CrashOut Podcast

The U.S. military on Sept. 2 used a missile to hit a boat of alleged Tren de Aragua gang members accused of moving drugs in international waters and killed the eleven people on board. This follows the designation of Tren de Aragua as terrorists and a directive by President Donald J. Trump for the military to go after such “narco-terrorist” targets. While it may not be the top story in the news, it’s a major development that takes us into new rough waters in the drug war but it could also be the build up to a further U.S. attack on Venezuela. I break it down in this video, question if it went down as Trump said it did, and look at where this leads. 

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Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada pleads guilty in New York. 

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The Medellin Cartel rose in the 1980s by flooding the United States with cocaine, providing dope to dance floors in Miami all the way to crack houses in Los Angeles. Forbes magazine once estimated the tidal wave of powder made the cartel’s top trafficker Pablo Escobar $9 billion and its No. 2, Carlos Lehder, another $2.7 billion. While these numbers are likely major over-estimates of how much individual narcos actually keep, the cocaine trade certainly served up billions of dollars to Colombia, fueling an armed conflict involving the cartels, army, leftist guerillas and right wing paramilitaries that tore the South American nation apart and left a lot of families weeping. 

Escobar gained an infamy alongside Al Capone and later El Chapo as the most well-known mobsters of all time. But Lehder was also a fascinating character. He personally piloted planes and had his own private island in The Bahamas, which he used as a trampoline to bounce blow state side. The son of a German, he was portrayed by Netflix Narcos with a swastika tattoo as a Neo-Nazi narco. And he went on to become the star witness against the Panamanian dictator General Noriega, who was a CIA agent and an ally of Medellin Cartel before the U.S. invasion of Panama took him down in 1989. 

So when I recently got a message that I would have a chance to interview Lehder, who is now free and back in Colombia after a 33-year stint in prison, I scrambled to get there as quick as I could. The man I discovered was more humble and less boastful than you might expect, but then decades in a cell including four years in solitary, changes you. He has written a memoir of “Life and Death of the Medellin Cartel,” which you can find here and provides a revealing first-hand account to understand the period. 

We spoke for hours in what I believe is Carlos’ first English language interview. He goes into fascinating details about how the Medellin Cartel really functioned, its relationship with guerillas and paramilitaries, and how they owned governments and supplied the U.S.-backed Contra rebels. He also gets personal about what years in solitary does to your brain. I’m proud to say this episode show cases an important testimony that helps understand the history of the eighties in the Americas, while its also intriguing to see the man behind the myth. Get your tea or beer, zap it on and soak it up.

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On Friday, Mexican troops shot dead Jorge Humberto Figueroa, a paramilitary commander of the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel. Here is my update news report. For more info and to support the show, check out: www.crashoutmedia.com

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While all eyes are focuses on the U.S. southern border with Mexico, the United States has a northern border that is almost three times as long. I talk with journalist Katarina Szulc about cartels in Canada and how fzntanyl crosses south from there. For more on this and other stories and to support the podcast, please go to www.crashoutmedia.com

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Two weeks on from the macabre discovery of the training and alleged extermination camp of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the case continues to shake Mexico. But is there hope it will ever be resolved and justice will be delivered to the families of loved ones lost? Katarina Szulc and I go through all we know about the camp and the worrying developments.

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On Sunday, a U.S. flight packed with alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang flew to El Salvador to be sent to one of the world’s most feared prisons - despite an attempt by a U.S. judge to halt it. The measure fits in with a more radical approach to fight gangs and cartels across the Americas, but will face a legal fight as many of the measures of President Trump will. 

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A list of nine cartels and gangs was leaked to the New York Times of those that are supposedly going to be designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump White House. In this CrashOut Chronicle video, I go through who they are, how we got here and what impact the terrorist designation will have. 

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With on-the-ground reporting and analysis, I look at the brutal battle in Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel between the Mayos and Chapitos. Since it exploded in September, it has caused over 1,000 deaths and disappearances and shows no sign of stopping. Thanks to Omid Visua for editing. For full video, other reports and to support my work, please go to www.crashoutmedia.com

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I talk with journalist Guillermo Galdos about his latest documentary on the submarines full of cocaine that cross the Atlantic. 
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