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The link between cartel narcoterrorism and Iran’s regime · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:02
  Good day.
• 0:03
  Welcome to the Midday Report on the America Out Loud News Talk Radio Network, the countermomentum of spin.
• 0:09
  I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:10
  Franco Musio.
• 0:12
  To our friends listening in the United States and around the world.
• 0:15
  Well, you know, I mentioned this uh over the last few weeks uh and more that there's no lack of hard news items to keep our adrenaline going.
• 0:24
  Our aim, though, especially now, our aim uh is to dissect out the nuances and underlying causes and foundations of the events with which we come into contact now continuously.
• 0:36
  So this show I am calling the link between the cartel narco-terrorism machines plural and the ongoing takedown of the Iranian regime.
• 0:47
  But we can't get away from this mammoth, these plural mammoth military activities between the U.S.
• 0:54
  and and uh Israel against Iran.
• 0:57
  I'm privileged to introduce a world expert on this topic.
• 1:00
  This is our fourth show together, director Richard Baum.
• 1:04
  He served in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, ONDCP for two decades in a variety of positions through five presidential uh administrations.
• 1:15
  He was acting director, uh that is the drug czar from March 2017 to February 2018 during uh President Trump's first term.
• 1:24
  In this position, he served as the principal advisor to the president on drug policy, and worked directly with cabinet structure uh secretary.
• 1:33
  So uh much of his tenure as acting director, he served concurrently as an executive director of the president's commission on combating drug addiction and the opioid crisis.
• 1:45
  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.
• 1:54
  He's an adjunct professor of public policy at Georgetown's University McCork graduate school.
• 2:00
  I'm gonna say a little bit about him because there's a lot.
• 2:04
  This is important.
• 2:06
  It's important.
• 2:06
  He led the creation of key strategies addressing organized crime, which is what we're going to talk about today, of course.
• 2:14
  So he was work with the Southwest Border drug trafficking, synthetic drugs, focused in he focused on identifying and responding to um boy, evolving and emerging drug threats, those uh are everlasting.
• 2:26
  And of course, he has a huge grasp, comprehensive grasp on uh on all of this.
• 2:32
  Uh he's had boots on the ground.
• 2:34
  He's worked not only in policy, but uh in real life in reality, and uh and he's been work had been working with uh key house household named leaders, we would all recognize.
• 2:46
  So these experiences have served as an incredible foundation for his new book.
• 2:52
  I'm looking at it right this moment.
• 2:54
  I told him before I need him to sign it.
• 2:57
  So it's titled Inside America's Opioid Crisis, 12 Hard Lessons for Today's Drug War, which uh I it's an incredible title.
• 3:07
  Um I'm going through it and I'm uh I'm outlining it uh uh not paragraph by paragraph, yes, that too, but chapter by chapter.
• 3:14
  So it can be purchased at America, Amazon, I'm sorry, dot com, The Publisher, Bloomsbury Publishing, and major retail bookstores.
• 3:23
  If that's the case, and it is your book is in major retail bookstores, so so you've made it.
• 3:29
  Um what I want to do, there's there's so much to talk about as usual.
• 3:33
  I want to divide this into several segments.
• 3:36
  The uh the the first just being foundations and understanding cartel operations, and then after that, the links between Iran and international cartels.
• 3:46
  And um, I wasn't aware, but quite a few.
• 3:50
  And then the after, if we get to it, the aftermath of the Iranian regime takedown.
• 3:55
  It's being taken down as we speak.
• 3:57
  What's going to happen after that?
• 3:59
  So I'm gonna set the stage, Rich, and our director, and uh as an introduction, and then I'm gonna unleash the director.
• 4:07
  But uh Director Baum, you you just chime in as I talk and talk, okay?
• 4:13
  So this is thank you for the generous.
• 4:16
  Absolutely, and welcome, welcome to the show.
• 4:18
  I'm sorry, I'm talking over you.
• 4:21
  Uh so thank you for agreeing to speak with us.
• 4:25
  So here we go.
• 4:26
  We spoke uh uh about this a little bit.
• 4:30
  So uh the Trump administration, he's he's using different angles of different lines of attack in terms of drug trade.
• 4:36
  So he he designated several Latin American drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations as FTOs, foreign terrorist organization, and SDGT, specialty designated global terrorists, these acronyms I have trouble with, uh and as an effective date in February, the end of February 20th, 2025.
• 4:59
  So what he did was uh he marked uh a huge shift in policy.
• 5:05
  Uh apply and see what you think, but Rich, but applying uh terrorism-related sanctions to um criminal organizations and involved, of course, in trafficking infentil and other drugs in the U.S.
• 5:18
  But I'm gonna name eight of them, because this these were the initial ones.
• 5:22
  So you have Trendiaguan, 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.
• 5:35
  Sinaloa Cartel, you have the Cartel de Jalisco Nova Generación.
• 5:40
  This is where uh the the last one, the the most recent news came from.
• 5:45
  You have the Northeast Cartel, you have the uh Familia Mikucana in Mexico.
• 5:52
  You have the the Gulf Cartel and you have the United Cartel.
• 5:57
  So I'm gonna raise the because you know all these very well.
• 6:03
  I you know, I I think uh it is you know, when you work in government, you get a map with the different colors of where the different cartels operate.
• 6:11
  Uh and uh people the cartels, things go, they go up and down.
• 6:15
  But I think for folks listening, it's the Cinema Cartel and CJNG, El Mancho's cartel.
• 6:22
  Those are really the primary focus, the two leading cartels, and I think really the ones to know about.
• 6:27
  But the um, as we talked about in previous podcasts, the the whole industry in Mexico of drug trafficking uh is a giant network, 175,000 employees walk working all across the country with the goal of making money and moving drugs and uh uh staying in business and uh uh and evading uh efforts by the U.S.
• 6:52
  uh to um to stop drug trafficking flow.
• 6:55
  And there's been terrific uh very focused and aggressive actions by the Trump administration, but uh drug trafficking is a tough business, so uh we have to stay at it.
• 7:05
  Yeah, well, they're they're doing a good job.
• 7:07
  Um so with these designations, uh this has helped um kind of authorize, if you will, the U.S.
• 7:15
  government in in blocking assets, imposing travel bans on on their members, because they're quite a few, and and they call it the prohibition of providing material support to these groups.
• 7:27
  So anything coming from the outside, and any abatement, any uh enablement in any way, is by gather a terrorist activity or a betting terrorists.
• 7:38
  Uh and and so far there's 81 foreign terrorist organizations.
• 7:42
  It's not only the drug cartels, but it's the uh the other terrorist groups.
• 7:47
  And I was mentioning before we went on air here to to director Bond, I you know, uh to me, it's crystallizing.
• 7:54
  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.
• 8:03
  And ultimately, we'll get to it in the second segment, helps fund other activities, uh, other bad activities, uh, like what's going on now with Hezbollah, and again, we'll talk about it later.
• 8:15
  But um, these are bad guys, and drugs are the fuel, I guess, to nurture other bad activities, which could be separate uh from drugs.
• 8:28
  If I if I could just add, please really a critical point.
• 8:32
  Um, you know, a lot of people who like maybe work in the anti-drug space, like, oh, if only there wasn't uh uh drug trafficking or only if drugs were legal, then these organized criminal groups go away.
• 8:43
  And that's not the way that things work.
• 8:46
  Is it maybe that, say, in Central America and the Caribbean that the gangs and trafficking groups got larger, stronger, and bigger because of the opportunity to make money from selling drugs.
• 8:59
  But it's not like uh once these gangs and criminal groups are established uh with their own network, if suddenly there was a uh cocaine drought and they couldn't move cocaine that they were gonna go into uh you know starting uh supermarkets, right?
• 9:15
  They can go into other illegal activities, uh, you know, it's illegal immigration, prostitution, gambling.
• 9:23
  Uh, and you know, you can really think of um Tony Soprano, right?
• 9:26
  Sitting uh sitting in his uh uh clubhouse or something, it's like he's he's up for it, you know, drugs, uh uh listed uh credit cards, uh stolen equipment.
• 9:38
  It's he's gotta keep feeding uh feeding the beast, right?
• 9:42
  Because drug cartels, they got payrolls.
• 9:46
  They got they pay off corrupt officials, they have staff, they have expensive drugs, they owe people money.
• 9:54
  So they uh so I think the point is is that uh however these
• 10:00
  Groups initially formed once they're started, uh, and it often it is drugs because drug sales can be so lucrative, uh, they get into other things.
• 10:09
  Like arms, arms, for example, weapons, yeah.
• 10:12
  And arms, and it's a critical uh factor.
• 10:16
  If you are a rebel group, uh say uh in uh somewhere in Latin America, uh, this was true in Colombia, this is true in Peru, uh and you're uh you're uh uh trying to overthrow the government, uh, people turn to drugs to finance your operations.
• 10:31
  So it's uh it's a big part of uh funding illicit and dangerous activities around the world.
• 10:38
  So if they can make money, like we were saying weapons, but if they could make money, uh, usually what money money comes from illicit type of activities, but I'm gonna talk about avocados in a minute or limes.
• 10:50
  But if they if they took over the home whole Lyme industry in Latin America, and that for whatever reason was like gold, they would do that.
• 11:00
  They would do that.
• 11:01
  Right.
• 11:01
  I mean, they you know, they can tax it.
• 11:04
  They can put they could go visit the farmers and say, okay, you owe us X dollars because of how many avocados and limes you've been but I think they're doing that anyway.
• 11:13
  But yeah, yes.
• 11:16
  Are they uh uh are these guys gonna murder their families?
• 11:19
  Uh and the answer is probably yes.
• 11:23
  So they're forced to to uh you know to pay the bribe.
• 11:27
  Um and uh so that it keeps these cartels in business as they diversify.
• 11:34
  So just recently uh it came to light and just last week, March the third, that uh the U.S.
• 11:42
  security uh uh as well as U.S.
• 11:45
  uh Southern Command was involved with the Ecuadorian forces, and they were they were hitting drug trafficking networks in Ecuador linked to Los Lobos and Los Channelos groups, and and those had become uh foreign terrorist organizations uh uh as of September of this past year by Marco Rubio.
• 12:03
  So this, in tandem with Operation Southern Spear, that there's just a growing and growing kind of if you will, good guys network and trying to take these um bad guys down.
• 12:16
  Then we found out about old men show Manshow uh February 22nd, in um I was gonna say Puerto Rico, no Puerto Vallarta, and um the leader of Jillesco, the new generation cartel.
• 12:28
  And he was, I guess, visiting uh his covertly, of course, all of this is covertly his lover, and then there were tips about all of this.
• 12:37
  And I think it was I mean, I mean, yes, it was true.
• 12:40
  She she was visiting him, right?
• 12:42
  In one of his uh locations.
• 12:45
  Uh-huh.
• 12:45
  Right, but they were able to track uh her movement and figure it out.
• 12:50
  So that was great, a great operation.
• 12:52
  I mean, this was huge, a huge blow against Mexican cartels.
• 12:56
  I I would gather since the the capture of uh what's his name?
• 13:00
  El Chapo, El Chapo Guzman.
• 13:02
  Although he was not guilt, but he was he was captured.
• 13:05
  And then clearly the Venezuela.
• 13:07
  Yeah, yeah.
• 13:08
  I mean, this guy was he's still in he'll be in prison for a long, long time.
• 13:13
  Um absolutely.
• 13:15
  Uh, and uh yeah, I I think uh this uh this decapitation of cartel leaders, it doesn't solve the whole problem, but you know, it helps.
• 13:25
  Uh so um I appreciate uh uh those accomplishments, and I hope that they'll be um, you know, sustained follow-up in supporting partner countries and taking on these uh gangs and violent groups that are hurting the United States, but also hurting these uh host countries in the region.
• 13:42
  So you and I talked about initially Venezuela and then Maduro, and then taking him down too.
• 13:48
  So um, you know, uh and we were finding out how harrowing that really that military operation was.
• 13:56
  We found out a lot about it during the um Trump speech during the State of the Union address.
• 14:01
  Um, but I I want to go into some specifics and well, uh let me start.
• 14:06
  Large brush strokes.
• 14:07
  You had large brush strokes, you you mentioned.
• 14:10
  So they're very sophisticated, they use violence, terrorist tactics.
• 14:15
  Um they're um they have an economic model, so uh uh kind of sophisticated bad guys economic model.
• 14:22
  That they do money laundering, they do smuggling, trafficking, arms trafficking, human trafficking, other crimes.
• 14:30
  Other so I didn't know that they were uh actually I did hear about the environmental crimes like uh illegal mining and um stealing petroleum, stealing petroleum, and then uh they use cryptocurrency, they they deal with Chinese, the Chinese money laundering networks.
• 14:49
  They have trade base schemes to repatriate billions of dollars back to Mexico.
• 14:54
  It goes on and on.
• 14:57
  Uh absolutely it's uh this is a global threat, and uh, you know, naturally in the United States, um, we focus on what's affecting our people, and that is the production of uh fentanyl and methamphetamine uh in Mexico and uh the transhipment of cocaine uh uh to the United States and um the these substances uh really manufactured based on pre-pressure chemicals produced in China and smuggled or trafficked uh into Mexico.
• 15:27
  So that is a huge threat to the United States that has uh definitely our attention uh and I have a lot of people working on it in the U.S.
• 15:35
  Uh, but it's a global market, and just as synthetic drugs uh like fentanyl and methamphetamine have taken over the U.S.
• 15:43
  market, there are um synthetic drug markets that are growing uh in the Middle East, and Captagon, which is an eventomin-type stimulant, is uh is a very very dominant uh market in the Middle East, uh sold throughout the region and uh Iranian groups uh Hezbollah, Syrians, Houthis, they're involved in moving that uh around the region.
• 16:07
  So we're gonna we're gonna talk about that more specifically in the next segment.
• 16:11
  But I I found very interesting the structure and um you know we're gonna go to break in just a moment here, but the structure, the organizational structure, um uh not only do they threaten local, they they bribe and threaten um high-level officials, police, military personnel, and so uh and then what that ensures is imputed impunity and protection for them.
• 16:34
  I I don't know how I could be president of Mexico in situations like this.
• 16:39
  I I just don't know because it's a thankless job.
• 16:42
  And uh uh you have to be involved in this in some way when about a third, a third of the territory is is basically governed by by the bad guys.
• 16:52
  So hold that thought.
• 16:53
  We're gonna come back in just a moment.
• 16:55
  Time goes by quickly here.
• 16:57
  Uh, we're gonna go to commercial break, and uh, and on the flip side, on the other side, we'll continue with Director Baum and go into more specifics of the cartels.
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• 19:54
  Welcome back.
• 19:55
  Welcome back.
• 19:56
  We were talking with Director Shy.
• 19:58
  Director Shab.
• 20:00
  That's a good one.
• 20:02
  No Director Baum.
• 20:04
  Director Baum.
• 20:06
  So we may we may talk about the Mexican president a little bit later here.
• 20:11
  But in terms of kind of uh, as I said, brush strokes and now more specifically, the the higher the the different structures.
• 20:21
  I find this just fascinating.
• 20:23
  So you have my understanding, and certainly director uh can fill me in.
• 20:30
  They they utilize utilize different uh you can business structure.
• 20:34
  So you have you could have a pyramidal structure, you could have a uh a fluid, more fluid network with an umbrella model.
• 20:41
  So the hierarchical structure, pyramidal structure, you have lords, drug lords.
• 20:46
  So they're the big bosses here.
• 20:48
  They appoint the leaders, they make the alliances, they they basically control the entire organization.
• 20:55
  Like let's say the Ayatollah or Ayatollah number two now.
• 20:59
  I I don't think he's gonna be around for very long, this sun.
• 21:01
  Then you have lieutenants, so they have specific territories or hitmen, and they supervise them though, the the hitmen and the scouts, they supervise them.
• 21:09
  And then you have the hitmen.
• 21:11
  So they're the ones, Sicarios, they're the ones who who do the violence.
• 21:14
  They carry out the violence, the assassinations, the kidnappings.
• 21:17
  So and and they they use military great assets too.
• 21:21
  And then the bottom of the bottom is the Falcons, right?
• 21:24
  The how sewans, lowest level scouts, and who who monitor the police and uh uh uh kind of rival activity, but but that's the pyramidal structure, and then so it's kind of like a um a militarized bad guys multinational corporation.
• 21:40
  So so you have territorial control, you have supply chain issues.
• 21:45
  Then correct me if I'm wrong, you have an umbrella model, so it's like the Sinaloa cartels that you have in a number of independent cells rather than a strict hierarchy, it's kind of decentralized and and it's under a larger umbrella.
• 22:00
  So if one of the bosses is taken out, then you have um that's okay because you have other bosses who do kind of take over.
• 22:10
  So I I uh uh am I right and or am I wrong, Director Baum?
• 22:15
  Yeah, no, you make a good point, and the structures vary based on the circumstances, but I I tell you what I look for.
• 22:22
  When you have element of the government actually involved in doing the the trafficking, you really have a problem.
• 22:30
  Yes, case of themselves, and that's the case of uh of Iran with the Islamic revolutionary guards facilitating narcotics trafficking.
• 22:38
  You know, it's hard enough for a legitimate government to fight um fight traffickers, yeah.
• 22:44
  Uh and uh and I know we're gonna talk more about Mexico uh later, but they are uh overall uh still making efforts to fight the traffickers.
• 22:52
  But when they're a partner in governing, uh, or not partner in governing, but a partner uh in uh a critical part of the government uh uh process of generating funds, like the Islamic Revolutionary Guards or the Venezuelan government, then you really have a problem.
• 23:09
  That's very tough when because then the good guys who are charged with combating drugs can't do their jobs or are corrupted and part of the problem.
• 23:20
  Yeah.
• 23:20
  Um yeah, but what really gets me is these you need to have maybe some advanced degrees in economics to uh to run these organizations, you know, the god only knows London School of Economics, these are these are people from you know I mean you're right that it sounds funny when you think about it.
• 23:42
  Yeah, but 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?
• 24:00
  You need lawyers, you need consultants, you need money managers, you need facilitators, transporters.
• 24:06
  Um yeah, you need it all, you need a corporate headquarters, uh, you need record keeping all these things, you know.
• 24:13
  It's not like these are like uh three guys uh uh you know uh standing on the street corner, right?
• 24:18
  These are international operations with complex relationships.
• 24:22
  Yeah, yeah.
• 24:23
  I wonder, I wonder when they apply for jobs.
• 24:25
  I'm making light of it, but it's not very very funny.
• 24:28
  But when they when they uh quote unquote apply uh this is all uh uh covertly, if 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 in the fluid model, you know, in the umbrella model, he wants to go to another cartel, so he gets recommendations uh from his peers, and and then he joins another cartel that that are in cohoots with that cartel.
• 24:57
  I I does it work that way.
• 24:59
  I don't know.
• 25:00
  Sounds crazy.
• 25:01
  I think I think that you would what you know and I've learned in my career is that everything goes back to personal relationships, right?
• 25:10
  So it does even if you had a fantastic, amazing cartel resume.
• 25:15
  If people don't know you and trust you, uh then you're not going anywhere.
• 25:21
  And actually a lot of that is true, I think in government and and in corporate uh companies, especially for hiring senior officials.
• 25:28
  You're just not gonna you don't want to pick uh a resume uh that's being written by AI out of a big pile.
• 25:34
  You want to know somebody uh who uh is who's uh either someone you trust or you yourself have worked with them and people have reputation.
• 25:43
  So I'm I'm sure it's more an informal network than a uh um uh than a formal sit down interview and uh paper process.
• 25:52
  No, I know, I know, I know I'm kidding.
• 25:55
  Okay, let's segue over to to what's going on in Iran uh between Israel, United States, and Iran.
• 26:01
  And and I'm learning a lot here.
• 26:03
  So just uh a week ago, 11 days ago, we're gonna be uh uh this is uh we're taping now one day in advance.
• 26:11
  So uh on Tuesday, it's it's day 11.
• 26:15
  There are this this war, and and by the way, we're not getting a whole lot of information.
• 26:21
  We're getting some from the Israelis as to what we are actually doing ourselves and the Israelis, but we we don't have embedded, such as in Iraq embedded reporters.
• 26:32
  Um but but there's key key alliances here between Latin America and the proxies.
• 26:39
  And and we've had multiple, 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 nar all of narco-terrorism.
• 26:58
  So Hezbollah, for example, and you had mentioned this director before, that there's a uh direct link with Latin America cartels.
• 27:05
  Uh they rely heavily on funding Hezbollah from Iran, but um, but there's a lot of covert money coming on because of their links with the drug cartels, uh, and Venezuela as a hub for all of this.
• 27:21
  And then in addition to all this, these um Iran itself kind of outsource, outsource other transnational crime syndicates as well that that do uh are involved the drugs like the Irish, the the Canon cartel, the Foxtrot in Sweden, you have Hells Angels in Germany.
• 27:43
  So there's a there's a whole huge underground network of bad guys stemming from Iran.
• 27:52
  Uh yeah, you know, I I think also just uh to talk about the demand side for a minute in the Middle East, you have uh a lot of these societies uh have going have huge demand uh for drugs.
• 28:06
  A lot of them are uh are under stress, particularly these war zones, um and uh and they don't have much treatment, right?
• 28:14
  Uh and most uh and and in some right, they don't allow alcohol.
• 28:17
  So there's a huge market, it's very profitable, and especially if they're a sanctioned economy like Iran and you have limited ability to generate funds, um being involved in the drug market is is very valuable, uh and they have great market opportunity because of the Taliban starting in 2022, right?
• 28:38
  It's cut opium production and uh that reduces the heroin flow.
• 28:43
  So although mostly it's been uh captacon and methamphetamines, there's a real market opportunity for synthetic opioids and other drugs that is growing uh with uh less heroin in the region.
• 28:54
  So it's just a hugely lucrative industry, and if you uh don't have any have any morals about doing things like selling drugs, uh it's a it's a great market opportunity.
• 29:05
  Yeah, you know, the analogy I'm thinking about.
• 29:08
  So um uh on the east coast of the United States and and probably all over the world, there's underground springs.
• 29:15
  There's underground, and in fact, one person named uh named it an underground ocean.
• 29:19
  So in fact, we all live uh above underground oceans at different depths and such.
• 29:27
  And that's why they call this underground networks is that that there's a huge, huge different sphere, undersphere, uh below Iran and the Mideast of a very, very active uh uh illicit movements to to generate money, to generate money.
• 29:46
  So um let me talk about what we've been hearing a lot is the IRG, the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps.
• 29:53
  So they are really the bad guys, the IRGC, that they are basically what maintain Iran.
• 29:59
  And
• 30:00
  The Kutz Force, which is an elite unit, they label them as elite.
• 30:05
  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.
• 30:21
  So it's it's independent of formal state funding, independent of that.
• 30:26
  But the IRGCs and and their proxies, like Hezbollah we talked about.
• 30:31
  So what are they doing?
• 30:33
  They're shadow warfare, there's laundering money.
• 30:36
  They're clearly in efforts to evade sanctions from the U.S.
• 30:42
  and international sanctions.
• 30:44
  So I I find that fascinating.
• 30:46
  That not only are they bad guys in terms of weapons and killing their own people for protesting, right?
• 30:54
  But but in terms of funding themselves, well, they're they're very much into drugs.
• 31:01
  Yeah, they don't seem to have much empathy for their own people, and uh I almost uh think of the analogy of Hamas, right?
• 31:07
  Uh use uh of their own civilians and women, uh, children, hospitals um as shields uh in order to um protect themselves.
• 31:16
  These uh these uh uh Iranian uh groups, uh Hezbollah, uh who are supported by Iran, and the uh and and the uh the uh bazard and um in uh in uh Iran.
• 31:30
  They just uh need to they want to finance their operations, they want to keep everyone paid, uh, and they want uh they need money for it.
• 31:38
  I mean it's they have to have it.
• 31:40
  It's uh it's uh and they'll do anything for it, and if selling drugs even to their own people is not a problem.
• 31:47
  Not a problem.
• 31:48
  And in fact, you know, I was wondering my wife and I were speaking, my wife was born in Tehran.
• 31:53
  She came here when she was 12, and um she's watching along with me that sections of of uh Tehran are being blown up, and hopefully not 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.
• 32:13
  Um, but uh she she's just in a way happy that all of this is happening, that it that it makes sense that it is, but that there's such such um nepotism isn't the right word.
• 32:31
  Uh there's such illegal, such illegal in terms of their own people.
• 32:36
  Um and and they favor, they favor this, they they favor giving it to their own people too.
• 32:42
  And in fact, there's a huge opium crisis in um uh overdose, uh not only overdose, but addiction problem in Iran.
• 32:52
  And in terms of even, as you say, killing their own people or having their own people take the drugs.
• 32:58
  You remember ISIS not too long ago and the horrendous things they were doing.
• 33:02
  Uh a lot of them were on Captagon or were on heroin or were on because they couldn't even face what what horrible things they were doing.
• 33:11
  Um decapitating people, and they showed that on video.
• 33:16
  It was horrible.
• 33:17
  But they were on drugs themselves, even Hamas.
• 33:20
  Uh a lot of those people were uh on um on their own drugs, on their own drugs.
• 33:27
  It's really sick.
• 33:28
  Yeah.
• 33:29
  It's really sick.
• 33:31
  It is it is, and uh, you know, so if all you care about is the uh military objective, you will give the give your own people uh uh uh drugs to keep going and keep moving ahead, and especially if people are um uh uh perhaps uh hesitant to do certain things, um they have ways of incentivizing them and and and stimulants uh can be a part of it.
• 33:55
  So uh yeah, it's a very dark uh part of uh of the world uh that we live in.
• 34:01
  But these are these are terrorist states, right?
• 34:04
  They have uh their objectives are involved, uh, you know, their uh religious beliefs, um, their hatred for Israel and the U.S.
• 34:13
  uh and others who don't support their views that it's very deep.
• 34:17
  And uh yeah, they do some horrible things, uh which is why hopefully we'll end up with uh with a better regime when this is when this is done.
• 34:27
  Yeah, yeah.
• 34:28
  Well we'll talk about this next segment, but what what may happen, hopefully, hopefully this will have an impact, a negative impact on Latin America.
• 34:36
  Um the proxy warfare and the funding of the proxy warfare of we talked about Hezbollah and uh uh Hamas and um and Houthis now.
• 34:46
  So there's hybrid war weapons from for Iran.
• 34:50
  We talked about this as narco-terrorism and and the funding.
• 34:54
  So the funding is is of course key.
• 34:56
  Uh you can't have a war without money.
• 34:59
  You can't have a war without you can't um uh or anything.
• 35:04
  So you can't be bad and have bad activities, criminal activities, without funding of those activities.
• 35:12
  Uh it's all gonna all gonna dry up.
• 35:14
  But um the links between Latin America, so Colombia, Mexico, uh, Hezbollah, and then of course Venezuela as a hub for trafficking, money laundering.
• 35:26
  The money laundering is unbelievable.
• 35:28
  And you know, we didn't talk about the tri-border area, that that because I remember that the Argent, you know, the Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, that area.
• 35:37
  My understanding is that there's a lot going on there.
• 35:41
  Yep.
• 35:42
  It's uh it's just wide open.
• 35:45
  In terms in terms of drugs.
• 35:47
  So um it it's kind of comical, but that these Hezbollah spiritual leaders, they've issued fadwas religious rulings, and they said, you know, it's okay.
• 35:58
  It's okay to sell narcotics, it's okay to these western infidels.
• 36:03
  And because not to our own people, but to them.
• 36:09
  And so it's kind of a warfare against the enemies of Iran, because Hezbolla equals Hamas equals Iran, in in my book.
• 36:19
  Uh yeah, but whenever you have drug markets, uh drugs moving through a country, there's always local drug market sales.
• 36:26
  So even if their objective is to uh say get the drugs to Saudi Arabia or or even uh to Europe, uh you're you're not gonna operate uh a drug business and not sell to your uh local uh community.
• 36:40
  So I'm sure surely they're uh they have uh uh a lot of local people affected.
• 36:47
  So so hence uh Trent the word transnational, not only with the drug cartels in Latin America, but but all over the world.
• 36:55
  So local and and all throughout.
• 36:59
  Um so the the intelligence community, what what I'm hearing is that Western and Middle Eastern intelligence, um that they suggest that these efforts, these narcotic experts, these trafficking efforts, the uh could be aimed at consolidating control.
• 37:19
  So not only the ballistic missiles and the ballistic missiles that could be potentially capped with nuclear weapons, but uh as an additional layer of control is this uh the money from the drug trafficking and and receiving funds from drug trafficking.
• 37:36
  That that's or uh and I'm guessing now, but these funds may help them to buy ballistic missiles and to sharpen the ballistic missiles.
• 37:47
  So it it's like all one big kind of nest.
• 37:52
  Well, you know, they need money to pay pay their people to buy things, keep things moving.
• 37:58
  So all parts of it, the logistics, the equipment, um, the smuggling networks uh are all all interlinked, and uh like you pointed out earlier, uh, you know, there's oil uh and uh and there's drugs, and there isn't a lot of other um exports uh that uh that uh these countries under uh aggressive sanctions uh can turn to.
• 38:19
  Yes, so um yes.
• 38:20
  No, it's uh it's it's part of what they're using in that in their terror network.
• 38:25
  Yeah.
• 38:25
  So Director Baum hold that thought.
• 38:28
  We're gonna come back to more recent events over the last couple of days in just a moment.
• 38:33
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• 40:42
  And we are back with direct the bomb, Richard Baum.
• 40:47
  The uh drugs are, uh, the acting drugs are under the first Trump administration, his first drugs, Trump's first drugs are.
• 40:56
  So thank you.
• 40:56
  Thank you back.
• 40:58
  You know, uh before we start talking about a couple of other things here, um the the opium in uh Afghanistan, which is huge, and not only Afghanistan.
• 41:08
  So there's Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, kind of the golden crescent where opium comes from, the Taliban uh said no, it's it's against our religion.
• 41:19
  I don't know about that.
• 41:20
  And and then morphine can be extracted from it, and then chemically from there, the morphine, chemically uh uh chemical process for heroin, heroin to be produced.
• 41:32
  So although and also Iran, we didn't talk about this, the methamphetamine.
• 41:37
  So they have these Iranian the they label themselves uh call themselves cooks to um uh to work with methamphetamines and uh or to produce methamphetamines and and also we talked about China uh producing the precursors going to Mexico or Latin America for fentanyl, but uh but India has a connection as well, so they can join the party too.
• 42:02
  Absolutely.
• 42:03
  Yeah, it's uh it uh China is the primary uh a supplier, uh, but there are other other places that produce uh the synthetic opioid uh precursors.
• 42:13
  So it is a large global market.
• 42:15
  And you know, um the point about uh Afghanistan and the Taliban's ban on opium production is um is there's before the ban, there were many years of overproduction.
• 42:28
  So it's a little bit unclear how much is in uh strategic reserve, right?
• 42:35
  I didn't realize that.
• 42:36
  Uh so uh but at some point it since since Afghanistan was such a central uh uh producer of uh of opium, uh if uh they use up their reserves and they're not producing more because they're um the Afghan common government is like threatening um the farmers, uh then it really can impact drug markets and accelerate the transition to uh synthetic drugs uh because obviously people dependent on heroin like uh can be switched uh to uh fentanyl at the same uh same nautical uh opioid molecule, as you know.
• 43:14
  So um yeah, very uh dangerous uh drug markets.
• 43:17
  So you're telling me the Taliban the so basically they're very hypocritical, are they not?
• 43:23
  So if they ban opium, uh and so they have they've had reserves.
• 43:28
  Uh what did they do with the I I doubt they burnt down the reserves because this is a lot of money for the Taliban.
• 43:34
  But but but they're okay with methamphetamines, you're telling me the Taliban.
• 43:39
  Uh well, I don't know how the drug markets will will change, but yeah, there is other drug production outside uh opium and uh you know possible that uh the focus on Taliban leaves room for uh uh other uh drug production.
• 43:55
  And again, it's you know it's not just the opium farmers, right?
• 43:59
  It's the it's the people that the transporters and the networks that move it.
• 44:04
  And uh just like the like I was saying at the start of our conversation, like the gangs in uh Central American Caribbean, they don't they don't go into uh conventional uh licit uh economy, right?
• 44:15
  When uh their primary uh business dries up, they look for other illicit activities.
• 44:20
  So there really is a risk of the accelerating this transition to very dangerous, addictive synthetic drugs.
• 44:28
  So the mules, I guess they call them the mules, meaning the the the actual traffickers.
• 44:33
  Is that am I correct about that?
• 44:35
  Uh yes, yeah, yes, the lower level and you know uh no, no, I'm just saying that I think that sometimes that's the right term, but also it's gonna suggest like uh you got a couple uh uh uh uh uh uh mules that you're gonna have these piles of opium, you're taking across, and these networks are uh much more uh obviously modernized and know how to move products.
• 44:56
  And of course, particularly um finished drugs and synthetic drugs are highly concentrated, so a lot a lot easier to move into a country.
• 45:05
  I mean, uh a small suitcase of fentanyl, right, or methamphetamine pills uh can make a lot of money for people.
• 45:14
  Tons of money.
• 45:15
  So in just for a moment here in Mexico, they they my understanding is there's six kinda or eight super networks, super cartels, and then but then there's a lot of subsidiaries.
• 45:29
  Almost like you know, Pizza Hut chains kinda, I guess, in a way.
• 45:34
  Uh, but then there's there's there's hundreds of fragmented groups below those.
• 45:39
  Uh so there's major hegemonic cartels, kind of.
• 45:43
  You have six to eight, and then that we talked about, but then you got you have below the giants, you have other groups that are are likewise very profitable.
• 45:53
  But what I'm reading is you could have up to 200, maybe even 400 or over 400 splinter groups.
• 45:59
  Yeah, you know, these these groups evolved based on the all the law enforcement and military pressure they got under.
• 46:05
  So I uh you know, I support, of course, uh taking down these huge cartel leaders, but the the networks are resilient.
• 46:13
  So you have to keep uh uh knocking off the leaders and also dig deeper into like the key nodes, right?
• 46:20
  Not every uh traffic or operative is equally important.
• 46:23
  If you're the guy who does all the money laundering, right?
• 46:26
  Uh and uh or uh controls all the banking, you're a pretty important person.
• 46:31
  Um and so I think that's that's what investigators and and operators and intel efforts do is they look for these vulnerable nodes to target, which include the cartel leadership, but are not limited to them.
• 46:44
  There's some very valuable operatives that uh we look for um and focus on and try and uh uh take them down as well.
• 46:52
  You just mentioned bankers, so I gather they're legitimate bankers who who accept money under the table in order to be involved in this as well.
• 47:02
  And Jesus, it runs the whole thing.
• 47:04
  Doctors, scientists, uh, politicians, everybody.
• 47:08
  It's all under the uh, but I gather they don't they don't put this on their tax returns, do they?
• 47:13
  So they don't uh no uh uh I I don't uh think so and you know, and there is it has been an effort like in terms of the US and Mexico of trying to focus on some of these banks, especially if they have U.S.
• 47:26
  link.
• 47:27
  Uh but uh you know it's complicated, and there are always some unethical actors uh to deal with.
• 47:32
  Oh.
• 47:33
  Now, I want to talk about or just just the last couple of days.
• 47:37
  So I think uh Trump and so the current drugs are who you know very well, Sarah Carter, and um, and I think they're gonna call you.
• 47:47
  I really do, like Scott Besson, you know, the Secretary of Treasury.
• 47:50
  He was he was retired.
• 47:52
  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.
• 48:02
  You need to join.
• 48:04
  And it turned out that as Secretary of Treasury he's he's outstanding.
• 48:09
  I think there's something in the future for you here.
• 48:12
  I do.
• 48:13
  Um, but we'll have to wait and see.
• 48:15
  I'll I'll call I'll call it.
• 48:17
  Um I'm enjoying going on podcasts and talking to the public about these uh drug threats.
• 48:23
  Well, you uh uh um uh yeah, uh I'm good now.
• 48:26
  You know, I was in the government for uh uh uh a long time.
• 48:30
  Long time White House staff member, and I've learned a lot, and I'm glad to be outside for a bit and uh uh focusing on uh writing, teaching, and just sharing what I've learned.
• 48:40
  Um that's why I'm so um you know proud of the book I put together.
• 48:44
  Oh, it's an incredible book.
• 48:45
  I feel I I feel like uh what I hope it does for people who are interested in this subject and who maybe work in some adjacent field, I want to try and I know I humbly say I had a a lot to learn over 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 curves.
• 49:10
  So uh I encourage folks to uh if if they work in a in a field related to addiction or a drug policy and they want to go a bit deeper to check out the book.
• 49:20
  I think not only for government and policy individuals, I I think even the the public in in as a whole would benefit tremendously just learning about learning about the the intricacies, the mechanics uh uh in a national level, policy level, but but also why are people psychologically addicted to drugs?
• 49:42
  Why, why why because if 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.
• 49:52
  I don't know, they would they would be doing other things.
• 49:55
  And there's always there's always a supply and the demand dynamic where
• 50:00
  Sometimes, you know, uh people say, oh, if there wasn't demand, there wouldn't be a supply, and there's some truth to that depending on the drug, but also traffickers are entrepreneurial, right?
• 50:10
  And they are bringing these drugs and seeing what works in the market and then changing their product line uh based on what they're successful at.
• 50:18
  I mean, just back in the crack cocaine epidemic, there wasn't just huge uh demand for crack cocaine, the traffickers, uh the dealers created that and built that market.
• 50:29
  Same with fentanyl.
• 50:30
  Uh uh heroin users weren't looking for fentanyl.
• 50:33
  Uh the uh traffickers decided that was cheaper and more profitable.
• 50:37
  So it's uh the supply part is important.
• 50:40
  And you know uh from my from our basic conversations, I uh I think the the public health side is important too, but you can't ignore the supply side.
• 50:49
  You can't just deal with one part of the problem, you're gonna deal with the whole thing.
• 50:53
  Absolutely.
• 50:54
  Yes.
• 50:54
  So Thursday, a few days ago, the America's Counter Cartel Coalition, A3C was formally launched by Secretary.
• 51:03
  I I have trouble saying Secretary of War, Secretary of Defense, but Secretary of Warhex said uh on Thursday, and he was at Southcom headquarters.
• 51:11
  And um, so this was officially officially announced a couple days later, I want to say on uh Saturday, uh on the 7th of March at the Shield of America Summit.
• 51:25
  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.
• 51:37
  I think that's wonderful.
• 51:39
  So in addition to labeling groups as uh drug cartels as terrorist groups, which which um kind of puts the foundation for our uh the acceptance, if you will, for our intervention, military intervention, then he's looking at other ways, he and his advisors, of course, other ways to increase the war on these cartels.
• 52:02
  So I I think it's just at its infancy because it was just announced that the uh that this uh America Counter-Cartel Coalition.
• 52:12
  But then on Sunday, uh Saturday, sorry, Saturday, March the 7th.
• 52:18
  So he had another conference.
• 52:20
  He had the Shield of America Summit.
• 52:22
  And um were you were you there, by the way?
• 52:27
  Uh no.
• 52:27
  I wasn't there.
• 52:29
  You know, I'm out of government now.
• 52:30
  I don't have to be able to do that.
• 52:31
  No, I know.
• 52:31
  I I know, I know.
• 52:33
  But one of these days you will.
• 52:36
  So um they're gonna ask you to be Sarah Carter's boss, I think.
• 52:39
  But anyway, so so the now here on Saturday were 12, not 17, but 12 Latin American Caribbean nations, including Caribbean, and but but with a little bit of a difference.
• 52:50
  That they were more politically aligned uh with Donald Trump.
• 52:54
  So the whole the whole backdrop of the Shield of America Summit was to uh always to strengthen U.S.
• 53:03
  leadership in the Western hemisphere.
• 53:06
  But but another way to counter Chinese economic influence and also to address migration.
• 53:15
  So they called it, and I found that the Durral Charter, because it was in Durrell, Florida, I gather, right outside of Miami.
• 53:22
  So but the leaders I found very interesting.
• 53:25
  So these were Argentina, El Salvador, Ecuador, Paraguay, Chile, and but but they left out some key people as well.
• 53:37
  And I want you to reflect on this.
• 53:41
  Yeah, Mexico, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and Canada from the West Hemisphere weren't there.
• 53:48
  Although I have to say 17 people signing uh that agreement is a good start.
• 53:53
  And look, uh there's a lot of problems and a lot of challenges, and if these countries are willing to work with us to have uh joint operations uh and efforts, um it could accelerate uh uh progress.
• 54:06
  So uh, you know, let's get started and try and degrade um these uh uh trafficking networks uh the best we can.
• 54:14
  Um, you know, and and the key is, and I think people know this, uh we don't really operate in a way where we would bomb or attack uh uh cartel uh hubs or operational centers or drug labs without the permission and collaboration with the host country, right?
• 54:32
  I mean, I know it's tempting, but if you go in and you bomb someplace, you're gonna make a permanent enemy out of that host country unless they're in on the operation.
• 54:41
  Right.
• 54:42
  So the fact that it creates this opportunity for these 17 countries to have joint operations um where uh the uh the intel teams and the uh operational teams can work together, and if they want uh to use uh Southcom's capability and they accept that, fantastic.
• 54:59
  If they want to do it on their own, that's fine as well.
• 55:02
  Uh but um a uh a stronger effort against these traffickers, they increase the costs and consequences of moving drugs up north towards the U.S.
• 55:12
  and other countries.
• 55:14
  Um and uh and uh that's progress requires a lot of follow-on work and focus, right?
• 55:19
  Because you need the intel, the operational details, um, you need the capacity in the host countries uh to move uh their people around, so you need lift capacity.
• 55:31
  Um, and if some of these people you're arrested in a judicial system that actually works, right?
• 55:36
  Uh so uh a great start, but a lot of work to done to be.
• 55:41
  So directory.
• 55:43
  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 uh network.
• 55:52
  I'm gonna invite you to another talk here, another conversation.
• 55:55
  So thank you so much for sharing your insights.
• 55:59
  You have a lot, a lot, a lot of insight insights.
• 56:01
  That's why I was kind of prodding you about going back into government and being uh having having an additional role in government, uh, maybe overseeing everything here.
• 56:12
  Um I well, thank you so much to our audience, our listening audience.
• 56:16
  I enthusiastically look forward to being with you weekly on the countermomentum of spin, uh, where we will endeavor, we will endeavor to address and work towards solving the problems of the world.
• 56:29
  How far we get, well we'll we'll make one little chip at a time.
• 56:32
  So please note that this show and all the shows on America Outloud Radio, go to your favorite podcast networks within 24 hours, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, tune in, Amazon, iHeartRadio, and others.
• 56:45
  Have a great day, and God bless you.