drugs, but that's not their key things of how they make money. They have an alliance with Scorpion Group and the Mayto Flakos of the Sinoa cartel, but they don't make money necessarily through drug trafficking, but they're extremely vi because they're territorial. When we're talking about Mexican cartels, I think the problem we run into, there's a US problem set of how we analyze this and then there's a Mexican problem set of how we analyze it. And unfortunately, I think we conflate the two and mix them two because from the US perspective, you're right, it's drugs. How do we stop drugs from coming over to to the US, specifically fentanyl, because the fentanyl and the drug overdose? But from the Mexican perspective, it's more about violence and how can they reduce violence in the country. And now sometimes there's an overlap between both. For example, the Zeta cartels is a perfect example where there's an overlap where they're extremely violent and causing problem for the Mexicans.

[00:38:11]They're pushing drugs into the United States. We have to go after them and knock them out. I think people think like, oh my god, they're going to come in the US and bomb us. It's like, all right, like let's take a step back.

[00:38:20]That's not necessarily their main focus here in the US. They're not it's not the sakario. the guys with guns that go into uh the US are going to shoot it up. It's the lawyers, it's the moneyaundering business, the cash business. That's what they do mostly in the United States.

[00:38:34]>> So there's no guys like the Salamanca twins of Breaking Bad or Javier Bardam's character in No Country for Old Men who are robbing the Borderlands looking to assassinate cartel.

[00:38:43]>> I mean, okay, do those exist? Sure.

[00:38:45]Yeah. But but but I think everybody thinks that's what they do here. And it's like, okay, wait, wait. That's like a minority, a small a small sub. I've tracked cartel members in the US with kind of guns and they do their [ __ ] right? Got it. But that's not their primary focus here, guys. What is their primary focus here? It's to launder money. That's it. You're making generating billions of dollars in drugs every month, let's say, or every year.

[00:39:07]But you want to put it in the financial sector. You think you can do it with the guys who are sakarios with guns or do you need a law office, a cash business and professionals that know or the guys with like the glasses and the accountants who know how to make money, launder money and go through like the movie the accountants. But in other cases, let's look at Durango. So Durango for example, one of the states in Mexico is actually one of the safest states in Mexico. And the reason why is because there's basically one cartel that controls the entire state is Los Caberas which is a part of the Mito flaccos or the Solo Cartel. Durango is a huge area where they produce methamphetamines that then get smuggled into the United States. But violence is not high in Durango because there's one cartel that controls it. And so from the Mexican government perspective, specifically the Durango perspective, like this is fine.

[00:39:47]We don't want to be sin where there's a synog cartel civil war. And this argument of of the drug flow and all that, if you regulate violence goes down, it's not an illicit economy. It's just not backed up by data.

[00:39:57]Unfortunately, that's an American way of analyzing it because again, CDN, the Golf Cartel, even the two factions of Golf Cartel in the Civil War, the Huarees Cartel and the Aiano Fedelics organization, the Tijuana Cartel, they don't control the drug production area.

[00:40:09]They just control the areas where smuggling happens. If these cartels in Mitakan, for example, fight for avocados and lime, and there's a huge problem in Mitakan because of avocado and lime trafficking into the United States, that's legal, but that gets smuggled into the United States where all these other groups are involved with. It's the same with human smuggling. I think it's it's an idea of trying to analyze a domestic problem set of drug addiction to the United States that requires a very fundamental conversation. But I think people then say, well, this will also solve drug cartels. And unfortunately, when we look at the data and what they're involved in, that's just not true. If they, again, avocados, >> it's not illegal to buy avocados and do trade with avocados, but they fight extensively Muakan for the avocado trade.

[00:40:50]>> So, what could stop them?

[00:40:51]>> One thing, I've been doing this for 5 years. I'm going to be very pessimistic and tell you I don't think we can. I'm just going to be flat out. I don't think we can solve this.

[00:40:58]>> Do you think in the year 2300 they're still going to keep pumping out execution videos and, you know, going to war for control?

[00:41:03]>> I think the best case scenario we can look at is maybe Colombia. I said, can we ever end gang violence in the US?

[00:41:08]>> Well, it's reduced a lot since the '90s.

[00:41:10]>> And I I think that's the best case scenario we might be looking at.

[00:41:13]>> A reduction in the magnitude.

[00:41:15]>> Correct.

[00:41:16]>> Men's official death certificate was published. His body was repatriated to the family. There's a lot that I don't know that I was unable to uncover and I'm sure that a lot of you are probably going to be left with the same questions of myself. It seems as though this nar war will never be over. There is no end in sight. But thank you guys so much for tuning in in this collaboration between Canal Cinco Latino America and Borderland Dispatches and Ironclad Original with yours truly, Katarina Schultz.

[00:42:07]All right, last thing I'm going to say is if you guys enjoyed that documentary, I have great news for you. Our entire hour and a half uncut conversation with Stfano Rittendale the cartel expert is now live as a part of our fivecast podcast on almost every podcast platform in the world Amazon Apple podcast megaphone and so many other spots. So if you want to listen to the full uncut conversation between us just look up five all caps 5 c and you'll see a beautiful autumn forest with our logo emlazed on top of the trees. That's our show. If you want to give it a listen, if you're driving a truck across America and want some good entertainment, check it out.